Jackal Among Snakes

Chapter 644: Conspiring to Steal Valor

“How were you actually born?” Anneliese asked the horseman on his steed of shadows as they walked through the lifeless Shadowlands.

Other than some mutterings between the ancient heroes—some of whom had become fast friends, after putting aside their desire to genocide the other—Anneliese’s incessant questions to their escort Shadowlander was the only sound permeating this endless dreary place. She was asking questions that Argrave himself wanted the answers to as they charted their course and remade this realm without further intervention.

“I don’t know how I was born,” the rider responded, trudging his steed across the mesas.

He created bridges of shadows to span the gaps between the separate grassy plateaus, allowing everyone present to walk freely toward where the so-called Manumitter awaited. It was there where Argrave would undoubtedly be used as a cudgel against Traugott, to be discarded when the time was right. Though he listened to the exchanges between Anneliese and the black knight, he also formulated ideas for how they could emerge from this all on top.

“You simply came to be, as you are now?” Anneliese pressed.

“No. We are all born as the creatures that you fought against—the lowest of the low. They are the detritus that is expelled upon your world when the Hopeful makes his millennial bargain with the Hopeless. Within our hierarchy, we fight ever upward. When a lesser defeats his better, they are promoted. This brutality maintains the iron will needed to resist the hunger, should the darkness ever fade away.”

They had already established that the Hopeless was Gerechtigkeit, yet this talk of bargains brought Argrave pause.

Anneliese asked the question in Argrave’s head. “Gerechtigkeit—the Hopeless—makes a bargain with your leader?”

“Yes. In exchange for releasing some of this millennia’s detritus—those who could not advance to a higher status in the one thousand years—the Hopeless gives the Hopeful the power to reassert his authority and bring new life into our abyssal realm. We possess a cycle, too. Ours is one where only the greatest rise upward, perpetually. This is all in preparation for the Final Fight, where we will do battle with the hounds of hunger and banish them from our bodies. We need only the best of the best when that day finally comes.”

Argrave agreed with an earlier statement: this was brutal. All of those people that they’d slain here were competing amongst each other to rise higher. Those that didn’t win the struggle were released upon Argrave’s world, where they were exposed to their hunger. Argrave had felt the hounds of hunger. It was only with the Fruit of Being allowing him to ward it away that he’d been able to suppress them. That, and his absurd mind.

Anneliese sounded fascinated as she inquired, “But where does this new life come from?”

“Only the Hopeful and his lieutenants are privy to that information.” A bridge of darkness stemmed out from the rider’s feet, and their party began to cross a valley.

“You’re being awfully forthcoming about that information,” the Rose’s founder, Bhaltair, commented.

“Any information could help you. You’re already dead. Your point of entry will be watched by the Hopeful himself, stopping any escape,” he answered simply. “And you released me.”

Argrave studied him. “You can feel gratitude?”

The rider stopped. Argrave did, too, half a step after. By the time Argrave was going to ask what was wrong, the rider resumed his route. “I must return to the shadows. I need updates on where the Manumitter hides. Continue to progress where I run to, and expect my return shortly.”

ambushed. Argrave, meanwhile, wondered if their escort meant what he said, or if Argrave’s question of gratitude had scared away the

you heard what

quite a bit,”

up. “The Hopeful is going to be watching the point that we came in from. That monster… no disrespect to Argrave’s power—none of us could do a damn thing, after all—but even that monstrous [Apollyon] spell could barely suppress the darkness that thing emitted. I don’t have the highest of hopes about going through him once we’re no longer useful

away from

a smile that never faded,” Emperor Balzat countered, completely ignorant of the joke Argrave was making—it was hard to show sarcasm in one’s voice when everyone was forced to

whatever reason, is attempting

manumit

said. From what Argrave knew, he had outlawed such a thing in his empire—it made sense that

usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report

of the Shadowlanders here, and he’s enough of a threat that that the tyrannical Hopeful would give us freedom in this empire he so zealously guards… there may

disagreed as vehemently as he could—he sounded neutral even in anger. “I’m not working alongside that damned snake. The moment that I lay eyes on his smug face, I’m using [Apollyon], and I’m ending his damnable life. He’s

disagreed. “I’m going to kill him, I’m afraid, long before you even cast a

was taken aback by her competitive confidence

southron elves. “Traugott’s built a foundational movement that’s enough of a threat to the Hopeful’s regime that he sends us forth. Therein lies our opportunity to break his advantage. If possible, we should find a way to

alternative was fighting the Hopeful and all of his lieutenants in

retract what I said. Traugott’s existence is too much of a threat to let him walk free for

then looked ahead. “Our escort is

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reveling in the sense of nothingness that it gave him after his time enduring the harrowing hunger of the changed realm that Argrave had created. It took immense willpower to not become a mindless beast before the hounds of hunger, as

the hounds, he felt lesser—a shell of himself. It took immense willpower not to devolve into a slobbering beast, like those he commanded. Yet… even still, he couldn’t deny something that the human had pointed out to him. He’d felt gratitude.

yet so intoxicating. It brought with it more than light, more than sight and sound and smell. It brought with it other aspects of life that the rider had so long

and the Shadowlands had to become black once again.

let trifling sentiments interfere with the purity

had to—because he wanted to.

#####

at the sleeping adopted princess. Elenore stroked Sophia’s hair gently, then pulled up the

good mother,” he