You have encountered a level 307 human, Former Knight Bachelor Enun. Type-Knight.
You have encountered a level 306 human, Former Knight Bachelor Ihoa. Type-Knight.
He looked down at the blade that had stabbed him right through.
Even through the crimson haze of his blood, he knew this blade well, almost as much as his own. 'What would drive her to stab me?' – that however he could not recognise.
He gripped the blade with the gauntlet of his arms, trying to prevent what he knew came next. But it was too late as his sister pulled off her signature move, confirming, and breaking him, as he recognised, truly, no other, but his sister would do this. She angled the sword up and then precisely cut the air passage to the lungs – even regeneration has a problem reaching there just as quickly as she could open it.
She pulled out her sword. Then she looked at him as he turned his head, he smiled, blood flowing down from the sides of his mouth. They both weren't done, not even close. She then focused her power over Viscosity on the blood – a property describing the internal resistance of fluids to flowing and deformation.
His blood gushed out, then his eyes turned a beautiful jade green, a black helmet made of shadows covered his face. Then since the area was already dark, he had a surplus of shadows to summon. The shadows began taking forms of monsters. Then he himself turned into a shadow, mixing in with them.
The shadows flowed like snakes on the floor, but still under the same concept, they stopped. As she had not permitted any flowing inside her presence. He had not much to do against his sister. Outside that surprise earlier, they were almost equal, so this was a stalemate. He may be injured, but he was not about to be killed so easily, so he kept commanding the shadows to move.
The Knight stood there, watching them. From out of nowhere it suddenly got curious, 'How do you think it will play out?'
Kitrino then stepdown from the balcony railing, still at a staggering six metres. She then leaned on a pillar, looking around the room. 'I think something unexpected is going to happen again – I really don't like that [Desire] power of yours, it usually makes things worse, and even then, it pushes further…'
Then a massive explosion occurred. '…It seems they broke the stalemate.'
The two siblings kept moving around, each other's swords at their throats, blade of shadows and the other of steel. When they clashed an eerie silent noise rang instead of the usual clangour of metal. This was because both of them were fighting with the full force of their powers, delivered in each crushing blow. Cracks began marring the surface of the room. These places were built to be sturdy, but not like containment chambers – so their battle took a toll.
Soon an influx of other dark knights came rushing in, but just as they did, the floor beneath them gave in, and they all collapsed to the lower floors of their palace. The entire roof was blown off. The two fighters jumped from rock to rock, as their battle continued in the skies using their own fruits of destruction.
The brother kept losing blood as he jumped from rubble to rubble – even as a shadow – her sister made that blood flow faster than water. Making it rain within this dark dome.
Those who had arrived had been guarding along the city wall and finally gathered after the cover of ice, each was a former knight bachelor, twenty-three of them. Even if they weren't as strong as their two captains, lashing out in the rubble in the sky.
Kitrino then teleported out of nowhere, opening her arms and taking a couple of them into her arms and changing location – to split the forces.
The Knight then teleported to those left. Each of them were strong, and in fact had resisted the desire to just outright kill themselves, which the Knight took as a sigh that more research on its power was needed.
Up above, metal like armour pieces rained. Dozens of the shadow monsters on the floor, still not turning back into shadows – she didn't let them. But she was worse off though. Her amour was worse because she could not restore it using shadows like her brother.
She had taken many injuries, but not a single drop of blood flowed, neither did the flesh part, it was like cutting through tofu with an extremely sharp knife. It hurt, but it kept her from having injuries to hinder her fighting, she just had to bare the pain, that she could do.
They and the falling rubble landed on the grounds just outside the palace. Then her brother stepped out of the shadows, powering through his sisters power resisting his flow from flat to figure. The shadows had stitched up his wounds, but she made it hard for his blood to flow, so he wasn't healing properly.
They slowly walked towards each other. Then began running, clashing, her blade flowed right through his, as if it had become liquid. He then sent a spike of blades popping through the ground. She stabbed him again, from the abdomen to the back shoulder, straight through his heart.
She was there impaled from every direction, in shadow spikes. They had both put so much push into their powers, they didn't have enough mind left to counter their opponent – taking the brunt full on. He looked into her eyes, she was fading. Then suddenly, a tiny little gremlin appeared, it then barfed out this dark substance on them as they were frozen, impaled in place by their own blades.
Then it vanished, his sister collapsed on the floor, he would have liked to say that she was dead, but her eyes, her grey blood, her distortions, all of it was eerily familiar. He knew nothing else that produced such disturbing corpses. His sister was gone, but she was not dead, she had suffered an even worse fate – a fate he recognised.
Her sword was still deep in him, and unfortunately, she had made the no flow of blood and shadows around him last longer.
'I should find a way to free myself – I have a feeling that gremlin has friends.'
Then further off, an explosive boom rang, as the Knight used [Impact] to punch right through its opponent, before the body fell, the Knight gouged the soul out of him.
In the next moment, the Knight was split in two.
'Isn't that quite bold of them – this must be the second one I've seen trying to bent dimensions, even amongst powers, that one is incredible – I doubt they can hold it for long.'
The Knight removed the dimensional barrier on itself, by simply exerting its presence, then severing the will between the two dimensions using [Willruption]. It had figured it out last time. It'd rather not think about the last time, it lost arms, and had to waste souls to coerce the vermin to reconnect them.
The knight that had used the dimensional warp looked surprised, even though that was the extent of his dimensional exertion, it should not be able to be stopped once begun, so he tried again, but this time he split himself in two. As the Knight surrounded him in a thick layer of void, it used [Daunting] – to redirect to the power on the user.
That single act took its toll on the knight and was only used for this specific power. It had not yet found a better solution. It looked around at the destruction, and even now, the Knight had only delt with just three of them.
It felt a soul flow into its inventory, meaning that the two had finished their fight. It could not get distracted from the fight, so it sent more army members to handle the wounded Knight, just enough for the little gremlin to transfer its soul to the Knight on its own – the vermin could only store destabilised souls about to fade.
Another amplified explosion ensued on the lower floors.
Kitrino had only managed to beat one of them. Things weren't looking good. But all she had to do was buy time. Cathina and the disciple Forg finally dropped from above. Her battle with these guys had destroyed so many floors, they were fighting in the bottom of the building sellers – nothing but solid ground beneath them.
'You guys took your time.'
They had just arrived from outside the city; they were making sure no-one had managed to slip through before the ice formed.
'Unlike you we can't teleport.'
Cathina didn't answer, but as soon as she landed, the air became stiff, even for Forg and Kitrino. She then froze two solid, one survived and the other shattered into free atoms. Then she let go of her power for a little, her fingers were frozen solid, and if she continued, she might just die, freezing her own heart solid.
Multiple spirits then began emerging from Forg's soul. A few went into the ground, forcing massive roots to bind and crush the frozen one who had survived. And just as she pulled another spirit, one of the knights stepped forward, slicing it into pieces.
Forg could only summon spirits of forest folk ancestors, or those she knew in life that had passed. If the queen died, she would be able to summon her, if she answered the call. She could also tame wondering ghosts, and her current arsenal was lacking.
Then something changed as a distortion surrounded them. The Knight teleported down and cut though it through the make of that distortion. It knew they weren't strong enough to really stop a group of former knights this strong, so the plan was to split up their forces, let the two strongest handle each other. And as soon as the Knight was done with the first half or so, it would go on to help them, and this time they had taken down three – 'Impressive.'
The knight, along with them, handled the remaining ones. It was an up-hill battle as usual, especially with how suited their powers were to facing people and sometimes voids alike. So, this synergy was so that, the Knight and its army handled the people tuned powers, and Forg and Cathina handle the powers ill-suited to facing people.
After two intense days of battle, the last one fell as the vile hunter bit his head off, and the vermin collected the soul. Even through all of this, their leader – Enun, had lived the longest. Through his battle with his sister, the monsters, and through the battle of the Knight and the dark knights. and he had finally died now just as the Knight came to them to help the monster, who seem to have had everything under control.
The Knight collected his soul. 'I really did underestimate the power over shadows.'
The Knight had collected a little over thirty souls, and each was so powerful, but almost half would be used to restore the Knight and the army enough to face the next base. The souls were stronger and provided more existential energy, but it was not worth it.
This was just one of the easier bases even. The Knight had been lucky that the sister and brother already had some kind of desire within them to kill the other and take over the place. Facing them as they lead their men in unison would have made for a longer escapade.
'These guys are getting wiser to our tactics; we'll have to change again. Cathina, find more ways to supress the information. If they learn enough, they might set up more encapsulating traps. Not enough to stop me, but enough to waste time. Even after five years, we haven't raided a single extremely dangerous dark knight.'
The Knight then scratched their names from the catalogue.
The Knight then gave the souls to Kitrino, so she could feed the army. It then limes a staircase made out of air. After reaching the top, and after everyone was evacuated, the Knight covered the whole building with the void.
Then it reached one hand to the oblivious city folk below. Each of them had this tiny light leaved them, then all of them collected on the Knights palm. Then it strengthened this desire and threw it into the void.
Brick upon brick, floor by floor, the Knight restored the entire building. No-one wanted to be saved at the cost of such impending destruction. This also served other purposes. It made it further secret how the Knight managed to defeat all the dark knights. It also made the people feel like the Knight was an actual hero – it left no ruins in its path.
Then the central building to this city, stood in all its magnificent glory, build from the peoples desire to not see their homes crumble.
The Ice dome came down first. The dragons left shortly after. The thick roots covering their houses recede. Light peaked in through their windows, and for thee first time in two days, they came outside. As soon as most of them were out, the Knight waved at them from a high place, making sure enough saw it to confirm this was no accident.
The Knight heard cheering and felt the wicked sensation in its souls as a few thousand more believers happen to connect to the Knight. Leaving before too much happened was supposed to reduce the numbers, since sceptics always exist. And it had reduced the gain per base, but any gain was still too much, [Greed] did not mind one bit.
The Knight checked the book's map and added an icon. The Knight then looked at the nearest dark knight, and this time it found nothing worthy of note. All lesser dangers had been wiped out, and the Knight had only been dealing with those designated highly dangerous like this place was.
There was no other dark knight left on this entire continent, except one, labelled as an individual of extremely dangerous nature, only second from the top. The Knight would have been fine, going off and looking for other highly dangerous bases before facing this one, but it felt that removing this continent from the list might be more prudent if done now.
So, the Knight decided, a few weeks from now, it would face its first ever extremely dangerous dark knight.