Jackal Among Snakes

“So long as you stay with me, Sophia, you’ll be fine. Ignore everything that comes for us, no matter what form it takes.” He held her small hand in his, preparing for what was coming. “I won’t let go. You can’t, either. He’ll try everything to break what you’ve created. But we won’t let him, will we?”

“No,” Sophia said defiantly yet fearfully.

A terrifying, fleeting power had permeated the city of Blackgard. Everyone could feel it, and some had even experienced it before. Still, no one was fully prepared to experience what would come this cycle, not even Argrave. It had the heat of a flame, yet his body remained the same temperature. It had the weight of the planet, yet exerted no pressure. It tasted and smelled like everything, even when there was only saliva in his mouth and air on his nose.

All of the buildings ahead began to warp and distort, folding inward on themselves, curving eternally into the sky. The mountains surrounding them rose high enough to pierce into space while descending deep enough into the earth to pierce the dwarven city of Mundi. Even Anneliese’s ward, sustained by eternity, couldn’t fully resist what was coming. It sphere became a universe unto itself as the Spark of Eternity fought a power that was its peer… or perhaps it superior.

Sophia’s power was that of creation. It could bend reality. Griffin’s power was that of destruction. And her brother’s power had as much mastery over reality as hers did.

Gerechtigkeit’s reality-bending power made the world around the instrument of his destruction. It could master and control everything outside the domain of creation and life. Dirt, stone, metal, cloth, water, fire, lava, even the wind—these blank slates without a spark of sentience were the perfect vessel for his consummate desire. And with them in hand, he brought forth not merely a hell… but everyone’s hell. Up, down, left, right—they became meaningless distinctions in this world of nightmares.

The rows of buildings twisted into mockeries of people he’d once known. His distant cousins, nephews and nieces, his parents, all made into incestuous abominations that clambered toward him, melting like wax with every step they took.

“You’re happy,” they whispered at him, their faces all smiles. “Can you share it?”

Argrave’s might’ve forgotten they were foes without the presence of Sophia, who squeezed his hand tighter in fear from whatever personalized nightmare she was facing. He used blood magic, clinging to the pain to ground him for what needed to be done. His parents screamed in agony as he severed their body limb-by-limb, as he watched them bleed and spasm from his attacks with light draining from their eyes. Their corpses remained, like a reminder of his sin.

White-haired children clawed at Argrave’s boots, their eyes amber and their ears elven. Each and all had umbilical cords still attached, leading back to a putrescent bloated woman with Anneliese’s face. Beside her stood himself, but instead of his own face, he bore that of Anneliese’s biological father’s—her mother’s rapist.

“Daddy!” the children sang. “Love me! Love me like mommy!”

Argrave felt rising bile in his throat as he prepared to wipe away what he saw. His children broke his legs and tried to eat his calves as he hesitated, and it was reason enough to purge that disgusting image with more blood magic than was necessary.

A sharp pain pierced Argrave’s back, and when he grasped at it pulled free a knife from his back. He looked toward its source to see Elenore, sitting atop Orion like a bench. His brother clenched Anneliese’s face, crushing it like a melon as she screamed in total agony.

“I never loved you,” Elenore said. “Not once. You’re more of a dog than he is.”

Induen, Levin, and Felipe III rushed at Argrave like frenzied ghouls, and Argrave’s blood magic raged against them with tremendous struggles. They cut his arms off near as much as he himself used them for blood magic. Sophia’s vitality kept him whole, but Argrave felt battered and broken, and he stumbled upward through time.

Sophia ran out at Argrave through the dark, and he squeezed his hand to reassure himself the one he saw was merely an illusion. She looked panicked, terrified. Before she could reach Argrave, a giant bird’s foot slammed down upon her. The Smiling Raven tore out her guts with its beak piece by piece as she screamed, and already Argrave prepared blood magic.

“I only wanted the power of creation,” the Smiling Raven said, bearing Raven’s face on its head. “You were always nothing.”

Argrave blasted it with as many [Godkillers] as he could muster, but no matter how many he sent forth it continued to devour this false Sophia as she screamed. With his final blow he wiped away both of them, and stood there immersed in his pain to keep him sane. He felt something wet strike his cheek, and looked up with an attack at the ready.

Sophia, though somewhat older, hung from a noose, her wrists sliced open. Her dripping tears and flowing blood struck him with the force of bullets, nearly casting him to the ground.

“I’m sorry, dad. You couldn’t help me. I couldn’t forget,” she said sadly.

Beneath the weight of the assault, Argrave could only send forth blood echoes to fight back against this foul conjuration. It felt as though the weight of it might break him, and it very nearly did as much in mind as it did in body. He had seen awful things—plenty of them. These, though, tore the fears straight from his soul and manifested them as reality. They were exact, and they were cutting.

“You failed us!” Galamon and Durran shouted, bearing down upon him with a host of Veidimen and southern tribals.

“You’re not fit to rule!” Vasilisa yelled, bearing the head of Archduchess Diana on a spike as she led her host of northern soldiers.

“Your name shall be stricken from history,” Emperor Ji Meng explained calmly, arriving at the shore with a host even grander than the one he’d brought to their northern shores. R̃

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Argrave could see it all unfolding—Berendar becoming a destitute wasteland, wrought by war even in the wake of his victory. The continent was ravaged and pillaged and every great city utterly wiped away. Its people were killed and tortured by people seeking vengeance for the chaos Argrave himself had brought to them. They became barbarous animals, and Argrave the greatest example of hubris the world had ever known.

Argrave’s body split and broke, bent and shattered, cracked and burnt, twisted and disintegrated… yet somehow, somehow, he fought back all those insurmountable forces, those worming doubts made flesh.

At some point, however, Argrave’s blood magic met one of his one attacks. He stared in confusion, until he saw a figure walking out from the abyss.

“I was wrong,” Argrave said, staring at him. “I put in all this work, all this effort… spent millions, maybe billions of lives… and in the end, I didn’t fix a damn thing.”

“…fucking hell,” Argrave muttered beneath his breath, then cast out [Godkiller] once again.

Doubter Argrave neutralized it with a spell of his own, advancing ever closer as he continued to speak.

“Even after I beat myself, going through the wound in the world didn’t achieve much. The things that I was expecting to be there weren’t.” Skeptic Argrave cast out blood magic with the same reckless abandon Argrave did, and he could only backpedal while holding Sophia’s hand to avoid much of it.

“There wasn’t a solution,” Sad Argrave shouted over the carnage. “The reason the Heralds didn’t give a damn was because they didn’t need to. Honestly, what was I thinking? It was clear from day one that we were like fish in a fishtank. Even if a clever octopus manages to escape its aquarium, it won’t change the reality of the matter. We’ve lost the race before it’s begun. They’re just operating at a different level compared to us.”

Argrave imbued a tremendous amount of blood magic into his staff, and the thing began radiating with such an intense crimson light it warded away even some of the darkness persisting all around. He strode forth, swinging it straight at Pessimist Argrave. The amalgamation caught the blow simply.

“Defeating yourself won’t change anything. You go through the wound. You see the truth. At the end of the day, at the end of the road… the only thing you’re doing is killing yourself,” Depressed Argrave said, even as the blade of blood cut through its flesh. “Admit it. You’re wrong. You’ve never been right. You’re looking for that silver bullet, but it doesn’t exist, my man.”

Argrave headbutted Emo Argrave and used Garm’s eyes in the same instance, delivering a devastating volley of blood magic right into his face.

“Want a metaphor?” Cynical Argrave said, even as he reeled backward from the blow. “You were playing blackjack. You had one of the best hands you can get—a twenty. You had a hot wife, really smart family, you were king, and everybody loved you. You could’ve killed Gerechtigkeit. Wouldn’t have been perfect, sure… but it was damn close. And even with that hand, you asked the dealer to hit. You were looking for that ace.” The fake held his arms in an archery stance, and a [Bloodfeud Bow] took shape, gathering power quicker than Argrave could conceive.

“Now… I’m afraid you’ve gone bust.”

The false Argrave released the power that Argrave had so oppressed others with in the past—the might of the [Bloodfeud Bow], of all his lifeforce condensed into a single point. As it approached, he was near certain that his body would die. Even despite all of that, he stood firm, directing all of his attention toward the coming attack.

It seemed impossible to block. Perhaps it was a paper tiger—a dramatic show of force without much power behind it. Perhaps Argrave mustered more power than he ever had. Perhaps he instinctually grabbed Sophia and used her as an invulnerable meat shield before delivering a devastating counterattack. To be frank, even Argrave wasn’t quite sure what he did. He merely had one conviction in his heart.

I’m not wrong.

A great blast of power erupted from Argrave’s being, overbearing the approaching attack. The fake tried to defend, but all his magic seemed to fold away like a field of grass in the wake of this power. It tore up the earth, shattered the atmosphere of desolation and destruction, and seemed to reclaim the world of the nightmare that had consumed it.

By the end of it all, Argrave stood tall, still holding Sophia’s hand. Dark Argrave had fallen to the floor, pierced in half a dozen places as he laid there, dying. Unlike the real thing, he couldn’t reconstitute—he merely bled and died. With his death, the endless screaming, the constant pressure, the weight of the world—all had gone, and upward was again open sky instead of a never-ending nightmare.

Looking around, Blackgard was entirely gone. Nothing, not even the mountains, remained. Living nightmares died in every direction—giants, abominations, forces of chaos and destruction, all met their end without the fell power fueling them. Argrave couldn’t even tell how many had died. He saw his own corpse what must’ve been half a thousand times. He was rather touched so many people saw him as a nightmare.

Argrave feared that this would be another trick, another bait-and-switch before something awful appeared. Everyone else seemed to think this, too. Argrave saw Law, slowly rising from the corpse of dead gods. He saw Raven rising from the corpse of the Smiling Raven—and he was joined by Lorena, who Argrave had been certain was dead. Then again, perhaps he shouldn’t be surprised—she was a shapeshifter, so being cut in half couldn’t have been so bad.

“…Argrave?” came Elenore’s voice in his head.

Reminded of the situation, Argrave looked to where the ward protected Elenore and Anneliese had been. Hearing his sister’s voice had soothed some of his worries… but no matter where he looked, he couldn’t see her ward.

“Are you alright?” He responded back, kneeling down beside Sophia. She looked utterly exhausted, but she was still fully present. She gave him a wordless smile, and he returned it. “Is everyone alright?”

“The continent… the world…” Elenore’s voice was heavy. “It nearly shattered. But… it held. I think… I think we won.”

Argrave breathed a sigh of indiscernible emotions. He picked Sophia up, looking all around at this wasteland of corpses and devastation. As far as the eye could see, nothing had been spared this nightmare. He couldn’t even begin to imagine the damage this had caused. He looked up at the wound in the world. It persisted—and would, for some hours. The moment they verified Gerechtigkeit’s death, he intended to head through it.

“Argrave… please don’t act rashly, but… Gerechtigkeit came for Anneliese, hard.”

Hearing Elenore convey those words made every nightmare Argrave had endured feel like nothing. Even still, he felt their connection, felt her existence, still going strong. Artur’s artifacts still existed within both of them. That was the only thing that enabled him to listen to Elenore. Whatever had happened, Anneliese was alive.

“He knew of your connection. He must’ve sought to break her so he could break you. His power could slip by her wards, and she couldn’t escape it. She helped me and some of us in the shelter, then…” Elenore’s pause made him want to lash out. “You should come see for yourself.”

“I’m not keen on a suspense thriller starring the woman I love,” Argrave practically shouted in his head. “Just tell me.”

“She was forced to imbue her body with the Spark of Eternity,” Elenore said resignedly.