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Bloodsworn ch. 61
🕑 Added 2025-01-08 00:15:08 +0000 UTC61.
The tank boiled away, evaporating in a burst of heat as Erak was forced to use his Invincibility to stop himself from being baked as the blast of heat lifted him off his feet and threw him backward and into the Iron Cathedral. His hearing disappeared, the thunderclap ringing his ears as the darkness of the cathedral welcomed him. He bounced hard, skipping across the polished stone like a pebble on water.
Erak slammed into a heavy wooden pew and the pew blew apart as he finally stopped. He lay there a moment, ears ringing, world spinning, and blood filling his mouth. His armor glowed with heat but none of it transferred to him as he slowly got to his feet. The world spun for a second until he caught his balance. He spat a wad of blood and a broken tooth out after lifting his visor for a moment. The superheated air hit his face with the power of a physical blow and he slammed the visor back down to block off the heat.
The knight came staggering into the cathedral, armor glowing white from the inferno raging outside. It looked about and then met Erak’s gaze before lifting its sword up and racing forward. The demon was moving slower than before, leg trailing slightly and its non-sword arm limp at its side. Erak lifted his dragonbone sword and frowned when he saw the charred edges of it.
The knight leapt over a pew in a burst of speed and Erak was forced back to avoid the downward strike as the knight landed right where he had been standing. The glinting blade struck the stone in an explosion of sparks, arcing out to burn harmlessly against Erak’s armor.
Erak stepped forward and thrust the dragonbone sword, aiming for the gorget of the demon knight. The creature was quick, sidestepping and letting the bone blade scrape a trough across its shoulder as it riposted, aiming for Erak’s guts.
A sense of dread filled him as he stared at the oily blade and he spun on the balls of his feet and away from that lethal point. It was the first time he hadn’t trusted the armor to stand against a weapon. Erak slashed out, rolling his wrist and attacking the knight’s sword wrist.
The knight blocked, twisted and sent Erak’s blade away and kept close. The knight’s shorter blade hacked at him and Erak blocked with his shield, the power behind the blow numbing his arm and causing him to stumble. Only the corrupted dragonkin brutes had been close to the damned knight’s strength and the knight’s speed was greater than Erak’s.
Erak smiled.
He lunged forward, closing the gap as he led with his shield. The heavy kite shield hammered into the knight’s breastplate in a peal of metallic thunder. Erak grunted as his legs churned, pushing the knight backward and into a pew, tripping him up as the knight twisted backward and to the side, barely dodging Erak’s chopping attack.
The dragonbone sword splintered the thick, dark wood of the pew in an explosion of splinters that rained around him. He kicked the now split apart pew to the side as the knight struggled to bring his sword to guard. His armor had begun to darken, the once starry constellations charred away.
Their blades met thrice in a blur of speed, each blow ringing out loud enough that Erak could hear it over the powerful hum that resonated continuously in his ears. Erak kicked at the knight’s bad knee, tip of his foot catching the knee and pushing it backward. The knight jumped back and Erak gave chase, trading blows with the demon across the dark cathedral.
All around him broken pews, torn apart gospels, fiery light streaming in through the broken windows in a sea of twisting shadows. Erak still glowed from the heat of the fire, a white beacon in the darkness as he dueled the enemy. They crashed again and again and Erak could feel the battle turning his way.
He hurt. His body ached and things were broken inside of him. Bones grated and muscles were strained, but he continued to push as his blood sang with the joy of battle. He honored his oaths and fulfilled his desires all in one violent swoop and he felt stronger than he had ever been as his purposes aligned.
Erak sped up.
No longer were they evenly matched in the center of the cathedral, but Erak drove his foe backward. Each blow the next note into the symphony of death, all waiting for the final note that would bring about silence. The knight grew more chaotic, slashing faster and more wild as Erak battered him about.
Erak finally sidestepped as the knight overreached on a thrust, letting the oil-slick blade pass by his hip as he punched the knight with the rim of his shield. Metal crunched and the knight staggered, then fell to a knee as his sword fell from his grasp to clatter on the stone. The demon rose quickly, grabbing at the sword as it did so, but Erak didn’t relent.
He stabbed down, piercing the remaining good knee and crippling the demon knight. It screamed, voice far away and tinny to Erak’s damaged hearing, as Erak loomed over it. Her pulled the fury’s bronze blade and rammed it into the knight’s visor and the creature shuddered twice before tipping over to fall to the ground.
A bellow shook the cathedral and the walls surrounding the doors burst apart as the corrupted dragon surged into the building. It’s leathery skin was cracked and burned, blood dripping free from rents in its skin as it opened its mouth and roared again.
Erak grabbed the dragonbone sword and pulled it free of the knight’s knee as the gravely injured hatchling drug itself into the cathedral. Its wings were burned away, nothing more than charred stumps and its tail had been amputated half way down, blood trailing behind it as charged in drunken surges.
Erak felt a tendril of sympathy at the creature. It was a twisted perversion, but that was not its fault. The wounds were mortal and its rage and grief was all that drove it as it limped toward him. It lunged from ten feet out, crossing the distance in a burst of speed as its jaws snapped close over the space Erak had previously occupied.
He sidestepped and cut once. The hatchlings head fell cut from its sinewy neck, thumping heavily to the ground as the beast found its rest finally. Erak looked over it and then walked past it to look out over the battlefield.
It was burnt away.
The area past the steps of the cathedral was no more. Not even the stone had been spared the heat of the flames, earth cracked and smoldering as all traces of the two opposing armies were gone. As were the next several blocks of buildings. Above him the portal’s guardian wailed away, its voice nothing more than the distant crashing of mountains as it clutched at its blood face and the wound to its chest. Erak looked into the distance and at the Sword of the Empire as she slowly swung her bow around to take aim at the creature.
