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Victoria3114 -> RE: Oblitus Animus - Forgotten Souls (3/29/2013 1:21:04)
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It was absolute chaos. The walls were in shambles; completely demolished and transferred into a void of nothingness created by the Void Knight. Fires burned everywhere as random cooking fires were left unattended as their tenders were either chased away or killed. Screams of the townspeople and maniacal laughter of the void fiends filled the air along with the dust clouds from the destroyed buildings.
He inched his way around the huge pit in the ground, taking care not to fall in. With the weight of his armor and the depth of the hole, he bet he would never be able to get out if he fell in. And eventually, the fiends would find him and they’d probably take turns dropping into the pit to kill him, like a coliseum of some kind.
Grimacing, he leaped the last few meters, rolling over as his leg collapsed beneath him. He still wasn’t completely used to this body yet, it seemed. Some limbs still denied him access when he wanted a specific movement. Letting out a deep breath, he straightened, looking up over the carnage with eyes that were not his own.
A dead man’s body... and I’m in it. Heh.
He remembered all the ghosts he had once battled and “exorcised” as an adventurer. Ironically, now he had become the ghost. A ghost who could only possess dead bodies.
Taking a moment, he sifted through the fragments of thought left behind by the young knight. Sword practice, a pledge to protect this world, healing scriptures, history class? ...Oversoul! That was what he had said he was, an Oversoul!
But the memory was meaningless. Some weird lesson in this founder order. Oversouls, a soul doomed to wander the mortal plain for reasons unknown. Can possess bodies and take them for themselves if the original owner was about- and it ended there. The rest of the memory had been deleted along with the man’s soul, to the afterlife? Who knew where.
He shook himself back to reality, alerted by a scrabble of stone on stone and the sound of another building collapsing. Dust shaken loose from years of gathering filled the air and caused him to cough, covering his mouth to block the worst of it. Carefully, he followed his instincts and squinted through the clouds while drawing the sword sheathed on his back.
It appeared to be a simple claymore, but appeared to be enchanted with light magic. A far cry from his Soul Eater Advanced, but quite a sturdy weapon. With the other hand, he unhooked the round shield and mounted it on his arm. Curiously, even the hole in his armor had been repaired, along with the wound to his heart.
Even the leigon’s most powerful dark casters wouldn’t be able to revive someone on the brink of death. Huh, I must be a miracle worker.
His thoughts were suddenly interrupted, as the wall he was leaning against shattered, falling down in blocks. One of them smacked him in the back of his head, causing his vision to blink out for a second. Instinctively, he whirled around, raising his sword in a maneuver the body had done countless times, but the mind had never experienced.
It was just as well, as the blade managed to barely parry the two wrist blades connected to the blood fiend in front of him. Hissing, it leaped back and, with the recoil force, managed to force him off balance while clearing some distance between them. Landing on all fours, it dug a deep trench into the ground with both of its claws.
The blood void leaped forwards, and he raised his shield to ward off the blow. There was a shower of sparks as the attack skittered across his circular shield and with a push, he managed to shove the fiend away. Instinctively, the sword came up and over, and he lunged forward, managing to score a hit on the enemy’s shoulder. The blade pierced the hard carapace, drawing blood.
A shrill growl emanated from the fiend. It drew back its claws and crossed them, forming a sphere of green and black energy that swirled and bubbled. The oversoul quickly ducked and dodged as the sphere was flung at him, barely managing to avoid it.
The sphere impacted against the ground behind him and burst, showering the immediate area with hissing goblets of some kind of liquid. Thankfully, he was already out of the blast radius, for as he watched, he could see the material the globs touch begin to dissolve. Steam billowed into the air from the affected spots, and a stinky, caustic smell filled the air.
Poison. Very potent, acidic-type poison.
It was just as well he hadn’t been hit. It would have probably killed this body, and then what would this poor Oversoul do?
Suddenly, he remembered he was in a battle, and some sixth sense forced him to throw himself to his right. A pair of claws invaded the space where he had once stood, and rent the air where his neck once was. Annoyed now, the fiend was positively seething with fury, as evidenced by the sounds emitting from its jaws. Perhaps it had expected an easy prey, like a dumb villager who had no idea how to move once fear seized him.
It ran at him in a crazed kind of fury, swinging its blades in a deadly cadence. Blocking and parrying the blows as his body moved instinctively, a result of his previous life as a commander and this body’s physical training. Gritting his teeth, he suddenly put more strength into his blows, driving the fiend back.
Again, the fiend cleared some distance and held his claws in an X position, but this time, he was expecting it. While the fiend was charging its attack, he dashed in and thrust the sword upwards underneath its crossed arms, skewering the fiend through the stomach.
The blood void lost its concentration for a moment, which proved to be fatal. The ball of caustic glop that it had been ready to fling at the Oversoul, levitating between its claws, suddenly shuddered and, following the laws of gravity, dropped down onto the void’s upturned face.
A horrible, ear-wrenching scream emitted from the fiends throat, driving mental spikes into his ears. Instinctively, he wrenched the sword out of the monster’s abdomen, threw it to the side, and clasped his hands over his ears.
The monster’s face was disintegrating by the moment, carapace dissolving, allowing the deadly poison access to the softer inner flesh. Already, half his face was gone, a misshapen huddle of burnt and amorphous flesh.
Suddenly, he felt an extremely strong, irresistible impulse. His body lurched forward, one arm reached out as if guided by some arcane puppet master, and laid a hand against the void’s chest. Or, more accurately, into the void’s chest, as if his body had become insubstantial.
A horde of primeval thoughts crashed into his consciousness, but quickly grew fainter as the life drained out of the void. A confused whirlwind of impulses, curses, and a strange feeling of something altogether missing.
Pain... the pain... Must... kill.. all. All will serve or die, by the Great Fiend’s hands! I... *hrk* NRAAHHH...!
There was a tight tugging sensation around the void’s chest, and the Oversoul could feel himself being drawn in. He suddenly realized what he was trying to do, and quickly dug his feet into the dirt, trying to rip his arm out, but to no avail.
The fiend seemed to abruptly realize what was going on, something alerted its frantic mind to a foreign entity slowly taking over its very being. It thrashed, vainly trying to pull free.
I don’t want this! This disgusting creature! He thought, alarmed. He doesn’t want it either! Enough! Stop, stop, STOP!!
But the ways of the world do not listen to words. He could feel the void’s resistance diminishing as its soul, or what was left of it, its consciousness, slowly departed its steaming, disintegrating body. Eventually, he could feel no more of the alien thoughts.
With an awful, sickening slurping sound, the knight, his armor, shield and sword, the body that the Oversoul was wearing, all seemed to fold in on itself like a quick work of origami and vanished into the fiend.
«««««--------------------»»»»»
Hell’s Gate Open
«««««--------------------»»»»»
He blinked several times before he realized something was different.
The armor on him felt stiffer, more restrictive, and clarity suddenly hit him: this was the carapace of the Blood Void. Suddenly feeling stifled, suffocating, he gasped out loud, and he heard the breath rattle through a twisted and corrupted windpipe. Horrified, he stumbled back and looked down at his hands.
They were blocky, unsightly. He reflexively tried to move his hands, and they slowly creaked open, restricted by some kind of leathery skin. Two sickly, blood-covered blades were mounted on his wrists, an extension of the carapace. His arms were armored in a segmented kind of armor, with black skin underneath pulsing slightly.
The body felt weird. The muscle patterns were warped, and as he tried to lower his arm, he ended up raising his arm and lashing out. At least most of the nervous systems were similar. He felt pinched in uncomfortable areas, his movement fell restricted.
But at the same time, he could feel power flowing through the muscles. Unnatural power and strength, and he knew he could empower his blows with higher force with some kind of technique he found in the scraps of memory in this head.
He had possessed the Blood Void. The Oversoul tried to gag, but the Blood Void’s infested body didn’t have the necessary organs, and it came out as a choked gargle. A bit of green, sickly poison secreted from the edges of the blades as a reflex action.
Wha... what IS THIS!?
Memories. Vague thoughts of eternal servitude to Nulgath. How to form balls of poison and levitate them, launch them. How to empower your strikes. A frenzied memory of tearing apart an innocent villager.
Disgusting... Gah... AHHH.
Overcome with revulsion, he reached out and tried to place one hand against a wall to maintain his balance as he leaned, but his bladed arm cut right through the brick and he stumbled. He instinctively tried to cover his mouth and try not to throw up, but then he remembered just in time and pulled away his arm. He’d probably just end up slicing into his own head.
Wait, wait, why did I possess this thing!? Why am I in this body!? At least that knight was human!
He was in the body of one of the things he had always detested. Whether an adventurer or a legion commander, he had hated these blood fiends. He would have torn out his hair if he had any.
He could feel himself slowly going mad.
Get me out, get me out of here, LET ME OUT OF THIS THING!!
Desperately, his mind scrambled for something to hold onto. Something remotely familiar so that he could find some kind of connection with a human feature. Not this twisted, once-human body, this fiend, this murderer and soulless husk.
He found something. Something in his head, something labeled with a thought encrypted in a way only he could understand. He tugged at it, desperately trying to find a way out of this self-induced hellhole.
That something glowed brightly, and there was a moment where time seemed to freeze for him. Something flashed, something changed. He changed.
All of a sudden, he felt calm. He stumbled, and reactively placed an arm on the remains of the wall he had cut. But now, what fell upon the stone was a gauntleted hand. He froze in surprise, blinking.
His body felt all right now. All his muscles functioned perfectly. He could swallow now without some weird constricting feeling in his throat. As he moved, he heard and felt the familiar clanking of armor on armor. He looked out through the eye slits of a helmet, and gravity weighed down on the armaments in his hands: a rounded shield and a claymore.
This Founder Recruit, or Adept, this was the body he was in right now. Not the blood void anymore. Supremely relieved, he let out a gigantic sigh and slid down the stone block behind him, landing on his behind rather painfully.
I changed back.... phew, thank goodness.
But... How did I do this?
It was as if once he had seized some kind of cache inside his mind, a glowing tab labeled with something akin to the words “Founder Adept” and he had changed into that body.
“An oversoul can take multiple bodies, and switch between them at will. That’s why you’re not a ghost.”
It was something he could remember, something the knight had said to him.
So that’s how… As an Oversoul… I can switch bodies.
…I’m still think I'm a ghost. Merf. But then how...
He reached into his mind again, tentatively this time. This was not something he wanted to do,but he had to find out, for some strange reason he could not fathom. After a few moments of fumbling around in the dark, he felt like he found something. He poked it mentally, probing it.
It was a sort of viscous orb. Dripping with some kind of liquid, it floated there, radiating some kind of disgusting feeling. Feeling slightly nauseous, he reached out and grasped it.
There was a warping of time and space, and when he came to, he was once again trapped inside the body of a Blood Fiend. He shut his eyes and mentally steeled himself, forcing the mental bile down his imaginary throat.
This is wholly disgusting...
But he had to do it. The local garrison of this town, which it should have, would be hard pressed to defend against this company of fiends. The one he had killed and- possessed- must have been a straggler, finishing off some people before latching onto his signal.
Fiends had traded their soul for power. Their souls were consumed, used by Nulgath, and therefore, most of the army was a simple husk of primal instinct, basic thought, and satisfaction. They had no individuality. How they functioned in an army was by being led by adventurers who had bound their soul to Nulgath through the power of contracts, which they blindly signed and in doing so, swore eternal fealty to Nulgath in exchange for his creations. Similar in the way he had been bound to the Soul Eater Advanced.
The Void Knight was one of these people. One of the lucky, or perhaps unlucky, ones to have first encountered Nulgath. These he warped beyond any relation to a human being. This Void Knight was simply a vessel of power guided by a human soul bound by a multitude of items, most notably the armor and blade, and the contract. It would be quite a powerful opponent... equal to that of Dage’s wielders. For a moment, he foolishly wished he still retained the Soul Eater Advanced.
But the equipment knight he had seen, he remembered, was still relatively new. Still shiny, polished, unblemished. The commanding knights he had fought in the later days of the war had donned battle worn armor, their blade glowing brightly with the souls of the fallen. This knight’s weapon had not been glowing at all... which meant it had no history of battle. The void portal had been relatively small as well. It must have been an newer recruit.
And far weaker than the veterans, he hoped. If it were a veteran, he knew he stood no chance.
One of the benefits granted to them through the armor was increased sensory perception. If he went in there as a knight, tried to sneak in, he would be located relatively quickly. Nor could he fight off all those fiends by himself. But if he went in there, disguised as fiend...
Perhaps it just might work. It was a rather foolish idea, but it just might work. He shook himself down, testing the nervous connections, swallowed the bile that rose, and creeped off towards where he guessed the fiends were wrecking havoc.
It wasn’t all that difficult. He needed only to follow the sound of the screams.
«««««--------------------»»»»»
"Hold the line, darn it! Don't back off! Hold it!"
Commander Pippiniden, eyes bulging, screamed at the lance soldiers in front of him. Grimly, the garrison, or what was left of it, surged forward and stabbed out with their lances at the wall of nightmarish creatures in front of them. In the fading afternoon light, their glinting eyes staring out from their hard, shell-ish helmets looked positively, or negatively, demonic.
Perhaps that’s exactly what we’re fighting. Lieutenant Qwan thought. Demons, from the deepest depths of whatever lies downstairs.
“Don’t back off! Fight them off! You’re soldiers, you’re the recruits of the pactagonal knights! Cowards! Don’t give in, attack!”
Qwan gritted his teeth in annoyance and complete disdain of his commanding officer. The fat fob, Commander Pippiniden, a posturing fake who lay in his office, indulging in random tidbits of the high life while the rest of his command was out in the field doing actual work. Your typical fool in the lap of luxury.
He hadn’t an ounce of experience in field command, and now when the field was knocking on his front door, he was panicking, ranting out random commands he had no doubt picked up from a book somewhere. And he had the nerve to call them cowards.
“Protect me!” He shrieked. His voice was high pitched, almost feminine in tone. “I’m your commander! Obey me!”
Of course no one paid him any attention. Qwan ducked under a thrusted arm-blade, parried another with his tower shield, and thrust forward with his lance. He could feel a weight collapse on the end of the stick, and he quickly withdrew the weapon with a sickly squelch to avoid being rooted for too long.
He had seen what happened to those who remained still. Even their renown tower shields couldn’t stand more than around two shots of that deadly poison. Staying still made them sitting ducks.
The archer company fired another flock of steel-tipped projectiles over their head. In the confusion, most of them missed their marks, but still many of them made impact. Some of the demons howled in pain as the arrowheads punctured their muscles, or some fell silently staring at the black-fletched feathers that protruded from their chests, to rise no more.
But at the same time, they were taking heavy casualties. B company had fallen almost instantly to their surprise attack, drenched in that caustic gloop that ate away at skin and steel alike. They were still somewhere out there, what was left of them. There was also that emissary, that recruit from the Founder Order, who had gone out that morning for a walk and was currently missing in action. They had been rather close friends, and Qwan shuddered to think of what happened to him.
Even as he thought, Qwan felt one of the recruits next to him cry out in pain as one of them ducked under his guard and scored an abdominal hit.
Immediately, Qwan thrusted forward with his shield, forcing some of the enemies away. Dropping to one knee, he put all of his might into one arm and tossed the lance, skewering several of them and causing a slight bout of confusion among their ranks. Now, with a free hand, he wrapped it around his fallen comrade and quickly scooted to safety. He shouted, “Fall back, fall back!” and the liners, discipline and training cutting into their fear, scooted and inched as they retreated back to higher ground.
Qwan ran towards the healing group, a gathering of white-robed mages who were tending to the wounded, casting spells. All of them were completely worn out, sweat lining their faces. Their hands shook as the white glows surrounded them, stamina apparently worn out. Many of them had exhausted their charge reserves, and were hastily munching on energy rations to quickly regain their strength.
The man he was carrying groaned. “Lieutenant Qwan?”
“You’re gonna be okay.” He focused his gaze on one of the medics. “We need a healer over here, immediately. Stomach wound.”
She nodded and ran over. Qwan gently let the man down, onto the cobblestones. The healer knelt and chanted some words, holding her hands over the man’s gaping wound in the abdomen.
“Don’t waste... *cough* time on me. I’m a goner. Go, fight them! Ignore me!”
Qwan held down the man’s flailing limbs. “Stay still. You’re going to be all right.”
“Don’t be stupid, Lieutenant!” The victim gasped. “You’re one of our strongest. Go fight them, don’t waste time on me!”
The healer looked up. “I’ve stabilized his blood flow, healed over the skin and muscle. I need to repair his stomach now or else he’ll have serious internal bleeding and possibly lethal hemorrhage. He needs to stay still.”
Qwan nodded and jerked a thumb at the medic. “Hear that, boy? Stay still! I’ll be right back to check on you.”
“SHUT UP AND GO!” The man roared, then he fainted.
The healer spoke rather quickly and emotionlessly while still maintaining a professional tone. "Lieutenant Qwan, go now. I'll take care of him.
He nodded. Qwan spared one last glance at his downed subordinate, then ran forward towards the front lines again. He knelt near a fallen soldier who lay along the side of the street and checked his vitals; no hope. He held a brief moment of prayer for his soul, then took his spear. He wouldn’t be using it any more, and Qwan had lost his in some demon’s body near the main street. This was the third spear he was using.
The lines were starting to get closer as the garrison was being pressed back. The healer block was starting to move, couriers picking up the wounded and helping them move away from the fighting. Qwan quickly gestured to several onlookers to move, move, move.
He ran back to the front lines with a battle cry, but his spirits immediately dropped when he saw how severely depleted the ranks were. They were slowly being forced back towards the city center, where the main offices were located and most of the townsfolk were barricaded.
Lunging forward, the sliced off the hand of a fiend who was about to strike one of his men from the side. Shouting at everyone to retreat. He held the line by himself for a moment before he, too, was forced back.
The situation seemed hopeless. Pippiniden was still huddled among the healer block, screaming his head off like a little girl. His men were dropping like flies, and dozens more were wounded. And the fiends, though he knew they numbered no more than twenty five, were quickly gaining the upper hand. His men had no idea how to fight an enemy like this, they had never been trained for such an occasion.
We’ll need a miracle or something. Something.
His heart dropped even further into his stomach when another one of those darned portals swallowed another of his soldiers.
«««««--------------------»»»»»
He stumbled as his leg gave way, dropping to one knee. Eyes narrowed, he stood back up and rounded the corner, running straight into the back line of fiends.
All of a sudden, he was surrounded. Fiends milled forward, trying to reach the battle squeezing through the streets. It was far too narrow for all twenty-five of them to attack at once, and they were being backed up. The Void Knight, in the center of it all, was ordering them to continue as they were. One suggested they knock down the houses to have more free room, but was slapped by the back of a gauntleted hand as the knight snapped something about collapsing second floors on top of all of them.
He could feel his revulsion building up. Here, he was among a group of those he had always hated and strove to kill. The blades on his arms twitched, sensing hatred and battle lust, but he managed to temper his anger down.
It was imperative that he move close to the Void Knight before striking. He had only a little experience with a fiend’s body, and could not effectively fight as one of them. He therefore had to switch into the Knight form to attack, and in order to attack him before he was noticed, he had to be close to him.
Eventually, the fiends managed to push back the garrison of the town back and emerged in a small marketplace. He could hear the shouts of the humans, and their saw their dead mangled bodies as the death ball passed by. He could only hope they held out for a little longer.
“Fiends, we shall strike again.”
He heard the Knight hiss the words and he looked back into the thing’s face, its face of pure darkness. Void Knights had no identity, something they forsook when they donned the armor. Their faces became featureless, their hair fell out. It was a void of a person, so to speak.
“For the great fiend... we shall welcome his arrival with the skulls and heads of our fallen foes. For that, we attack today, now.”
The onlooking fiends were all silent, while they could still hear the hisses of the ones attacking on the front lines. His heart was pounding.
“Go.”
With a loud roar, or more accurately, a cacophony of deathly hisses, the crowd of fiends charged towards where the battle was taking place. Going along with them, the Oversoul charged forward as well.
He was keeping a close eye on the Knight. This time, the monstrosity moved along with the rest of the army, near the rear end of the crowd. Slowly, he inched over, through the mass of fiends.
Closer... closer...
Then, when he was close enough to touch it, he changed. He seized the orb of light and justice, righteousness, and time seemed to freeze for him. He changed.
A blade protruded through the Void Knight’s arm. It screamed in surprise. The ten fiends at the back halted, turned back, to witness a knight in pale white armor sticking a sword through their leader’s sword arm. The rest ran forward to join the battle.
He froze, panting. He had missed; his main target was the center of the chest, where the Void Knight’s core was. Stab that through, and the knight would die. But at the last moment, some instinct had caused the knight to shift slightly to the left, and he had ended up striking the shoulder and arm.
Time unfroze. Snarling, the knight whipped around, pulling its arm off the sword and kicking out with a foot, catching him in the chest. With a reflexive “Oof!”, he was thrown back and onto the ground.
By the time he had gotten back up, the fiends had surrounded him. A ring of flesh and carapace that locked him in with the Void Knight, who was clutching its wounded shoulder.
“What’s this!?”
He flinched as his adversary roared the question. “What’s... what?”
“I already killed you.” It pointed an accusing sword, the Champion Blade of Nulgath, at him. It flared in the setting sun. “Outside. I stabbed you through the heart. Yes, it’s you... how did you survive?”
Abruptly, he remembered that the man who had died, whose body he was using, had been killed by a stab to the chest. Unconsciously, he traced the area where body had been wounded and tried to come up with an answer. “I...”
“No matter.” It swiped its sword down. “I get to kill you twice. Today is a good day! Stand back, fiends. This one is mine.” The void knight advanced slowly, taking its time, enjoying every last moment. “Hold up your sword, two-life. You aren’t going to go down without a fight, will you?”
Scrambling to his feet, he reached down and plucked the sword from the ground. Holding it in a battle stance, he took a deep breath. Slowly, he could feel his rage, his hatred of these things, building up.
He had once learned that rage was an unstable weapon. Too much would cause your swings to be blind and you could be easily counterattacked. But enough of it would empower your strikes with power beyond what you could normally achieve.
To its followers, it ordered, "Stand down. I will deal with thisone myself."
The Void Knight suddenly attacked, leaping at him. He managed to bring up his blade and parry it just in time, but the sheer power of the swings knocked him back a few steps.
Such power-!
The champion blade swung down again. With a grunt, he raised his blade to meet it, but was thrown back yet again. He raised his shield instinctively, and that arm was knocked aside too, accompanied by another throwback.
“What is this? Didn’t you fight better earlier?” The knight hissed with disgust and triumph. “I guess your stint with death has severely weakened you, human. I’ll be sending you to him again soon enough.”
Even before he had finished getting to his feet, without warning, it attacked again. Reflexively, he muttered something something this body had muttered many times before, and swung his blade. It glowed slightly, he noticed absently. A small light covered the edge of the blade.
The two swords met in mid air, and a bright spurt of luster flashed out between them. Unexpectedly, he managed to hold, digging in his feet into the ground and grunting with the exertion. The sword flared brighter in response, a small burst of power allowing him to even push the void knight back a little as they locked blades.
Might.
He remembered. Something he had learned before, or perhaps something this body had learned before. Something imprinted into the neurocells of the brain through hours of monotonous lessons. A technique that strengthened an attack with a lance of light, giving it extra cutting power and force behind it.
The Void Knight looked surprised. “Well, what is this? You can block my blows. Interesting...”
It pressed harder against him, then countered with his own burst of power, shoving him away. As he stumbled backwards, pinwheeling for balance, the Void Knight raised its arm and chanted a few ominous words. A dark aura hung about his person.
Grimly, he recognized the technique. Sacrifice. In addition to the normal strength of its blows, the knight could augment them with significant power, in exchange for “life”. A sort of shadow counterpart to might. No one, not even the sorcerers who had discovered the technique, knew what exactly the incantation meant by “life”, but the general assumption was that the user would be hurt as well.
Although, many shadow-aligned persons had used it without any apparent ill effect, so it was a commonly used technique among them.
He inwardly cursed as the Void Knight smiled- if it could smile. It lacked a mouth, but he felt that if it had one, it would be split wide open in a gaping expression of triumph. It walked towards him leisurely, wisps of darkness trailing off of it’s person.
Raising his sword in a combative stance, he watched the Void Knight’s eyes tentatively. His shield went up to block any incoming blows.
There was a flicker on the knight’s side. That was all he had to go by before the champion blade sliced straight into his shield and bit deep into it. He felt a wicked line trace itself into his arm, through the neatly divided remains of the shield. A trickle of sticky liquid ran out and dripped to the floor in icy time. A sting lanced its way up his arm.
He leaped backwards, but it was already after him before the soles of his feet could make contact with the cobblestones. The blade came up and over in a terrifying overhand swing. Twisting desperately, he barely managed to skim by the passing blade, which made contact with the floor and cleaved the stone, burying the weapon up to its hilt in solid rock. A testament to the sheer force behind the blow.
Landing painfully on his back, he rolled backwards, springing to his feet just as the knight ripped his sword free of the ground. Dust and debris rained down as the blade carried several pounds of random earth up with it.
Quickly, he whispered a chain of incantations, of what he remembered as a minor healing spell. The wound on his left arm rippled, then sealed itself up, and the pain shrunk to a dull ache. But there was no healing the shield, and keeping it on would only be burden. He tugged on it and it came off in two halves, clattering to the floor.
Abruptly, the two pieces of the shield froze in midair after a few bounces. The glowed azure, shimmered, and shattered into countless dots of blue light. Shocked, both of them stared at the spot where the shield had once been, watching the luminescent droplets evaporate into the air.
The knight recovered first.
"You are really strange. Stranger than anything I have ever seen before... It was fun, two-life. But it's time for you to go where back to where you should never have left."
The words were hissed out, indicating the Void Knight was tired of this charade. It wanted to end this now. Sneaking a glance, he could see the wall of fiends who were engaging the village garrison being pushed back. Counting on more reinforcements from those surrounding him and their leader, they had been left without backup and were slowly being overwhelmed. The soldiers seemed to have more battle spirit to; he could hear the battle cries.
"I have to get back to annihilating this village. Don't worry, the void portal is a painless thing. In fact, it is nothing..."
Before he could finish registering the words, it raised a gauntleted hand, opened it as if to catch something- then clenched it shut.
He flinched, but nothing happened. The void knight cocked its head, surprised.
It was out of energy, he realized. Using the portal was a surefire way to kill someone, but it took up enormous amounts of energy. In using the attack on the village gate, as well as some of the soldiers, it had depleted its charge reserves and now could not execute the ability.
Seizing the moment, he attacked in a reckless offensive, swinging the claymore with all of his strength. He shouted the incantations, and the sword blazed with a violent light that trailed off of it in streams as it descended towards the knight's unprotected head.
Clang!
But it was intercepted by the champion blade. With cat-like reflexes, it somehow managed to bring its sword up to block the cleave. It grunted, pushing him off and away while it regained its stance.
"You are starting to annoy me." It growled. "I'll have to kill you quick..."
It lunged forward in a lightning fast stab attack. In response, he threw himself to the side and attempted a side cut, but it was parried almost lazily by his target. He swung again and again and again, but each and every one of his blows were blocked and nullified. They all had no effect, while the void knight was managing to get plenty of hits onto him. His armor was now pitted with splits and cracks like a piggy bank after a child had her way with it.
The situation seemed hopeless for him. Switching into a blood void was not an option, as he was sure his performance with it would be even worse than with this knight's body. Nor did it seem that this body was strong enough to fend off the knight. Every second that passed brought him closer to his death.
A stray thought crossed his mind. What would it be like to die again?
Was it really that bad to die? He had another body, he was already dead, he was a ghost. What would be worse? As a ghost, he could always go possess another body, right?
Suddenly, he remembered that descending blade, the leering smile the archfiend had given him. That huge blade, easily twice the size of his body, his old body. That feeling of helplessness.
The flash, the sickening crunch, that pinching feeling on his heart. His breathing stopped. His brain slowly ceased to function as his soul left his body.
No... I don't want to go through that again.
Dying was bad. Dying multiple times... That was even worse. He could remember now, that feeling of dying. That horrible moment when he could just feel the absence of his heartbeat, the cessation of his basic functions. He had seen the beginning of the void, the fear that had seized him before he was somehow pulled back.
I don't want to die. In my own body or anyone elses.
I don't want to die.
Galvanized by the revelation, he pushed himself off the ground where he had been flung, sent flying by a broadsided counterattack. Raising his blade, he charged forward, angling and streamlining his form.
The knight simply laughed and drew back its weapon in preparation for a thrusting attack. Something he wouldn't be able to avoid if he was charging head on, like he was now.
But...
I'm going to win, and live.
Something unlocked itself in its head. A hidden cache of information, a little pocket lesson that had been taken by this body but forgotten. Even though it was so important. The incantation unscrolled itself through his head. The knowledge fueled his hope. In his revelation, he learned something new.
The words spilled from his mouth, a quick line that seamlessly wrapped itself around his blade, dissolved into it and manifested as a bright flash of light. Unlike the might, when the light wrapped around the blade, this power was absorbed by the claymore. The sword itself was shining.
There was only a short distance left between them when the knight whipped its blade forward in a stabbing bolt of dark steel. With a sickening crunch, it dug into the right side of his body. A crystalline tinkle filled the air as his lower armor shattered, shards of steel spinning away. A thin streak of red lined the side of his abdomen, but he had dodged just in time, it seemed.
The knight stumbled forward, expecting some dead weight at the end of his sword to cancel out his momentum. His sword arm twisted as the long reach of the weapon entangled itself in his cape, a red velvet cape with gold trimmings that hadn't been there before.
But he payed the strange appearance no heed as he delivered a piercing Holy Strike straight into the chestplate of the Void Knight. A powerful light-based attack that could deal a very high amount of damage. The technique he had just learned, somehow, with no teacher.
The tip of his claymore made contact with the cold steel, and a spiderweb of cracks extended from the hole as the Holy Strike slid through the gap. He could feel the slight pressure, the resistance from the Void Knight's flesh and blood body encased within the armor.
He also felt something crack as the blade slid into the Void knight's heart, its core. What supplied its life after it had lost its soul. Its source of existence.
The entire thing shuddered, freezing. Something stiffened inside the knight, and it went limp. The slight black aura around it, the telltale sign of sacrifice, went out like a snuffed candle. A loud, clatter filled the silence as the champion blade slid from its limp grip.
Something grew inside of him. That feeling of loathing he had for these creatures, something that had been buried by the fear he had been feeling. A growing sense of satisfaction at showing them who was boss.
Again, he felt that strange urge. His hand moved by itself, dropping the claymore onto the ground and making a clawing motion, as if to grasp hold of something. A strange feeling, a mixture of all those he had just been feeling, coursed through his very soul as he drew back his arm, as if charging up a punch.
In one swift movement, he punched forward and into the breach in the fallen knight's armor, driving his hand into its core. An insubstantial hand; it went straight through iron and flesh as if they weren't even there. A cold fist closed around the the heart of the fiend commander.
He could still feel the last vestiges of the void knight's mind, a few wisps of consciousness. Most of the thoughts had already departed for the unknown afterlife, but he still found the main nucleus of the mind. A strong feeling of hate, disgust at losing, refusal to accept what was happening. He drifted slowly over to it.
It abruptly realized what was happening to it as its consciousness began to be siphoned away. That its body was being taken over. Naturally, it struggled against the bonds, the inevitable death, but it was too late. Fate had been ordained, and it departed from this world. It let out a long howl as it left, and he could not resist shouting one phrase after its retreating, disappearing form.
"I win."
And with that, the knight's physical body broke up, folded in on itself along with its fallen weapon, and vanished into the Oversoul's endless mind.
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The demons all stopped. They froze.
A trained military commander, Qwan spent no time instantly ordering his troops to attack. They charged forwards, shouting hoarse battle cries. They readied themselves for a tough battle, ready for a last ditch fight.
But there was really no need. The enemy was all instinct now. Even though the humans had the disadvantage of numbers and strength, the red-shelled fiends appeared to have lost their cohesion. They had no uniformity, no union, no teamwork. None of the intelligence that existed in them before remained.
His men ran through them all like a hot knife through butter. In a matter of minutes, they mopped up the fifteen-some fiends who had been engaging them. Nobody died, no one was even wounded. Their attacks had been so much easier to read; most of them had been slow and sluggish.
A full minute of silence passed before Qwan realized that the battle was finally over. He lowered his tower shield, letting it strike the ground with a ringing thump. A sigh, the biggest sigh he had ever done, came rushing out of his mouth. Turning around, he called out, "Medics, treat the wounded and save whom you can. Boys, we need to sweep the area for any more of these monstrosities. Who's with me?"
No one disobeyed or declined. Quickly, they all diligently followed the commands and went to their duties, without a word of complaint.
Qwan picked his shield back up and trotted forward, lance at the ready. He guessed, that at the moment the demons had froze, their commander had fallen. That was the only logical explanation; that the gre, dark-armored humanoid had died. The one who had been swallowing up so many of his men with those portals of his.
One of his subordinates trotted up to him. "Lieutenant Qwan."
"Status report."
The young lad swallowed. "Twenty-six casualties, including B company. Thirty-two wounded."
Qwan swore heavily under his breath. Sleepy Wolf was quite a large town, and therefore had a larger garrison than most other towns. However, even so, they only had eighty-five men, to protect around three hundred civilians. Now only twenty-seven were fit for duty.
Even so, he maintained his composure. "Thank you, ensign. Please pass on my regards to the medical unit. They have done a superb job.”
However, hopefully most of the wounded would be healed and return to work. Hopefully. Qwan shuddered to think of what injuries could not be healed by the medic block. That poison had been highly caustic.
The recruit nodded and ran off back the way he had came. Sighing, Qwan jogged ahead, followed by a group of twenty to back him up. He was sure most of the enemy had already been killed, but he could never be too sure.
“Now, boys, we need to fan out and search the town for any more of these things before we can sound the ‘All Clear’. Split yourselves up into groups of four and go down these avenues. I think there shouldn’t be any more of them, but if you encounter more than two, sound the alarm with your flares.”
Every guard carried several enchanted flare packs that would rocket into the sky and explode in a shower of sparks. It was designed to alert any other patrols to any danger, though most of the garrison had never had to resort to using them.
“Retreat as fast as you can after firing the flares. You can’t hold against more than two at once in groups of four. We’ll hurry over immediately. Understand?”
Various variations of “Roger that” came mumbled out of the men’s mouths. Qwan noticed that, apart from his men, he himself was also stooping, his spine bending towards the ground in exhaustion. He leaned on his pike for support.
“We’ve won, lads. Just this sweep and we’ll have some roast wolf meat for dinner, roger that? A good hot fire and a soft, warm, bed. Maybe a lady too.”
Some half-hearted cheers before they split up into smaller patrol groups and marched off. Qwan watched them go, slightly concerned, but reckoned they’d be alright. Grunting out loud as his back clicked into place as he straightened, he took a small alleyway to his right and marched down it.
Sleepy Wolf was a relatively messy city. Main thoroughfares, passages, side streets, buildings all mixed together into some weird maze. Even though the town as relatively medium-sized, it was quite easy to get lost in it. However, Qwan and some of the other guards knew it like the back of their hands. He slid down the alley and ducked into another slit breaking off from the path.
He could faintly hear sounds of combat as he emerged from a passageway into a side street somewhere on the eastern side of the town. From here, he could barely see the mountain of rubble where the wall had been, and the gaping hole where the gate had been. His pike came up and at the ready, shield raised and forward.
The faint cries and silent clangs were originating from the small east marketplace. Qwan charged forward as quietly as he could, though the sound of his steel boots ringing through the dusty air were like cymbals to his ears.
The sounds stopped right as he stepped into the area, to witness the last fiend being stuck through with a slightly glowing sword, thrust upwards through the stomach and out the neck. Its eyes flickered out as the life faded out of it.
The man holding the sword looked dead himself. Black hair matted with blood, scratches across his face. The shield he usually carried was nowhere to be found, and his armor was completely shattered on the right side, and he could a thin cut lining his abdomen.
He withdrew his sword, allowing the corpse to fall to the floor with a clatter. Abruptly, Qwan noticed the nine other dead fiend bodies lying in haphazard positions around the market. Each and every one of them weren’t moving, and wouldn’t move for till the end of time.
Qwan focused back onto the man who had slain all of them. He felt impressed, very much so; he had seen how tough these fiends were, and anyone who could stand up to ten and live was someone to be respected.
But with a jolt, he realized he knew him.
“Astrek!”
It was the founder emissary. He called out his name, suddenly filled with gladness that he was still alive. He took a step forward before the man turned around.
He froze.
They maintained eye contact for a moment, then the man turned and fled. He ran away, full-pelt towards the area where the gate once was.
Qwan stood there, in shock.
That wasn’t Astrek.
The look in his eyes... it was so different. Astrek was a lively, cheerful guy. He always loved to tell jokes, goof around. This man... this was a man who killed. He could see, he could sense, a tortured past.
That man, that man who killed all these fiends... that wasn’t Astrek.
Troubled, Qwan stood there for a moment, stunned. Not moving. That man, just now, was Astrek. It was him, his body, his face, him.
Yet at the same time, it wasn't.
Astrek... what happened to you?
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And I finally finish. Woohoo~
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I do not own the characters. They belong to Artix entertainment.
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Here is the discussion thread!
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