The demon knight's eyes flicked frantically between the thirteen identical figures sprinting toward him, no breaks in their armor, no flicker of shadow to betray which was flesh and which was magic. He had seconds to react.
The first black knight reached him with a downward diagonal cut. The demon knight snapped his kite shield up, catching the blow cleanly. The weight behind it felt wrong, too light, too hollow.
*Not the real one,* he noted, already shifting to counter.
But before he could, another greatsword came in low from his opposite side, sweeping for his legs. He dropped his longsword to intercept the strike, metal clanging against shadow-forged steel.
*Not real either.*
His living armor pulsed, danger behind him. He shoved both clones away with a burst of strength and spun, shield rising just in time to absorb a heavy overhead slash from a third black knight. This one hit hard enough to bite into the dirt beneath his boots.
*That one's real.*
He lunged, driving his longsword toward the gap behind the black knight's left knee.
Another warning flared across his armor, an attack from behind again, but he ignored it. The clones hit too soft to matter; the real threat stood right in front of him, and he intended to cripple him before dealing with the rest.
A fatal miscalculation.
The blow that cracked against the back of his helmet was far heavier than anything a clone should've been capable of, an explosive, jarring smash from the flat of a greatsword that sent his vision rattling. He lurched forward straight into the black knight that he thought was real—
Only for that one to seize the opening, hooking an arm and using the demon knight's own momentum to roll him clean over a shoulder and slam him into the ground hard enough to crater the dirt.
He barely had time to register the hit before they were on him.
All of them.
Thirteen black knights poured in at once, abandoning any pretense of knightly form. Boots crashed into his armor. Blades stabbed, hacked, hammered. Shadows smothered him from all sides as they kicked, stomped, slashed, and clubbed in a frenzied, unrelenting dogpile. It wasn't elegant. It wasn't honorable. It was pure, desperate brutality.
"Come on! Come on! Won't get a chance like this again!" all thirteen shouted at once, their voices overlapping in a chaotic chorus as they beat the demon knight into the dirt.
Suddenly, a concussive burst of wind detonated outward from the demon knight, a violent shockwave that sent every black knight, real and clones, hurling back nearly ten feet. Two clones were caught dead-center in the blast; slicing winds carved clean through them, cleaving each in half before they unraveled into drifting shadow.
The real black knight hit the ground hard, his armor skidding across the dirt. His eyes widened behind the helmet's slits, then narrowed.
*Expected that… last time he used wind magic to drive us off.* His grip tightened around the shadow-forged greatsword. *Looks like he's finally going all out.*
The demon knight pushed himself upright, one gauntlet clamped against the side of his helmet. Dust caked his black plate armor, and the living metal gave a low internal groan of strain. He lifted his gaze toward the circling black knights.
"I see you meant it when you said you were not a knight," he said, voice edged with irritation rather than rage.
All eleven black knights answered in perfect unison, shoulders rising in the same shrug. "Should've expected this. We did warn you. Don't blame us, you never should've expected a proper duel."
"You are right," the demon knight muttered. "I should have."
He slid his kite shield into place on his back, discarding it for the moment, and wrapped both hands around the hilt of his longsword. A sharp exhale, and the blade erupted in a violent shimmer of green light. Dozens of miniature wind blades spiraled around the steel, buzzing so quickly they blurred like a spinning saw.
The real black knight instinctively stepped back. Ten identical shadows mirrored him, still maintaining the illusion that any of them could be the true one.
"That… looks really sharp," they all said together, unease threading through the chorus.
The demon knight shifted his stance, pulling the longsword back, then raising it high over his head. No warning. No buildup. Just a single, deliberate swing.
A vertical slice split the air.
One of the black knights simply came apart, bisected cleanly from crown to groin by a blade of wind so fine and fast it was invisible. The clone dissolved before its halves even touched the ground.
The real black knight froze.
He hadn't seen the strike.
Not the arc. Not the wind blade. Nothing.
If the demon knight had chosen him instead of the clone—
He would already be dead.
Slowly, the remaining black knights re-formed their loose circle, each of them facing the demon knight with a new, sharp edge of fear. Their earlier bravado evaporated.
The real duel was finally beginning.