"The Dreadknight Legion!!"
A shrill scream pierced the stillness that hung over Thieves Square. Duke, clad in battle armor, stood in the center, his reinforced gauntlets hissing with steam from their earlier overload.
"Dreadknight Legion?" Duke raised an eyebrow.
Dozens of ominous armored knights had suddenly appeared, surrounding the entire square. Silent and unblinking, they watched every soul present.
Eerie green flames flickered in their sockets, casting a chilling despair. Each of them gripped a terrifying war axe in hand, exuding a quiet but suffocating menace.
Calling them the "Dreadknight Legion" wasn't entirely accurate. The truth of their origin, tied to the Shadow Isles, had long been lost to time, remembered only by the few who had once witnessed it firsthand.
These knights had once belonged to a now-forgotten order...
They were the Iron Order, the elite cavalry of the Shadow of War, Hecarim!
Years ago, when the Ruination's curse consumed Blessed Isles, everything alive was swallowed by the Black Mist in an instant. Their souls were twisted into malevolent wraiths.
Hecarim and his Iron Order suffered the same fate.
According to lore, Hecarim had tried to rally his knights and flee before the corruption could consume them. But one by one, the Black Mist devoured them, until all of them, including Hecarim, were transformed into undead monstrosities.
Now, whenever the Harrowing began and the Mist spilled across Runeterra, Hecarim would ride forth once more, leading his Iron Order back into the world of the living.
The lone scout Duke had killed earlier? A mere pawn.
Now, with the pawn destroyed, the entire Iron Order had descended upon Thieves Square, to deal with the mortals foolish enough to resist the Harrowing.
"Whoa whoa whoa, this ain't good!"
Graves' cigar fell from his mouth as he instinctively took two steps back.
"The whole Iron Order?! That's never happened before, 307!"
"Must've been all that noise our boss made. Got their attention!"
Twisted Fate tipped his hat lower, a deck of glowing magic cards flickering between his fingers. Camille floated overhead, her brow furrowed, until her gaze landed on Duke. Then, as if reassured, she smiled.
Duke always pulled through. This time would be no different.
Miss Fortune tightened her grip on her weapons, her eyes locked on Duke's back. Whenever something went wrong, Duke was the one who fixed it.
He would again.
"This is bad," muttered Jayce.
He gripped his Mercury Hammer tightly, the pulsating energy on its surface feeding him power. Yet even so, a sliver of doubt crept into his heart.
From somewhere deep in the square, Olaf's roars had faded. No one knew if he was still alive.
"These gauntlets aren't gonna cut it anymore. Wally, disengage the heavy-arm units. Prep the octo-mechanical arms."
Duke kept his cool, sweeping his eyes across the Iron Order knights.
The reinforced gauntlets hissed and detached. From his Wally armor's external ports, crackling arcs of blue electricity surged. Four mechanical limbs emerged from the equipment cache, two attached to his shoulders, two to his lower back.
Zzzzk. Zzzzk. Zzzzk...
The octo-arms unfurled slowly, mechanical claws clicking into place. Duke flung his arms out. From thin air, bracer units equipped with hidden mantis blades locked onto his forearms with a magnetic pull.
"Pride!"
A red gleam flashed in the eyes of the beast named Pride. He looked toward Duke, awaiting the command.
"Engage berserker overdrive!"
"ROOOAAARRRR!"
At Duke's order, Pride exploded with raw power. Semi-transparent crystal armor burst from his body. Ten fingers ignited, flaring into searing ion blades. He bared his jaws and unleashed a jet of scorching steam.
"Hold back as many as you can! I'll take care of the rest!"
Before his words fully landed, Duke had already vanished.
Camille smiled.
"Scalpel. Power Surge, engaged."
She raised her blade-leg and shot toward five of the knights like a falling meteor. The ground cracked beneath the impact. A dome of pure energy exploded outward, pinning the enemies in place.
Hextech Ultimatum, Activated.
The original Hextech crystal pulsed violently. Her barrier expanded into a six-sided prism of force, no one was getting in or out.
"SIREN!"
Behind Miss Fortune, her jet engines ignited. Her Hextech cannons spun to life, unleashing a barrage of bullets that engulfed the square.
"Ahahahahaha!!"
"They've lost it!" Graves jammed a new cigar in his mouth and fired his shotgun, but not before Twisted Fate locked one knight in place with a glowing yellow card.
Compressed energy beams shot forth, annihilating the immobilized knight. Jayce followed up with a hammer strike.
"All in!"
Duke had asked them to hold the line, and they would. No matter what.
CLANG!!
Metal clashed. The octo-arms intercepted a sweeping halberd. Two claws locked onto a death steed's front legs, the other pair blocked a knight's axe. Duke himself lunged forward, aiming his mantis blades at the knight's shoulders.
SLASH!!
A brilliant arc of light flashed, the mantis blades decapitated the knight in a clean stroke, like a scythe through grain.
Without waiting for the ash to settle, Duke rocketed toward the next target.
"RAAAAGHHH!"
Pride got there first.
Ion claws tore into a death steed's throat. His massive jaws bit down and unleashed a searing beam of energy.
BOOOOM!!
The warhorse's head exploded. The blast cracked Pride's fangs, but he didn't care.
He lunged forward, claws plunging into the chest of the rider, ignoring the axe that struck his shoulder. He howled skyward:
"I am Pride! I am a Sin!"
"My father demands your destruction!"
"Then you will bind your own arms, awaiting death!!"
ZZZZZZZZZT!!
A searing laser beam erupted from his broken mouth, disintegrating the knight, and carving a several-kilometer-long tunnel through the mist.
"Good boy," Duke muttered with a smirk.
His next target wasn't far. Like a hawk diving for prey, he buried his mantis blades into the skull of another knight. The edges of the blade, forged from Edman metal, cut through the undead's armor like butter.
SWIPE,
Another head rolled.
Flames still flickered in the skull's eye sockets, until Duke's octo-arms vaporized it with a focused laser.
Thieves Square was now a hellish battlefield. Undead everywhere. But the living… they fought on. No one would yield before dawn.
Sonic disruptors fired overlapping shockwaves, scattering the Mist and rattling the knights' armor.
Inside the Hextech barrier, Camille danced like a sparrow, each strike slicing clean into her trapped foes. Her blades left deep, bone-revealing wounds.
Miss Fortune's cannons had overheated long ago, yet she never stopped firing.
Graves, Twisted Fate, and Jayce had formed an impromptu team: Jayce attacked, Graves repelled, Twisted Fate supported. Together, they held their own.
FWEEEEEE, !!
A piercing whistle echoed as Duke, clad in full Wally gear, became a force of destruction.
Until now, he had been holding back.
Now he released everything.
His mantis blades tore through the mist like streaks of lightning, decimating knight after knight. In mere moments, ten of them had fallen.
"I hope you know how to spell 'Team Wipe'!"
With a single swing, he split another knight and steed cleanly in three.
Still airborne, Duke spun midair, slipped under the next mount, then stabbed upward with both mantis blades,
,
But then, a roar thundered from the Slaughter Docks, shaking the city.
A massive beast, nearly a hundred meters long, rose to its full height, howling in deathly rebirth.
A cloaked wraith emerged from the mist, tattered robes trailing, rusted keys clinking at its hip. A lantern glowing with eerie green light swung in one hand; the other clutched a jagged hook.
Its head blazed with ghostly fire. A mouth split open in silent laughter.
"Now this feels like a proper festival."
From within the Black Mist, an army thundered forward, the pounding hooves of death.
"Embrace... DEATH!"
End of chapter...
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