"who's there!"
Screamed this crude voice from deep down in the well.
You have encountered a level 275 human, Former Knight Bachelor Ixui. Type-Knight. Class-Vagrant.
The waters in the well froze solid, him floating in them.
His sworn spun furiously. It was floating on the halfway point to the bottom of the well.
"I guess that means you're not my men,"
He then jumped out of the well, his sword in hand. Landing right in front of them. He had neutralised the decrease in temperature. He walked around the Knight and them.
He was classified as highly dangerous – as such the Knight had taken proper precautions, and the void was beneath ground, circling him before he noticed. He dodged Cathina and Forg's attacks.
There was just something about the way his sword moved. It not only managed to counter, but it hit their weapons at just the right point, making them faded, both the ice blade and the spirit blade – they did not use the ones made for them by the Knight.
From above him descended an unrelenting strike – hitting with so much deadly force it stirred the dust like a dessert sandstorm. He could still see and managed to slice right though the ice as it headed for him. His blood had dropped in temperature and almost thermally shocked him, but he managed to counter it in time.
The bellowing clouds of sand turned black as he was consumed by the darkness – upon touch, he instantly ran in the opposite direction.
'what was that?'
He had felt the senseless nothing as it touched him, but by now he noticed something – not only was this the middle of day, but he was surrounded on all sides.
'who are they? And what would they want me?'
"Hear me out."
He had stopped as the darkness accroached all around him, completely blocking out the light of the sun. He knew that once it consumed him, he would become unable to speak – he was not yet strong enough or skilled enough to have worked out a work around for this issue yet, by that time he had quit.
"I sell secrets. Not just any secrets, in fact I sell secrets enough to bring down entire cities."
The Knight thought about this – it had known this about him. It knew that after quitting, it eventually found a business in drudging secrets, especially with his power over perception. He managed to rain entire towns and villages. Eventually gaining a following – his men.
Unlike most dark knights, they specialised in mercenary work – ironic considering the Knight itself was here to end him under a similar prime directive, even if it was under the guise of a mission.
They found and forced secrets out of people through force, most eventually making them either go mad and become monsters or even dying right then and there. He had become the enemy of many, but this only made his work more mainstream.
Right now, he was on a large island northeast of Nhoils, and far from the Knights next target, thus making dealing with him a nuisance. And unfortunately for him, there is nothing it knew the Knight did not already have clearance to, the Knight even knew more.
The darkness covered him, but he managed to get out a few words.
"I can connect you to the darkness…"
The Knight could not careless. If there truly was a void being working with them, the Knight did not care – and the only thing the Knight was doing was taking the soul before that void being did – it eventually would. This was similar to the Knight and its new followers.
The Knight then activated an enhanced fear in him. In him it made a revolting tumour of life. The fear and terror that far surpassed that that he felt now. In this moment he was supposed to have stabbed himself clean through with his sword, but he didn't.
Through all the curdles of blood, the purple of his skin as he tried to force himself to move. Forg sent the Knight a mental note.
'That sword of his – I'm sure it has a soul.'
'You can see one?'
'No. But the souls in objects are usually devoid of any mind – due to their vessel. But if a soul can be enhanced enough, one can impart upon it their spirit essence. Once fused, the sword can behave like the living. Some of the trees at home have been infused with my mother's spirit. This makes them more capable of learning skills.
But the soul within an object cannot be seen – and my grandmother taught me something. An object that has been imparted with some spirit essence and has a soul tend to react to their current wielder's spirit essence, and when he jumped out, I noticed that the sword was shaking, as if it was also cold.'
She was right. Souls inside objects cannot be seen, but someone can try and sense if an object has a soul by trying to force their own inside it. The Knight had learned this in the book of souls, and book number five in the royal archives of Elleria mentioned something similar. The stronger the rejection, the stronger the soul inside the material. No rejection meant that there was none inside at that point in time.
For an object that possesses a kind of mind, enough to learn skills like telekinesis. Also, one as strong as the queen and the Bannerets could see its spirit essence, the Knight could not see it yet.
This prevents people from using objects to spy. Objects with a soul, but no essence are incapable of any kind of spying. Mugaw was not in the feather, he was just burning around it – being in it, would make it, its vessel, and render it unable to interact with the world.
'I don't think he made it.' – finished Forg.
She was right, he was nothing like Karen, and not capable of any such feats. But this meant something else for the Knight – the blade's capabilities must be on another level. Whisper could not identify it without touching it, like it had to against the rescuer of Abio – Ill. Indirect tracing was only for the beings capable of making spirit essence not the ones dependant on it for motion.
As soon as it runs out of spirit essence the object would turn objectlike. Losing all visibility of the world and unable to use or access skills – as it could not manage without the knowledge stats to do so, which it needed spirit essence to maintain.
But forgetting all the disadvantages of this object, the Knight realised, it could probably do it. Just as the divine spirit channelled its power through its sword, just as Red had kept burning inside its body, just as that dark knight that made permanent sink-space had done – being a sword was another work around to using ones power in here.
Just as the Knight realised this. The sword streaked through the air and hit the Knight. It did not possess senses to detect, for in reality it was not alive. But it did possess a set of skills allowing it to move as if there was already a hand on its hilt.
The Knight kept parring against it, when suddenly, it went through the Knights arm by placing a special dimension between.
'Great… another dimensional user.'
The Knight then forced the dimensional cut on its arm to close right as the sword was making its way out. Locking it onto the arm, allowing for direct soul tracing.
Title - None
Sword Class – Excellent
Power – 300
Knowledge – 21
Grade – AAA
Essence – Pure (_235/300_)
'That's certainly interesting. Not identified like how one identifies an opponent.'
It also gave a list of skills and other things as it usually did. The problem with the weapons was that the Knight had to touch them to identify them, which as in this battle, inconvenient. This also explained why the Knight had not found many.
It was not going to get stabbed for such.
The Knight then held the tip of the blade and tried to break it in two.
The sword then exerted itself – creating a dimensional distortion larger that it could keep stable. That had ran through the supply of essence it had. Only about half of it left.
The Knight found all of this interesting. The swords skills were good, the power it had excellent, just as whisper denoted, but the Knight was surprised to see that whisper included a gauge of how much spirit essence left.
As seen, there are types of spirit essences. Each for each type of soul. And the sword obeys the one who filled it as its wielder. And as seen, only a specific type could fill it. And for this one, only the human on the floor could top it up. If it was looking for a new user, it would have to empty out the remaining and fill it with the new wielders one.
If the one who made it made it for the divine, then only the divines could become the wielder, just like the blade that the angel Romeo had.
This sword had only (_134/300_) of it left.
Most of the Bannerets, and some of the Bachelors possessed blades like this. And the ones who make these are mostly the mountain folk – Yellow's manifestation. On the less ethical side, people force souls into minerals to make these – the same way some evolve animals that have gained a soul and become beasts, into beast folk, instead of true beasts.
Even if the method was available to the Knight, it mostly chose to make weapons its way, which achieved similar results, with a more convenient weapon – that did not need a constant feed of spirit essence, even if the Knight's ones were not independent.
This sword was visibly struggling. It had to consume all that because cutting through the Knight was no easy ordeal.
It could go to its wielder for a refill, but the wielder was currently facing his own problems, and it knew the knight wouldn't just let it.
The Knight then kept fighting with it like this. Eventually it ran out, but somehow the sword kept pushing that (_1/300_) for what its worth, relying on nothing but its skills. It put the Knight up against techniques it had not seen, almost dicing it into pieces just using its special skill [Dice].
The Knight then struck the blade down one last time, and this time it did not get up.
It was not dead because the Knight had not shattered it. Just like most of the living, should the object be totally destroyed, the soul fades, making it just a normal piece of rubble or scrap.
'For a blade you fought well. You were more of a knight that your wielder.'
The Knight then walked to the wielder who was still holding up, fighting against the tumour of death inside him. The Knight's battle against the blade had taken a whole day and a half.
'I guess just like the rest, deep down, you all really used to be knights.'
The Knight then reached into his body and dragged his soul out, he fought. Even after all this, the connection remained strong and steadfast. The Knight then tugged even harder. But still, he held. The Knight, finally done with all this, punched him dead into the ground, and the soul just flowed onto the Knights palm on its own.
'I tried.'
The Knight had wanted to keep his body more recognisable. It then put his soul and body into inventory, after all, he was a merc job, not just a name on the list. The Knight then placed the sword inside. It could give it to Cathina, she possessing a pure soul, but the skills and power were not going to work well, and the sword the Knight had made for her was still superior.
'I will come back to you later.'
The Knight then scratched his name of the list.
'Arduo better have worked it out with that friend of hers.'
There was no need to take out or look for his men, none were on the list thus none were former knights, just people Ixui had trained and dubbed themselves dark knights.
The Knight then absorbed the darkness. And they all teleported south to deal with the rest of the dark knights on the continent of Nhoils.