Split seconds had passed since the final dying clangs died out reverberated around the cavernous room in the chest of one of God's first creations. The bitter smell of hard fought battle was beginning to sting the nose of all three parties in this predicament, but only one of them noticed it, as the other two were the ones creating such stench. The stench of bloodlust. There was a time where Death had created such a scent, but those times were buried, deeper even than the ocean his nieces and nephews had waged war against after his own disappearance from the mortal realm. He swept those encroaching memories under the metaphorical rug, as there was no use dwelling on his race's outcome. They paid for what they brought upon this land gifted to them by their Father to love and nurture, just as he still was. While Death's mind whirled at the scent that had haunted him since its inception, his body remained passive and continued playing the sheets of music imprinted into his mind almost as much as the blood on his hands. Behind the veil of white silk, voided eyes of inky cosmos glanced to right, their once bright brilliance dimmed with age and now vacant of the spark that laced the eyes of the living, before murmuring something at such a low whisper his veil held in place by a band of silver and a single nail run through the center of his forehead all the way into his skull, didn't move at all, yet it was heard ever so faintly to his own ears, his own cursed, and coarse voice he had forsaken and hated since his fallacy rung like church bells to his own withered hearing.
"It will be arduous, but he is the first of many" His voice irritated him, but that didn't stop the slight quirk up of his cracked limps on his gaunt, hidden face. He sees everything in this realm, and what he saw right now was a fight that would've been legendary–alas, there was not a soul to remember this tectonic battle of the ages. He would say bitterness was on his tongue, but he cut off his tongue in the bygone era, and he wasn't allowed to feel things. All that mattered was fixing what was ultimately his fault.
The nameless knight's terribly strong strike of his sword never reached Soven, yet his skull still cracked from the would be devastating blow. There was a hair's distance between the blunt weapon and the knight's midnight-dipped helm, yet he never reached it, for his blade was caught by something. Soven's blade of darkness had melted in his hands at some point in between the knight appearing behind the black figure and the moment he was now in, and turned into a nothing more than a pool of oozing, writhing darkness around the pair which defied the laws that named a shadow a shadow, and jumped upward, caught Rising Tide adroitly and in a grip unlike anything the knight had ever experienced in battle. Not even those creatures that escaped the Hell Gates had this much presence on the battlefield as this simple blade held; it made his mind spin, but he had no time to try and comprehend the situation, he was still in the air. His sword was still in the grip of the black tendrils that were once a sword wielded by Soven, and his own sword was being forced out of his hands. There was no escaping the coming attack, so he let his sword leave his armored hands. His slightly loose grip made it quite easy to release the weapon, and in quick succession, he hit the ground with a cold thump against the obsidian–not that either of the jousting duo could hear it in the moment–had back peddaled away from Soven thump by the thump, the knight jostled his way away from the single tendril of shadow still moving in slow motion until he appeared quite the distance from Sovens still form, huffing for air despite not needing air to function normally. When Soven pivoted to turn to him, he could almost taste the malice radiating from the well of madness slowly flooding into everything that surrounded them. The knight could feel in his bones that his opponent was speaking to him, yet he couldn't hear a thing over the simple melody being played to the knights right. It helped him focus on the current issue at hand, and the one that was approaching–no, the one that was already in front of him.
His eyes swiveled in his eyes sockets behind the narrow visor of his helmet, which he found less and less necessary for this battle, but he had no time to dwell on his annoying issues with his vision as the tendrils of shadow were descending on him. They were fast, but not anywhere close to as fast as Soven was, meaning he deftly evaded the strikes. Side steps, pivots, and ducking were the key ingredients to this dance as he tried to figure out his next move. As the scuffle continued, the sword's single tentacle seemed split into dozens of smaller tentacles of grinning malice; the knight was still managing fairly well despite it all. While evading the strikes of several tentacles at a time, his eyes scanned the part of the room lit up with the souls of the slumbering, trying to find a clue or something he could use to gain the advantage in this terrible situation he found himself in. This was a fight that would be decided in a single blow by either of them. There was no telling who would win a fight where if one strikes the other would simply be evaporated. A flicker of excitement sparked in his stomach as he grabbed hold of a tendril and pulled it out of the depth of the shadows and crushed it in his hand, it whined in his hand as it deflated into particles of darkness that fell downward allowing it to return to life as a regular shadow while pivoting to the left to avoid a piercing strike to the knight's heart which had nearly skewered him.
When he spotted a lake of blood that he had incidentally been slowly inching toward, his mouth inched toward a smile behind the helm. He had figured out something that could possibly work, he just needed to get his blade back, which reminded him. He ducked underneath a slash brought by a tendril of shadow with a hand at the end of it holding Rising Tide before charging toward the case of the tentacle which was blocking his way to the lake of blood which he was easily able to eviscerate into nothing letting another shrilling clang fill the air for a moment before he summoned his semi-independent-thinking weapon back to his hand, and with his gift back in his hand, he quickly ran forward, towards the lake of blood that was within reach and drove the blade directly down, leaving the sword stuck at the lakes edge.
He stared at the vortex of blood around Rising Tide as it grew sharper with every pint of blood ingested by the sword, but ultimately pivoted out of the way as a hand of darkness reached out and tried to clasp him in the brief moment he forgot about the peculiar situation he found himself in. To get the unnamed blade of darkness away from Rising Tide; to let the cannon load itself was his new objective, which was both easier and harder than he expected it to be. Soven had decided to watch him struggle and stay back–very arrogant, but he wasn't one to be complain when a blessing was brought to him, so instead he continued dodging the growing number of agitated limbs with a new found flexibility while keeping a close eye on the ticking time bomb he was letting grow in power keenly, just as Soven was–though he didn't seem to care what the knight was doing–once again showing the arrogance that would lead to his demise–the nameless one would make sure of it.
He let his mind take a back seat as he relentlessly dodged, struck out, and watched the sword. The glow around the sword was growing steadily, but not fast enough. He needed Rising Tide to be so sharp that it tore through Soven without even touching him, something that would only benefit the knight if the shadows didn't stop interrupting the fight. It was the key to ending this fight as swiftly as possible. Sweat poured off the knight beneath the armor, exhaustion isn't something that he had faced often in his life, but when it did, it meant it was a serious situation, and those were always the fights he remembered the most.
Taking a step back, the knight moved right outside of range of motion for the tentacle that was currently besieging him from the front, while allowing one from the right to penetrate the one that was attacking from the left, allowing the twin appendages to collide, each other instantly. Grinning behind the helmet, the knight continued his dance with imminent pain with a luster he hadn't had in a long time. The enjoyment he was getting from destroying the tendrils was clear, a simple pastime, by using nothing more than the twin fists God had gifted him for moments such as these–and in a way, they were far more deadly than the blade Rising Tide.
With every crushing blow dealt to the tangible darkness the knight grew a shard more confident, but was immediately thrown to the side when a stray fragment of darkness cut through his armor like butter, fracturing his ego with every cut, and they were accumulating, fast, until the barrage of attacks suddenly ceased.
Confused, the knight glanced around, once again getting irritated by the helmet he was wearing, he forced himself to pay attention to the much bigger problem, or lack of a problem: The tentacles, arms, and writhing darkness were all zigzagging their two dimensional frames across the floor back to Soven, and gravitated towards the giants, obsidian colored gauntlet, allowing the torrent of darkness to reform into the blade of darkness it had been before dissolving. They both stared at the blade for a moment before glancing at one another again.
Sighing, Soven spoke up, monologuing like he had been doing the entire time–probably because he enjoyed his own voice, but he'd never admit to that outloud, "Did you know that these blades were forged from the carcasses of infantile creatures from the shadow realm? Out of the many mysteries reality holds, the shadow realm is the most well kept secret, yet somehow you humans made your way there, and even slew some of them. How, is the question, though. The creatures that lurk in the shadow realm are beyond even the greatest generation of creatures' power; the second generation; my generation. These creatures were so strong they still retained themselves, even when only a fraction of their power existed still, to be forged into these weapons of bewitching power. This one was a child when murdered in the shadow realm, and could only achieve a fragment of its maturity, as are many of these forgotten weapons. They brought chaos with them wherever one emerged from, so this continent simply eradicated all those who used the weapons created in the hearts of terrible power. Now then, let me show you the first layer of this power," Soven said, which immediately gave way to not even a blur of motion, just a disappearance and an instantaneous reappearance in front of the knight. He raised his blade once again, but there was something different about the strike this time. Layers of darkness manifested, off of the gleaming blade and were dragged forward as the weapon came down on the knight's left shoulder. The knight knew what Soven was using, and nearly deemed his a fool for using such a technique in such close quarters, but just as fast as Soven was there, he was gone again, and now, there was only a crescent wave of darkness, so large it obscured his view entirely. Moments felt like hours as the wave finally made contact with him, and then he heard it. The clang of metal rattling against the igneous floor. The darkness had receded, and because of the lovely tune that filled his ears, he didn't exactly feel anything wrong, until he glanced down at the floor to see his armored left arm, lifelessly stretched across the floor.
He held the wound, which couldn't even be called a stump as his shoulder had disappeared entirely; it wasn't attached to his torso, and glancing down to his arm again numbly it wasn't there either. His wound squirted, he coulda swore he saw his convulsing flesh spew out small particles of bone, but that was overshadowed by the bone itself sticking out of the flesh of his torso and the disheveled looking left latissimus, torn to ribbons. The sound was deaf to his ears, but the sound of dripping blood from the open room was the only thing that filled the room. The slightly skeletal arms of blue paused momentarily in its movement, but the moment ended just as fast as it started. Looking up from his wound, the knight stared into the visor of the black knights helmet, only seeing darkness equally voided as the armor Soven wore, and then looked back at the limp limb. The knight stared at the limb, and in the unwritten pause in their battle, he turned to his left, and bent over to pick up his dominant hand from pooling blood that escaped the limb in the short time that had passed.
"You know, I can give you your dream, Young Immortal. Whatever it is that you desire, I can give it to you. There is no need for all this fighting! That thing over there is using you to obtain something he doesn't deserve–actually, he's using you for a number of different reasons! Though I'm not allowed to tell you–It seems. I may not be able to grant you death, but I can grant you what you wish for from the ending of your life! All I need to do is turn you into a fixture, just as I did for the ones above. You shake my hand, and I'll let you live in a world where everything is just as you want it–for all eternity." Soven was grinning wildly, behind the helm, even though he knew his words were falling on deaf ears. The knight in front of him was nothing more than a zealot in this state. It was amusing, yet Soven wouldn't allow that to blindside him, or start underestimating him like the knight was some blind man. Though when he heard the low murmuring he heard from the knight's direction made him pause in his musings.
There was something plain wrong with the knight, his obsession with this character that he called "her" was confusing to Soven. It was as if She was the center of his world; his goal, even. There was nothing more dangerous than a man who had nothing left, and it seemed that Soven had met one of them, and an immortal one too. It was a terrible combination, adding onto that, the knight's body had seen better days. There was no doubt in his mind that the knight in front of him–although talented, and vastly powerful–wouldn't even be standing if it wasn't for the lunatic playing his wretched tune, and the fight would've most definitely been done within the first attack, but alas, it wasn't. The knight was disturbed, at the very least.
After reaching out for his limb and picking it up, he allowed his grip to shift. He grasped his left hand, and struggled lightly to press the thumb against the palm for a moment before finally getting it into the correct spot. The cloud of smoke rolled out of the amputated arms palm, and following it was a very, very juiced up Rising Tide. The dragon that had been observing the fight, was traveling across the blade with reckless abandon, as if the animal was on some kind of sugar high, but the knight didn't pay the creature much mind, and awkwardly held the sword in the wrong hand. It was glowing like a small star, nearly blinding both Soven and the knight, yet they still looked each other down. The knight had dropped the limb without a hint of care in his eyes behind the veil of shadow only a few moments prior. Its shrill sounds were still at large in the room, and blood flew outward after impact from the wound, just as the one where his shoulder was once located was occasionally. The knight glanced over to it, if only to confirm a small suspicion he held about the wound. It was jagged, rough, and looked more like someone had chewed off the bone connecting his arm to his chest, not anything close to what a sword could do to. That sword ate his shoulder. Glancing behind him, he noticed the pillar stood tall behind him, cut disgustingly in two vertically. There were no straight lines in the wound, only chewed stone now vacant from where it was previously.
Turning back to Soven, the knight prepared himself. The once soft voice was thick with tensionous, righteous rage. He wasn't yelling, but also wasn't whispering; it was a command. "It's my turn now. Prepare yourself, giant." The knight took a moment to get into a position, before vanishing from Soven's vision. And appearing just after in front of the black knight, hilt deep in Soven's chest, running his heart all the way through