Thog's massive body had barely crashed to the ground, the dust cloud his death had kicked up hadn't even settled yet, and already the next battle awaited. "So you finally decided to show your ugly face," Mordred taunted, her smirk not wavering in the slightest, even as she felt the oppressive, blood-boiling aura of a true Lord of Hell wash over her. She thrummed with it, her own dragon-core stirring in response, a predator recognizing another.
Beside her, Lionel tensed, every muscle coiled. His knuckles were white on the hilt of his sword. This was not a fight. This was an execution. He had faced down armies, had dueled with the best of the best, but this… this was something else entirely. This was the fundamental power of a universe given form and fury.
The towering figure didn't bother to respond to Mordred's taunt; he just said his piece, his challenge, his invitation, before he left the same way he came from.
As Satannish departed, the battlefield was once more thrown silent, demons froze in their places, only the soulless Enforcement Knights continued to move, as if nothing had happened, they just continued to cut down the now unresponsive demons.
"Mordred, Lionel," Arthuria's voice broke the silence. "Go, and remember, victory here means returning alive, do not fail me!" The command echoed across the battlefield, carrying the divine authority that only their king possessed.
There was a finality to it. A promise of glory, but also a stern warning. A challenge that Mordred couldn't resist.
"About damn time!" Mordred yelled, a wide, toothy grin spreading across her face. She looked at Lionel, her eyes blazing with a battle-hungry light. "Come on, slowpoke, let's go show this hell-spawn what a real knight can do!"
Lionel didn't answer with words. He simply nodded, a grim set to his jaw, and followed her towards the swirling vortex of fire and rage. He was a knight. He had an oath. He would follow it, even into the very heart of damnation.
The portal to Satannish's realm was a maelstrom of pure fury. Rivers of molten rock crisscrossed a blackened, obsidian ground. The sky was a permanent, angry crimson, choked with sulfurous clouds. The air itself seemed to scream with the echoes of endless, meaningless conflict.
As they stepped through, the pressure increased tenfold. It wasn't just heat or noise; it was a psychic weight, a tangible force that sought to ignite their own anger, to turn their righteous fury into mindless, destructive rage.
Moments after they passed through, moments after Arthuria's voice rang out and filled the battlefield, the demons snapped out of their daze, and once more threw themselves into the fight.
D'Spayre also snorted, "Fools, that brute might be an idiot, but your precious Knights are doomed, they have no chance, no hope... and neither do you." His cruel voice, filled with mockery and despair, shook the air as he renewed his own assault on Gawain and the others.
Yet, against Gawain, against the sacred sword, Excalibur Galatine, and the blessing of the sun, his attempts got him nowhere.
Gawain was all but invincible under the sun; this wasn't a law, this wasn't like Avalon, it wasn't absolute, but it was close enough.
D'Spayre couldn't defeat him, though neither could my Knights hope to defeat him; it was at most a stalemate, one that would break in time, once my Knights grew tired and weak.
Before that happened, something else had to happen.
Something needed to change; this current stalemate, where three teams of my Knights kept three of the Hell Lords busy, couldn't last.
Galahad had been locked in a battle against Nightmare since the beginning of this campaign, and while his shield was the strongest, it wasn't a law; it hadn't reached the level of Avalon, and it could be broken.
Mordred and Lionel were also concerning, they would face the biggest risk, yet I couldn't send more, the final Knights, they were needed out here.
They needed to be ready to act should more general-level demons appear, or be free to join the fight against D'Spayre.
Time wasn't on my side.
I couldn't let this last much longer.
-----
Within Satannish's realm, Mordred gasped, not from pain or fear, but from sheer, unadulterated ecstasy. The overwhelming rage that saturated the dimension was like fuel to her dragon core, a symphony of glorious violence that made her blood sing. She felt more alive here, more powerful, than she had on the battlefield.
"This is more like it!" she roared, her laughter echoing across the desolate landscape. She swung Clarent, not at an enemy, but simply to feel the blade cut through the enraged air. "Come on, you big red bastard! Show me what you've got!"
Lionel, on the other hand, felt like he was drowning. The constant pressure of Satannish's fury was a relentless assault on his discipline, on the very core of his being. Every instinct screamed at him to give in, to let the rage take over, to become a mindless instrument of destruction.
He fought it with every fiber of his will, his knuckles white on the hilt of his sword, his breathing slow and controlled.
"Focus, Mordred," he ground out, his voice tight. "This is not a game. This is his domain. We are at a disadvantage."
"Speak for yourself," Mordred snorted at him, feeling none of the struggle that he did. She felt amazing, powerful, and without worry.
She was the Knight of Rebellion, someone who acted on darker desires, yet wouldn't be broken by them.
Mordred was rebellion itself; any attempt to control her would just backfire. So, despite how her nature would normally make someone like her vulnerable to Satannish's influence, she didn't even feel it.
But Lionel did.
He had to fight, struggle with every second to maintain control of himself.
Before he could manage to steady himself and ground himself, a shadow fell over them. Satannish had appeared. He was not a being of fire and brimstone, not a creature of molten rock. He was rage incarnate.
His form was humanoid, but vast, crafted from what looked like solidified bloodlust and bound in armor of screaming souls. His eyes were pools of incandescent fury, and from his back, great wings of pure energy, crackling with red lightning, spread wide.
"I felt your arrival, little sparks," Satannish's voice was not a sound but a vibration in their very souls, a growl that shook the foundations of their beings. "I felt the rage in the one. The defiance. The joy in the fight." He pointed a clawed finger at Mordred. "You. You are worthy of my attention. You understand the true glory of battle."
He then turned his gaze to Lionel, a look of disdain on his face. "And you. You cling to your control, your pathetic 'discipline'. You fight against your nature. You are weak. You are an insult to the very concept of fury."
No sooner had he said that than a great grin formed on his face. "Which will only make it all the sweeter once you fall to rage, when your discipline and skill give way to raw fury," he said with a cruel laugh.
Lionel didn't rise to the bait. He simply raised his sword, his stance perfect, a picture of knightly composure amidst the howling chaos. "I am Lionel of the Round Table. I am here to stop you."
Satannish laughed, a sound that caused the rivers of lava to boil over. "Stop me? You can't even stop yourself. Look around you. This realm is rage. This realm is fury. This realm is me. And you are nothing but a flicker of defiance that will soon be snuffed out."
He raised a hand, and a wave of pure, unadulterated rage washed over them, a psychic assault that sought to burn away their reason, their control, their very identity, leaving nothing but mindless, destructive fury in its wake.
Mordred welcomed it. She roared, a sound of pure, unadulterated joy, her body wreathed in red lightning, the power of her Mana Burst flaring to life. She met the wave of rage head-on, her own defiant fury a perfect counter to the demon lord's assault.
Lionel, however, staggered. The wave of rage hit him like a physical blow, a tidal wave of pure emotion that threatened to drown him. He gritted his teeth, the muscles in his neck standing out like cords, the struggle visible on his face.
"Fight it, Lionel!" Mordred yelled, her voice a beacon of defiance in the storm. "Don't let that oversized ape turn you into one of his mindless puppets!"
"I... am... trying," Lionel ground out, the words torn from him by the sheer force of the assault.
Satannish watched him, a cruel smile on his face. "Give in, little knight. Embrace the rage. It is who you are. It is what you are meant to be."
Lionel could feel the demon's words worming their way into his mind, stirring up a dark anger that he had long kept buried, a rage born from years of frustration, of feeling overshadowed, of being second best. He had always been the responsible one, the level-headed one, the one who had to clean up after others, after Mordred. And a part of him, a deep, buried part of him, resented it.
"See?" Satannish whispered, his voice a sibilant hiss in Lionel's mind. "You are not so different from me. You are a being of rage, just waiting to be unleashed."
"Boring!" Mordred suddenly shouted and, without warning, sent a slash towards Satannish.
He had expected Lionel to snap; he hadn't expected her to just attack without a grander lead-up.
Her blade, humming with power, carved a path through the enraged atmosphere. It wasn't a full-power Noble Phantasm, but a focused, brutal strike infused with enough mana-burst to level a small fortress. The attack was pure, unadulterated aggression, a challenge thrown in the face of a god.
Satannish's smile vanished, replaced by a flicker of genuine surprise. He hadn't anticipated such a direct, disrespectful assault. He swatted the attack aside, not with a shield or a counter-spell, but with a casual backhanded gesture, as if shooing away a fly. The force of the parry still sent a shockwave that cracked the obsidian ground for a hundred meters in every direction.
"Feisty," he growled, the amusement returning to his eyes, now tinged with a predator's glint. "You have courage, little spark. I will enjoy breaking you."
He had to admit, he was pleased with her response, all her defiance, it was perfect.
Even the fact that she showed no signs of falling to the rage, of giving in, that just made it better.
No more magic, no more manipulation, now was the time for fighting, for joy and rage! This was the battle he had hoped for!
Mordred, seeing her casual attack do so little, just grinned wider, "I am the Knight of Rebellion! I am the one and future king of Camelot, heir to my father, and I will not bow to anyone but him!" She roared, her body once again erupting with red lightning as she lunged.
Satannish met her charge with a roar of his own, a sound that shook the very pillars of his domain. He was no longer toying with her. The fight had truly begun.
Their collision was a cataclysm. Mordred's blade, a concentrated spear of rebellious might, crashed against Satannish's clawed hand, a limb that embodied the fury of a damned dimension. The resulting explosion of energy was not of light or sound, but of pure, concept-level violence. The very fabric of the realm buckled around them.
Mordred was thrown back, skidding across the black rock, her feet digging deep gouges in the obsidian ground. She didn't fall. She immediately righted herself, her armor smoking but intact, a grin of pure delight on her face. "More! Give me more!"
Satannish looked at his own hand, a long, shallow scratch now marred the surface. He flexed his claws, and the wound sealed instantly, replaced by a glow of infuriated energy. He wasn't healing; he was erasing the injury with sheer rage.
For the first time in millennia, Satannish felt a thrill that went beyond the mindless slaughter of his own domain. This was a fight. A real fight. This mortal, this child of a goddess, could actually wound him. Not grievously, not yet, but the potential was there. The joy he had been seeking was here.
Across the battlefield, Lionel had finally managed to wrestle control of himself back from the brink. The wave of rage had receded, leaving him gasping, sweat beading on his brow. He watched Mordred engage the Hell Lord in a duel that defied comprehension. She was like a storm, a whirlwind of chaotic energy that somehow held its own against a being of cosmic power.
He couldn't help but admit deep in his heart that he couldn't do that, even if he was as strong as Mordred, he still wouldn't be able to do what she was doing. Because he could see that there was no winning, not even a tiny chance.
Satannish was immortal, unkillable as long as this dimension remained, even a hundred of them couldn't win.
Yet Mordred didn't care, she just fought, she didn't even consider the possibility of defeat. Her entire being was focused on the now, on the clash of steel, on the joy of the fight.
Lionel's mind, always tactical, always strategic, was already racing. He couldn't win this. Not directly. His oath, however, was not to win, but to hold. To give Mordred the opportunity to do… whatever it was she was trying to do. His duty was to be her shield, her anchor in the storm.
He saw an opening. As Satannish lunged at Mordred, a tendril of pure energy, a whip of crackling lightning, lashed out from the demon lord's back, aiming to ensnare her from the side.
"For Camelot!" Lionel yelled, a battle cry that was more a prayer than a shout.
He didn't charge the Hell Lord. That would be suicide. Instead, he targeted his attacks, blocking them not with a defense, but with offense. Defending was pointless in this realm; only fighting, only pushing onward, and attacking was the way forward. He used the only move that could work in this situation.
"My Oath as a Knight is not a set of rules, but a path to follow. This is my path! This is my strike! Oath of the Morning Star!"
Once more, he used his own Noble Phantasm, but this time he didn't hold anything back. This wasn't a single, perfect strike, but a flurry of them, each one faster than the last. He didn't aim at Satannish. He aimed at the tendril, at the very concept of the attack.
His blade, glowing with the light of a sworn promise, met the whip of rage. The impact was silent, but the result was deafening. The whip of energy didn't shatter or explode. It simply… unraveled. The light of Lionel's oath, a power rooted in order and purpose, was anathema to the chaotic, formless fury of Satannish's attack.
Mordred saw her opening. "Thanks for the save, stick-in-the-mud!" she yelled, a grin on her face as she lunged forward, her sword a blur of motion.
She didn't aim for a killing blow. She knew that was impossible. She aimed for a distraction, a way to keep the demon lord's attention focused on her, and away from Lionel.
Whatever Satannish realized this was unknown, but if he did, he was all too happy to ignore it, to forget about tactics, and just fight, trade blow for blow.
(End of chapter)
Support me at patreon.com/unknownfate - for the opportunity to read up to 30 chapters ahead.