Jackal Among Snakes

“Are you sure you’re alright to do this?” Argrave asked as he stared at the last fort standing between the southern valley and the city of Blackgard. The last thing keeping out Gerechtigkeit’s present avatar—a terrifying force of nature.

Sophia watched ahead unwaveringly. “It’s what you’d do… right, dad?”

Argrave eyed her. He’d never actually heard her call him ‘father’ or ‘dad.’ He didn’t want to demand it of her—he had no right to force the title out of her, even if it was something he wanted her to feel comfortable saying. In the end, that long wait had been worth it. It carried far more weight than if he’d simply demanded it.

“Well, maybe not when I was your age.” Argrave inhaled deeply. “I’d be playing this scenario out with action figures instead of actually living through it. The reality is a lot scarier.”

As if to prove that point, a great destructive noise echoed over and above the fort, and Sophia tensed. Elenore fed him more information, but in truth he paid them little mind as he waited for Sophia’s next words.

“I don’t want this to end,” Sophia said simply. “If I can do that… I want to.”

The last fort burst wide open in a white inferno that turned stone, wood, enchantment, and even the closest parts of the mountain all to ash. Golden embers drifted through the air as that four-armed centaur automaton walked through, its body cracked and exposed in parts where Argrave had managed blows. It took in the city almost in awe, before focusing those terrible eyes it had on the pair of them.

Argrave put Sophia down, keeping his eye on this opponent. Inside the city, the restraints of the array upon their enemies would totally cease to function. Proving this point, in a blink of an eye the Zanti was upon them, his arms grasping futilely at Sophia. She stared up at the thing fearfully, yet unflinchingly. It was as if there was an invisible barrier around her. Argrave, meanwhile, thrust his hand out with a spell at the ready.

He used [Godkiller] up close. His arm burst into gore as it always had, yet before it could even strike its target all his flesh and blood returned to him. The Zanti only briefly diverted its attention away, slapping half-heartedly at the magic with one arm. Instead of the former outcome, its arm was utterly repelled, and the bolt of pure blood magic slammed into its body. The centaur automaton was sent flying away at breakneck speeds, propelled out toward the coast. It split the water before being lost in it, sending a great wave outward into the sea.

Raven had taught Sophia three things while Argrave did his best to hold back Gerechtigkeit’s final card. One, she’d learned to imitate Jaray’s power. She could no longer hurt anything, but nor could anything hurt her—the god of politics proved to be of some value to them in the end. Second, she’d been taught how to funnel her power of creation into the wellspring of Argrave’s vitality. Like this, he’d stacked another modifier atop his blood magic—the power of creation, of life itself. There could be no more potent fuel, as that one brief exchange had proven.

And thirdly… Sophia had learned how to allow Argrave to pursue Gerechtigkeit through the wound in the world. All that remained was sending the calamity back there to finally break the cycle.

“Are you okay?” Sophia asked urgently, having seen his arm explode. “Did it hurt?”

“Not a bit,” Argrave lied, tousling her hair. “You?”

“No. Just a little tired, like back then.” She shook her head.

“Alright.” Argrave looked to where Gerechtigkeit had been hit. “Then… time to pull out all the stops.”

Argrave walked up to the coast with his arms held out, bringing into being thousands of blood-infused [Electric Eels] which been ranked up to use a higher volume of both magic and blood. Through the haze of pain such spells caused him, he found himself half-listening to all that Elenore told him—the people coming, the strategies. She understood, taking the burden as sole strategist. Nothing but his total attention could stop the coming beast.

With eels pulsing around him in rings and providing protection from any rapid approach, Argrave stopped and scanned the coastline. As he watched, the ocean itself began to boil, sending steam into the air and obscuring the distance in a dense mist. The instant Argrave saw a shift in the air, he knew what was coming.

White fire erupted upward from the earth as the Zanti came back like a comet, dragging its blade upon the ground and leaving a huge emptiness in its wake. The automaton led a vanguard of white fire that ate all it passed by. The whole of the harbor vanished, and shortly after it countless homes. Argrave brought forth every last cell in his body toward one singular end—blocking the coming attack.

From his eyes and hands, from all the blood echoes he could conjure, Argrave’s blood soared to meet that seemingly inexorable cleansing flame. His body died and came alive again what felt like a million times a moment until the two opposing forces slammed against each other. The sheer might of their collision created a shockwave dispersing the energy in every direction. Nearby buildings simply shattered, great orchards flew up into the sky, entire fields were torn into wastelands, and countless great peaks of the mountain crumbled, creating rockslides that threatened to bury the city.

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Both the Zanti and Argrave confronted each other in the calm heart of that storm of chaos. Argrave swung his staff imbued with a bloody blade at the white saber that slashed at him callously. The white metal saber met the blade of blood. Argrave’s magic was so potent it cut through the blade, cut through the hand holding it, and severed the upper right arm of the terrible machine in one swing.

The Zanti stumbled slightly as Argrave turned to face it, looking between its severed arm and Argrave in what was obvious surprise. Gerechtigkeit’s black essence spewed out of the hole, coalescing into a tail-like lance that pierced Argrave through the chest before he could even see it attacking. A black poison took root in his body, spreading throughout it and making him wither from within. Eventually, Gerechtigkeit retracted his appendage, but the poison persisted.

Enduring it stoically, Argrave prepared for another clash. Instead, the Zanti turned, galloping deeper into Blackgard. Argrave conjured more [Electric Eels] after they’d been expended in the clash, sending them after his retreated figure. Undoubtedly Gerechtigkeit intended to threaten him by going after Elenore… but if the calamity had taken the time to look back, he could see Argrave smiling even with blackened, rotting gums.

A bident soared toward the approaching automaton. In the next moment, Raven teleported to it—it was the divine weapon Admiral Tan Shu had once used. Alongside it, he bore countless divine weapons, brandished in hundreds of arms that made the automaton’s three seem paltry by comparison. Empowered by these countless artifacts, Raven swung, stabbed, and flailed down upon Gerechtigkeit. To say the least, it was not as the first clash.

The Zanti was sent crashing to the ground as it had once sent Raven. The impact it left was deep enough that parts of the city began to fall away into the nearby river. There, Argrave’s bloody eels finally caught up with him. The red electricity blackened and melted the impeccable white metal of the automaton, sullying that savior’s shell the calamity sported. With no more eels to control and the poison fading, Argrave sped forth as fast as he could with [Echo Step].

Purifying fire rose up in an enraged attempt to wash away Raven utterly. The man threw the bident stolen from the Great Chu once more, prevailing upon its teleportation. The Zanti looked like to either chase Raven or proceed to the parliamentary hall, but he never got the opportunity. The smallest cut of shadow appeared before it, and in the next moment, a Shadowlander blade stabbed at the thing’s chest. It was fast enough to leap away, but not fast enough to avoid damage. The blade claimed one of the legs of the Zanti, then vanished back into the Shadowlands like Traugott so often had.

Before Gerechtigkeit could even respond, another attacker scored a blow—Dario, hidden away in the mountains, fired a mechanical weapon of his design empowered by spirits. A javelin intended to hunt whales slammed directly in the center of the horse like body of the creation. It was a particularly brutal blow, as if the man took offense at Gerechtigkeit’s imitation and adoption of his people’s art of automatons.

Moments after, the Shadowlander appeared again. As if advised by foresight, the Zanti whipped its body and gripped the blade, yanking the perpetrator out. That white-haired Shadowlander was the one responsible. He gripped her neck and jammed an elbow straight through her chest, breaking her. Then, its third arm lashed out at the portal, digging its fingers in before it could close. With a pull, Gerechtigkeit somehow tore open the Shadowlands, revealing the portal’s creator. A burst of white fire exploded into the Shadowlands moments after, killing any and all unfortunate enough to be nearby.

Argrave attempted to smite the wrecked automaton with another [Godkiller], yet Gerechtigkeit’s black essence cracked like a whip and batted it into the distant mountain. Artur’s Hall of Enchantment was directly hit, and in the resulting rockslide buried the entrance of the building while much of it seemed to collapse inside. In the next moment an eerie black hand attempted to grasp him, but Argrave instinctually lashed out with raw power.

By the time Argrave realized the attack had been a fake-out, the Zanti had already nearly made it to the parliamentary hall. Dario fired another javelin from his post with impeccable aim, yet Gerechtigkeit caught it as if the attack were a joke, throwing it back with animosity. Cleansing white flames began to build all around him as he proceeded. He was the closest he’d ever been, but Argrave didn’t hurry. Instead, he stopped altogether.

Argrave breathed a deep sigh of relief as a faint ward began to rise up out of the parliamentary hall. Anneliese, rather than chase by foot, had taken the Shadowlands. Before ever even fighting Gerechtigkeit, they’d dropped her off in the heart of the parliamentary hall to protect Elenore, their nexus of communications. With Anneliese’s Spark of Eternity, all those within would be totally safe.

A great horde of Shadowlanders began to fill the broken city from the portal Gerechtigkeit had wrenched open, uncoordinated yet bloodthirsty in the wake of the deaths of their two greatest proponents. Argrave felt a great surge of vigor in his chest, and looking behind, saw Law marching in from the southern valley, bringing with him his Domain of Law. Other great gods joined him, eager to avenge those that had fallen. Argrave himself never ceased creating electric eels for a moment, as he prepared to end this.

Looking upon that wrecked automaton, with all his allies at hand, victory felt close at hand.

“It’s all so tiresome,” came Gerechtigkeit’s voice—fatigued, resigned, disappointed.

The body of the Zanti fell like a lifeless doll, clattering quietly.

“Surgical precision is an ill-suited method for me,” he continued. Argrave saw subtle waves of darkness on the edge of his vision, and could predict what was soon to come. “But it brought me here. That was more than enough.”

Argrave felt a rising nervousness which he expressed as a smile as he awaited what came next. For the people of the world, the final stand came—for Argrave, though, this the beginning of the end. Griffin had abandoned the Zanti. Without that shell, all that remained was ending his very essence.

But as the earth tremored and the mountains trembled, the planet itself seemed to reject the coming coalescence. It was a power that didn’t belong in this world.