Jackal Among Snakes

It was monumentally challenging for Anneliese to keep her wits when the earth fell out beneath her feet, yet it proved infinitely more challenging when it rose up to swallow her just as things were calming. Dimocles’ great gash in the earth was not the end to the assault—it was merely a change of arena, one over which he had more mastery.

Dimocles’ flesh was his to control, and it felt as though that ability had extended throughout the whole of the earth. The walls of this vast crater writhed and twisted like something alive, and she heard the screams of thousands of lives extinguished. Other times, she didn’t hear screams at all—she saw people trapped, compressed, and turned to nothing more than gore beneath thousands of tons of earth. They crunched and cracked like meat and bones in earthen teeth.

The earth hunted her, too, though without precision. Great mounds of dirt, sand, and rock attacked from beside and above as she fell, and she dodged them with practiced use of her enchanted boots. Before long the assault became too heavy, and she was forced to counter with two powerful blasts of wind that sent rock upward where it once had fallen. She saw Dimocles, and rather wished she hadn’t.

Dimocles descended down into the crater, too, in the center of this vast crack. His body stretched unfathomably thin and branched out to bridge the whole of the gap as though he was a giant daddy long-leg. Only the head, still bearing the visage of Ji Meng, remained undistorted. Thousands of teal eyes on his elongated limbs frantically searched the pit below before one spotted her after she’d been forced to burst free of the pit. Every eye turned to her at once, their teal light shining like lanterns. Then, she saw vast quantities of magic erupt at the edges of the crater as Dimocles sent commands into the earth.

Anneliese finally reached the bottom of this pit, landing upon the wet sand at the bottom. Meanwhile, the walls themselves started to fold inwards, the faint light above narrowing as it inched ever closer. Dimocles’ colossal and spider-like body slowly recompressed as the edges of the crater came back to bury all that had fallen.

But Anneliese’s goal remained unchanged. She was to kill Dimocles.

Rather than wait, she ascended upwards, powerful bursts of air echoing throughout this vast cavern. The floor beneath spurred into action, gargantuan earthen hands rising up to grasp her, to stop her. Clever wards that she used as platforms stopped them, and the unquantifiable magic within the attacks fueled her ascent.

A great arm erupted from the walls moving slowly, yet when it neared golden-armored palace guards burst from the knuckles, jumping madly. She hoped she might make allies of them, yet she noticed the black malignance of necromancy bursting within them one second too late. Dimocles must’ve killed them, seized them, and repurposed them. They cut through the ward she’d made with their magic-dispelling divine armaments, and then the great hand of earth slammed into her.

The Inerrant Cloak stopped the mighty attack in its track, draining the whole of her magic. Some scant drops of magic flowed into her being, yet it wasn’t enough for a sufficient counter. Knowing attack was her defense, she frantically cast lightning magic at Dimocles, and his conjured wards rejuvenated her enough to facilitate a rapid flight to retreat downward. She used gravity and the force of her magic winds to propel herself as fast as she’d ever gone, whereupon she collapsed ungracefully at the bottom, the Inerrant Cloak absorbing the damage from the fall.

The now-undead palace guards landed all around her from the skies as the walls continued to cave in. Light was thinning to nothing more than small circle… yet suddenly, their unceasing advance stopped. The vast quantities of magic bursting free of Dimocles ceased, and she realized the five minutes were up. The walls’ unnatural movement halted, and this chasm was now a slave only to the forces of nature.

Dimocles, unable to flee, curled those thin and disgusting arms back inward and fell down where undead servants caught him and set him down gently like the emperor he disguised himself as. Anneliese calmed her breathing as the chaos of the fight waned, yet even as she watched, more and more of the palace guards crawled out from the crumbling ceiling and the tumbling walls, broken yet kept walking by necromancy.

“No more gnats to fuel you. Only the elites of this nation, well-suited for dealing with spellcasters… and me,” Dimocles shouted. “You’re drained of magic. You have no way of getting more. No one would be foolish enough to follow after us into this… this sinkhole.” He looked above contemptuously.

From above, a waterfall disturbed the ceiling, casting great stretches of the misshapen crater down as boulders and landslides. Anneliese neared the center, where tumbling rocks were least common.

“You’ve impressed me. I was worried about Argrave, but you… I could keep you,” Dimocles continued. “No—one way or another, I will,” he swore, gesturing to the undead minions. “You can choose in what manner that is.”

Anneliese observed the face of the false emperor. Under ordinary circumstances, she might’ve considered playing along to score a surprise attack… but Dimocles’ face was inscrutable, and she could discern no true emotions from it. No—it was she, alone, against the undead palace guards that could dispel magic with their weapons, and an S-rank spellcaster who knew of her ability. One word to Elenore, and that could be remedied. Her allies would come down to help.

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Anneliese didn’t need help; of this she was near certain. Even still, she knew it prudent to keep others informed, and so she swallowed pride and informed her sister-in-law of the situation.

But once word was sent, she walked forward, sword held out.

“Fine,” Dimocles nodded. “Dead, alive… it doesn’t matter to me. It’s all the same meat.”

When the first palace guard swung at her, her Starsparrow, hanging idle, dove into its sword hand at its ridiculous speed. The blow flew aside, and she cast an ice spear straight into the undead’s neck. As it impaled the body, the necromantic energies within broke down into magic and surged into her. Anneliese used it to soar away with her enchanted boots.

“Cockroach!” Dimocles shouted in panicked fury. “More tricks!”

Taking inspiration from the immutability of earth magic Dimocles had amply displayed, Anneliese cast a spell into the ground. The earth rumbled in an obvious wave as magic carried her will, and then a spike erupted forth where the palace guards were concentrated. Their blades mitigated the effect slightly, but their formation was largely shattered and the spike continued on toward Dimocles. He was forced to block with a ward, and yet more magic replenished Anneliese’s diminished supply.

Dimocles ran far backwards, calling the palace guard back with him for a defensive formation. Anneliese calmly stood atop the spike of earth she’d just made as yet more portions of the wall and ceiling shook the ground as they fell.

“You’re going to die here, Dimocles,” she told him. “With a face not your own, in a land you don’t know, forgotten by everyone except those who’ll kill you.”

The Blue Emperor stared at her, eyes twitching as he thought of a response. Just as he opened his mouth, a huge boulder landed behind him and he turned his head back in surprise. Anneliese quickly cast lighting magic, and three bolts of lighting spread out like a trident seeking Dimocles. Two were dispelled by the undead palace guards’ weapons, yet one hit its mark.

He spasmed, then turned and retaliated by instinct with a high-ranking ward. Dimocles was losing composure, forgetting his plan. Anneliese hammered upon it with low-ranking lightning magic that the palace guards could not easily dissipate, draining and absorbing it all. Then, she walked forward again.

The palace guards, though well-armored, remained nothing more than crude undead wearing the skin of elite soldiers. They didn’t learn, didn’t adapt, and one-by-one she dismantled them efficiently to absorb the magic within them at less expense than she used to end him. Dimocles tried time and time to again to work alongside his creations to land a blow… but even if he had been more competent, she still had the Inerrant Cloak. He ended up wasting magic, fueling her further.

When only three of the palace guards remained, she looked to Dimocles. For the first time, she read him as clear as day. Fear, panic. It oozed from him as he accepted this was his inevitable confrontation with death. In his fear and panic, he shouted, “Just die!”

His body shifted, sprouting crude weapons and strengthening himself to rush faster. He tried to cast a spell from a hand that burst free from his mouth… but Anneliese merely went to the air, leaving behind a B-rank ice spell. An axe blade descended on Dimocles like a guillotine, cutting right through him and sending two parts of him crashing in different directions.

Without his schemes, without his tricks, without gods and their power at his beck and call… he wasn’t much, after all.

Dimocles grew still, but his undead persisted. Anneliese continued to cast attacks at what remained of him until the things fell, finally greeting the death they deserved. She stood for a long while, and as this vast pit continued to settle, her frayed nerves refused to relax. After a very long time, the sounds of great wings beating disturbed her. She looked to the right, where Durran descended down and landed on the back of his wyvern.

“Anneliese!” he said. “Looks like I’m the first to make it. What…?”

“It’s done,” she shouted, voice finally beginning to tremble. She walked up to Dimocles’ body. Ji Meng’s face stared up at her, blue eyes shining in the light like gemstones. What had Dimocles looked like? She didn’t remember, anymore. And no one ever would.

“I stopped him.”

#####

Argrave watched as Durran soared up out of the black abyssal pit. The relief he felt when he saw white hair whipping about in the air was indescribable. The battlefield, once all noise and chaos, had quieted. Even the sky tower above had deigned to lessen its assault, even if only for a brief moment. Erlebnis’ emissaries had abandoned their aim to attack the armies, and what remained of both sides ceased combat entirely.

Durran flew to where Argrave, the Alchemist, and Orion stood waiting. Argrave gave them a wide berth as the wyvern landed, then walked up eagerly when the reptile settled. Durran jumped down first, then helped Anneliese as she hauled something—a grotesque body.

By the time Argrave made it, the two of them had made it back to land. Anneliese, covered in filth, looked at him with hollow amber eyes and said numbly, “I brought Dimocles’ body. He died twisted and inhuman, but he still has Ji Meng’s face. We can present this thing to everyone to bolster Ji Meng’s legitimacy. They’ll know they were tricked, right?”

“Forget about that,” Argrave said, putting his hands on her shoulders. “Are you alright?”

“I’m…” she closed her eyes. It seemed the first time her thoughts had been brought back to herself. “I’m exhausted. I can’t think.”

Argrave held her tight. “Then don’t think. You don’t need to, not anymore. We won. You won,” he said, voice tight and drawn from the intensity of the situation. He stroked her head gently.

Anneliese started shaking, the adrenaline and willpower she’d mustered finally leaving her body as victory settled in its place. It had been a heavy, terrible day… yet Anneliese had won it for them.