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.”

be ambushed. Argrave, meanwhile, wondered if their escort meant what he said, or if Argrave’s question of gratitude had scared away the man for some reason. He dismissed the thought, failing to see its

you heard what

quite a

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

thing staggered away

hard to show sarcasm in one’s voice when everyone was forced to use a monotonous voice not so

whatever reason, is attempting to

does manumit even mean?”

knew, he had outlawed such a thing in

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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 be opportunity here amongst those

anger. “I’m not working alongside that damned snake. The moment that I lay eyes on his smug

“I’m going to kill him, I’m afraid,

aback by her competitive confidence and only

the southern tribals hated the 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

the Hopeful and all of his lieutenants in open combat. The idea was immensely nauseating, even

discretion,” Argrave agreed. “But I don’t retract what I said. Traugott’s existence is too much of a threat to let him walk free for

in agreement, then looked ahead. “Our escort is taking his time, is he

#####

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 those that were lesser than him so often became. That which Argrave and Anneliese created subjected him to

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

sound and smell. It brought with it other aspects of life that the rider had so long ago forgotten. Yet… this sense of forgetfulness… it said so much, yet too little. What had been forgotten? What was

alongside the company they kept. This heresy had to be purged with a steady hand, and the Shadowlands had to become black once again.

felt it a fitting time to rejoin those he’d left. He would not again let trifling sentiments interfere with the purity of his servitude. Such things

he had to—because he wanted

#####

up the covers of her blanket and

will be a good mother,” he told