Chapter 82: Howling Cliff, the Nature of Jackals

Rainwater dripped from the rough beast-hide cloak.

The gnoll Garos crouched on a crooked wooden watchtower, his soaked fur plastered to his skin, making his whole body itch. He scratched at the fleas on his neck, caught one, popped it into his mouth, then narrowed his pair of red-glowing eyes, gazing out at the muddy wilderness in the distance.

"Damn rainy season."

The gnoll muttered a curse, a dissatisfied growl rumbling in his throat.

The territory of the Red-Eye Clan—Howling Cliff.

It was a mixed settlement of natural rock caves and crude wooden shacks.

Gnolls were not skilled at building, but they excelled at plundering; skewered on those crooked wooden stakes hung dried heads of prey, some beasts, others unlucky victims from past caravans.

There were even a few belonging to gnolls themselves.

Those were traitors or cowards executed by the Warlord.

Garos counted as a sentry; his task was simple: watch the outside, see if any fierce beasts or demons approached, or catch sight of other monster clans.

If there were any, he was to blow the bone whistle to notify his companions.

But today, his gaze was drawn to something else.

Something seemed to be moving in the distant rain curtain, flashing by in an instant.

He narrowed his eyes, his reddish-brown pupils contracting into slits under the dim light; he observed carefully, but the rain blurred his vision, and he could only see the gray, misty wilderness and swaying shrubs.

Finding no suspicious targets, he carelessly withdrew his gaze, yawned, and continued his watch with utter boredom.

A shrill, piercing laugh suddenly rose from below.

He looked down and saw several of his kin dragging a deer carcass toward the rock caves, tearing flesh with their claws and stuffing it into their mouths as they walked; their fur was caked with mud and blood, and saliva mixed with rainwater dripped from their fangs.

"Hey! Garos!"

One of the gnolls looked up and shouted, his voice raspy like sandpaper rubbing: "Come down and eat something! No one dares approach Howling Cliff in this weather anyway!"

Garos hesitated for a moment.

Howling Cliff was situated at a high elevation, easy to defend and hard to attack; the perimeter was filled with spike traps and deep pits, the bottoms of which were studded with sharpened wooden stakes, their tips coated with poison.

Unless the danger came from the sky, there was no need to be too tense.

The watchtower was cold and hungry, but he knew the consequences of abandoning his post even better; last month, a sentry who slacked off and slept was torn in half by the Warlord Bloodfang with his own hands, and the corpse still hung drying on the eastern wooden stake.

"No, you eat."

He shook his head, forcing himself to keep staring at the rain curtain.

In gnoll society, the law of the jungle was ironclad.

The gnoll Warlord, nicknamed 【Bloodfang】, was the absolute ruler of the Red-Eye Clan; his authority was built upon violence and fear.

Garos had once witnessed Bloodfang bite through an enemy's throat in battle, then claw out the opponent's heart and swallow it in front of all the gnolls.

Eating a companion's heart.

Even to the ferocious gnolls, this was a terribly frightening thing.

Rotclaw the Priest represented another kind of power.

Garos's gaze unconsciously drifted toward the depths of the rock caves, where low chanting and the stench of burning flesh faintly emanated.

As a priest, Rotclaw rarely appeared before ordinary gnolls; he always hid in the darkest corners, slicing open captives' throats with a dagger and smearing fresh blood onto rune-carved bone fragments.

It was said.

He could use curses to make enemies' wounds never heal, or even briefly resurrect dead gnolls to continue fighting, at the cost of their souls never finding peace.

Thinking of that terrifying scene.

Garos shivered.

He did not like Rotclaw, but he dared even less to disobey him.

All gnolls knew that the consequence of offending a priest was far worse than offending a warlord.

At least Bloodfang would grant you a quick death, while Rotclaw's curses could make you howl for three days and three nights before dying.

Garos knew that the relationship between these two great figures was not harmonious; Bloodfang thought Rotclaw's rituals were too slow, while Rotclaw felt Bloodfang was too reckless and brainless, but regardless, they jointly ruled the Red-Eye Clan, allowing this pack of gnolls to carve out a place in the wilderness.

The rain intensified; Garos shrank his neck and wrapped the cloak tighter.

In gnoll culture, there was no concept of 'loyalty,' only 'obedience to the strong.'

Garos felt no respect for Bloodfang or Rotclaw, but he knew clearly that at Howling Cliff, the weak must either obey or become decorations on the wooden stakes; this principle applied equally across the vast wilderness.

He glanced again at the distant wilderness; it was still empty.

"Seems there won't be anything today either."

Before the words finished, a black shadow swept across the clouds, moving so fast it seemed like an illusion.

Garos's fur instantly bristled; some instinctive fear gripped his heart; he wanted to blow the bone whistle, but his claws froze in mid-air, and only a weak whimper could squeeze out of his throat.

That thing appeared again, this time closer, and without concealing its form.

That thing—that dragon—hovered above Howling Cliff.

Rainwater fell upon its layered scales, then flowed down the grooves, gathering into silver threads at the claw tips; it simply hovered silently, attacking neither, roaring neither, quietly lowering its gaze to survey the territory below, radiating an indescribable aura of majesty and oppression, calm yet dangerous.

Seeing the dragon's figure, Garos's limbs began to tremble.

He had seen fierce beasts, seen powerful demons, but never felt such fear.

His stomach churned, his teeth chattered uncontrollably, and even his tail stiffened like a frozen rope.

He was naturally sensitive to danger; no one in the entire Red-Eye Clan had sharper senses than he, which is why he became a sentry, and now, every single nerve in him was screaming.

Run!

But he could not move.

Damn legs! Move for me! Move quickly!

Garos screamed in his heart, but his legs were as if filled with lead, turned into statues, refusing to obey his will; then, amidst extreme terror and the struggle between spirit and body, this gnoll rolled his eyes back and simply fainted dead away.

Garos blinked, noticing the sentry gnoll's loss of composure.

"Frightened to death? No, more like fainted."

He radiated dragon majesty to announce his arrival, causing the vast majority of the Jackal-Wolves of the Red-Eye Clan to feel fear and terror, yet few Jackal-Wolves fainted outright.

Sometimes, dull perception is actually a good thing.

For instance, not sensing just how dangerous and terrifying the dragon before them truly was.

The Jackal-Wolf sentry fainted precisely because its senses were clearer.

At the center of Howling Cliff stands a cavern, half-natural and half-man-made, hollowed out inside into a multi-layered structure.

Jackal-Wolves emerged in great numbers from the cavern, their backs hunched, muscles taut, red eyes flickering in the rain curtain, drool mixed with fear dripping from their fangs.

Garos could smell the scent drifting through the air.

Rotten meat, inferior beast oil, and the distinct musk unique to Jackal-Wolves.

The Jackal-Wolves wore iron armor looted from others, carrying spiked maces and other weapons in their hands; some of the larger ones bore Engraved Marks of alchemical runes on their equipment, of fine quality.

Several strong Jackal-Wolves held grappling hooks but did not rashly attack, watching Garos with vigilance and caution.

A figure appeared from the shadows of the cavern.

The copper ring on the ear of Bloodfang, the Jackal-Wolf Warlord, gleamed with a blood-red light in the rain; he thrust out his chest, displaying the scar that ran horizontally across his torso, proof that he had torn a Basilisk apart with his bare hands.

He walked toward Garos, stopped beneath him, and said respectfully, "Noble Great Dragon, why do you visit the humble Howling Cliff?"

By nature, Jackal-Wolves like to follow powerful dragons.

The key lies in power.

If a weak dragon were to visit rashly, they would not hesitate to kill it, using the dragon's fresh blood to perform a ritual and strengthen the power of the tribe and clan.

The Jackal-Wolf Warlord measured Garos's size with a glance from the corner of his eye.

Although strong to the point of being incredible, a dragon body under eight meters was not outstanding in terms of size; after all, the Red-Eye Clan had also hunted down huge monsters exceeding ten meters.

While waiting for Garos's reply, Bloodfang's eyes flickered, his spine straightened slightly, and a different thought arose in his heart.

(End of this chapter)