10 – 47

< Previous Chapter                                                                                                                          Next Chapter >










“Lack of fear isn’t courage,” said Fauna.

“I didn’t say courage. I said balls.”

“That’s a woman, you know.”

“So the balls are internal.”

“Aren’t they all, technically?”


They both turned to smile at him.





“We appreciate it,” Flora said quietly.


They glanced ruefully at each other.













“But it still wouldn’t be…you. Y’know?”

They both smiled warmly at him.


Both their faces fell, shoulders slumping in resignation.








Fauna ventured a tentative smile, which vanished under his stare.








“Absolutely,” Flora said, nodding eagerly.

“Multiple shadow-jumps and teleportations…”

“Splitting up, laying false trails…”

“All over the continent and to other places besides.”


“So that much is clear, at least!”







“Sorry,” Fauna whispered, not meeting his eyes.





If “action” was the right word.



“It feels like a defeat,” Flora murmured.




“And if you can’t?” Flora asked.

“Or she’s not?” Fauna added.









“Teleportation or shadow-jumping.”


“We could take him,” Flora muttered.




< Previous Chapter                                                                                                                           Next Chapter >

40 thoughts on “10 – 47

  1. You know. I had always known headhunters were strong. But not to the point where Mary AND Big K together might have trouble taking one down. That upgrades F&F from Darlings ace in the hole to something far scarier.

    On another note. Didn’t Archane scare F&F into backing down in another chapter? Meaning in a straight up fight she could thrash Mary?

    Liked by 1 person

    1. Mary mentioned the 3rd headhunter is much older/more experienced and more in-tune with his spirits. Closer to one being than F&F are. So that may be why she couldn’t take him but Arachne could take F&F.

      Liked by 2 people

      1. No, she only said he was the classic style of headhunter. F&F are, in many ways, a notch above him, because they’re in charge of their respective crowds, rather than it being a “whoever can grab the tiller” deal. 😐

        The reason why Mary was reluctant to engage had more to do with where the fight would take place, and who the casualties would be, rather than his nature. Like F&F, she’s not likely to be able to state her case with Empire forces without a lot of flak. :/

        Liked by 2 people

      2. Whether Arachne could take them is not established, and at least one of the Fs expressed skepticism at the idea that Arachne could actually believe A was a match for them both.


      3. It’s a general risk too. Even if there’s a 95% chance Khadizroth and Mary can beat him without one of them dying, there’s still a 5% chance one of the most powerful beings on the continent would die. Fights aren’t certain things where there’s only one possible outcome.


    2. F&F had to worry about blowing their cover and getting Sweet in trouble in that circumstance! This guy has no such concerns.


    3. Unknown, Arachne Tellwyrn is a legend that smacks around dragons to convince them to behave instead of killing them. It has been strongly implied that the glory days of her power aren’t behind her, but we don’t know if Arachne could tell off Khadizroth like she did Zanzayed.


    4. I remember Arachne had to summon some sort of full body armour and sword for that. I think that only pure physical is effective against headhunter. The spirits can “thinks” fast and counter any sort of magic. Mary won’t fight straight up against 2 headhuntress. That suicide.


      1. I don’t get the impression that they actually worry her. The problem would be the devastation to the area the fight happens. Given that the Empire generally doesn’t take kindly to losing huge chunks containing citizenry care of a known antagonistic entity such as the Crow picking overpowered fights…

        That’s called a decades-long headache even an elf who is not a fan of the place would think twice about inflicting on themselves. :/

        Liked by 1 person

    5. My interpretation was more like the discussions around other big fights, that the problem wasn’t winning or not winning but winning without massive collateral damage. Nuclear weapons and mutually assured destruction style. Also i think headhunters are uniquely hard not because they have that much power, but because they can accesss all 4 schools of magic they are quite capable of countering attacks. Making them effective mage killers,


  2. One of the lovely things about this story is the pacing. I feel like I with Darling and co. waiting for what happens next. It makes for a good story when you care about the characters and events. And, most stories disappoint at the big “reveal” but Webb always seems to pull it of. Thank you.


  3. Please disregard the original author’s note. After sleeping on it and considering what comes next, I’ve realized that leaving this as is and starting fresh next time quite accidentally solves an upcoming pacing and organization problem I was left with. This is a much shorter chapter than I usually like to post, but in the long run I try to write with an eye toward what the finished story will feel like in a read-through, so that’s what I prioritize.

    Liked by 4 people

  4. Antonio is unfathomably lucky? If Mary said that, it stands to reason that it might indeed be more than luck. Maybe there’s a reason the spirits of the old head hunter didn’t care to kill him, the same reason Flora and Fauna are doing so well working for him. Can they not see him? Or did they just not think he’s Evil in the way the rest of humans generally are? How the hell is Basra just talking to one (although possibly her whole “barely humanness” is helping here). I feel like there’s something going on here so I’m going to have fun with a little wild crazy guessing:

    Is it possible that the aegis Justinian is under extends to all the upper ups in the universal church? Or just Justinian’s hand selected Bishops, at least, if he’s got some conscious control over it? And that this extends to spirits as well as gods? Could it be Avei slamming down her glass was reacting with surprise when the Empress casually denounced Basra (1-20)? Could that be why Avei hasn’t particularly noticed that Basra has, you know, been raping one of her subordinates? I know Eserion says he has good people sniffing around, but he could mean more than Darling, and he could also be unaware that he’s uncritical about Darling in the same way.


    1. Side note, there are…just so many things I want to discuss with all the commenters while Webb looks over, grinning maniacally, that are arc wide/story wide and not just a few chapters deep. Especially since I came a bit late to the party and missed the chance on some big big early moments. Do we…HAVE a forum or reddit or anything anywhere?

      Should we, you know, make one?


      1. The idea of a forum or Reddit has been brought up before, but never happened. There’s a WMG entry on the TVTropes page for theorizing, but it hasn’t drawn much attention.

        I’m not planning to make a forum myself, but if anyone does I’ll provide a link on the site and plug it now and again. I would definitely enjoy seeing those discussions.


      2. Personally I was thinking about this myself, in the end I thought it might be best to create a general Web Serial Reddit for general discussion about web serials as well as more specific story related discussion which might not work too well in comment threads.

        Honestly the main thing that stopped me was that i would feel kinda sleazy going into the comments of web serials I don’t usually comment in to essentially advertise something.


      3. My idea for a forum would have been to create one over at https://freeforums.net/ which is being paid for with ads… but if you use an adblocker, it’s no problem at all. It’s a bit of work to set this up though and I wanted at least 10 positive responses before committing to anything, but I only got 3 or so. Not worth the effort. 🙂


      4. I feel like a subreddit would be best. With forums you have subforums which would fracture the conversational activity. Which is not so good when there wouldn’t be a ton of activity already.

        Additionally a lot of people already have Reddit accounts and its generally easier to make Reddit accounts than forum accounts. Lower barrier to entry would faccilitate more activity.

        Subreddits are also super easy to set up compared to a forum.

        Liked by 1 person

  5. Wow wow wow! What a time to come current! Very exciting!

    Loving the story and can’t wait for more… Unfortunately at a much more leisurely pace. I’m also enjoying the parallel story about the author, which is in some ways as compelling.

    I feel for you dude. It’s amazing that you able to put out such consistent high quality prose in such volume for such an extended period of time, in spite of your illness. I am in awe.


  6. Flora and Fauna really goofed up here. It seems like it would have been simple for them to shadow jump to a desert, removing 99.9% of the risk with essentially zero cost. How is that not standard policy for them?

    Also, it’s really confusing calling Imperial Forces “Imps” when the topic is demons. I thought the Incubus summoned reinforcements somehow at first.


  7. A note to all readers: though a Friday chapter hasn’t been funded this week, there’s going to be one, as part of the makeup effort for previously skipped chapters. However, not at the usual update time. I’ve been working on it tonight and it’s fighting me hard, as they sometimes do. This kind of thing happens, and it’s worse on days when I have to come home and write after a long shift at work (my day job is rather destructive to my energy levels). I’m gonna take the excuse of un-funding to get some sleep and finish this sucker tomorrow when my brainmeats are rejuvenated.

    So, chapter is forthcoming, please stay tuned.


  8. Further postponement, with apologies. Spent the day dealing with health stuff and a depressive episode (probably brought on by health stuff). Really, really hoping I’m not going to have to go to a doctor. I cannot afford that.

    I really want to catch up and get the makeup chapters done. Gonna try again tomorrow for at least one.


    1. Webb has started putting tags on the next to latest chapter ie when the next chapter goes up the tags will be updated,he did it to prevent spoilers


  9. I’m a little worried about our favourite author now. Not posting anything seems quite unusual. I hope the health stuff mentioned before isn’t anything serious.


Comments are closed.