Jackal Among Snakes

Sophia watched the sky with bated breath. All that remained of the wound in the world was a small sliver of blackness. She felt that, any moment, Argrave would burst free of it, triumphant. Everyone else nearby seemed to hold that same thought, for they watched with anticipation equal to her own.C0pyright © 2024 Nôv)(elDrama.Org.

Yet a sudden crash by her side jolted her attention away. She looked to see Doctor Raven, fallen to his hands and knees. His body warped and twisted. A second, far louder crash made Sophia look beyond. There, the golden giant Law leaned up against his sword. His body emitted a golden mist—or rather, it was more accurate to say it became a golden mist.

Hause, too, fell. Lira, every surviving god—it looked like they’d been cut away from the strings holding them aloft. The whole of them began to fall apart. As Sophia’s mind spun searching for the answers, another had already reached the conclusion.

“It’s starting,” Elenore said simply. “He’s done it. Divinity…” she looked to her patron, the wizened Lira, who had collapsed. Next, her gaze went to Raven, who seemed to be struggling more than the gods. “Magic. They’re fading. It means Argrave… he did it.” She held her head, wincing with pain. Sophia assumed she was losing her blessing.

Sophia again looked up, around, everywhere for Argrave. When she found nothing, she looked to Anneliese, hoping. Despite how everyone seemed to be undergoing some manner of change, Anneliese remained suspended. Trapped, her face frozen into a smile, her body unmoving and unchangeable.

Sophia felt her heart beat quicker and quicker as everything around began to undergo change. Her panic only rose higher and higher. If magic and divinity truly faded, Anneliese might not be able to bring back Argrave.

She sought counsel, but all of them—foremost among them being Argrave—were absent. Elenore clutched her head in pain. Orion writhed as his various blessings underwent their changes. Even the taciturn Raven barely contained the sheer pain from whatever he endured, gritting a thousand teeth in silence. Those few unaffected urgently tended to those who were, leaving Sophia alone with this situation.

Sophia felt tremendous fear. She wanted Argrave here. Yet she looked to the sky, beyond the wound in the world. She saw the sun. Argrave’s sun, that he had placed on high to watch over them all. It persisted, gleaming as brilliantly gold as the first moment it had taken its place in the sky. That had to mean he was still here, still present. He would know what to do.

Sophia didn’t want to remake Argrave. She feared her power of creation more than anything. She had made lives, and her negligence had resulted in their death. She had tried to bring Castro back, but all that she’d created was a hollow imitation. Raven had taught her much and more… but deep down, she knew whatever she created would still be but a hollow imitation.

The only one who could truly bring Argrave back was Anneliese. And if magic faded, that might never happen.

Despite her fear and panic, Sophia walked toward Anneliese. She reached her hand out, placing it against Anneliese’s. She felt the familiar warmth from the woman she wished was her mother, but pried deeper with her power. She searched for that which was keeping her in stasis.

When creation met the Spark of Eternity, Sophia withdrew her hand in shock. She looked up at Anneliese’s smiling face, wavering. Was that something she should toy with? She felt if she wasn’t careful, it might swallow her up. Yet… Anneliese had already braved that. She’d embraced it.

I’ll fix this, Argrave had said. And if I can’t… maybe you will. Yeah?

A world deprived of Anneliese, deprived of Argrave… it would be far worse than one deprived of Sophia. With that in mind, Sophia reached her hand out again.

Her creation reached toward eternity, and grasped it.

#####

When Argrave found himself staring at a familiar gray office keyboard that had the WASD keys worn down so much as to be illegible, he felt in equal parts a wave of nostalgia and repulsion. Looking around, he saw it all—his cheap wireless headset, his two monitors, cans of energy drinks on the desk despite the trash being feet away, and even his decrepit faux-leather chair…

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“You must’ve missed it,” came a woman’s voice.

Argrave whipped his head to the left where the doorway to his room hung open. At its entrance stood a woman wearing clothes he hadn’t seen in a very long time—just jeans and a plain white shirt. Blonde hair, blue eyes… she had a very innocent quality in her beautiful features.

He rose to his feet at once, flinching when his head came uncomfortably close to the ceiling fan spinning above. Whether the synthetic light of the lightbulb, the constant noise of the fan, or the sound of the cars outside… it all made him uncomfortable.

None of these sensations could compare to the total absence of magic.

It was like losing the sense of hearing, of sight. He hadn’t realized how much magic had become a fundamental part of his perception of the world around him until he’d lost it. Still, he’d spent more of his life without it than he ever had with it. He didn’t panic, didn’t lash out. He merely watched this woman, waiting for what came as he contemplated his options.

“Your home,” the woman continued. “Your parents. Perhaps you can smell the bacon-and-eggs cooking right now, if you walk outside. A full life ahead of you. Very little pain and suffering. The comforts and ease brought about by technology.” She took a deep breath. “You must miss those amenities, having gone without them for so long.”

He took it all in. Conditioning built through decades made him hesitant to break anything in here, even after being apart for many years. He should’ve known these people would couch everything in illusions and half-truth. But he was tired of listening to others talk, tired of bargaining for things someone should never bargain for

In the past, he might’ve listened. Now?

Argrave held his right hand out. “Let’s cut to the chase.”

With thought alone, an indescribable abyss took shape in his hand. Its mere presence bent and tore everything around him, expelling it outward and compelling it inward concurrently until the walls, the floors, everything, began to disintegrate. He rose his hand up higher and higher as that sphere of destruction grew larger and larger.

Even the blonde woman’s form began to shimmer, distort. In time her hair was ripped from her scalp, her skin from her bones, and all the parts that constructed a human. It stripped it all away, until the only thing remaining was a Herald. Argrave couldn’t perceive what he was seeing—it seemed to be an absence, a hole in the world not unlike the wound he’d travelled through to make it here.

As more and more of this world broke down beneath the might of destruction, his true surroundings made themselves known. All around, watching, were Heralds. Each were scars in his sight, not seeming to truly exist. They were holes in paper, cracks in the window, shadows in the night. All times before, they needed a host to latch onto. He had perceived them as that host. This was what they truly were.

In time, the terrible chaos wrought by the power of destruction waned. The Heralds seemed immune to its effects, much like Argrave himself. They kept their distance all the same. He didn’t know whether or not it was because they were endangered by it, but he kept his attention raised.

“Maybe there was some truth to what Griffin said,” Argrave shouted. “Because this is feeling rather natural to me.”

The sheer sensation of power at Argrave’s fingertips was beyond anything that he’d ever experienced. The full mental might of the world might be comparable, but this? It obeyed his whim, followed his orders, did his bidding. It had the potential to wipe away the whole world. If it was harnessed to better ends, nobler ends… it might be wielded to defend the realm from things like the Heralds.

By this point, the whole of destruction had manifested in Argrave’s hand. It seemed a universe unto itself. The Heralds watched and waited, doing nothing. Argrave looked between all of them, staring into the unknown, seeing the answer to so many questions he’d asked since the beginning. Even without speaking, the things they could offer was clear. Answers. The truth. True freedom, true power. Argrave saw the gleaming smile of the Hopeful, still anticipating the changes to come. They promised to be either the trumpeters of his arrival, or the first victims of his slaughter. All he needed to do was step forth, in dogged pursuit.

Just behind it all, like an all-consuming background, was the promise of something more. A greater realm to be reached. Higher heights. Something more, something beyond. A purpose to the madness, a design to the destruction, an explanation for the whole of all life. It invited him forth, beckoning. It offered him a place in the universe not dissimilar to theirs—to own, to control, to create, to rule. To herald change in the lesser worlds, watching their response.

Argrave looked to the power of destruction. He closed his fist, and turned it against itself.

At once, a howl of despair and anguish unlike anything Argrave had ever heard echoed in this place. The Heralds, once still and silent, surged forth with fury and distress enough to break the universe. Destruction feasted on its last target, tearing it apart piece-by-piece. It ate away at its bearer, too. Argrave felt no pain, merely a quickening absence. He couldn’t be sure this force wouldn’t break his soul, too. But it hardly mattered.

As the Heralds swarmed their burning prize in abject pain, and as destruction came to truly understand what it was… Argrave saw a glimpse of the truth everyone had been denied. And what was it?

Nothing worth seeking.

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