Jackal Among Snakes

Pain was a frightful thing. It was meant to be frightful by instinct, meant to ward the experiencer away from something that was doing them harm. Argrave had developed much of his strategy around the avoidance of pain. He was well-accustomed to experiencing it when he had time to prepare, whether becoming black blooded, or ascending to A-rank. But getting hit? It simply wasn’t part of his strategy.

As the fight with Sataistador dragged on, Argrave realized that he was fighting the same way in this soul model as he generally did in reality. He harried his opponent with blood echoes, but Sataistador’s troops were perhaps the only Argrave had dealt with that managed to essentially avoid any and all damage with clever placement of spellcasters throughout the army. Command was always a step ahead, and neither infantrymen nor archers were ever exposed to true risk. Sataistador was an old hand at this war business.

Anyone with a keen understanding of the matter—the Alchemist, perhaps—would point out how fundamentally foolish playing cautiously was, right now. Argrave had an Undying Soul. There was enough testament to its strength in the name alone. Yet rather than take advantage of that, Argrave hid in the background, letting his other boons speak for him. His soul was to become the crux of their plan against Gerechtigkeit… yet he was not endeavoring to use it whatsoever.

He had power enough. He had knowledge enough. He had skill enough. What he lacked in this battle was the willingness to shoulder risk. Sataistador invoked the fear of pain in Argrave, but he didn’t truly deserve that—not anymore. This realization was a moment of clarity that made Argrave stop all movement, look to the sky, and burst upward with powerful wind magic. Before long, even Sataistador’s jeering went out of earshot. Argrave could hear the lightning crackling in the clouds all around him, yet there were moments of peace so high that he embraced to prepare for what was coming.

At what felt like the peak, the natural summit, Argrave simply stopped. No more wards, no more spells. He let the air claim him, and fell down as fast as gravity would permit. He kept his eyes open against the stinging winds even though he felt it might crush his eyes. The thousands of distant men seemed like ants, but in seconds they became full-bodied figures with their sights trained on Argrave alone.

Seconds before impact, Argrave slowed his fall with a spell and alighted with tremendous—if survivable—force. He was right in the heart of Sataistador’s forces, and he became equal parts chaos to what Sataistador had offered. All of the elements he had at his disposal roared out, tearing into the manifold god of war with magic from his hands and his blood echoes. But just as Argrave hit, so was he hit. There was hardly any strategy to it at all, just a brutish slugging match… but who better for such a game than one who was undying in this arena?

Arrows, spells, even stray axes—they came at him unrelentingly from all sides. They struck true, and they pained him. Defense was cast to the wayside as each of the other accepted that once the other obtained advantage, the battle would slowly slip away just as a snowball grows larger rolling down a hill. Reserve troops came from hidden recesses, archers took higher ground, spellcasters assumed defensive roles while keeping powerful magic close at hand like waiting spears, and infantrymen rushed forth with their shields at the ready. What had been skirmishes between reluctant enemy became a melee.

“You neglected to remember one thing, Argrave,” Sataistador’s army called out in unison. “I am not war alone.”

In moments, Sataistador’s waiting trap was sprung. The myriad bodies composing his army burst into red flames, and the haunting smell of burning hair and searing flesh filled the air. The fire ate through everything—wood, stone, steel, ice, fire, or lightning; it took them all as fuel every bit as potent as gasoline. Everything that Argrave sent outward to combat it only made it rise ever hotter. Sataistador himself wasn’t spared the ill effects of his flame; such was the nature of the fire of chaos. It burns through all it touches.

Soon enough, Argrave felt that flame touching him, too. Of all the pain he’d experienced in moments past, nothing could compare to the fire of chaos that Sataistador had nurtured for his long life. It was pure havoc, and it fed on destruction in a manner most brutal. As it climbed across Argrave’s skin, soaking inside to set his blood boiling and his organs shriveling… he’d never forgotten its potential, not for a moment. He’d just remembered a sacred adage, often espoused by the great wisdom-givers that had instructed Argrave in the art of physical education.

No pain, no gain.

#####

A lance of crimson fire erupted into the air, straight out of the Palace of Heaven. It broke past the floor and walls, melting away great sections of the supposedly impenetrable walls in a corkscrew of reckless power. Kirel Qircassia’s sky tower, floating high above, made no attempt to defend or dodge. Instead, the whole of it shifted to accommodate this destructive fire. It had been waiting.

The fire of chaos coiled into the walls of the sky tower, turning the white clouds a haunting red as it ascended and empowered these flames further. Meanwhile, that on the outer edge of the tower shifted, twisted, as it had countless times before to prepare for a bombardment. The people watching it—even gods as great as Law—could only watch in abject fear as they felt the incredible power erupting forth from that fire. It bore such an unmistakable sense of havoc that even mortal men untrained in the matters of the magical could feel it… feel it, and fear it. Around the continent, dread budded in the hearts of all.

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Then, the fire exploded upward in a display of unprecedented beauty. The fire seemed a budding rose, while the white clouds of the sky tower seemed the stem. It seemed to burn away the sky itself, turning all above from blue to a deep and rich black like perfect framing for the painting. Some few moments after the sight, came the sound—a deep, bassy rumbling that was tremorous enough to set the earth rumbling.

The fiery flower petals reached their apex and, as if plucked by invisible hands, broke free from their white stem. Doubt flickered in the minds of many, who wondered in light of the beauty if their fear was unwarranted. Their hopeful doubts were put to rest when these fiery petals stopped their ascent, shattering into a thousand crimson comets that plummeted back toward the earth, leaving a trail of red and black in their wake.

Color began to drain from the skies. In time, the only sight that persisted above the skies of the Great Chu were that of red and black. Those that had never seen Gerechtigkeit briefly considered if this, perhaps, was it. People screamed, prayed, and clutched their loved ones tightly to say what they thought might be their last goodbyes.

And the one person who might’ve reveled in what was to come… he, too, panicked.

Sataistador’s army—unrelenting in its assault, adaptable beyond compare, began to rout. They fled toward the Palace of Heaven with such abandon their foes too bewildered to give chase. Even Law was hard-pressed to stop them from pouring through the holes in the fortress. It became clear in a few moments why that was, when the crimson comets in the sky turned inward.

The thousands of bolts of flame curved inward, back toward the Palace of Heaven and all above it. They wound about that ferocious cannon of clouds, writhing and tightening like a python or a vice. Then, the fires of chaos tore through those white clouds as though they were as fluffy as they appeared. Countless gods and divine servants erupted out into the sky, to escape the burning building, but the fire of chaos had already claimed them. Spirits flowed freely, and no one had the gall to claim them. They could only flee, lest it eat through all of them. Kirel Qircassia himself fled into his divine realm, warding away any that sought for refuge with ethereal black and white hands.

In a few minutes, all that remained of the sky tower was thin wisps on a black background. Then, with nothing left to destroy, the fires next plummeted downward toward the Palace of Heaven with far more ferocity than gravity alone could muster. They sought the frantic legions of the god of war, smiting him with righteous fury of vengeance. There was a will behind them—an anger of a life betrayed, of a man used. The attacks had the razor precision of an administrator. When they struck, all that remained were deep, smoldering craters.

Sataistador sought the Palace of Heaven for cover, yet weakened as it was, the walls proved little resistance against the weapon of his own making. There was a humor few could appreciate; those countless millennia ago, Sataistador had used the fire of chaos to break through the fort’s walls. Now, it broke them again in pursuit of eradicating all he stood for.

#####

After the eruption of crimson fire from the Stormfield, the only two still remaining near the array were Argrave and Anneliese. She had been holding him tightly when the bombardment started coming, but as time progressed, she found him too hot to hold. Looking upon him, she could see the price he was paying for this attack. To control it, Argrave had welcomed the fire of chaos into his very soul. Now it rampaged through his body just as it wreaked havoc outside.

Argrave’s soul, ever brilliant, was being burnt away. Knowing this, and knowing what he had tasked her with, Anneliese took the weapon forged of Veid’s heart in her left, while her right reached back out toward that intense flame. Whatever the cost, she would not let him pass away. She placed her bare hand upon his face, and welcomed that fell flame using [Life Cycle].

The pain of the fire of chaos was so intense that Anneliese could not even hear her own screams. The only thing that kept her going was Argrave’s golden soul, which regained some of its sheen due to her efforts. The icy chill of Veid’s heart, though present, was the equivalent of an ice cube before magma. Just when she felt she might succumb to the heat, she felt someone new help her.

Anneliese dimly recognized the presence of Lira, goddess of connections, and Rook, god of deception and subterfuge. Lira had opened a bridge of some kind between herself and Rook, and through it, diverted the unrelenting tide of the fire of chaos somewhat. Then, another balm came, and she felt the kind yet unrelenting aura of Law as one of his domains empowered her.

With some cognition returned, Anneliese could see hundreds of thousands of soldiers in Sataistador’s army coming down upon them, seeking to end Argrave from without just as his fire killed from within. There was a ferocity brought about only by desperation, and Anneliese could see the terror writ in the ancient god’s face as his own weapon was turned against him. Yet the fire of chaos, or the other gods of the Blackgard Union, proved a stalwart barrier.

When Anneliese again looked upon Argrave’s soul, she saw only dim specks of the fire of chaos, slowly extinguished by its brilliance. And seeing that, all strength left her. She fell upon Argrave. There was a cost to be paid to endure such chaos. That cost—on Argrave, on Anneliese, on the whole of the Great Chu, had yet to be tallied. But through chaos, great things could be born.

In this case, Anneliese was certain it had brought them victory.

#####

Law watched the dying embers of the fire of chaos fall like snow upon the Palace of Heaven—or rather, the summit of this mountain that had once held the palace. Little remained of it after that destructive show. Chaos had wiped it all away; it, and many thousands of lives. There were certain incontrovertible laws about the world. Chaos, despite its nature, had several. One was plainly on display today.

Chaos was just as likely to kill its creator as it was those it was manufactured to harm.