Jackal Among Snakes

“Thanks for coming, Melanie,” Argrave expressed his gratitude. “I know you’ve been taking it a bit easy since that debacle with Traugott.”

The red-haired mercenary-turned-countess stared up at him with her defiant green eyes. “You just haven’t been giving me things to do,” Melanie disagreed. “Unless you include fobbing off Dario onto me, having me follow him about as we fortify the cities and the towns. But enough about me—you wanted me to create a portal, yeah?”

Melanie did so, reappearing somewhere else a great distance away. She hollered at him to inform she was done, but Argrave was already doing something. He conjured a dagger out of his black blood, clenching his teeth at the pain of the blood magic. Then, he swung it through. It passed by what she’d made like passing through air.

Yet the portal… like a cloud of fog blown away by a swift breeze, it dissipated into nothing. Argrave exhaled in eager shock, then looked to Anneliese.

“It vanished,” confirmed Anneliese with her [Truesight], crossing her arms with a mix of wonderment and displeasure. She wasn’t fond of Argrave using blood magic, but she couldn’t disguise some awe and curiosity at what it had become.

“Melanie!” Argrave shouted. “Did you feel that? Anything hurt?”

“I felt it, but it didn’t hurt!” She yelled as he walked back slowly.

“Try the blood echoes, now” Raven instructed quietly.

They repeated the experiment without changing any variables besides that, all the way down to the spot Melanie teleported to and from. Argrave cast a spell of the same rank as the dagger he’d summoned from an echo. Unlike before, his blood magic seemed to catch and stick on the portal before overwhelming it.

“The power is diminished, but still present. You can annihilate divine powers with both forms of blood magic.” Raven confirmed after the experiment had been repeated. “That’s well in line with what both Anneliese and I can perceive in them. It would seem your hypothesis is correct, and the power is proportional to your personal sacrifice. But at the same time…”

“My recovery is so far beyond what it used to be.” Argrave clenched his hand.

Ordinarily after using blood magic, he’d feel some lethargy, especially in the limb that’d cast the spell. It had still come, but it faded in less than a minute.

Raven grew eyes on the tips of his fingers, and they scrutinized Argrave from all angles while glowing green. “The spirits you once used for magic have become part of you. One with you, even. It’s similar to that displayed by a god, but simultaneously different enough I cannot deem you one. I can sense no new organ for this function; rather, it is as though your soul has become the conduit through which divinity manifests as something physical. So long as the soul exists with spirits inside it, you can reconstitute. Considering your soul is undying…”

rather like a lich. A holy

“I daresay you’re more durable than I am, by a small margin. Should you take in yet more spirits, that margin will become an

Yet to his surprise, it pierced and sunk in slightly. Argrave could feel the thing bubbling in his hands, and though he wished to drop it, he continued on. The dagger burnt itself away, and when

Raven waved his hand, and the ward vanished. “Prepare a weapon

of the curved blade it conjured. Already his pain faded in wake of his

his hand slowly, then conjured an ice ball about the size of a bowling ball. “Cut this,”

quickly, expecting to meet resistance. He felt it only briefly before the ice

magic,” Raven explained, his sharp teeth appearing in a grin. Argrave had never seen him smile before, and so he stared in shock. The huge man took a step forward and planted his foot down. “That

raging volcano, and Argrave cast the spell by preparation and instinct both. His

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earth from Argrave’s whips. “You may well have become the strongest spellcaster in the world with this. I do not believe I could best you in a straightforward fight, anymore. And I believe

to be relative ease. Even as he watched, the cracks in his skin born of blood magic sealed, leaving behind only small lines of coagulated black blood that had spilled from the wounds before

fruits remain,” Raven said. “Having seen firsthand what they can do, I can now agree with the assessment posed by others; they possess unfathomable power and potential. If it might bring about such a change in you, I daresay there is little we

at Raven for a few

yours,” Argrave told Elenore and

my claim, and render it unto you,” Orion

anyhow. Each of us own one and one-third of a fruit. Best to just to give it to one person. Who better than the king?” Elenore crossed her arms. “Doesn’t make sense for me to eat it or hold onto it. I’m not a combatant.

he knew what each Fruit of Being could offer, rather than eager to use them, he was more hesitant than ever. Raven said yet more powers remained unexplored, but even with what Argrave already discovered, it felt a little difficult to wrap his head

in, without a

found out he’s one of the strongest people in the world, and he looks

from the solemn edge he found himself standing on, and managed a half-hearted

with knowledge enough to have them,” Elenore declared. “Maybe there’s still time enough yet to join in on the raid of Kirel Qircassia. Or maybe I can find some reason to have you execute one of our new junior partners in the

hand on Argrave’s shoulder. “What would you say to allowing me to totally eviscerate your body, to test the limits and speed of