Gnoll society was very simple. They relied on the strongest among them to maintain their straightforward social structure. Here, strength gave you everything. If you killed the Second Leader, you became the Second Leader. The same went for the Grand Marshal, or even the chieftain. Yet this simple method proved beyond most gnolls. The chieftain of the Wolfhowl Tribe, for instance, possessed ninth-rank strength and was unquestionably the strongest in the entire tribe.
The Wolfhowl Tribe numbered only a few tens of thousands, so having a ninth-rank powerhouse was no small feat. Even Gilneas had originally possessed only ten ninth-rank powerhouses. Two more had suddenly appeared during the battle at the Greymane Wall, but that still brought the total to barely more than a dozen. And how many people did Gilneas have? Well over a million. That was the old Gilneas, too; its population had since surged, doubling in size.
One ninth-rank powerhouse for every hundred thousand people-that was the ratio in Gilneas. The Wolfhowl Tribe numbered only a few tens of thousands, so having even one was an extraordinary blessing. And its chieftain was at the Ninth Rank Peak, no less. A genius-that was the verdict on the Wolfhowl Tribe's chieftain. Before he had become utterly corrupt, he truly had been a genius. Had a human possessed such talent and received the resources to nurture it, he would surely have become a Heroic Powerhouse in the end.
No, even in the Wolfhowl Tribe, he had not been without hope of breaking through. But in Rex's eyes, the man had clearly lost the will to keep striving. He possessed the talent, but lacked the heart of a true powerhouse to match it.
Watching Vorgan leave, Rex had a mage set a fire and burn all the bodies to ashes. After