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.

He leaned on his staff as the flow of vitality revitalized him, then began his steady march back into the mire. He kept a better eye on the Hopeful, whose wariness had also reached a high. His opponent had forgotten his tendency to taunt, to jeer, and instead held that makeshift weapon at close

seemed a secondary thing, by this point—the pain was enough to drive men to suicide, but to Argrave,

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 cut on his hand, fading

his foe’s hand. The odds were certainly against him, yet if Argrave could touch

upon short bursts 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

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on his side… Argrave won ground, bit by

about by the Trial of Fire, and the constant pressure Argrave applied… at some point, even his overwhelming

arms out and placed his hand upon the wrist of this abomination. It felt like he was touching something repugnant, something fundamentally at odds with this world.

moment, Argrave felt the whole world explode

link that Argrave had established up there in the sun. Their souls probed the confines of his body—the watching eyes of trillions of living things, witnessing the whole of him. They

scrutiny was intense and all-consuming. It felt as 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. They deprived themselves of nothing, these figments

trillions saw Argrave. And

compressed, the small wings of these butterflies touring his life’s achievements became a tornado bubbling inside

for every soul that thought him shameful, despicable… there were ten others who held

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 seen what he’d done, learned

…and accepted him.

so loud that it promised to break his eardrums railed against him tremendously. He staggered, leaning on his staff, before he focused on the commotion. The Hopeful writhed, golden light