The Primal Hunter

Waiting always sucked, but sadly, Jake couldn’t really do anything but wait at this point. He had no agency to decide when the next arc of this conflict would begin but simply had to sit back and wait for a message from Ell’Hakan before he and Valhal would make their grand denouncement of the Malefic Viper.

At least he had a few things to keep himself occupied, and the first he did after the truce announcement went out was to follow Bobby to inspect the ritual they had been preparing for Jake. It was a ritual Jake hoped he would never have to use but had been made anyway to sell their story. Professionally speaking, Jake did have to admit he was curious to see a circle capable of helping him become a Usurper.

From the vibes he got from Bobby, Jake also suspected that the guy low-key wanted the Viper to die. Jake wasn’t entirely sure how much Bobby and likely a few other top people from Valhal knew about what he and Villy planned, but they did have some idea that the Viper had a plan of some sort, and they also kind of knew Jake was working with the Viper… but he also sensed some suspicion from Bobby that Jake was more than willing to become a Usurper should it come down to it.

Jake was a heretic no two ways about it. If he didn’t at least have heretical intent, how could he even consider a ritual to help him become a Usurper? No, this was something they knew for sure, and it had been confirmed several times. Yet he also seemed fine with working with the Viper, making it all very confusing in their eyes. All his heretic antics could always be excused away later by the Viper and Jake as some kind of trickery, maybe even using the Transcendence of Villy as the cause of Jake being able to leak the aura of a heretic.

From Jake’s point of view, he saw no reason to elaborate on matters to anyone quite yet. He liked the ambiguity spawned from them having no real details and would hopefully coast on that until everything was resolved. It wasn’t as if he planned on talking a lot with other people while staying at Valhal for the foreseeable future but would instead spend most of his time just doing alchemy with the excuse of preparing himself for the Usurper ritual.

While at Valhal, Carmen would be his primary contact person, and she luckily didn’t ask that many questions, in part because she genuinely didn’t seem to care much about what Jake was planning, though she had voiced that Jake joining Valhal for real would be neat. Her lack of interest was refreshing, though, and her disconnected approach to all the scheming was likely also why she saw the frankly quite obvious signs that Ell’Hakan could also be planning to walk the Usurper route, making her valuable to discuss matters with.

Anyway, seeing the huge ritual prepared by Valhal for Jake to become a Usurper was quite something. It was once more constructed atop a mountain, with it clearly being no secret they had made it, meaning its existence had definitely leaked. The ritual circle itself was over a hundred meters wide, with complex runes and scripts everywhere, making Jake wonder how long they had been working on it. Bobby seemed vague on the topic, while Carmen legitimately didn’t know, and it was definitely a bit suspicious.

The magic circle wasn’t done, though, and they needed some help from Jake to finish it, something he gladly helped do. He had been worried that he wouldn’t be able to focus for the first few days while at Valhal, considering he knew a lot of shit had to be going on in the rest of the Milky Way Galaxy and the multiverse as a whole, but spending his time analyzing the ritual helped put his mind off things.

Over the next couple of days, Jake studied the circle, talked to some people who’d helped make it, and read some books about this particular brand of magic. It wasn’t based on the same methodologies as rituals by the Order of the Malefic Viper, but honestly, even if it had been, it wouldn’t have helped Jake much.

Because one of the first things he learned was that no one truly understood what they had made. Hundreds of people had helped make the magic circle, each in charge of their own small areas. Everything was based on divine guidance and could be compared to them just tracing the lines and copying stuff down. Rather than solve some advanced math equation, they just copied from the blackboard, not knowing what the hell all the weird symbols meant.

Jake tried to understand the circle, but after those few days, he learned it was simply impossible for someone of his level to comprehend it. It was one designed by gods, with theories far beyond mortal understanding. Sure, mortals could still copy down the written formula, but that didn’t mean they had the slightest idea how to solve it by themselves. Probably made sense that a god was behind the circle, as it was made to usurp the Path of a deity.

In the same vein, Jake wouldn’t be able to operate this magic circle by himself. If it did come down to using it, the one actually activating the magic circle would be a god from Valhal – likely Gudrun, based on what Jake had been told. This did require a certain level of trust, as she could probably fuck over Jake if she so desired, but he wasn’t worried. Firstly because he never planned on using the circle in the first place, and secondly, because what would she possibly gain from fucking over someone her husband actively wanted to recruit?

Either way, the thing Jake had to do to put the finishing touches on the ritual was more or less just to infuse his DNA into it. To make it into one attuned to himself and his Path, as well as the Path that he planned on usurping. This did end up taking a few more days, and just before a full week had passed since Jake arrived on the planet, the entire magic circle was completed and ready to go should it ever be necessary. Jake walked down the mountain, knowing he would be up there the day the final confrontation between Villy and Yip took place, with the hopes that the next time he was there, it would remain inactive and that the work he’d done on it would be a waste of time.

Heading back into the city, Jake soon met up with Carmen and Bobby. After getting the two of them into a private room, he asked with quite a bit of nervousness:

“So… what’s been happening?”

“Torben finished a new brew using these weird purple berries, which have a spicy taste that really compliments most fatty foods,” Carmen answered with a smile.

“Really? Great to hear that’s the only noteworthy news,” Jake commented in a dry tone.

“Is to me,” Carmen shrugged, and while Jake knew she did care somewhat, she definitely cared less about this entire conflict than most others.

Turning to Bobby for answers instead, the man sighed. “Where do you want me to begin? I’m sometimes amazed how much can happen in a week… either way, a quick overview is that the Order is getting openly fucked in the rest of the multiverse while your alliance is getting subtly fucked in the Milky Way Galaxy, though things have improved recently. In other words, everything is kind of going as expected, perhaps even a bit better than we thought. From what I do know, our core is holding strong, and that Kindroth pal of yours has been doing some solid work spreading a new narrative alongside the one echoed by the Verdant Witch.”

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

“Oh?” Jake asked, not having expected Miranda to bring the elf into the scheming this early, but it sounded like she had. “Elaborate?”

“Well, a lot of people were worried about what would happen if the Malefic Viper did end up falling to Yip of Yore, expecting your alliance to fall apart entirely. You see, to the average World Leader, they truly have no insight into who is superior, so to them, this is a fifty-fifty kind of conflict. However, seeing as Yip of Yore also has the Holy Church with him, he seems like a far safer bet because if Yip falls, he’s still gonna have them. In other words, they believe there are more potential outcomes where you come out looking weaker. This Kindroth – or Voice of the One, as many also call him – is the source of another narrative. He’s been really leaning into the fact you are now working with Valhal and he’s actively leveraging our power and history. And while Yip of Yore, the Holy Church, and many other factions have great reputations, none of them can measure up to Valhal’s,” Bobby said with a high sense of pride.

Jake knew he exaggerated, being a member of Valhal and all, and it was only natural to talk up your own faction and to have bought into the propaganda that your faction was the best faction. However, that didn’t mean there wasn’t some element of truth to what he was saying.

Valhal was a rather unique faction in the multiverse in the sense that they didn’t really have any enemies. Even other factions who claimed to be neutral tended to have some who called them enemies, or they had allies who made others view them unfavorably. Even a faction like the Patheon of Life, led by Yggdrasil, had its fair share of enemies, including a less-than-stellar relationship with the Risen due to the opposition of life and death. Meanwhile, the Altmar Empire had always worked closely with the Risen, making a few side-eye them.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

No one dared side-eye Valhal. You didn’t want to call them an enemy, as they were more likely than not going to see that as a challenge and take you up on having a fight – something no faction in the multiverse had confidence in winning. In the same vein, Valhal didn’t recognize any faction as their allies either. They were far too focused on individuals to designate entire factions as allies but would instead have “friends of Valhal” amongst all kinds of factions spread throughout the multiverse. They didn’t care what faction these people came from, just that they were recognized as warriors worthy of being friends.

So, if Valhal declared they would fight by Jake’s side – emphasis on fight – it changed the entire dynamic of what would happen should the Viper fall. No longer would Jake be in a weak position, but potentially one even stronger than the one he had as the Chosen of the Malefic Viper. The Holy Church would be apprehensive about the Milky Way Galaxy, and even the daring Yip of Yore would take a step back. While the up-and-coming god believed he could slay the Malefic Viper, he didn’t seem to be under any illusion he had a chance against Valdemar, and getting into a fight with Jake, who was someone Valdemar personally valued and would be a member of Valhal at that point would be a massive risk.

Even if Valhal right now had a very weak presence in the Milky Way Galaxy, the moment the universe opened up properly, they would gladly send in armies to retake it in case other factions had claimed it, all using the excuse of reclaiming Jake’s homeworld – at least that’s what Kindroth kept saying. Seeing as how Valdemar had cared a lot about reclaiming the planet he hailed from himself… yeah, many believed it.

From how Bobby described it, Kindroth was really leaning into the massive unknown that was Valhal and the role they would play, proposing several probable scenarios, making many of those who were wavering calm down. Bobby wouldn’t go as far as to say that the elf had stabilized the internal turmoil in Jake’s alliance, but at least he made many take a wait-and-see approach when they began to believe that siding with Jake wasn’t as risky as it initially seemed.

Of course, no matter who you asked, shit looked bad for the Malefic Viper and his faction as a whole. Especially when Bobby described how gods had now gotten involved in the conflict. For gods to die in conflicts was relatively rare, but it certainly did happen. As for a war of gods, that had only happened very scarcely throughout the history of the multiverse. More often than not, when gods got involved in a huge conflict, they fought through duels, ambushes, plots to isolate certain gods, and pretty much any other approach that didn’t include just throwing gods at one another on a huge battlefield. Gods were immortal existences and extremely valuable assets, so no matter the faction, they wanted to minimize losses.

Even when gods did fight, it more often than not ended with the losing party escaping to their Divine Realm, and once there, chasing them wasn’t really an option unless their opponent was overwhelmingly stronger. And if they were overwhelmingly stronger, why would they even allow them to escape in the first place?

Knowing this already, it came as a shock when Bobby said there had already been casualties among gods in the conflict so far. It was only three, with two dying on the side of the Order of the Malefic Viper, and one from Yip of Yore’s faction, but the simple fact any god had died was proof of just how much this conflict had escalated.

“Do you have any idea how much longer the Order has before they are fully pushed into a corner?” Jake asked.

“Hard to tell,” Bobby shook his head. “Yip of Yore is acting fast but ensuring he’s not recklessly rushing. He’s slowly building his achievements by proving himself completely dominant, even as a leader. I communed with Gudrun yesterday, and it appears he is using this opportunity to build himself a loyal faction of his own. A new Pantheon of younger gods, with the promise of creating a faction capable of standing up to the old guard.”

Jake slowly nodded as he remembered Villy mentioning something about that a while ago. On a side note, it seriously sucked Jake couldn’t contact his friend before all this was over due to the barriers covering Valhal’s planet, making it immediately trackable if he did. Being able to confirm Jake hadn’t fucked anything up while stumbling around trying to be schemer would be great… but oh well.

“Gudrun also believes Yip of Yore is taking his time to give the members and allies of the Order a chance,” Bobby said. “As you know, the Academy of the Malefic Viper is an institution that has members from far more factions than merely the Order itself, and it was one of the things that never lost its prestige or reputation even during all the eras the Malefic Viper was gone. Yip of Yore likely doesn’t wish to see it destroyed, much less target the ones within this Academy, so he is giving them a chance to evacuate their members or perhaps choose sides entirely.”

This was another thing Jake had kind of forgotten to even consider. In the Academy, Jake had met people from the Dragonflights, Risen, Altmar Empire, Endless Empire, and so many other peak factions of the multiverse. Attacking such an institution directly would create a lot of trouble for Yip of Yore for sure. Meanwhile, if he managed to take it over while not damaging it too much, it would earn him a lot of prestige. Of course, for him to take it over, he would effectively need the people in charge to betray the Viper, which Jake had a hard time seeing. However, he wouldn’t count out any possibilities.

“Do you think Yip will succeed in taking it over?” Jake asked, concerned.

“I don’t think he’ll try, at least not directly. He more than likely just hopes that with the death of the Viper, the leadership shall either defect or flee, leaving it ripe for the taking,” Bobby sighed. “And that I can see happening. If memory serves me right, many of the administrative staff of both the Order and the Academy are demons who primarily work for them due to contracts, and if these contracts are broken – and I’m sure they have a clause in there saying if the Viper dies all contracts are void – they will certainly be amenable to signing a new deal with whatever faction takes over.”

Jake took his words in as he considered how many factors he still hadn’t thought about during this massive conflict… which was also when another question popped up in his head. One he should probably have asked himself far earlier.

How are Meira, Scarlett, Irin, and all the others back in the Academy and Order dealing with all this?