Jackal Among Snakes

Chapter 699: Judgment Day

With the world aflame, Argrave walked toward the shadows of the Hopeful. The tendrils of darkness writhed like snakes embroiled in conflict with their own tails, and beyond, Argrave could see the smile of the Hopeful. His ever-constant grin was somewhat marred as he ground his teeth together. The fire had overtaken him, too, yet his shadows raged and fought against it.

“It’s easy to endure when you know what waits beyond,” shouted the Hopeful, his voice nearly drowned out beneath the sound of fire and wind.

Argrave said nothing in response, all of his thoughts focused to a single-minded pinpoint. He could feel the pain that the Trial by Fire brought, but his mind was already shifting gears to block it out. Argrave conjured the artifact staff Artur had imbued into his flesh, and its black and gold form took shape.

He grasped what had once been the Resonant Pillar in his right hand, while his left cast a spell. The whole of his arm exploded into gore, and the staff responded to his will and collected the blood magic inside. It projected the spell out like a spear, and with a swing it projected its power outward. It fought back the shadows like a scythe cleaving through wheat, yet they still advanced as constantly as the ocean tide.

Argrave swung the lightweight staff in simple, crude arcs, and the resulting waves of blood magic bore a hole deeper into where the Hopeful waited with the fires of the Trial lighting his body aflame. Though Argrave’s mind felt muted and dulled by the pain, he could tell that his initial theory was proving sound—that the Hopeful wasn’t as adept at using his shadows during this Trial.

Argrave felt hope well up in his chest when crude waves of shadows assailed him without the skill and finesse that the Shadowlander had displayed in earlier clashes. The strategy was reminiscent of the rote brutality that he, himself had employed—casting out power without an inclination toward strategy, fighting without any concept of the consequences. Pain made people dumber, rasher, more instinctual. Even the supposedly-enlightened master of the shadows wasn’t immune to this fact.

Argrave, though… this level of pain was just a warm-up for him.

He sent out one blood echo in an area where the shadows seemed less dense, then moved to it using [Echo Step]. He was given some reprieve from the never-ending waves of power before it all came rushing back in a panic, attacking from all sides. He was in the center of the whirlpool, but fortunately, he had some experience dealing with it by now. Beyond shearing through it all with his blood-imbued staff, he sent out pulses of blood fire that ate away at it all. The crimson flames blended into that created of the Trial by Fire, disguising his attacks.

Walking through this marsh of shadow, fire, and pain, Argrave advanced step by step toward the immobile Hopeful. The giant figure—perhaps seeing the merit of Argrave’s strategy—reached into his shadows, condensing it into a sword. He thrust it toward Argrave quickly enough it was too hard to dodge. Argrave felt countless things split open and tear as he was thrown backward.

when he arose his wounds were already healed and his determination hadn’t wavered an inch. He leaned on his staff as the flow of vitality revitalized him, then began his steady march back into the mire. He kept

his destination. The Trial by Fire seemed a secondary thing, by this point—the pain was enough to drive men to suicide, but to Argrave, it merely seemed like a good opportunity to pull a reversal

next the Hopeful attempted to swat him away, Argrave responded by using Garm’s eyes to cast a spell. His vision faded as the blood magic consumed his very eyes, but when sight returned he saw the Hopeful cast backward, his left hand holding his right. Black blood gleaming like crude oil dripped from a small

in his foe’s hand. The odds were certainly against him, yet if Argrave could touch this Shadowlander… he would

of [Echo Step] to dodge the reckless waves of power the Hopeful used. Both of them seemed burdened, weighted by gravity—if not for the earth-shattering displays of power coursing about them in the form of shadow and blood, it might seem a fight between sluggish old

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Argrave won ground, bit

the mountains of Blackgard, the burden of pain brought about by the Trial of Fire, and the constant pressure Argrave applied… at some point, even his overwhelming power and skill faltered. Argrave reached not ten feet away from his legs, and then the giant slammed a fist down upon him like a panicked attempt to stop a

the wrist of this abomination. It felt like he was touching something repugnant, something fundamentally at odds with this world. Then,

felt the whole world explode

the confines of his body—the watching eyes of trillions of living things, witnessing the whole of him.

though trillions of worms crawled through his brain and flesh. They saw everything—everything that he’d done, everything he’d thought, every memory he had, every action he’d taken.

And as was the nature of life,

small wings of these butterflies touring his life’s achievements became a tornado bubbling inside his body. His mind bent, broke, battered and contorted as their judgment rejected so much of what he

that thought him shameful, despicable… there were ten others who held a different

attracted him—they countered the terrible rejection of those others, keeping his mind intact even as it threatened to break beneath the weight of it all. In the end, what had promised to be a complete and total shattering of his mind now became one where the thousands of souls around the world had

…and accepted him.

staff, before he focused on the commotion. The Hopeful writhed, golden