Jackal Among Snakes

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.

But Argrave landed, eventually, and 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 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 attention.

Argrave marched, step by step, with his eye fixated on his target. He claimed a path through this jungle, bushwhacking his way to 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 of fortune.

When 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 cut on his hand, fading away to the fiery hellscape all around them.

Some of the strongest blood magic Argrave had only left the tiniest cut in his foe’s hand. The odds were certainly against him, yet if Argrave could touch this Shadowlander… he would try to call upon the bomb tucked away in his body. Physical contact was the only way this might work.

Argrave made more active use of his blood echoes, prevailing 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 them in the form of shadow and blood, it might seem a fight between sluggish old men.

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But with the virtue of pain on his side… Argrave won ground, bit by bit, where he never had before.

The Hopeful fought fiercely, but with both the pressure of the magic arrays in 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 bug.

Argrave dodged, and the impact shattered the earth all around. With a half-stumble, half-lunge, he reached his long 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. Then, he plunged his will into that dark hole at the heart of his being. Like a needle versus a balloon, it passed through easily.

In that moment, Argrave felt the whole world explode from his heart.

The unconscious minds of every living thing burst from the 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 didn’t examine him alone. They crept to Argrave’s hands and flowed into the Hopeful as though they were trying to fill a vacuum.

The 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 of souls. Every intimacy, every embarrassment, every triumph…

The unconscious minds of trillions saw Argrave. And as was the nature of life, they judged.

Separate, the judgment of these souls was a small force, easily disregarded. Yet so tightly compressed, the 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 had done, cast shame upon all of the mistakes they felt he’d made.

But for every soul that thought him shameful, despicable… there were ten others who held a different viewpoint.

Rather than reject, they 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 seen what he’d done, learned him completely and utterly…

…and accepted him.

When Argrave came to his senses, a haunting voice 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 shining out from his eyes and mouth like as though something within was bursting out. He screamed in a disjointed voice that rumbled the earth.

Just as with Argrave, a figment of the unconscious minds of every soul had penetrated the Hopeful. The general population of the world had deemed Argrave more acceptable than objectionable, and by consequence he’d kept his life. By contrast… Argrave didn’t need to be able to peer into the thing’s head to see what was happening.

All the living judged the Hopeful as someone objectionable. They judged him unworthy of life.

The Hopeful spasmed about, craning against the restrictions of the array. This judgment seemed to cause him infinitely more pain than the Trial by Fire had. He dug his ebon fingernails into his eyes and clawed at his own skin as the golden light inside continued to glow brighter and brighter. Looking around, Argrave could see the shadows thinning, slowly being overtaken by the flames of the Trial by Fire.

Eventually, the Hopeful settled on his knees. The glow slowly faded from his body, but the damage it’d left was undeniable. His left arm fell limply to the side, while his right stayed gripping his head. He’d dug his fingers so deeply into his own skull that his right arm couldn’t relax its grip. From the twitching, the eye movements, the spasms… there was still life in the body yet, but Argrave couldn’t say the Hopeful still existed.

That smile had faded. All that remained was the empty shell.

Argrave raised his staff up, empowering it with more blood magic. The blade atop it rose higher, and when it had grown taller than the thing it was meant to cut, Argrave swung it. The magic cleaved straight into the empty shell the Hopeful had left, and though it met some resistance… the body was bisected. He stared at the remains for a long, long while, checking for himself if the thing was well and truly dead.

Argrave hadn’t been too enthusiastic about democracy, but after winning the popular vote, he could confidently say he loved it.

Argrave looked toward the sky, where the Trial by Fire persisted even now. It wouldn’t be long until there was an ending to things. He couldn’t say what their chances were, but… now, it was only a clash between destruction and creation. And with the world having seen and embraced him, he felt markedly more confident.

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