The Knight walked into the Palace, followed by Kitrino, copying every move it made.
The others had grown used to seeing this pair by now, so for the sake of her rouse, they just greeted the Knight, as she hated breaking character. This is the kind of habits she developed because even now the Knight didn't want to let her out of its sight.
"Hey there, I see you're back from the western patrol."
"Yes, still clear."
She looked at Poli, making a face trying to mimic the Knight. Her body might be short, just one and a half metres, but it was fully matured – the problem was her mind. So, it looked strange to watch her act so childlike. Poli just held her laughter in.
The Knight continued, soon making it to the room. It had made itself another chair with some help from Kitrino – using the power [Form of Touch]. The chair still not enough to affect it since once again it had gotten even stronger. This chair might have been capable of paralysing itself before breaking the second seal, for now it's just felt like sitting on soft wood.
The knight then pulled out a bunch of souls. It then told Kitrino to shape them using her power. Then after she made a barely stable shape – she kept it from collapsing but not fully formed. The Knight then used {Render} to affect the composition. Pulling out a dozen more souls, it instantly used [Soul Craft] to fuse them all into specific properties and imbued them onto the shape.
The Knight then used [Crimson Smith] on the clump of souls.
Forming soul into channel of active Core…
Core has collapsed. Souls have been eradicated. Component five collapsed – more control needs to be departed – warning! Simple shift may collapse weaker elements. Use phase shift on composition requisites. Component five still collapses – too volatile. Further activity needed on dependant growth – analyse further?
"Don't bother."
It had tried that already; it didn't need a secondary hand analysis.
"Can I go now?" – Asked Kitrino.
"where are you going?"
"I heard squadron 6 is going for recon again – I can help..."
The Knight just reminded her of something that seems to escape its mind when coming up with things to do. "You're not a knight, and we both remember last time."
"I won't do it this time." – she had attempted to give the others orders.
She then ran out. The knight teleported in front of her and took Mugaw off its helmet and placed the feather on her hair. It was no substitute, but the Knight had better things to do than babysit. Just yesterday it got a strange report from its other spy – even ending in a request. The Knight accepted the request because it already had thoughts about doing something like that – this way it could look at it like a request.
Shortly after she left, the princess, having grown her hair out once more came to escort the Knight to the queen. As it walked through the corridor, the Knight thought back to a specific time. Back to the Order of Knights Headquarters at the city of Arulli. This was because a void and human mixture so human in appearance reminded it of Avarice.
'Void beings in human skin really shouldn't' be.'
***
One of the knights were escorting the Knight to the special training 'hall', underground.
The Knight entered the training grounds. These were where the Marshals trained the Knights. Training the Knights was a duty of the Marshals. This place was built different from the colosseum it had just come from. Fighting Vice had been extremely straining and now it was wondering if it should be going on to fight the Marshal – a void lord even.
This place had been built into a sphere, and no flat place in sight. The knight then entered this place. On its walls, were more patterns than it had seen on anything before. The whole thing was deep below ground. So deep in fact the Knight had passed the sleeping den for Wargnier on its way here. That True beast was so strong that its presence made most monsters avoid Arulli altogether.
The Knight then stepped in through the door and slid all the way to the bottom of the sphere. The sphere was over a hundred kilometres wide. So, the fall had taken time.
At the very bottom, there she – it was. Marshal Kiyun lay there, relaxed and sleeping. She then risen up as it heard the Knight land. Once the Knight reached the bottom the exit closed perfectly sealing them in. No-one could intrude upon this place.
For reliable training, this massive sphere, made it impossible to transmit any form of anything in and out until the Marshal declared the bout over. One of the most complex patterns – one of the legacies left by the hero of Patterns. This also meant it could serve as a makeshift privacy booth, so before the battle began it chose to speak to the Knight.
"Tell me, what is a void being doing with the knights of all groups."
"I could ask the same."
"Lets' answer questions as they come – this one first."
The knight didn't have a straight answer. So, it just listed the main things it had come here to accomplish.
"I am searching for my sword."
"A sword huh?"
"No – my sword."
"How would it have come to be in the hands of the humans?"
…
The Knight remembered its reasoning, but it didn't matter. The Knights were just a stepping stone to help it search not that it actually thought they had it. Sensing this kind of answer she asked a different question.
"what kind of being are you really? In that battle, I saw you, you were preparing to summon the void in daylight. But that should be impossible. No?"
"You haven't answered my question."
"I never said I would now, did I? I said let's answer them as they come – just not yours. If you don't want to talk that's fine with me – I'll just beat it out of you."
She smiled, as her void began spilling out. This made the already dark sphere, made with no lights, feel even darker.
She smiled and pulled it back in, "Relax. I could have eradicated you a while back – I'm not doing so because I think we can help each other. I want to know how you manage to summon your void during the day – and in return I'll answer a question, no two, no three."
The Knight then tried to order its army to teleport in after it failed to teleport out. It still didn't work... "I could tell you, but it's not something you'll be capable of replicating."
"Does it have something to do with that strange soul of yours?"
"I guess it does – Mine is of the dreaded variety."
Avarice looked at the Knight, her face unflinching. It seems it saw not the joke in what it said. "Claiming to have a dreaded soul is quite foolish of you. All those in the void know, even amongst void lords, dreaded beings are beings beyond just existence and non-existence alike. And you, barely able to keep up with Vice claim such a thing?"
The Knight still remained unresponsive – this was true and as such it didn't know how to respond to that statement.
"Gone mute? Let me explain it a little bit clearer. For humans reaching the heights of those of the void is beyond them. And in this respect, void lords like me have no hope of matching a dreaded being. These beings are basically the gods in the void – undisputed rulers. And you expect me to believe that."
The knight was about to answer this time, but she interrupted.
"Don't bother – I already appraised you – I know you're not lying – even still. I haven't been in the void in over thousands of years – but even I'm no fool. I would recognise a dreaded being if I saw one. You must have something wrong with your identification."
"…"
"Let's move on from that – I rather not waste your time. I may not accept your answer, but I did promise to answer three of yours, so ask away."
The Knight already had them in mind. "Why are you helping the humans?"
"That one is easy – I am hoping to find their secret."
"Their secret?"
"The answer to your second question…"
'Second question!?'
"… has to do with the human who created dungeons."
'Human!? A human created the dungeon?'
This time the Knight thought to be more careful before speaking. It was about to ask about the human who created dungeons, but this would be its final question, since it had lost its second. Originally, it was going to ask about how to use the void territory more effectively, as till now it had been figuring it out on the fly. So instead, it asked this:
"My third question… why do you look human in every respect?"
"I ate a human."
It had expected something like this, this is why it asked this. If it had asked about the void or the human, it realised the answer would have probably been even vaguer. At least this answer revealed that it was nothing similar to it, which was its real question. It had learned this kind of indirect questioning from the Yiril.
She managed to control the entire flow of their conversation. So, in the end, the Knight barely got any real answers. It was fair considering that the Knight itself had opted to not reveal its human origins and other related things with its creation.
Avarice then asked if it had any weapon to fight with. She had grown tired of the talking.
The Knight then readied itself. Two hammers manifested in each arm, [Dual Hammer] and [Echo Hammer].
"Come at me with your full force. Let's see how long you last without the void!"
The Knight then teleported in front of her, and the Dual hammer hit her on the side. It shattered before it even touched her. The Knight then used visage of terror on her – only managing to attract her attention. Then the Knight pushed itself further – making her smile at it, it wasn't used to fear.
The Knight then consumed a monster soul to spike energy levels. Then smashed the Echo hammer on the ground. She was confused for a second, and upon realising she quickly moved. But nothing happened...
It had just reacted to the echo of an attack. Pushing it aside, she jumped on top of the Knight and punched the air so hard that a force of a mountain descended upon the Knight as the air became a solid weight from the pressure for a few seconds before dissipating. She then jumped of it, and landed higher up, without sliding.
She then clapped slowly. "Good. If you could handle a slap on the head, I'd be disappointed."
The knight had almost instinctually summoned the void for armament, but upon realising this meant failure. It didn't use it as armament, instead it just emanated around itself like a mist blanket. That punch felt like a punch from Mugaw, but even stronger. The Knight then got up and continued hitting the base of the sphere over and over with the Echo hammer.
Avarice then smiled, grinding her teeth on each other. Just like diamond, only another could shave these. The dust from these shavings collected on her hands slowly shaping into a baton. Its teeth kept regenerating as she ground them. And she being the hardest thing she knew, the dust formed into a sturdy, white club.
She then swung the baton as hard as she could and stopped. This single singularity caused everything from the point of impact of the baton to turn solid, encasing the Knight mid hammer swing in the pressurised air.
She then instantly turned and hit the same spot. This cracked the air – shattering it into fragments. In the path directly on the epicentre of the air crack was the Knight, who was sent crashing into the curved surface. Its armour got crushed inward, but the ground didn't even get a scratch.
The Knight got up and summoned a shield – and again it was tempted to use the void.
Avarice had hit the air so hard this time that the air had been convinced that it was actually rubble. So, the air debris only dissipated a few second after landing on the ground and sliding to the lowest point – turning back into air.
Marshal Kiyun then walked towards the Knight. As she passed by the lowest point, where the Knight had been hammering, she was suddenly hit by the entire force of all the hits, multiplying against each other.
She swung her arm and the force dissipated. She then looked at the Knight, taunting it. And for some reason the Knight felt so compelled to want nothing more than to crush her into the ground.
The Echo hammer shattered – it had been exhausted from holding onto all that force. The training grounds themselves however had not taken any damage.
Then the sphere began spinning.
"What do you say we make the battle more entertaining?"
She looked at the door as it phased into the wall. The sphere picked up speed, and then a new force began to press down and then another even stronger towards the centre. They then lifted off the ground. More and more forces came, until they no longer had any tell on where up and down was.
"After training humans for so long, I had gotten this habit you see. I first fight them telling them not to use their best abilities. After they convince themselves, things would change without this rule I remove it – and still crush them in. I know this is an assessment match, but I couldn't help myself."
The Knight felt the patterns on the surface and with the sphere come alive. This proved she really had been using training wheels; the sphere hadn't even been activated. The Knight then then summoned two new hammers and beckoned her.
"I can't wait to watch you crush me in..."