Jackal Among Snakes

Chapter 700: Brilliant Remover of Darkness

Raven pulled away from the wound in the world from which Gerechtigkeit had emerged, his study complete. Though the Trial by Fire affected him as much as any other, the unique form of pain it caused was something he could easily ignore. It always took a great deal of pain to morph his body, and over the many centuries, he’d grown used to the sensation.

It certainly hadn’t impeded him in tracing what laid beyond the wound.

Raven’s gaze followed the long cut that had left its indelible mark in the sky. Any attempts to move through it produced no results, and any attacks directed at it phased through like it wasn’t there. It was impermeable, untouchable… but not beyond understanding. As he’d predicted, travelling through it required a method of movement no one alive could replicate. To chase Gerechtigkeit and end the cycle permanently would require Sophia to remake someone in a manner that would make them compatible with this portal. That was the only foreseeable route.

“Elenore,” he said, speaking in his mind through the link established. “I’m ready to prepare Sophia. What’s the situation?”

“The Trial by Fire is abating in the more distant continents, and the fighting is resuming. Argrave’s killed the Hopeful. Anneliese is fine. Blackgard is still quiet, safe. You can enter through the southern valley. There’s a lot of Shadowlanders, but they’re all on our side. I can safely say we’ve won that fight.”

“I’ll be there immediately.” Raven cast a glance at the sky, then began descending with [Absolute Movement].

Moments later, he felt great tremors cutting the air and opened the eyes on the side of his head. Miles away, a gilded white saber cut the air with the speed of a meteor. Instinct screamed at him with enough ferocity he simply stopped thinking. Raven whipped his body around and swung his obsidian staff, while hands spawned from all over his body and conjured wards. The blade pierced his S-rank shields like they were porcelain plates, and when it met his highly-compressed obsidian staff, shattered it. The white saber punched a hole in his chest and sent him spiraling downward far faster than he’d intended.

Before Raven had even hit the ground, his formless body compressed to heal the hole in his chest. It abruptly split back open as the sword reversed course, abating much of his momentum and leaving him suspended in the air. What looked like an automaton modelled after a white horse and a long-maned rider came into his view. It had four arms, the second pair just below the first. The rider of the automaton caught the sword with its right arm, galloping through the skies like it was the natural course of things.

Raven corrected himself by recasting [Absolute Movement], diverting all of his attention toward this new arrival. Its approach was as swift as the blade it’d thrown at him, and he felt that death might be the inevitable outcome when they clashed. He readied a spell, yet before its matrix could even close the rider was already upon him.

It sword arm swung twice, halving Raven’s body with each. He completed the spell, fortunately—a shamanic spell, meant simply to teleport him the hell away from this monstrosity. The spirits whisked him away… until he was abruptly torn from the spell by the automaton’s grasping hand. It had intercepted his shamanic magic, and he peered right into its face as it clutched him with vice-like white fingers. Its face was that of a monkey with eyelids stretched open by clamps, and a terrible frown split its face. In those eyes, he saw the cold fury of Gerechtigkeit. It raised its sword up, preparing to end him.

freeing Raven of its grasp. He kept his eyes trained on the thing to see it swat aside one of the lunar dragons with one arm. Its second pair of hands wiped the saber it held, imbuing it with white cleansing fire. It looked liable to utterly destroy that lunar dragon, but before it could,

the Zanti,” Elenore’s voice instructed him. “Fall back to the Shadowlanders. They’ll

to heed that instruction before the thing Elenore had called the Zanti caught Lorena’s tail, dragged her down as effortlessly as a towel, and swung its sword straight through her gigantic dragon body. When Raven was again claimed by the

the spirits whisked his form away. One second, two, three—then, a sharp pain, and a tremor of force that echoed through his whole body. The Zanti had struck him instead of grabbing this time, and when Raven slammed and skidded against the

worked in total unity to fight the Zanti. With the leadership of the white-haired woman who’d inherited the genius of their greatest historical figures, their coordination proved an incredibly devastating force. Grasping tendrils restrained while ebon projectiles assaulted this terrifying cleansing

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ball of blinding white fire that seemed a peer to the golden sun in the sky. The lower arms clenched the saber by its

first time proceeded unimpeded. It was only upon reaching the active array beneath the mountains of Blackgard that he

amidst the chaotic nightmare of that tornado of fire, he could see the Zanti break away, pursuing him single-mindedly. It reached the entrance to the valley the same way he had, and though the arrays impeded its speed, it was still

to trust him, and keep running forward no

legs until he was a match for a centipede in his mad dash. He passed through battered, broken checkpoints, and ahead, began to feel an incredibly unsettling power. The path

sending white embers dancing through the air in increasing frequency and intensity. Its fire burnt away what

the ominous signs, diving headfirst into the whirlwind of power that seemed as deadly as the one behind him. When the Zanti came close

of energy wide enough to fill the valley burnt the air and shattered the earth, far surpassing the speed

came… and

he’d been instructed, he never stopped running. The bolt missed him by such a thin margin that the tremors as it passed by still cut him in half a thousand places. The Zanti, though… it halted, turned, and attempted to exit the valley. Aided by the expelling force of Blackgard’s arrays, it rode away, then upward toward the sky. Though that ultra-powerful bolt of blood followed, it seemed likely to

a single F-rank ward

foul thing. And then, a great explosion of blood magic and white fire consumed the sky. Raven saw no