The Rise of the Winter Wolf - Book 5 - Chapter 20 - Declaration and Daughter (Patreon)

                                                 Wolf
                                    Half a week later

I grimace as Crystal and Sapphire laugh and Norbert and Ariana simply give me a stare, the screen in front of me now ignored despite the scene showing thousands of arctic lycanthropes charging the fae soldiers in the primogenitor battlegrounds. A scene that is only made more bizarre by the occasional shout of ‘For the Primordial Lycanthrope!’ that has me feeling shivers running down my spine.

“You’ve got a damned cult! You really have an army of worshipers at your beck and call!” Crystal practically shouts as she laughs her ass off, not helping in the slightest.

Sapphire quite literally falls over from laughter, landing in my lap only to continue laughing even after finding me looking down at her, the girl not bothering to get up.

I let out a sigh.

When Diane told me to check the forums for the cult, I was… rather reluctant to do so. For this very reason.

Every single time Sapphire hears about the cult, she finds it oh so funny and has to laugh at me. And every time it gets bigger, or something like… this… happens…

I sigh again as the girl continues laughing, still not bothering to get off my lap. So I resort to pushing her off with some struggle before giving up as the girl refuses to move and I don’t want to hurt her.

Instead I raise my head again to still find Norbert and Ariana giving me and the screen blanks looks, although I swear I see a hint of amusement in their gazes.

Traitors.

Then a loud booming voice that I recognize from somewhere echoes seemingly out of nowhere.

“The Primogenitor council has reached a decision,” the voice speaks, making everyone in the room go silent and stiff, including the girl who was just laughing from my lap. “From here on out, Grim, otherwise known as The Reaper and the Progenitor of Void is forbidden from messing with the Administrator Dungeon or the Beta Dungeon. He may not break his own rules that he set into place, nor may he alter them in any way. Should he be found guilty of manipulating the participants of the dungeons, or the dungeons himself, he will be put to the sword by the Progenitor Council.”

It then pauses for a second, only to continue, “Furthermore, the System may not make any changes on behalf of its creator either, leaving the Administrator and Beta Dungeons as they are for the remainder of these runs,”

Silence reigns for nearly half a minute after that before we’re all sure the voice – which I’m pretty sure belonged to a progenitor – is finished.

Then everyone immediately begins talking at once.

“It’s about time.” “Yes!!” “Good.” “Noo more surprise changeeeess!!!”

I glance down at Sapphire after she almost hits me in the face by pumping her fists up into the air and shouting in her excitement. And she doesn’t look the least bit apologetic.

Deciding that now is a great time to distract everyone’s attention away from those cultists, I close out of the screen and state, “Looks like the rest of the dungeons are going to be unchanged here on out.”

Ariana and Norbert nod without saying anything else, and Crystal slumps in the sofa next to me with a sigh of relief, briefly saying, “I was worried he would go about making another drastic change to the Administrator Dungeon.”

“I doubt he would’ve even if this didn’t happen,” Norbert comments as he and Ariana walk away from us to sit on their own seats, all five of us having been grouped together due to the screen. “He seemed too focused on Wolf to care about the rest of us anymore.”

He has a point there. An annoying one, but a point, nonetheless.

The Competitors begin talking amongst themselves as I lean back in the sofa trying to remember where I’ve heard that voice before. Meanwhile Sapphire still doesn’t bother budging from my lap, simply flopping her arms back and continuing to lie there, her legs going in the opposite direction of me from Crystal.

That voice…

My eyes widen as I remember where I’ve heard it before.

“That was Fenrir,” I state while looking forward again, making the others pause in their conversation. “The Progenitor of Ice.”

“You’re sure?” Ariana asks, and I nod my head, “Yeah, I remember his voice from when I was gifted that item before. The one that turned invisible and protects me from conceptual elements.”

A few seconds pass as they think about it before Norbert eventually shrugs and says, “It makes sense that it was a progenitor. Which one that said it doesn’t really matter though. What matters is that The Reaper should be tied up now and restricted in his actions.”

I nod my head at that while glancing down at Sapphire to find that she’s actually fallen asleep at some point. Which I have to admit is adorable.

That announcement does prove what Talroth said about Fenrir being the neutral ground between the progenitors though, since he was the one to announce the Council’s decision.

I don’t really like the idea of blessings or anything like that, but from what Talroth said, it doesn’t look like they can take back any power they gave out. So I don’t have to worry about my eternal ice vanishing one day. It’s more like they’re unlocking a door for you to use that power than them giving it to you. A door that can’t be locked again.

And if the one who ‘blessed’ me was the neutral party amongst the progenitors, then I’m fine with this. Because the last thing I want happening would be to get dragged into the progenitors business or something.

I glance down when Sapphire rolls over a little, pushing her forehead into the armor over my stomach and then frowning in her sleep, likely due to it not being the most comfortable thing ever.

“I wish I had a daughter as cute as her…” I hear Crystal muttering, making me raise a brow at her.

“Say that again when you have to deal with a teenager,” I tell her with a frown. “Because she’s already reaching that age thanks to her level.”

Crystal winces at the thought and doesn’t say any more.

I look down at Sapphire again before lightly smiling and pulling a little bit of her hair that had moved when she rolled over out of her mouth.

Rebellious child or not, I’m glad I have her with me. It would’ve been a lot harder over my time in the dungeons without her. Both in terms of emotional health and survivability.

I look up at the ceiling again, a question coming to mind that has been bothering me for a while now.

Just what was the exact reason Fenrir chose me?

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