Chapter 50: Nerath’s Remnants [6] Dark Knight [5]
The absolute silence of the Shadow Realm hung around the two warriors like a heavy cloak.
In this endless void where time and space had lost all meaning, there were only two entities:
The noble purple glow seeping from the stone in Fredrinn’s chest...
...and the pitch-black darkness emanating from the cracks in the Black Knight’s armor.
They circled each other with the slow, measured steps of predators in a deadly dance, waiting for the slightest moment of weakness, the slightest hesitation, to attack.
The advantage, despite all his wounds and the weakening from Cassian, still belonged to the Black Knight.
This was his hunting ground. His kingdom.
Every shadow was a limb of his; every whisper, a reflection of his will.
His very presence in this realm compensated for the damage he had taken and the power he had lost, turning him once again into a nightmare difficult to defeat.
Fredrinn was fully aware of this bitter truth.
Despite the new, mighty power flowing through his veins, he was still at a disadvantage.
But he had no intention of dying without shattering this pile of metal and avenging his friends.
This thought fanned the purple flame within him even brighter.
He was the first to break the silence.
The Black Knight lunged forward in an instant. His movement was so sudden and explosive it was as if the void itself had been torn asunder.
As if expecting this move, Fredrinn responded at the same moment, launching himself toward his opponent.
The two swords collided in the very center of the dimension with unbelievable violence.
A shockwave spread from the epicenter of the clash, momentarily rippling the nothingness around them.
Black and purple sparks scattered like short-lived, furious stars.
Without retracting his sword, Fredrinn immediately moved to his next attack.
He swung his blade, crackling with purple lightning, toward the thin line where the Black Knight’s helmet met his neck.
However, the Black Knight, displaying incredible agility even with one arm, met the blow with the strongest part of his sword.
Following the ear-piercing screech of steel, he pushed Fredrinn back, creating a momentary distance between them.
He instantly turned this distance into a weapon.
Unleashing the dark aura cloaking his sword, he sent two deadly, crescent-shaped waves of mana hurtling toward Fredrinn.
Fredrinn sized up the trajectory of the approaching attacks with his eyes and, spinning his sword like a propeller, shattered both waves in mid-air before they could reach him.
He didn’t hesitate for a moment.
As he lunged forward again, he changed his combat strategy. He had decided to now wield his sword with one hand, making his movements faster and more flexible.
His other hand tightly gripped his short dagger.
This was a new problem for the Black Knight.
Now, with his single good arm, he had to simultaneously parry two attacks coming from two different directions.
The Black Knight responded to Fredrinn’s new tactic with brute force.
He swung his sword, combining the full weight of his massive frame and all his mana into a single blow.
Even the high-pitched whistle the sword made as it cut through the air was a harbinger of the attack’s absolute destructive power.
The moment Fredrinn’s purple-lightning-clad sword made contact with the dark-aura-infused steel, the two opposing forces engaged in a savage struggle to annihilate each other.
A momentary equilibrium was broken by the Black Knight’s sheer physical strength.
He began to overwhelm Fredrinn in terms of power. Fredrinn’s feet began to scrape backward on the invisible ground beneath him, his stance involuntarily breaking.
Finally, the purple lightning was suppressed by the dark aura. His sword was violently knocked back, and the massive black sword descended toward his undefended chest.
Fredrinn tried to slip his dagger between them in a final effort, but it was futile.
The tip of the sword carved a deep, bloody gash from the center of his chest downward.
Pain licked at his nerves like a whip.
But the Black Knight gave him no time to breathe. His next move was a brutal kick that landed squarely in the middle of that fresh wound.
A cry of agony escaped Fredrinn’s lips, the air was forced from his lungs, and he was thrown backward with a bloody scar.
Without allowing him to recover, the Black Knight pounced on him again like a predator.
Fredrinn gathered the last of his strength in his legs, trying to plant himself and assume a battle stance, but before he could even straighten up, he saw the massive sword coming toward him like a spear.
It was impossible to dodge this blow.
Using the power from the stone in his chest, he formed a circular shield of purple lightning in front of him as a final line of defense.
The moment the Black Knight’s sword struck this shield, it didn’t slow for even an instant. The lightning shield popped and vanished like a soap bubble.
However, that one-second delay had saved Fredrinn’s life.
He managed to collect himself and, at the last moment, leaned to the side, pulling himself out of the sword’s fatal path.
Simultaneously, he swung his own sword toward the Black Knight’s leg.
The Black Knight was forced to change the direction of the sword he was trying to thrust downward to block this unexpected counterattack.
In that moment, Fredrinn took a gamble.
He let go of his sword.
Into the dagger he held in his good hand, he channeled all the purple energy in his veins, all his hatred, and all his hope.
He barely dodged the Black Knight’s sword; the steel carved deep into his left shoulder, opening another long, burning wound that stretched toward his back.
But he ignored the pain.
Because he was now right in front of his target.
He plunged his dagger through the crack in the armor—the one Cassian had opened and he himself had shattered—directly toward the Black Knight’s heart.
Purple lightning, like a flood unleashed from the dagger’s tip, instantly enveloped the Black Knight’s entire body.
The dark essence beneath the armor was illuminated by this pure, foreign energy.
For a moment, the Black Knight glowed like a horrific purple nightlight. His body convulsed with spasms, and as if paralyzed, he dropped the massive sword he held.
Fredrinn did not stop. This was his moment.
He pulled his blade back and stabbed it into the same wound, again and again.
With each thrust, lightning poured in like a poison, burning the dark essence from the inside.
Fredrinn was pouring all his hatred, all his rage, into these strikes. He had wasted too much time with him. He didn’t know what condition Rose and Cassian were in right now. In the worst-case scenario, he might have lost them both.
Even this thought made his blood run cold, made his soul contract in agony, which only made him stab the blade harder, deeper.
The Black Knight’s colossal body was no longer moving. Like a statue, he slowly sank to his knees and froze.
As Fredrinn raised his hand to stab the blade one last time, his wrist was suddenly stopped, as if clamped by a steel vise.
The Black Knight had barely managed to recover.
Fredrinn tried to break free from the Black Knight’s grasp, but his grip was inhumanly tight. He helplessly let go of the dagger, quickly caught it with his other hand, and stabbed it back into the wound.
But this time, the Black Knight did not react.
His only reaction was more savage and sudden than Fredrinn could possibly imagine.
Before Fredrinn could even understand what was happening, he felt his arm being torn from his torso.
A moment of unimaginable pain, followed by shock...
Before his eyes, he saw his own arm, a bloody piece of flesh, left in the Black Knight’s hand.
Blood gushed from his empty shoulder like a fountain.
The scene he was witnessing and the pain he felt stopped his brain, erasing all his thoughts.
In agony, he clutched the stump of his now-nonexistent arm. The sight of the bone being irregularly and gratingly ripped from the flesh was a nauseating image.
The Black Knight swung his mana-filled armored fist into the gut of the pain-doubled Fredrinn.
Fredrinn flipped through the air and crashed hard to the ground ten meters away. He was losing blood rapidly. His consciousness was fading in and out.
He could not continue this fight any longer.
Just as he sank to the depths of despair, thinking nothing worse could happen, the shadows around him began to stir.
From the ground, like figures rising from mud, dark silhouettes emerged.
One shadow was a Black Knight without legs. Another, a headless Black Knight.
Another shadow had a massive hole in the middle of its stomach; one’s torso was mangled like a bitten apple. Some, however, appeared completely intact.
From the shadows, more and more Black Knights continued to rise, without end.
Most were weak, at the one or two-star level. Under normal circumstances, they would be toys for Fredrinn in a one-on-one fight.
But now, for a Fredrinn whose body was ravaged, who had only one arm and was barely holding onto consciousness, this was an insurmountable wall of death.
Fredrinn’s mind was on the verge of shutting down at this sight.
Cassian had said there was only one Black Knight. He had never mentioned an ability to summon an army.
What was happening? Why weren’t things going according to plan?
Damn it, was he really going to die here? he muttered as he cut a charging Black Knight in half with a swing of his sword in his remaining hand.
His eyes were bloodshot. His consciousness was screaming to shut down, his body was screaming for rest.
He crushed a headless torso crawling toward him on the ground with his foot, destroying it.
Meanwhile, the real Black Knight emerged from the shadows to deliver the final blow to the distracted Fredrinn, raising his sword.
Just then, a light echoed in the infinite darkness of the Shadow Realm.
A golden light, like a sun rising in this realm of nothingness.
The Black Knight and all his weak copies around him began to weaken in the face of this sudden and pure light, their bodies starting to burn as if being dissolved by acid. Pained, muffled screams rose from the shadows.
At the center of the light, a single silhouette stood.
His slightly long, pure white hair waved in harmony with the golden light around him. And he had eyes that glowed like two embers from hell.
On the face of a boy who looked to be around thirteen, as he witnessed all this chaos and death, was a demonic smile.
His eyes were fixed on the Black Knight, whose final blow had just been interrupted.