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.”

ahead, and everyone obeyed his words and followed after while remaining cautious so they wouldn’t be ambushed. Argrave, meanwhile, wondered if their escort meant what he said, or if

heard what

a bit,”

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 and need to

consoled. “And if you’ll remember, that thing staggered away from me

making—it was hard to show sarcasm in one’s voice when everyone was forced to use a monotonous voice

is attempting to manumit

does manumit even mean?” Aurore

From what Argrave knew, he had outlawed such

you discover this

his throat, then continued. “Giventhat Traugott is manumitting some 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

not working alongside that damned snake. The moment that I lay eyes on his smug face, I’m using [Apollyon], and I’m

him,

by her competitive confidence and only

the Archchief agreed—and Argrave knew he was being genuine, considering how much that the southern tribals hated the southron elves. “Traugott’s built a foundational movement that’s enough of a threat to the

but he couldn’t deny the good sense of the suggestion. The alternative was fighting the Hopeful and all of

act with discretion,” Argrave agreed. “But I don’t retract what I said. Traugott’s existence is too much of a threat to

agreement, then looked ahead. “Our escort is

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Argrave had created. It took immense willpower to not

the hounds, he felt lesser—a shell of himself. It took immense willpower not to devolve into

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 ago forgotten. Yet… this sense of forgetfulness… it said so much, yet too little. What had been forgotten? What

steady hand, and the Shadowlands had to become black once again. No

to rejoin those he’d left. He would not again let trifling sentiments interfere with the purity of his servitude. Such things as gratitude were fostered by malignant presences

to—because he wanted to. Without

#####

pulled up the covers of her blanket and left her there. Then, she walked out, shutting

will be a good mother,” he told