Solaris felt the sharp claws begin to dig into his soft flesh, a trickle of blood dripping down his neck and into the fabric of his shirt. It was, however, only a drop in the ocean of blood that covered his body, all the blood of the hundreds of creatures he slaughtered to get to this point.
As he felt the claws biting into his neck, a furious rage bubbled within as the prince called him 'the eclipse'. Before any more blood dripped, he hardened the skin and began to increase the heat of that area, to such an extent that the air began to warp and change.
Solaris was soon able to breathe again, no longer being choked by the dreadful prince.
The tightly gripped had soon disengaged from him entirely, and instead, it grabbed the darkness, forming another weapon, before turning and stabbing the encroaching Ember.
However, he made no mind to the blood seeping from his mouth and the wounds; instead, he continued charging the demon. This caused the prince to attempt to dodge, yet he had no time. Ember slammed into the creature. Tackling the creature, he began to descend to the ground.
Ember let out a war cry before slamming the prince into the ground, their bodies bouncing off the stone floor, separating.
Solaris dashed down to Ember, his fire now only looking like a candle in the incredible darkness, his own incandescent glow looking like a small star deep in the night sky, almost impossible to discern, yet still glowing with fury.
Solaris landed with a thud before asking in a rushed tone. looking at the weapons of darkness sticking out of Ember's body.
"You alright?"
"Yeah, left, no wait...."
Ember spoke, then disappeared into the darkness.
The sound of fighting resounded, a slash of a blade, the slam of a mace, and the crush of a fist all entered Solaris ' ears, yet the location of the sound was nowhere yet everywhere at once.
Solaris couldn't pierce the thick veil of darkness with his vision, nor could he tell the direction of the terrible prince with his hearing. The smell of blood permeated all around him, so he couldn't smell.
Without his main senses, Solaris was almost incapable of telling where he was; however, luckily, he had another way to sense his surroundings.
Solaris willed the shards to start orbiting him before sending them out in a small radius. Then, he switched his focus to the shards; he could feel a small radius around them, and this was amped by the effects of heat, allowing him to use them almost like a second set of eyes.
"Found you."
Disregarding the sounds echoing all around him, he dashed in a direction with full confidence, his fist charging up with heat. As he approached the demon, he saw that Ember was stabbed once again, drawing more blood, yet it disappeared as soon as it appeared.
A scythe cut through the darkness, made of darkness, its blade made no sound, as it stabbed into Solaris's side.
The demon seemed to teleport through the darkness, its body almost like a ghost.
It had also changed again, its head now sporting two horns, made of an impossibly dark material, its body now sporting a black mantle.
Solaris swatted at the handle of the scythe, yet his hand simply passed through it.
Fine, then I'll just deal with it.
Unlike Ember, Solaris was very unframiler with pain; his life, albeit rough, had not put him in much danger. That was, however, very different ever since he had met the demon hunters. Now so much of his life involved pain, be it aches from working out, to bruises from training, to stab wounds littering his body.
Even though he was not used to pain and had no prior experience with this form of combat, he was used to one thing.
Adapting, and then surpassing.
And that's what he intended to do.
As the shards circled him, they soon detected a movement dashing towards him, with frightening speed. Yet he had the advantage.
The prince was attacking by using the darkness to suprise and strike, then leave, yet this time Solaris knew where he was coming from.
Not letting it show, Solaris moved slightly, the shaft of the scythe moving with him. Then, as the creature approached, Solaris rapidly twisted and threw a devastating uppercut; the fist sliced through the darkness, leaving a stream of light.
Yet the punch missed; the prince had dropped to the floor, sliding into Solaris' leg. He had no time to harden it, and so it was shattered.
The pain was unimaginable. He felt the rush of sharp fragments stab into his muscles, then the rush of blood surging through his shin. He fell to the ground, the unimaginable pain overtaking all.
Just as he hit the stone, he felt an elbow approaching his chest; the few shards he had kept on him allowed him to sense the movement, and this time he was fast enough. Quickly, he hardened the entirety of his chest, and in the same instance, heated it to an immeasurably hot temperature.
As the elbow slammed into his hardened chest, he felt his body slam into the stone a bit more. After a moment, he felt the demon's bone break, the crimson skin melting, and then his shirt melting into the seared skin, forming a bond of fabric and demon.
For a single moment, the demon was trapped, and Solaris dared not waste it. He brought his right arm up and threw a punch, colliding with the head of the demon. Its nose was shattered immediately, followed by a slight crack in the bone of its skull.
"Eye for an eye, you damned bird!"
Solaris's horse voice echoed before, pulling his fist back and punching again, this time breaking the jaw of the prince. Without missing a moment, Solaris grabbed the long white hair with his other hand and pulled, jerking the demon to the floor with him. Then he flung himself onto the creature's large body and began to pummel the prince's face over and over and over.
Solaris had no idea if the demons could feel pain, but he knew he could.
"DIE....DIE....DIE...DIE..DIE. DIE!!!!!!!"
Solaris slammed his fists into the head of the creature over and over, feeling the cracks in the skull growing and multiplying over and over. The body bounced upwards slightly with every punch.
As Solaris raised his arms, intending to finish the fight, the demon reached up, grabbing the darkness and pulling on it like a bar, flinging itself back out from Solaris ' brutal assault.
Its face was covered within the darkness, before it disappeared along with the rest of its body.
Ember shot over to Solaris, barely finding him due to the soft glow of his body.
As he approached, he looked around rapidly, for the prince, his eyes showing pure rage, his body littered with countless wounds, all slowly fixing with the fire of his soul.
"Sol, can you keep fighting?"
Solaris nodded in the darkness, his face contorted in a snarl.
"I have to!"