XXXVIII
The light chimes of keys playing filled the heated air like the chime of a morning alarm. Death was rattling away on his instrument, once again facing away from what would become the arena for another blood skirmish between grand powers of the mortal plain–as if he truly did not care for the fight, and it was true. Killing was a means to The Guidance–a means to correct the wrong-doings of the young immortal that ruthlessly blew out the waning fire of humanity. Blood was life–and once this creature shed their blood, the mass of souls would be able to rest, would be able to cry in happiness once they see their loved ones again for the first time since they were forced to massacre them–forced to become something they were never meant to be, and the knight was the only way he could do that, so he played his disfigured keys in silence, not relishing the moment, not saddened by what the mortal man had become, but glad. Glad for them–carefully masked beyond the detached apathy of the collector, a warlord simply doing his job.
In the area bathed in the light of his ally, the knight fell like an asteroid falling from the heavens and onto land below–but this asteroid guaranteed divine judgement–and peace to its adversary. Sword in hand, the knight fell to the surface, blade held high above his head, clasped in both his hands for accuracy, he soon landed feet first directly in front of the creature made of childhood nightmares, and perfectly times his blade to land on the zenith of the creature's barren head, only adorned by the unsettling gaze of three separate eyes staring at him with the cruelty of something possessed, Rising Tide was promptly slammed into its head as hard as he could–evisorating the head and skull from the physical plane for a moment.
Time grinded its gears for a moment as the knight looked into the three eyes that were currently popping out of their sockets from the force, while small trickles of the revolting black blood leaked from the orifices. A visible dent was made by the blunt blade, then actively splitting the head of the creature in half with the sheer force put into the strike, before, finally, the head popped like a balloon. Gore erupted like a pinata, its blood, the same color as its skin, sprayed outward, painting a good amount of the knight's torso in that same shade of empty void. The eyes didn't burst, or even move–they just continuously stared at the knight with their vague amount of human emotion left surfacing to the forefront–like a desperate plea for safety–for freedom, and the knight would grant that to them.
Once he touched down on the surface of the nest, the knight readjusted his grip on the weapon and went for one of the disproportionately large hands the size of the knight himself and in a moment, the appendage was already cut cleanly off, at the shoulder. It was in a blink, the trapped creature was dismembered in nothing more than a blink–yet the amalgamation put itself back together faster than it had been dismantled. The limb that had fallen with a watery, silent thunk against a particularly large branch, which had been attached to an already walking, rotting corpse turning into nothing–literally, and the thing quickly regrew the missing limb perfectly–down to even the smallest detai–or down to the smallest missing details.
Gritting his teeth, the knight back peddled, creating enough space in between himself and the disease to watch the morbid scene of the plagues head being rebuilt from the three greenish yellow eyes. It was a simple assumption from there–a quick deduction of how to destroy this thing completely. A moment of silence ensued, before a grotesque popping from the things neck as it turned its head all the way to the left to look to the right of it where the knight was staring back at it. The blood across his body had disappeared–but with a glance to Rising Tide in his hand, he could tell that the dragon across the blade had absorbed the blood somehow–but he pushed the question away for now, and instead focused on his target.
'Regenerative–greatly so. Doesn't matter–this will still be a breeze,' the slightly arrogant thoughts of the knight were put to rest when the creature was too big, and too malformed to be called something once human tilted its expressionless, faceless head slightly–maybe out of a crude human curiosity, or maybe not. Swiftly, the creature shrunk into itself; its bones shrank, popping and snapping, then disintegrating; its skin flaked off its contorting, deflating corpse, and its black, viscous blood squirted out from several open wounds across its massive limbs and terribly small torso, yet before any of the ink could hit the nest, it floated upwards into wispy particles of ash, before, eventually, its entire being–except for the triad of eyes–was nothing more than a giant cloud of ash–said ash reminded him of something.
'Don't tell me…' This thing was now identified as the not-so-protective outer layer that had been shrouding this land from the sun high above, and this was only a piece of its body–the only piece of its body that wasn't too busy patrolling the walls of the forest.
'I see now why it's called a plague.'
The knight was too baffled by the transformation to immediately see the cloud of black particles to telegraph its first attack by sending a swarm of ash towards him, which quickly solidified again into a familiar black hand that had recently dispersed itself and balled itself into a fist. Thankfully, the knight was quick enough, and smart enough to snap out of his stupor swiftly, and simply dash forward, and pivot back to avoid the speedy attack, before launching himself into the fist, a lightly humming, and orange-tinged Rising Tide in a position for a sideways, slash–perfect for spilling the intestines of a human, yet this wasn't a human–a least not anymore. The ashen limb disintegrated, becoming nothing more than a spatter of blood and a cloud of ash, which soon after became just a cloud of ash.
'This'll be a touch more difficult than expected.'
He stared down the eyes in the center of the cloud of smokey, smoldering ash, which seemed to glow a faint gold in the darkness of the cloud, trying to come up with a plan on the spot, but was interrupted by several spears of fire raining from above, trying, and failing to skewer the eyes of the creature, which in reality did nothing for the cause, but disperse the cloud of ash slightly. That gave the knight an idea.
"Kanaft! Rain hellfire itself onto these poor souls! Everything you can manage!" There was clear intent in the knights exclamation–all that needed to be done was rain hell itself onto their adversary–and Kanaft pulled through.
Blanketing walls of thick, destructive fire were manifested and cast down towards the cloud of ash, which repeated wave after wave, without delay, or exhaustion–it was exhilarating to the knight, as he watched the initial wave of fire consume the cloud of ash entirely in one fell swoop. He could see the ash itself burn into nothing in the heat of the flames, yet the third largest black spots in the fire remained unfazed, instead choosing stay in the fire–finding it to be safer in the flame then outside of it, where the knight lurked, waiting for his moment to strike at one of the three-yet it didn't come.
Swearing silently under his breath, the knight watched the final wave of fire disperse with all three eyes emerging from the smoke with a chilly expression blatant on the surface of the hollow pupils. He expected the singularities of intelligence to evade the waves of fire, giving him a clear moment to strike, but that might've been too obvious, or maybe that tactic had been used on it before, which would be troubling; that would mean that this creature he was fighting could learn from its mistakes–making the knight sweat a little behind his helmet. He was no fool, he had faced many-a smart people, and creatures in the past, and this would just be another one of them under his belt. There was nothing to worry about–yet.
Focusing on the three prizes in the center of the nest, the knight hatched another plan, something that could carry him past the finish line and ultimately secure victory, but everything that came to mind required coordination with Kanaft–something he was lacking dearly. Gritting his teeth, the knight repositioned himself, ready to hurl Rising Tide towards the eye to the right most of the trio, an easily telegraphed move, but a move that even those eyes likely could not evade from.
Kanaft, who had been observing the knight carefully, seemed to have caught onto what the knight was supposedly about to do, and quickly trained their attention off of the knight by creating incarnations of his own. Though they were unremarkable in detail–their large, bird-like wings, orange gowns of fire, and halos of yellow fire illuminating their red, fiery waterfall of straight hair down their backs, signified them as angels of manifested flame–all wielding swords created from the same fire that birthed them. Their visages crackled, releasing small portions of themselves every-so-often–like a well slowly losing its water, lastly, their eyes burned with a cold indifference as they stared down at the group of tens three targets, and, wasting no time at all, they flapped their great wings, and flew towards them with the excitement of a battle maniac.
It was a bit odd to the knight to suddenly see angelic creations made out of Kanaft's great affinity for his element come into play–pulling the eyes' attention off of him. Maybe their coordination wasn't as bad as he thought it would be–which he found strange considering how little time they had spent together, and not really having any time to get to know each other combat wise, but it was a gift, and he knew better than to turn down a gift–so he readied himself, and tracked the same eye that had been his original target with his enhanced eye sight and critical understanding of spear throwing. It took a few infinitely long seconds, but the knight found a perfect moment, and he took the shot.
Just like that, Rising Tide was in the air, and just like that a ricocheting boom blasted his eyes and ears. For a moment he saw white spots–that was dangerous. Everyone knew to never let your vision be consumed by white fully–It was something that had been warned against by many people throughout his time all saying the same thing: Your mind will shatter when you eyes glass over, and he was scarily close to it, just then–some of his own people had suffered from it, so, if anything, he knew better than most just how much one needed to avoid whiting out–so he persisted through it. His ears were still ringing, and his vision was slightly burring from his own strength–but he knew he had succeeded in his plan to take out the first of the three eyes.
Blinking back the stars, the knight looked at where he had struck, and released a breath though his nose he had not expected to be holding. There was a crater in the side of the tree where Rising Tide was embedded into the black bark, holding a single, great eye on its blade–now devoid of that deluded sense of life it had, and if his eyes weren't deceiving him and he wasn't hallucinating, which he wasn't, he found himself staring at numerous souls escaping from the eye.
Faces petrified into fearful expressions, their translucent, wispy bodies radiated a sense of curious happiness–a sense of freedom the knight had never felt before. They whispered of various things–all things too quiet for the knight's enhanced hearing to hear as the floating apparitions zig-zagged around the great tree, holding their arms out in joy, crying tears of happiness on their perpetually fear-ridden faces. The knight simply watched the scene with awe, as dozens of spirits escaped the small eye and all swirled around the room like a windmill would churn about its attachment point, before, all, unfortunately, were stripped of their freedom again–and were vacuumed into the body of death–not even able to give their savior thanks for what he had done for them. It all happened so fast, the knight found himself hardly believing what he had just witnessed, which was fine considering everyone in the nest had frozen–including Death, who had momentarily stopped playing his piano–letting his hands rest of several keys across the vast, double-layered instrument–not that any of them could see it both because he was facing the other way–but also due to the vale, no one could see the small–almost grateful smile that played on the giants, thin, cracked lips.
Blinking back into reality, the knight grinned behind his helmet, while staring hungrily at the final two eyes. What had once been triplets were now twins, and the knight was likely to increase his odds by the second.
'Perhaps I really was overestimating you–Guardian Draped in Ash.'