A tarnished knight danced amidst a storm of endless rain, terrifying squalls, and broken cries. His armor was slick — wet with viscous, black ichor — and snaked with tiny gashes. Beneath it, his chainmail underlayer rustled and cloth fluttered, and in his hands rested a glaive as dark and black as night, its blade soaked in the souls and blood of its victims. When the guillotine fell, a life was consumed, and a sated hum resounded as the weapon was dislodged from the carcass and directed towards the next.
Again and again, the abominations fell.
Beside the composed warrior was a beast eldritch in nature. Its body had the complexion of a cadaver. Crimson flames burned in its empty sockets, and wherever its gaze swept, monsters forcefully buckled. A pair of enormous, inky wings sprawled from its back like those of a fallen angel, shrouding the knight in their greasy feathers. A single, narrow beak swept through the chaos, skewering, rending, and tossing the swarm.
Nico and his Spire Messenger were combatting the incoming tide of Nightmare Creatures. At their backs was the enormous, flooded labyrinth, the dark sea having reached and swallowed the entirety of the coral labyrinth, leaving only fifty meters of space between the water and their height. That meager distance would soon dissipate, too.
It was a desperate battle.
Both Nico and his Specter's body were injured.
Even his own thoughts had turned labored as he wheezed:
'Only a couple dozen left…'
Once the expansion of his soul sense had been fully realized, he had found out there were more than just the striders as Beasts. In fact, there were two more species. The first, the Carrion Worm, was exactly what its name foretold — a disgusting, slithering abomination made from decomposed, gray flesh. A single circular maw with stained teeth split its front, and the vile things were even able to survive after being split in half, only perishing after their bodies were completely minced.
The second was called the Grunge Beetle. They were larger creatures with shells made of assimilated coral, bone, and chitin. Two orbs of obsidian rested on each side of its head, and a single curved horn crowned it.
Suffice to say, none of them were really all that special alone, but together…
Nico dodged behind a large boulder, the salivated mandibles of a beetle scraping by harmlessly. Immediately, it pivoted to attack him, its segmented legs piercing the ground.
But, the [Wrathful Crescent] swept down first, and the [Song of Steel] released an ear-piercing wail. Stunned, it was helpless as a half-meter gash was cleaved into its head. The glaive was an Ascended weapon, and this mere Awakened Beast was little more than wet paper when compared to its state after drinking in the blood of countless lives.
Yet, Nico reeled as a strider's hooves careened down towards him. It had heard the beetle's attack and subsequent death, avoiding the nearest coral mound by leaping over it, and poised to crush him with its descent.
Even with his all-encompassing sense, it seemed, predicting the actions of immutably mad creatures was a fool's errand.
Still, he made no move to react, instead regaining his stance and twisting his body towards another beetle that had scuttled around the other side. The muscles and veins hidden beneath his armor striated and bulged, and the glaive whipped dangerously.
Before the leaping strider could land on him, Shaman's wings bloomed backwards like an inverted flower, redirecting the stone trunk of the strider in a different direction that sent it flying into another Beast. Both, caught by the force, tumbled away in the crowd.
At the same time, Nico's strike landed, severing the front and middle legs from the beetle's right-side and throwing it off balance.
A worm was stuck with nowhere to advance — the corpse of the first beetle was behind him, and the injured in front. Shaman, by himself, was fending off three charging striders to his right, and to the left was the coral protrusion.
The Carrion Worm, frenzied by Nico's pure soul, simply slithered over the corpse. However, footing over a body was a perilous task, and before it could get within range, an invisible force bisected it horizontally, and a crushing force landing on the injured beetle's head, splattering it into chunks of chitin, brain matter, and bone.
[You have slain…]
A second swing split the worm horizontally, ending it with a shrill cry.
[You have…]
Nico rolled backwards, skidding under the ever-moving limbs of Shaman, its tall frame large enough to encapsule him under it for a time. Behind him — where the cover of the mound and the three corpses were — a powerful blow reverberated through the ground, and the entire stalagmite was blasted away into splintered coral as a hulking Revenant took its place. Black rain poured off its deformed, towering figure like ooze.
The Cursed Herald's joints bent and popped as Shaman twisted backwards, and Nico dashed out from underneath, glaive swiping at the legs of a mauled strider. Its hooves reared upwards, but it didn't retreat, snout snapping down angrily. Nico let the teeth glance off the [Silver Wraith], a small scar marring its bleak silver as his glaive horizontally cut open the Nightmare Creature's underbelly instead — guts, viscera, and blood wept from within. The strider collapsed.
[You…]
Shaman had opened its beak and skewered the Monster through two different points, rising onto its built hind-legs and spreading its wings fully as all six forelimbs ripped apart the limbs, neck, and chest of the corrupted humanoid. The attached parts resisted, then sheared, shrieking like torn metal, and showering rotten innards over the battlefield.
The revenant screamed death itself.
Shaman and Nico regrouped, the latter sprinting and clambering aback the Messenger in one smooth motion. The Specter soared upwards, rerouting to the edge of the swarm.
'The sea is rising,' Nico remarked.
It had just swallowed the first few meters of the island, continuing to rise greedily to the top. It would not make it there, but there would about a hundred meters before it stopped. Each one would push them further into the murderous mob — into all except one foe.
All except the Demon, who waited patiently for them to be whittled down.
Nico's face remained neutral, but his thoughts whirled, evaluating potential options of escape and assault.
'There's nowhere to run. The storm is too strong. Besides, I can feel it — the tide has increased and will only continue to.'
Then, the two landed, and a revolting mix of conglomerate beetles, overgrown worms, and desiccated horses assaulted them.
Shaman and Nico fought mercilessly in response, felling Beast after Beast in quick succession. The dark sea continued encroaching on them, but they only advanced. More blood shed. More bodies shredded. The rocks became their cover, and whenever they were overwhelmed, they retreated momentarily to the enraged skies.
Indifferent to the slaughter, the storm raged on. Lighting struck, thunder boomed, and rain pelted the ground, feeding the dark depths.
It wasn't long until the swarm was dimming. Nico's sleek armor had a network of cracks, blood and salty water soaked into every crevice. His body beneath was black and blue. The Messenger was much worse off. It only had so many limbs, and Nico was forced to use it to absorb the majority of damage; despite its higher rank Shaman's vessel would only hold out for so long.
Then, the time he'd finally been awaiting — albeit not enthusiastically — came.
An Awakened creature, its soul composed of three cores, slithered through the line of Beasts it had hid behind before, then broke towards him with disturbing speed.