The Primal Hunter

After Jake and Villy had time to wind down, it was time to move on to the next session of the ceremony. The two of them had only discussed what had happened a bit, with the Viper reminding Jake that the entire ceremony so far had effectively been televised across the multiverse, meaning all the big factions now knew what had happened. Giving them all an hour meant the higher-ups back at the headquarters of all the bigger groups could decide on their course of action and allow them to make an “official” decision.

Jake wasn’t gonna lie; he had kind of expected ninety percent or more to leave. Yip had just challenged the Viper and declared he would kill him, taunted him openly, and declared he had entered an alliance with Valhal, with even Eversmile appearing. The situation was now messy as fuck, and their staying could easily be interpreted as choosing a side.

There were some factions Jake felt sure would stay. The Risen and the Order were on quite good terms, the Endless Empire and Automata Legion for obvious reasons, and even the merchant groups he didn’t see leaving.

While the Order did have okay relations with most factions, were they really that good? At most, Jake estimated them to be neutral before Yip’s appearance, and if pissing off others, they wouldn’t view it as worth the risk to stay. Jake had expected the Dragonian Accords and all of the dragon factions to at least pull back a little, the Altmar Empire to probably just leave outright, and for most minor factions to flee for the hills.

The only thing he was slightly right on was the last one. A lot of the minor factions had left. Those who only had mid-tier gods as their strongest didn’t risk offending either side and hoped that just silently slipping out would allow them to get away unnoticed.

All of the big factions had stayed, and from what Jake saw when Villy allowed him a peek, the vibe wasn’t even ruined. People almost seemed to not give a shit about what had just happened, and the VIPs were happily drinking away while chatting. Viridia was busy talking to quite a crowd, which included someone from the Risen, a beastfolk from the United Tribes, an elf, a few humans, and even more scalekins of different variants, including dragons in humanoid forms.

“Gonna send you there now,” Villy said after a bit.

“You aren’t coming?” Jake asked.

“If I did, I would suppress others. No, we will meet for the final part, where it will pretty much just be gods present. I also got word that quite the candidate has been brought here by an old acquaintance. You can meet them later, so look forward to it. Now be off,” Villy said, waving him off.

“You’re still gonna be there in disguise, right?” Jake asked with a raised eyebrow.

“You know me so well,” the Malefic Viper grinned as Jake was teleported out of the divine realm.

Miranda wasn’t going to needlessly beat around the bush. If she still had the physiological function to do so, she would have quite literally pissed her pants during the ceremony when the gods appeared and flared their auras. The only reason why it had not turned into a massacre was that no intent or will to kill had been infused into it, but she and everyone knew that at any moment, any of the gods could have had a stray thought which would have killed trillions.

Luckily, nothing like that had happened, and the entire situation resolved itself. Miranda didn’t even try to think about what was going on and the wider political implications of it all but just focused on moving forward and the task at hand. Most others seemed to adopt a similar attitude, and most of the larger factions seemed to truly not care much.

This did mean they could move on rather swiftly without anyone truly bringing up what had just happened. Miranda did not doubt that most had just checked in on what the gods of their factions wanted to do, and once they got the go-ahead to proceed as normal, they did just that. It was only at the so-called after-after party gods would appear en-masse, and there was a chance for the topic of Yip to be discussed.

It had long tables with food of different sorts everywhere, and Miranda stood back as she saw people teleport in by the hundreds every

that. Everyone instead sought out Viridia or other high-ranking officials of the Order, all identifiable by their cloaks with the motif of the Malefic Viper on them. Miranda didn’t have a cloak and probably looked out of place if not for the fact that she stood with a Judge from the Court of Shadows and Maria for a while before both moved away to discuss with others. Maria to some beastfolk from the United Tribes and Caleb towards someone Miranda guessed

was the rambling fanatic who wouldn’t stop going on about how honored he was to see not just

relief as, finally, the hour was

all, so he quickly released a Pulse of Perception. The design of these inner chambers was one long-ass hall with rooms on both sides, with Jake estimating there to be about twenty rooms and each side, with only

factions would only have been allowed one representative each, with the more prominent factions having small groups.

to compete

enough, he was joined by his would-be party

Sword Saint, and the Fallen King teleported into the room as Jake turned

“Hello there,” Jake said.

him a few times. She finally landed on his shoulder and perched herself there, looking cute while doing it. Sylphie was still young but knew she had to be “cool” and look “awesome” to show off her prowess as Jake’s party member. Jake wondered if anyone would dare challenge her, considering she would probably stay sitting on his shoulder for this entire party. Probably not, but primarily because their attention would be focused on the sole other human in

what had happened during the ceremony. “This Yip of Yore strikes me as a troubling individual indeed. He is the

he does look like trouble. So much trouble I will leave it up to the Viper to

thoughts but because he wanted to avoid talking about it in case he said something he shouldn’t. There was one thing to add, though. “But I was informed that Ell’Hakan is also heading to

said as he seemed to consider something. “Odd. Why would he have allowed the death of the Unique Lifeform when he planned on doing Nevermore? Is that not counterproductive? Unless he has four

would prove beneficial. I doubt it would have wanted to attend Nevermore with him, much less a group of party members he shows up with. That is assuming the Devourer even knew about Nevermore and had any interest in participating,” the King

the Sword Saint said. “At least it would have soon. I questioned my Patron if our going to Nevermore won’t result in the upcoming system event becoming far easier than intended, and he informed me that Nevermore is expected. The Wyrmgod,

hadn’t heard of that,” Jake

It

all ready to make our grand appearance? The hall ahead is pretty filled, and there are a lot of early C-grades among them. Competition for you all, I

all,” the Sword Saint

own ignorance and delusion, they are

Sylphie said, making it clear she would take shit

our glorious entrance then,” Jake

the double doors leading into the hall ahead, and as they got close, the Sword Saint and Sylphie both unleashed their Blessing-infused auras. The King, refusing to be