Chapter 169: The Favored Black

No chapters until the last week of March, we have exams to prepare for

Linares caught Bernardo!

Seeing this, the elf stopped moving for a while, his face contorting in unfiltered anger at the sight of his opponent still smugly looking at him. It was as if the dead goblin was confident of his victory despite being restrained by the mighty talons of the Beastifying elf.

At that moment, all fighters, specially generals feels like a second runs for an hour, thus slowly, the ridiculously gigantic harpy slowly raised its terror-inducing talons, not minding the ten seconds time limit of his beastification ability, the black of his eyes gone due to anger, and in that certain moment of pure rage, he felt calm. In that calmness, he remembered all of it.

All the reasons for his fight against the undeads, and ultimately against fate.

________

He, Linares, known for being the only general of the current generation to have a unique skill, have another, more potent and famous title.

The Favored Black.

As evident of the civil war against White and Dark elves, the white variety of the said race have a very strong repulse against the dark variety that steamed way back during the end of the war of gods, somehow, some of the old ones that are present at that time were perplexed, all they knew is that right after King Aerendil took the throne when their goddess who took the helm of their kingdom died, the dark elven nobles were slowly isolated and later stripped off their powers, until a decree was sent that due to the impurity of the dark elves, they will only have merchants as the highest possible rank they can obtain.

After that, rumors after rumors that somehow cannot be verified but was chosen as the truth of the normal elven population were spread, they were about the dark skinned betrayal during the war of gods and their collusion with the undeads that the white elves have been fighting off during the continental wars with evidences that were not accepted by the dark elves that were suddenly targeted of a negative propaganda.

And of course, their resistance confirmed the allegation, thus a mass enslavement happened during the first elven undead war, with the pretext that the dark elves have become uncontrollable since the death of the goddess of nature, they were chained and became prisoners of their own land, with only three conditions for temporary freedom.

Being a merchant that contributes 10% of their earnings to the causes of war, or be a ranking officer of the military or become someone so favored to be given pardon, of course, there is only 1 in 500 dark elves who met either three of the criteria, and Linares alongside his twin sister, Luna is lucky to be born of the copulation of a ranked white elf mother and a very rich merchant dark elf father.

In all of the strained community of the elves, there is only them with such a dynamic, Linares or Luna doesn't have any idea how their mother and father met, they just knew that everytime her mother momentarily goes back home because of a completed assignment and waiting for a new one, she would be "comforted" by their father for the whole night, which is a good thing as they knew that the two loves each other and didn't just marry each other because of status.

Linares and Luna of course do love each other too, they have the same room, study room, study materials, even their training is the same, except that Linares have a unique skill and Luna doesn't, of course, the latter doesn't care about such things, her being weaker or stronger than Linares will not change the fact that he is her brother, such a perspective made their relationship harmonious despite Linares being a white elf and Luna being that of the dark variety.

In every hardship they took, they were together, Linares was there when Luna experienced her first love, had a boyfriend and disposed of him when he broke her heart, Luna was there too when Linares was rejected by what he can consider his first love, and just like Linares, the tears of her brother was paid by the blood of the woman.

Indeed, they were harmonious, and they will remain so, if not everyday, dark elves tramps were being persecuted, killed on the streets, sometimes their corpse rotting for days before being chucked into a rusty wagon, some will be abducted, sold to other continents, specially Exodus as several countries thrived to make higher humans for their respective nations, and of course, the ones being raped, tortured and executed for not being able to become a manpower in the ongoing war were present too.

Linares felt disturbed at this, at that time, him and Luna was already in the military academy, still together as usual, and he knew, that compared to him, as someone who have dark elf as her dominant genes, Luna felt more repulse, anger even, at the sight of the dark elves being mistreated as if it was a normal occurrence, thus he tried his best to make Luna distracted to this fact, yet still, as they got closer and closer to the ranks of their mother who was already promoted to general by the time the two become ranked officers, Luna was exposed to the disgusting maltreatment of the whites to the darks.

"Why can't you do something about this?"

It has gotten to a point where Luna bypassed her superior and then talked to her mother about her disagreement with this maltreatment during dinner, something that no dark elf military officials have done during the very much successful campaign of the elven undead war, because of fear and disdain to their people, of their misfortune.

Linares and his family knew that this attitude, with Luna's strong conviction, would lead to her directly opposing the king; thus, after Luna walked out of their dining table, Linares's mother looked at him.

"Follow your sister and dissuade her of these dangerous thoughts."

Linares and his father were stunned, for a moment they thought that the white elf of the family is colluding with the white supremacist and if not for the fact that she actively seeks out dark elves as the manager of the multitudes of their plantations whilst recruiting some to the military, she would have been met with a strong rejection and even supported Luna, but, as the main dark elf of the house, their father cannot help but chortle.

"But is there a single sentence she said during your verbal tussle that is wrong?"

Linares and his mother looked at the man of the house, the one in the seat of honor.

"Of course, this is not me doting on her, but also my observation, all of the new employees we have are dark elves after all, and as I watch them, I can see the lack of confidence in their posture, the lack of dignity, they even reluctantly looks at the money I give them annually, as if it was the first time they felt the basic elven dignity."

As the father spoke, his tone became hurried, anger evident in his supposedly calm voice.

"Honey, will you really let the elves of the same variety of the one you marry to suffer like this?"

The father wanted liberation of his kind, not just the dark elves, but for the white elves of their stupid endeavors, but the mother, being a general, clearly shook her head.

"I... I don't want to see them like this, I... feel like puking when seeing the disgusting deeds of my kind too, however, I, as a militant saw things that one shouldn't and is forced to stifle down my disapproval..."

The mother, evidently shaken by her memories, pursed her lips, cold sweat trickling down her forehead.

Linares was stunned, as one of the generals of Stardust, that is one of the responsible in advancing against the undead, this is the first dinner her mother and father had after so many years, what she was saying is to not let Luna pursue her ideals.

"I see them... a general, a close friend of mine have been dissatisfied with the way the dark elves were being treated, because of such he have enticed a hundred of dark elves to rebel and start a mutiny, his first target is one of our food resource point, he was confident in his strength, however, the next day, I was given an order to collect the corpse of a rebel group... and then... in front of the resource point are the heads of the dark elves that were enticed by that generals, their expression pained, and despite them being detached of their bodies, they were groaning, tears flooded their eyes as they cried for me and my dark elven soldiers who have their face ashen due to the morbid sight to kill them..."

The mother was visibly shaken.

"And that spell... is the one I perfected, giving me the position of general... I don't want my daughter to be on the receiving end of a spell that is supposed to be used to interrogate the undeads... so please, stop Luna from harboring malicious thoughts... for any elves that oppose the king will meet a horrible end."

Linares was alarmed, if his mother, the strongest person inside their house used her rare vacation due to a change of assignment to warn Luna of this and made her true emotions seep through her thick martial skin, then that means that the matter is really that dire, of course he knew of this instinctively too, because even though Linares was assigned to defend against foreign invaders that is taking advantage of the global continental wars, he have heard rumors that in Stardust and Thanatos, the king can only be fought and defeated by the prophet of the undead and of course vice verse, thus he knew the weight of this words, without further ado, he dashed towards their door to track Luna.

As a soldier of the special forces alongside his sister, he have extensive knowledge in tracking, that alongside the tumultuous emotions of his sister that did not bother to hide her tracks, he was able to find her in a secluded alley, with her is a grey colored man, hugging her whilst in a muffled, almost inaudible voice she shouted in the wet shirt of the undead, though at that time, Linares is not aware that the undead looks like a white elf noble for Luna.

"Why can't they see the suffering of their daughter's kind!? Dark elves are dropping in the middle of the streets like flies, and the government treats it as a matter of course!"

Linares was stunned, in his life together with his sister, he have never seen her cry like this, all that he saw from her is resilience, even some of her missions that were jeopardized, causing two units she was leading being destroyed, she persevered as if she was a machine, Linares felt a tinge of pain as he saw his sister being comforted by a man other than him, it feels terrible, it even feels like he was cucked.

"I will help you... I am not powerful, my power is waning, but this is the least I can do... become a general... gather the dark elves you can gather, and I will provide you with weapons to revolt against the oppression of the king..."

Such were the words of the man that hugged Linares's sister, and as the undead did, the grey being looked at him and smiled before departing "reluctantly" from Luna. The woman spun with renewed determination and was stunned to see his brother in front of the alley she was in.

"Who's that?"

Asked Linares, some anger evident on his tone, yet Luna was not fazed, her eyes glaring at her brother, gone is the affection of a sister from them, only the hostility from a person who have failed to recruit him to her cause, and the disappointment that from an another man did she found the support she wanted.

"None of your concern."

Linares stood rooted to the ground as he heard such rejection. He trailed his eyes to the visage of his sister, forgetting the mission entrusted to him by his mother, regret coursing through his mind, and soon anger started to permeate.

_So that motherfucker is the one responsible for her filibusteric thoughts..._

Linares walked silently, not even realizing that the grey colored man was watching him silently, his eyes shining with a pink, illusory glow.

The man smiled as if his mission had been unilaterally completed before its official end.

"Foolish are they, who think that advancing to our forest is something that military might alone can do."

________

Linares is not aware of such a single man conversation, he went back to the house, reporting his failure, but strangely enough did not report his findings, he is somehow resolved to find the man and banish him for eternity away from his sister, not aware of the plans his sister and the man have in mind.

The next morning, Linares was jolted awake by the bang of his door.

"LINARES! YOUR SISTER HAS ASCENDED TO GENERAL AND SEVERED HER TIES WITH HER FAMILY!