The screams of the damned, echoed in the Knight's soul.
Men, women, and children, creamed at the top pf lungs. Some even fell dead silent. It sounded like the march of a nightmare that had escaped someone's mind.
The Knight had been tracking the extremely dangerous dark knight, last sighted near this town, which was now covered in the void.
The Knight heard their screams clearly, their pleas, their whimpers, and most of all, their silence.
The Knight had no form of responsibility to them, but it did have this sense of duty towards its role as a knight Errant. The people who had aimlessly ran out, were there on the borders, still running around, like headless chicken, they had not realised they had ran out on accident.
The Knight had no chance against an entire void army, but just like any other knight, it leapt into the town without a shred of hesitation. It's army soon followed, teleporting the people out. The Knight forbade them from engaging – it didn't have time to lose them.
'Cathina, Forg, how are the evacuations going?'
Forg and Cathina had become the Knight's first living followers – Mugaw and Arduo were living souls, but they were without bodies. At the very least now the Knight could use thoughts instead of words to speak to them.
'Just a few thousand, but I haven't seen Kitrino, she might be having some trouble again.'
This was not their first run-in with the darkness. The other times the Knight rescued as many as it could until day came. But this one was still very early in the night.
There the Knight stood, faced with the front line of abominations, numbering more than it had barely managed to escape from the last time. The Knight had this voice in its head, reminding it, that all this was for the sword, or it was just Mugaw trying to get the Knight killed – at this moment it could not tell.
Deeper into this void army, it felt a presence. At the centre of all of it, was a being, simply too existentially existent, enough to make the Knight feel lucky…
This presence had not even realised the Knight; it was not as noteworthy. This being at the centre of all this wasn't even a void lord – but it felt incredible.
The Knight had already known that it could not keep the abominations' attention all on it, so it gave the abominations and the one leading them something to crave, the Knight let out all of its void – something they would have after killing it – assuming that they already had some in them already – but it was guaranteed to catch the lead's attention.
Unlike when it had faced the void at level 250, the Knight had come a long way, it was able to push away all the void around it, enough to make field big enough to employ [Daunting]. It was not like the one in charge was even pushing back. But this alone drove all of the ones in the Knights territory crazy – they wanted it for themselves.
Just like usual, they all chaotically headed towards the centre.
Then they all stopped after realising that they couldn't activate their powers. But after a few seconds, they were once again able. The was the extent to which the Knight's capability to stopping so many users at the same time. But this was enough to distract them for a few seconds.
The Knight then absorbed the void, strengthening itself, and even keeping some of it outside. Then it teleported from target to target, punching them so hard they turned into nothingness and vanished. Using [Willruption], the Knight was able to undo their will so slightly, and concept, just enough for the mock soul to unwind on itself. This was like pulling out enough strings to watch a walking string dole unwind itself.
Unlike the last time, the Knight was not doing the whole mixing and eradicating. It was spontaneously undoing the mock part of the being and letting them turn into nothingness. And after a few minutes, it finally caught the being at the centres attention.
'It really is coming.'
The Knight was doing something inertly wrong to the void beings and the living alike. No-one should be able to touch the conception – even if it was the will the Knight was interfering with. Something the Knight had never seen, and the reason the void had left Elleria permanently – creating nothingness by tempering with wills.
In essence, the Knight was eradicating void beings – sending them back to the void – as void particles to be recycled and made into new spawns by the One Of The Void.
It did not know if other void beings knew what it had achieved. But it knew one important thing, whether they knew what the Knight was doing or not, they knew that it was a real problem, or an opportunity – just as well, the Knight could not keep it up.
The Knight was achieving this because, it had a unique soul, one strong enough to bear this strain. It also learned how to fight those of the void, from the knight side and the void side from Avarice. It also possessed skills and powers, working in conjunction to achieve this. There might be a better way to do all this, but it didn't have the time to find it. So, for now, this was its gambit.
The Knight had summoned no weapon; none could handle this strain even for just an inverted instance. The Knight had reverted back to its old dungeon ways, using [Battle Monger], it threw nothing but poised fists, filled with the devastation of the void. It was all concept hindering and the brute strength of one above level 300.
The Knight wiped out quite the number of them. Right hook, left jab, grinding in their mock souls into the dirt before they turned into nothingness. The Knight always teleported back to avoid itself getting caught in the nothingness. And after an hour, near its limit, the Knight finally made some head way.
It had finally caught the attention of the lead, and it was headed for the Knight.
The void beings all cowered back as the Knight exerted its existence. [Visage of Terror] barred its fangs, as nothing, even nothing itself, could resist the fear of which the Knight can incur – not even time and space.
And through the crowd of abominations that had surrounded the Knight came a voice easily grinding on the soul. It had arrived. The Knight didn't need the translation since all void beings that were capable of intelligence could naturally understand each other.
"I found you. I know many that are quite interested in you... We have received multiple reports of a void dweller pretending to be a Knight, but this is simply ridiculous. You're not as strong as I thought you'd be, you couldn't even handle this riff raff."
To make its point, it reared its ugly head through the crowd. And most of the abominations turned into the void, being erased normally – without the spectacle of nothingness that the Knight was making.
"I only have one thing for you; I never thought I'd see such a weak spawn use conception and conceptualisation. Like really? How has the nothingness consumed you already."
The Knight looked at the hideous figure, as it surfaced, sprouting arms through the abominations, and for the first time, the Knight gazed at a void being that could somewhat compete with it for looks. This thing truly was never meant to be beholden.
You have encountered a level 422 Void General, --{?}--. Type-Onsin.
The Knight was buying time for the evacuation, but it also had to gather some kind of information about the state of the void before its return.
"You say that, but even as strong as you are, you haven't even entered my territory, scared of something perhaps?"
It looked at the Knight, and even it could not deny the sensation.
"Oh, I am – whatever you are, it seems even I cannot deny the utterly revolting existence that stands before me. But that is not why, I have something more pressing to attend to here, and quite frankly, you seem to only be getting in my way."
"Maybe if I knew I could help."
It then turned around, and the still-shaking abominations treaded forward, each ready to face the Knight, for they had orders they could not refuse – even when faced with such terror – such ambient rejection of their being.
"I would like to capture you myself, but I that will have to wait. I'm also interested in how you know how you tread amongst the humans and use your void so casually."
It left, instantly the Knight got swarmed, and it fought, unending, throwing punch after punch, its body giving out as the abominations began taking a toll on the Knight.
It could not even keep up the charade – creating nothingness – was not for the weak. Then the Knight felt some kind of familiarity to this situation – being overwhelmed by abominations, hoping for the break of dawn. This was one of the first even human nostalgia moments the Knight had felt in centuries.
A heavy void territory, even denser, had formed around the Knight and its void territory. This was preventing the Knight from teleporting out but somehow allowed the abominations to enter.
The Knight then became gigantic and threw a massive punch to the ground. This sent a crack so deep, lava began to seep out, and the Knight teleported to the lowest point of this crack, plunging into the lava. And after making it through all the teleportation interference, it made a gigantic punch to the side of the crevice, and through here, it teleported, then teleported up and out – the evacuation was complete anyway.
Not many had been saved. Just barely half. But even after the Knight went back in, it found none who lived. Thus, it just watched the unmoving void, till it vanished at break of dawn. They left no ruins – nothing but a flat plain.
This town had been lucky even. The three towns before this one had had no-one and been completely wiped out along with their towns. The Knight then looked at the survivors. Their gratitude was meaningless but being alive they could spread the tales of the hero – the more glory the better – regardless of the obvious side effect of the tales.
The Knight did not mind their survival, but the fact that it could only save such a merge amount was a true sentiment of what that general had said.
After making it far enough, the Knight collapsed – undoing the void finally, only coming to a few months later.
***
They continued their search for that dark knight – facing him was also going to be a heavy undertaking.
They had been tracking him for a while now and had noticed his strange behaviour.
He was purposefully shaking down every place out of its resources, right before the place was assaulted by the void a week later. There was no collaboration between the two, but it seems the dark knight was making it harder for any town or village to respond quick enough to save them.
'So, I guess it was no coincidence that he happened to pass through that town.'
The Knight did not answer Forg immediately, because this one fool, was the reason the Knight had been forced to confront so many void armies in such a short amount of time. Even worse the Knight was becoming a famed being in both worlds.
The knight had had to defend so many towns on their path to catch him.
The Knight was not going to foolishly attack him at this moment, since it must have a reason for being classified as extremely dangerous. He had even single handedly been bringing down the defences of all those places, contributing to their eventual downfall.
For such an opponent, caution had to be exercised. The Knight and its entourage spent the rest of the sixth year preparing for this particular foe.
They had even polished their strategies for saving those caught in the void following this specific dark knights schemes.
Finally, the time came, he was moving on the path to the next town.
They had courted him off enroute to his next victims. No audience was needed to watch him fall; this battle was going to be too furious to actually protect the people nearby.
The Knight finally stepped close enough for whisper to update the information in the Knights dark knight catalogue.
You have encountered a level 339 human, Former Knight Bachelor Soo. Type-Knight.
"Finally ready to face me, I was getting bored of waiting – almost thought you were just keep watching – what do you say we deal with this right now. I don't want to keep them waiting…"