'Two… nine… twenty-five… thirty… fifty-seven…'
And just like this she went on a killing spree – taking out the Knights hard earned skills. The vermin just fell back into its body as the Knight counted. The vile army was being decimated before the Knight.
The Knight then forced the void armament, and instantly restored the armour, and teleported before she sliced the next vessel into pieces. The Knight the punched her using the cataclysmic hit of [Impact] – sending her flying. She managed to stop in mid-air. She then moved her hand across the grey streaks on the armour, right where the Knight punched her.
"Oh, you managed to scratch my armour – I think I owe you a real whopper for that one."
A rolling wave of thunder clouds covered the sky, all of them collecting on her arm.
"I long noticed people do not fear thunder. But I used to be incredibly scared of the stuff – even if I knew it could not kill me."
Then her gauntlet rolled back, piece by piece, as if it was a mechanical arm. Then the storm clouds covered her hand, becoming a gauntlet. Then she threw a stretched out her hand.
"You better dodge this one."
A bright lightning bolt, a single concentrated one, shot out from her arm, descending upon the Knight. The Knight dodged it. And right on the ground, lava flowed as it hit the floor, turning the enter crust into molten glass.
'She did something to that lightning.'
Then she let more of them roll out, thunder roared across the lands. Right before one of them hit the Knight, the lightning bent around the Knight – why would it hit the Knight, it had no [Desire] to do so.
"You're one strange destroyer – to be fair, it's not like I've seen any of you with my bare eyes before – you look rather normal though – thought you'd be worse. Kinda disappointing for a destroyer that treads daylight, don't you think?"
The Knight then teleported behind her.
'I can't move!' her heart felt not just a desire to not move, but an intense fear, a deep and unsettling terror – one she could not shake off, one that urged her not to move.
The clouds parted and the Knight touched her skin. The Arm turned a chaotic black and fell off, even turning into the void before in hit the ground.
"Would you look at that – it's not growing back – and I thought you'd be just one big disappointment. Come on, let me show you something really interesting – and I sincerely hope you can remind me why is it that I don't fight you guys anymore – It's been so long I think I forgot. This is the first time a destroyer has been after me personally, so I'd like to make it special."
Before she even did anything, she felt something intrusive in her soul – she then grabbed it and crushed it to pieces. It was a desire foreign to her heart.
A silent noise passed through the air – yes, silence passed as if a noise, but it was in fact the absence of noise that had passed, and this, this was the calm before the storm.
The Knight summoned a heavy shield; one so heavy it had to create a balance platform out of air to keep it from falling. This thing would fall straight to the centre of the planet's core if the Knight dropped it.
It was preparing, because right at this moment, the compass was pointing at the Knight, meaning regardless of any speeds, erratic teleporting, or elusive manoeuvring it did, this attack was going to hit the Knight – just like Avarice – this was a fact about the world now. Not fate, not future, just truth, and she had made this so – which those above level 350 could do in battle – but she had mastered it even beyond the convention.
An unknown force crashed into the Knight.
This force instantly, crushed the shield, but the Knight had three lined up. The second shield fell shortly after impact, and the third just cracked, and only crumbled after the force from the hit dissipated.
'She's too fast to be caught up in the void, and too small to have a close-up battle.'
The Knight then took this instant reprieve, and jumped at her from the side, right before she moved, the Knight grew to a hundred metres. Not even in the next frame of this movement, it punched her so hard, the Knight's fist phased right through her. And she was send flying down after the fact, crashing into the molten glass pools from one of her lightning shots – spewing it everywhere.
And for those few seconds it rained melted glass, showering the barren plain with nothing but the orange and warm glow of dusk and dawn. Fumes of black, clogging up the air – blew out like furious hurricanes. The Knight looked at the knuckles of its first.
Even though its punch had been so fast and so focused it phased through her mass completely, her armour however was so strong that it bent the armour bits into the fingers – even though the void armament was active.
She got up, croaking and moaning.
"Ouch – you really pack a mean punch, don't you? Not only did you dodge the syn-echo, but you managed to move faster than me for a second there. Must be the perfected use of your teleport and speed. I almost didn't have enough time to prepare for landing."
She had only gained a few more scratches, nothing more.
She then cracked her back, making this popping noise.
The Knight appeared before her, and as the tips of its sabbatons (feet armour – shoes) made contact with her, about to hurdle her, the fifty-metre leg was suddenly hurdled back, forcing the hundred metre Knight to lose balance and fall.
Before hitting the ground, the Knight was gone, having teleported upright.
The Knight threw another punch at her, but her counter collided with the Knight, crushing all the perpetually destroyed bones inside its corpselike arm. The Knights armour managed to hold out.
A set of black rings then appeared around the Knights gauntlet, each ring then furiously span in the opposite direction, shredding the Knights gauntlet. It scattered the shrapnel pieces like saw dust, and upon the molten field it rained super-sized chunks of shredded metal.
The Knight swatted her away, she jumped back. Both of them had lost an arm, but it had figured out her power – finally.
She smiled "You think you have me figured out? Hate to break it to you – but you don't know nothing yet."
She was using the power over movement. Anything that can and will move was under her rule – and had been subjugated by her. She could manipulate movement as she wanted. Like she had in order to shred the Knights armour.
Quu then smiled underneath her helmet. She took off the helmet. Inside was hair tied into a neat bun, some of it tricking down her sides and had come undone. She put her helmet down, and then she fixed her hair.
Her eyes glowed dark black, contrasting with the white pupils. Her hair was grey, so were her lashes. She was probably over a thousand. She had no wrinkles – she bore these set of dimples on her soft and supple skin.
The Knight had not decided to watch her, she had forbade any movement but her own, and without covering her with the void the Knight could not undo it, so for now, it was slowly turning the molten ground beneath it into nothing – part of its void.
She had this intricate patterns carved into her skill – even without her armour, her skin itself must be almost as resilient as city walls. The reason the Knight had not run into many crumbled ruins, was because patterns exerted some semblance of permanence, and unless generals of the void themselves came, those walls would not fall easily – and most cities used these patterns.
Places like Elleria had their own natural defences.
Her patterns were even a step beyond the ones on the wall, they were continuously changing and forming knew ones. They were strengthening themselves to deal with the current threat, meaning by now the earlier punch the Knight threw would not even graze her – her patterns had already adapted that far.
In fact, every knight had these engraved on them according to how much their bodies could handle – the Knight refused – this would have required taking off the armour, which the Knight could not, and did not want to.
Hers were so fast and abundant, the Knight immediately understood what made her such a menace.
She then picked up her helmet, and winced. Her heart had tried killing her from the inside. It had the silly [Desire] to keel over again right there.
"Time to resume."
The Knight then regained back its movement – it was almost done escaping the bind.
As soon as it was freed, a wave of darkness made a dome around them, and solidified. Meaning even if both of them were fast, they could not go far, and this meant that the Knight could use it in a pinch – the downside was lowering its overall power.
She then looked around.
"I'm curious, what would a destroyer want to be a knight? A hero of all things? Bored, or just playing games? Or maybe shunned? Can destroyers even shun each other?"
Unusually, this time the Knight felt quite talkative, slowly pacing around her.
"I just knew someone who did want to be one, and they mistook me for one. I thought about it, and eventually I did, why not? It did make the work I had to do, a whole lot easier."
"You're finally talking… trying to buy time? Doesn't matter, at least now we can talk – unlike you I like talking. So, tell me, I've never seen a destroyer walk amongst us or even wield the darkness during day – why can't they and why can you?"
"Asking the important but not obvious – just as protocol dictates. First priority, protect and defend against. Priority two, gather information, should you encounter any destroyer that could covey it.
If I had to say – I'd probably say – I'm not like them, you see. Their creator even despises me. So, there was no reason for me to be bound by things that bind them.
You might have forsaken your path, but it seems you haven't lost your way – you're still a knight deep down. You are classified as leagues, and not vagrant, as many dark knights as strong as you are. So, tell me, why is it that you haven't lost your way?"
She smirked and dusted herself of the solidifying glass shards.
"You too truly are a knight I see – learn from the foe – otherwise you'll just lose again next time. Unlike those idiots, I didn't quit because it became too much, I'm still sure I can defeat any foe that comes before me, destroyer or not, in that I have not wavered. But the thing is – I could not find a path forward using their method.
I know that we as knights stop the darkness, we give the world time to grow and recover, but recently it had been turning into a losing battle. Even the Oceanic darkness has begun to move. I guess you don't have access to the Banneret level resources yet.
In there are reports and stories you would not believe. A single human forcing all of the darkness into the dungeons, a hero wiping out an entire darkness army, a whole manifestations of cloud folk – calling themselves gods – even if they could not face the destroyers, they were remarkable.
And well, I quit. Even if I never stopped being a knight – and chose to focus my abilities on finding a way to push the knights as a whole further, further than even the legendary hero's. I didn't protect anymore, but that did not mean I was not fighting. The reason I stopped all the way out here was for this – a chance to talk – because I think you can give the knights what I've been searching for – a new tool to use in the fight."
'I guess this explains why she is not a 'former' knight Banneret, because she could still face those of the void through all the abject terror – I guess I'll have to step it up. The fact that she had disserted the front lines regardless of excuse still makes her a dark knight, a Banneret's responsibility of all responsibilities is non-negotiable…'
The Knight was paraphrasing the exact lines from the list of protocols it had been forced to learn when Folisha started rambling random exerts.
"I hate to break it to you – but I have no need to help either side."
Then the Knight vanished, and did not appear, but a spear wound stabbed right through her sturdy armour, right through her skin, her bone, and coming out the back, dripping red crimson blood. So red, it felt a shame to let it get drunk by the ground. The Knight had stabbed her right where it had thrown the last punch.
She looked at him through the visor in her helmet, and the glow of the stare from within the Knights helmet, from within its soul, starred back.