Boom-bang, as another shockwave rolled across the city.
The back and forth was sending waves rolling across the land, the people in the city were all cowering in fear, the knights were scrambling up to start a regiment to protect and head towards the projected danger. All those voices were wishing for one thing, daylight.
However, the night would not end. The day was due a couple of minutes ago, but the void the Knight had summoned had not disappeared. This was one thing the Knight had not counted on. Usually, his part of the void vanishes with the night, just like any other void territory, but this time it did not. The Knight was too enthralled by the fight to notice that day had come, because it was deep in the pitch darkness of the void.
This is probably because the Knight had never actively taken control of its newfound territory since it got it. Afterall the Knight's soul was vile, but most importantly, it was different. It could stay during day, and that means that if the knight commanded the void to not go, then it would not, it had been retreating back into the dungeon by default. This was terrifying the people of Maroon city even further. They had lived through three decades of stress, now these disastrous quakes had not ended, even though the embrace of day had come.
Day had come, but none had left their homes to start the day. They were sturdy enough to survive earthquakes, but probably not more of this punishment; however, the fear of what is causing them outside kept them from leaving their homes. Billows of winds and dust came in in storms. The trees were shaking, some already laying broken on the floor.
The buildings were shaking and glowing with the bright colour of the patterns used to fortify and protect them, and this is why these buildings held. The patterns were breaking the winds as they struck the city walls. The whole site was chilling, as if the world could collapse at any moment. The swirling winds were dark brown, as if the reaper had come for them all.
There was no particular scent, but everyone could smell death in the air. It permeated their bones, making them hope the knights would protect them once more. They all knew who the strongest knight was currently station here, known simply as the Knight.
Everyone in the city were putting their hopes, their faiths, their desires, and belief about living for a little while longer into him. They had no choice, if the Knight could not save them, they were doomed, the Banneret was too far to make it in time. This is how the entirety of Maroon city rang with one desire, deep in their hearts they thought; 'Protect us dear Knight.'
The punch the Knight had just thrown after dodging the divine blade, was even more powerful than usual sending the spirit reeling back. The Knight felt like it was getting stronger and stronger, and it was.
It was not sure how this could be, but it had a guess. It had to be the one skill it had never been able to activate: Hero. Why now? That was beyond the Knight. The Knight had only a fraction of a second to figure out that it was the hero skill, but no more time was spent on that thought because Romeo had recovered and was becoming sharper in its attacks.
The Knight was not liking this strength because after sending Romeo on another spiral, it felt it, the voices, the hopes, the dreams of all those who believed in it. Simply put it was sickening. The Knight was no human, and this rush of emotions was disturbing.
The fight was at an impasse before it came, the Knight was almost equal against the spirit, but was doing better due to visage of terror, and when the divine sword was summoned, it was at a balance, but with this strength it was becoming stronger, even if it was slightly.
Forgetting about the added strength the Knight focused on the fight at hand. The Knight had figured out what the spirits skill was, the divine sword was a skill on its own. The knight had not focused too much on skills, especially with how they paled in comparison when compared to powers, but they were versatile. This is the best use of a skill the Knight had seen to date.
The spirit was somehow channelling its being into the shape of a sword. This was a manifestation of its divine nature. With the bombardment of hopes, the Knight felt it. A slight will in the sword. It seems though the sword is an expression of divinity, it was tied to the devil Juliet. This was their contract...
'Strange indeed.'
The angel and the devil were tied to each other even in death. This spirit was responding to the call with its own will, not the other way around. Its contract was to protect the devil even in death, thus even if the adventurers were here, they could not break this contract. It was not an agreement, just an expression of their desire to be together.
Thus, a tool or a skill could not split them, like how a normal contract would be dependent on conditions, this was just a boundless connection, 'No wonder its power is to sever the connection between anything, like soul and body.' The sword streaked across the darkness, leaving scrapes on the helmet of the Knight. Good thing the Knight was never after breaking the contract, it was offering oblivion.
The squadron was not doing so well either. A few of them had fallen, the Knight new this because they were amongst the brightest hopes empowering the Knight. This was because they had felt the presence behind them, and the fact that it had not attacked them meant that the Knight was holding it back, of course they did not know that these were one in the same, they only believed in the Knight.
Their deaths were felt within the Knight, and this is what reminded it that it did not have the luxury of drawn out battles, not only because the lives of its squad was hanging in the balance, but because once the Knight disables this augmentation, it would collapse in slumber, and the length of the sleep was proportional to the length of use, and this was an even larger augmentation, meaning the proportionality is way off.
The Knight was sending more hits, but the fight was not letting up because the Knight was receiving blows too, just as deadly as his own. The sword wounds seem to refuse to heal, the scrapes on the armour were almost similar to the permanent ones on the armour.
The Knight felt like days had passed, this was wrong, only a few hours had. The Knight had felt it on multiple occasions that when using visage of terror time seemed to slow down. But now with both of its powers activated, time seemed to not exist within the pocket of the void the Knight had created.
This could mean something strange, that time is just someone's power, and that is why dreaded was smothering it. The reason time was still crawling, was probably because the being using this power was not fully enveloped by the Knight's void. This was an omen for later consideration, that there is a being out there, whose power is to will time into existence.
Their clashes continued for a while longer. The Knight had already activated battle monger and mighty skill, even teleporting around from time to time, going invisible was not helpful, it seems the angels eyes were not using light to see, only souls and another thing, so being invisible did not help, neither did trying to confuse its senses, it was like with the Banneret, it did not affect it. Yuva's skill to take the form of the most harrowing form the opponent had faced was not helpful either, because the most harrowing thing Romeo had faced was probably the being that killed it.
Even though the Knight had not used Yuva's skill a lot, it knew that it could not take a form that is more powerful than Yuva, or in this case the Knight. Seems like the Knight needs to increase its skill repertoire, after all it could give vessels to 1010 followers at once now, meaning the Knight would come to possess over a thousand skills, keeping track of them might be hard, but not impossible since the Knight's knowledge stats put humans to shame, at least most of them.
No skill could help, and no equipment could either, most of them were level 150, so they could not help in this battle. The shockwaves were reshaping the terrain, the roads were gone, most trees toppled.
The Knight was moving with precision and power, nailing the sprit while dodging the attacks in a more effective way. The blasts they were throwing each other were clearing the skies of clouds. The Knight threw a hit towards the Knight once more, still feeling greed increase the curiosity the Knight once had for the peculiar pair.
'It has been a blast to fight at my limit, but your maiden over there is about to decimate my squadron, so I guess this will be the end of our dance.'
Looking down at the sword, the Knight threw its entire void augmentation into the single point of the blade, shattering it. Every time the Knight would deflect the blade to open-up a chance to hit the spirit, it had aimed for the same area, making the weave look less like an attack and more like a dodge. Now, after temporarily focusing the entire void into the hit, the sword broke.
The Knight had figured it out, and even though this move would mean death for the knight if hit during its execution, it was the only way to break the sword. The sword was dealing permanent damage to the Knight because it was a skill that allowed the spirit to channel its soul and its properties into it. Every strike was similar to its power.
The knights state remained the same because that was the form it was in when its new soul was formed. So, to inflict permanent damage, one would have to destroy the part of the Knight while the soul was disconnected from it. The sword was a manifestation of its soul and the property of power it possessed; thus, the spirit could not use its power, but the sword could inflict damage due to the power being part of the soul, similar to how the Knight was channelling its powers in the void.
So, it had found a way to express its power without using it. When the blade struck the Knight, it would disconnect the soul from that point, then damage that point, and when the soul reconnected, the point had been altered, making the damage permanent. This was risky because, although the sword could essentially channel its power without using it, it put the connection between its soul and the sword into one.
When the Knight destroyed the sword it unbalanced the spirit, but this was not enough to destroy it. It would form the sword again then the battle would resume, this is a divine blade, but then the Knight shifted the concentration of its powers and the void to the other hand and struck the unbalanced spirits body, sending an even larger shockwave, as the soul collapsed into a single point, forming into the shape of a flame on the Knight's hand, the most blinding blue light the Knight had ever seen, heavenly... And it was followed by the whisper of darkness.
You have slain a level ??? spirit, Romeo. Soul is not malleable. Soul has no form to craft. Eradicate soul?
The Knight did not know the capabilities of a divine spirit, and it had refused to be reconstructed. It was like Mugaw's soul, but unlike that one, this one had not chosen to follow the Knight, and it had no further use as consumption. So, the Knight just destroyed it, it had promised it oblivion after all.
The soul just disappeared, not faded like souls did when not killed by beings of the void, purely destroyed, the blue flame turned darker and darker, until it became nothing, it had just been brought to its end. Its whisps seem to join the void whisps surrounding the Knight. That is when the Knight got an answer.
You have eradicated a divine soul. Void territory increased by one.
The Knight did not dwell on this development for long, because it remembered the squadron facing the other one, the Knight was determined to kill it, after all the Knight wanted them to join each other in oblivion. On the other hand, it did not have to worry, there was no way they could handle a monster capable of summoning a divine spirit.
The darkness shifted, covering the battle between the squad and the monster. They had all assumed their Commander had lost, and the destroyer was coming after them. That was until they heard a thunderous bang, bringing the devil down. The shockwave was smaller, and it had not survived this punch though, it was way more powerful than when the Knight had hit it at first.
Even with the summoning perk, which was no more, it would not have survived that hit. It collapsed with a thud, giving the knights the image that they were not the ones it was after, even thought they were still visually blind.
You have slain a level 200 monster, Juliet. Store or craft soul into mirror.
'Only one option huh?'
The Knight then made it into a mirror. And although it was now in material form, the soul had been destroyed. It had become oblivion along with its angel, one joining the void, and the other becoming a reflection, both gone, never to exist again.
The Knight still wanted to avoid suspicion, so it just compressed its size, which took some effort to accomplish. Then it sent Tyun away, to teleport to the others. Then the Knight reabsorbed the rest of the void. The Knight could just release it back, but trying to absorb it later will be a bother, so the Knight was going to take it now. It had plans for later anyway.
After releasing the augmentation, without releasing the void, the Knight collapsed, sent back into a slumber, knowing that with the followers keeping an eye out, the Knight would be fine, hopefully the squadron would just have trust in their Commander and drag it back to the city.