Demon and Knight (3)
Boom—!
Gila Decaire's footfall as he advanced. The instant he kicked off the ground, he vanished from sight.
Kriel tracked the traces. The arena floor cratered, debris rocketing skyward. He read the direction.
Kriel rolled across the ground. Right then, Decaire's resentment-wreathed blade stabbed into the spot where he'd been.
A sinister chill spread from the sword embedded in the earth. Beyond mere gooseflesh—it carried tangible physical force. Freezing radiated from the blade like crystalline frost, tendrils bursting forth. In every icy filament, the wails of specters condensed.
Death's pursuers, craving life, closed in.
Kriel didn't back away. With Decaire's sword pinned to the ground, the man's stance was restricted. The opponent's sword path constrained, Kriel's own wide open—this was the moment. A chance for counterattack.
A whoosh tore the air apart. The trajectory was a straight, honest line. No feints or flourishes, allowing every ounce of power to pour in.
The greatsword, cloaked in inky fighting spirit, plummeted toward Decaire's head.
But Decaire showed no dismay. Crimson lines etched across his body—the marks of blood qi—suddenly vanished.
The dissipated blood qi converged at the tips of Decaire's fingers. From his palm erupted a single crimson spike. It formed a sword of solidified blood qi.
The blood-red blade clashed against the greatsword descending from above.
The moment Kriel's greatsword met Decaire's blood sword, agony lanced into Kriel's flesh. Lacerations of dismemberment. Screams of burning. Burns of torture. Drowning lungs. Starvation's gnaw. A kaleidoscope of pains, each distinct.
The sum of every physical torment Gila Decaire had inflicted and harvested from his victims.
As Kriel's momentum faltered, Gila shattered his blood sword, reverting it to his body, and yanked his own greatsword free.
The moment Decaire gripped his greatsword, the specters' howls intensified. Every wraith haunting his blade was someone Decaire had slain with his own hands.
Their pain-filled grudges synced with the blood qi invading Kriel. The raw screams of those who'd endured the very torments now squeezing him. Layered atop the bodily agony: the despair and resignation they'd felt in their final moments.
Kriel didn't break. He raised his sword.
Decaire swung like a tempest. With every echo of ghostly shrieks, the air his blade touched froze into lines of ice. Those ice spears launched straight at Kriel.
Trusting his Eve Kaha plate armor, Kriel charged ahead. In the heart of a storm of blades, Decaire and Kriel targeted each other. Within the greatswords' deadly range, savage ripostes shattered anything that dared approach.
Blade met blade in showers of sparks. Both wielded sword aura, and darkness lurked in their hearts. Paradoxically, the flames burned a deep, profound black.
Decaire's fury-driven assault drove Kriel from one end of the arena to the other. Each leap covered the length of three men end-to-end. Every block of those malice-heavy swings forced Kriel back.
Until he slammed against the wall of the ancient coliseum-like battleground the demon had recreated.
Planting his greatsword to brace himself and avoid collapse, Kriel met Decaire's gaze.
A momentary lull.
"You…"
Instead of pressing the attack, Decaire voiced his doubt.
"Why not use the Dark Knight's power?"
Kriel offered no reply. He'd wielded the Dark Knight's abilities when needed—no stubborn refusal born of personal pride.
Two reasons kept him from it.
First: The core principle of the abyss he'd exploited to fool Satranyak—and beyond.
The weak submit, the strong dominate.
The Dark Knight's skills likely followed the same rule. Though a Dark Knight himself, Kriel rarely tapped those powers.
Gila Decaire might have wielded the abyss's might for untold ages beneath it. Experience bred mastery.
If Kriel met resentment with resentment, it would slip from his blade to Decaire's.
Urging him to use Dark Knight powers was itself a trap.
Yet there was a workaround: Project no power outward, focus solely on self-enhancement, like blood qi's muscle boosts.
Kriel avoided even that for the second reason.
Second: 'I don't have any.'
Right now, Kriel had no stockpiled blood qi or resentment.
Dark Knights typically amassed them through unrestrained slaughter up to their limits. Ultimately, even exhausting reserves, abyss skills could bind victims' souls for instant recharge through exploitation.
But Kriel recoiled from clutching others' pain. He only gathered from beasts when battle loomed certain, dumping all resources in one fight.
Kriel let his sword answer.
Decaire, believing he'd pushed Kriel to his limit, grew lax.
Boom—!
A metallic clash mingled with spectral laments, the eerie sound reverberating through the abyss.
Decaire realized he'd taken a step back.
A glint flashed in his eyes.
Amateurs wailed and rolled when blades met and blood qi hit. Even self-proclaimed knights crumbled under resentment.
That unflinching poise—feigned calm or true mastery—demanded immense effort.
"Heir. State your name. From now, I'll treat you as a knight."
A surge of urge to unleash a torrent of vulgar curses.
But this was a moment to defy the abyss. Tirnanog's knights had a standard to uphold.
Chewing on the honor he held dear, Kriel spoke.
"You dare utter a knight's name?"
Crimson light flared menacingly from beneath Gila Decaire's helm. Insult deepened the blood qi's pulse.
"As your senior, I'll grant one more chance. Speak your name."
'This bastard wants knightly treatment after beating people half to death?' The blunt retort flashed in Kriel's mind.
But no. Simple insults wouldn't pierce a madman who boasted knighthood after falling to the abyss.
"Senior, eh? Then I'll weigh the deeds you've piled up."
"What nonsense is this?"
"Among the foes you've beaten. How many were true rivals—worthy adventures and honorable struggles?"
"You felt it in your body, yet deny it? Countless enemies I've felled, subjugated, conquered—they're here. My blood qi and resentment prove it."
Kriel recalled the pain flowing along Decaire's blade.
"Is killing the unresisting old a glory? Slaying a child before its mother and garroting her with its guts an honor?"
"The tally of deaths stacked is the Dark Knight's glory."
Kriel laughed.
"Then you're no knight."
"Insolent—!"
Decaire lunged. Fury blinded him, but it didn't weaken him. His swordplay might've simplified, yet his grip tightened, muscles pulsed fiercer. Explosive contractions birthed overwhelming speed.
Kriel knew this as Dark Knight power. Mental debuffs turned to strength. Any psychotic obsession bolstered vitality, filling the flesh.
Any negative emotion fueled it, birthing new demons from crystallized malice. Transcending humanity, the Dark Knight etched its name eternally in the abyss.
But that wasn't Kriel's path. Not the honor he dreamed of.
Gila Decaire's face hardened.
"You truly reject the abyss's power?"
Ridiculous, pathetic, enviable. This man praised by his lord as 'he who would be king.' What lack drove him to shun power?
"Don't reject the power you hold! The Dark Knight isn't some coward fearing strength!"
Inferiority-fueled jealousy swelled his might. Overflowing fullness spread.
"Behold! My power growing even now! You could dominate all with a wish! Ruling the weak—that's the strong man's duty, the knight's mission!"
Domination as mission.
Kriel disagreed. A knight's duty was no such thing.
As some wandering knight in a library tome once said: Knights tread narrow, arduous paths. Dreaming foolish, idiotic dreams.