Chapter 2762 - 1186: Master of the Masked Descends (2)

Chapter 2762: Chapter 1186: Master of the Masked Descends (2)

A cold, merciless voice echoed from every direction of the Agate Maze; the shadows here seemed to be boiling, surging in from all sides and converging above the black, bowl-shaped hollow, where they gathered and took form.

It was a Dwarves Elf of strikingly handsome visage, slender of figure and incomparably elegant in bearing. He wore no Armor, only close‑fitting black garments that traced out perfect muscles, and a long, trailing black cloak. Shadows coiled about him, veiling him in haze so that his features could not truly be seen.

The brightest colors upon him belonged to his eyes and his hair, both of which shone with a blood‑red hue.

The Dwarves Masked, who knew their Monarch in the deepest detail, understood that this signaled the true mood of the Master of the Masked: it was the emblem of wrath. Only when his fury reached its utmost would this color appear.

They were certain this rage was by no means solely for the betrayal committed by this Masked one; Jamie did not yet possess the stature to anger him to such a degree.

Jamie was merely the object of redirected wrath.

This fury was aimed far more at the desperate plight now facing Isca Yole City.

The Dwarves Elf of Mir Forest, even if not his largest gathering of Believers, were at least one among them.

They stood upon the foremost line of the war against the Spider Queen Rose, and not long ago, they had seized an initial victory.

Through the Darkwalker war, they not only successfully ruined the Spider Believers’ secret schemes to control the Karinshan Pashas, but also liberated the three Dwarves City—Holdbin, Isca Yole, and Delnox—from the hands of those Mistresses.

They had utterly cast off the old matriarchal order, and power was now held by patriarchy or by men and women together, in Balance.

Of course, this victory was but a local one.

The Spider Queen was simply too powerful, and her rule among the Dwarves Elf far too deeply entrenched.

Such was the case with those Spider Believers lurking beneath the Karinshan Desert: the ruling council of Guadus City alone was composed of no fewer than twenty‑one Mistresses, each representing a single Family.

Within those Dwarves City that worship Rose, a Family is not merely a blood clan; it is also a distinct administrative unit and a military one.

Every Family must command its own exclusive Family army, its roots winding from top to bottom. At the least, it numbers in the hundreds; at the far end, in the thousands or even tens of thousands. Counting vassals and slaves, the tally multiplies several times over.

It is no exaggeration to say that from among the top ten Families of Guadus City, any one plucked at random possesses the military Strength to annihilate Isca Yole City.

Even if the three cities joined forces, it is doubtful they could withstand the combined arms of merely five Dwarves Family from Guadus City.

The premise being that those Families could work in perfect concert and put forth their full might.

And the problem lies precisely in that premise.

If in a Dwarves City devoted to the Spider Queen Rose there were only a single Family, then regardless of the city’s size, it would be a terror beyond measure to its neighbors.

They would spare no effort in outward expansion—through Conspiracy and stratagems, or through direct conquest by violence—facing no fetters whatsoever.

But if this Dwarves City holds more than one Family, then the effect is no longer that one and one make more than two; rather, it is less than two, and may even sink below one.

For most of their energy is spent upon internal strife.

If any Family should make a decisive error while pursuing external expansion, it might bring about utter ruin, to be "home‑stolen" by other Dwarves Family—devoured outright.

Seek not merit, but avoid fault.

This is the first precept of a Dwarves Family.

Yet if trouble arise among the Velen Believers themselves, those blood‑drunk Spider Believers will come rushing in at the scent; at that time, it will be hard to say how much effort they will expend, for the profit in it will be plain.

Velen had reason to suspect that the cataclysm now looming over Isca Yole City was no accident at all, but another Conspiracy web woven by those spiders—or perhaps a reprisal from the Natural Deities upon him?

So far as he knew, the Dwarves Elf of Guadus City had not entirely abandoned their designs to manipulate the Karinshan Governors. This time they had chosen a new path: secretly aiding Karinshan’s greatest Pasha Pasha, Pisacar, to discover a Karin Manon Crystal hidden in the Karinshan Desert, and teaching him a Secret Technique by which he might claim the Strength sealed within it.

Their aim was to shatter the present Balance of Karinshan. Once this Pasha grasped great Strength, he would naturally not be content with his current domain of influence; he would surely desire more—such as becoming the Grand Pasha above all Pashas, or perhaps casting his designs upon the Tesser Kingdom now mired in civil strife.

Rose’s spiders excel most at profiting from chaos.

The greater the chaos they foment, the more glory accrues to the Spider Queen Rose, and the likelier they are to win her favor.

The Spider Queen’s Believers’ love of internal conflict is no accident but necessity, dictated by her Divine Position; her core Divine Position is chaos.

There is a legend that the true cause of the Elven Crown civil war can be traced entirely back to her. At that time she was not yet the Spider Queen, but the wife of the Elf Main God Corellon, the first Elf Queen.

In order to gain the Strength to supplant Corellon, she deliberately sowed chaos among the Elf, aggrandizing herself even as she diminished the Strength of her husband.