"Hm? The heartbeat’s lament bears no effect on me. Curious, but now’s not the time to ponder such trivialities. I apologize Sarathiel, but there exists no other method to break your daze. Pain has always served as the bane to bewitchment, and we must hurry to Ascalon’s side before Xeros is allowed to torment him any further.”

The Knight

———

The Knight

The Corvid's appearance is a pitiful thing. It shines white with longing, pure white in an allure to embellish itself in false divinity, but The Knight can see the truth. The Knight can only see a little girl, wrought with despair and the desire to break free from oppression. This creature is not of Xeros’s being, nor is it born of his own aspirations. No, it is something entirely different, a shade brought forth from the memories of another in his past.

Perhaps that is why he now lashes out, absent of the rationale Joshua so bemoaned of. The girl of his memories, the child who's hopes for a better world were so violently torn apart, is all that remains within his mind, guiding his every thought and entrancing him within a dream of his own. It is a typical story. One it has seen time and time again over its everlasting eternity, but it is a sorrowful one nonetheless. Such is the cycle of humanity: when there comes joy, suffering trails close behind. It is inescapable.

"Sarathiel, your duty is not yet over!" The Knight transmits to the hulking titan, axe covered in a seeping coat of pale blood. "It is a manifestation of desire, not a creature of biology. Bisecting it will not halt its movement for long."

Indeed, the twin halves of The Corvid's body have already begun stitching themselves back together with feathered threads of sinew. It lets out a vibrant cry, talon's lunging and burying deep into Sarathiel's steeled leg.

"Damn it all, then just what am I supposed to do?" He winces, moving to chop off The Corvid's arm, but his effort is only met with a scorching ray of light that sends him tumbling back with a thud onto the bed of trees below.

"It is forcefully drawing upon all of Creation's benevolence to its side. The only choice we have left is to burden it with an excess of might once Ascalon regains his vitality, but until then, we must halt its advance for as long as we can muster."

The Corvid rises up with its body whole once more and turns its sight towards the city, the barrier shielding no longer. It raises a grotesque arm plagued with barb and thorn and sends a volley of talons directly at the Polus legion still bewitched near the gates.

"NO!" Sarathiel screams, but his fear quickly turns into relief as The Knight quickly soars in front of the knights and rends the space into an upwards arc, redirecting the talons into the air and descending with a flurry directly onto The Corvid's flesh. It wails from the impact, its own implement aiding against itself, and staggers back with clumsy steps.

"You need not fear for our own," The Knight assures, flying around the city and creating defensive pockets of distorted space. "For as long as I am here, I will not allow Xeros to bring harm to any. Focus only on rendering Xeros immobile."

"By your command!" he roars, rushing forward with giant steps and slashing down on the writhing avian, the axe tearing through its shoulders, but The Corvid grasps onto the blade's handle and traps the weapon in place. It warbles a pained growl in disgust and opens its beak into a giant, gaping maw.

"Grant me a mouth, grant me a maw. Let all I've devoured spring forth; let all I've consumed erupt in a deluge of devastation."

Malformed beings of shadow and darkness lurch outwards from the maw's void, bodies a crude imitation of the human form as they crash onto the earth below and spasm under The Corvid's light. It is as if reality itself is constantly pulling on them, figures stretched into impossibly wide proportions one moment and eerily slender skeletons the next. They wobble towards Sarathiel, struggling to walk as if they're but a toddler, and begin to climb up his giant form, every touch of theirs leaving behind a corroding trail of sludge. It hisses and fizzles as they eat away at his armor, but even if he shakes off the phantoms and grinds them onto the cracked earth, they simply rise from the puddles of dusk and resume their march with nary a sliver of hesitation.

Sarathiel roars out to the sky and lets go of his axe, shedding the tainted metal from his body and donning a new coat of stainless steel. The creatures' touch still erodes his body, but the severity is much less harsh. He combines the discarded pieces into a crude, grime-stained axe and cleaves straight into The Corvid's abdomen, spreading the affliction to its body and leaving blackened splotches all over its pristine white.

"Not a great feeling is it you mockery of a Star," he grunts as the two descend into each other in a crazed frenzy of bloodlust and carnage, all-the-whilst The Knight batters it with waves of rending space from afar and interrupting its every attempt at summoning any further manifestations. Every talon raised is sliced in twain. Every eye brought forth is erased into nothingness. Every attempt at muttering a chant is met with silence upon a swift slice to the throat.

Sarathiel and The Knight waltz together in a seamless rhythm of oppression, never once allowing The Corvid even a single second of freedom to act. But even so, the false divinity remains ever stalwart. It endlessly strings together its shredded flesh, rising up again and again as it voraciously feasts on the surrounding Creation. The Knight is unaffected by fatigue, but it is clear Sarathiel's ferocity is slowly waning. Ascalon has not yet recovered; they need more time.

"Hah...this is going nowhere," Sarathiel sighs, fist crushing down on The Corvid's skull. "Lorelai, hold it in place for a moment. I have an idea."

"A method to slay Xeros?" The Knight asks, trailing its sword in an oval pattern around the screeching creature.

"No, but I can render it immobile for a bit."

"By your word then." The Knight slashes inward around the cage of space and manifests the glistening black hole once more. The Corvid is too large to be erased within the rupturing spacetime, but it is enough to trap it in place, locked within a constant swirl of agony as its flesh is flayed and mutilated by the relentless pull.

Sarathiel plants his axe down onto the desecrated plain and grows a spiraling rod atop his helm. A mass of silver, metallic aura coalesces at the very tip of the horn, rumbling and pulsing as it roars to life into a giant orb of concentrated mercury.

"Now! Get out of the way!" The Knight flees into the safety of the firmament above and watches on as Sarathiel unleashes the silver ray directly onto The Corvid. It bathes its entire body in the metallic aura, flesh and feather slowly turning solid until every single surface of its body is trapped within a shining, steel mold. An furious air of anger and wrath still remains bubbling around its form, but its physical movements nevertheless remain sealed in place.

"There!" Sarathiel gasps, taking a moment of respite by undoing his transfiguration and collapsing onto the soil. "I don't think it'll last for long, but at least this should give us a few minutes to catch our breaths."

The Knight lands down next to Sarathiel and gazes up at the still figure. "A few minutes are indeed all we shall have. Xeros's Corvid is already starting to break free from its steel-wrought imprisonment."

"Really? Haah...may the Stars grant me relief."

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A sudden voice calls out to them from above. "Haha, I apologize for burdening you with such a duty Sarathiel."

Ascalon glides over to them, his wings once again flourished with a healthy sparkle of amber, and moves to The Knight's side. He wraps it in a warm embrace before helping Sarathiel up with a firm, friendly grasp.

"Ah, I'm just grumbling for the sake of it," Sarathiel says. "You've had it much worse than me. Are you sure you've recovered enough to be soaring about so soon?"

Ascalon lets out a shy chuckle. "It is enough. Besides, it pains me to stand so idly by. If we are to vanquish Xeros once and for all, then you cannot do it alone."

"But how?" Sarathiel sighs. "It's great we have Ascalon with us now, but we've been pummeling that thing into a paste for an hour and it still doesn't look close to faltering."

"Then we must simply deliver upon him a blow too destructive to recover from," The Knight says. Of the various Rulers it has slain in the past, a singular strike with concentrated effort has never failed to fell a single one. Xeros's Corvid is rather unique compared to the rest, in both size and application, but there exists nothing in this world that cannot be killed.

It walks up to Ascalon and places a tender hand upon his chestplate, slowly trickling its touch towards the base of The Mattatron's handle. "The Eclipse and The Mattatron must become one."

"Do you mean...?"

"Yes. We must become one."

He staggers back, voice muttering in embarassed outbursts before being silenced with a chill finger to his helm's lips.

"Not that way, Ascalon..." The Knight sighs.

"A-Ah, yes. Of course." He quickly regains his composure while Sarathiel stares at them with dead, hollow eyes. "I understand, but will it truly work?"

"Creation is called such because it adheres to our will. If we believe it such, then so it shall be. Trust me."

"Of course," he leans in close and whispers into The Knights ears. "I always have."

If there's one aspect of his that's different from Cosmos, it is his seduction, intentional or not.

"Sarathiel, you also have a role you must complete," The Knight says, turning around. "Are you able to manifest that ray of silver once more?"

"I think so, but the strain will cause Titanomachia to immediately become undone if I do," he replies.

"That shall be enough. You need only release it."

The Knight brings the two in close and they share a moment of peaceful silence.

"...Let us finish this. Together, united as one."

"Together," the other two whisper with a resolute hum.

The Corvid begins to shake amidst its steeled prison, body no longer sealed in place as the metal cracks away and reveals its ivory exterior. Its voice bursts out in incomplete, muffled warbles, but it won't be long before it can chant once more. The time is now.

The Knight locks hands with Ascalon and is pulled onto his bosom. "Are you ready, my dear?"

He chuckles and carcasses its back with long, soft strokes. "Yes. Now, and forevermore."

Ascalon and The Knight raise their blades up high, together. The Eclipse's galaxy wraps around the delicate lilac of The Mattatrons aura, surrounding the both of them in streaks of cosmic clusters and ethereal light as a giantess rises up into the heavens, body clad in pure, flowing space. The two blades become one, forming a giant zweihander clad in a buzzing rim of red, amber, white, and black, combining together into a somber hue of the eclipse.

"Now, Sarathiel," their voices boom, blending together into a singular tone of matched harmony. Sarathiel transforms into his giant form and gathers the silver aura, unleashing the energy directly onto the blade of the zweihander and tempering it with the forces of the earth and metal until the blade begins to gleam an otherworldly, celestial radiance. Unmatched. Unrestrained. And begging to be released.

The Corvid breaks free from its containment, eager to unleash its wrath upon the world once more, but the moment it directs its gaze towards the city, all it's met with is a flash of blinding light.

The spatial giantess brings its blade down, and the world becomes submerged in true divinity.

The Corvid screams, but no sound is uttered.

The Corvid cries, but no tears are shed.

The Corvid begs, but no pleas are granted.

The Corvid disappears, and all that's left is Xeros. All that's left is a man, feeble and weary. Gaunt and exhausted.

There he lays, sprawled out atop the soil, body withered into a skeletal husk with only a sickly, emaciated sack of skin left to hold his frame. His lips are parsed with dryness, cheeks sunken and sallow, and his eyes are consumed by a perpetual, hollow darkness. All traces of The Grand General have disappeared. He is but a tormented soul, life wrought with a futile struggle to understand his own existence.

The Knight and Ascalon wander over to the sounds of his sputtering, gasping body. Xeros only grunts as they tower over him, unable to lift even but a single finger.

"...So I have failed," he mutters.

"Yes. You have," Ascalon says, voice mixed with a twinge of relief and pity. "Our convictions clashed, and though we may have emerged the victor, yours burned with a passionate-"

"Do not patronize me," Xeros growls. "There exists no greater shame than to be pitied by thine enemy. I failed, and you have won. The excuses matter not, the circumstances matter not, all that matters is that you stand above me while I languish amongst the dirt and filth, born of mine shortcoming. If you claim yourself a true Ruler, then conduct yourself as such."

"Forgive me." Ascalon hangs his head. "I have been disrespectful."

"I do not care to receive your apologies."

"Even so, to do not shall go against my creed."

"...Heheheh, I suppose. One's oath to thy spirit is great indeed, isn't it?"

"Of course. That is what makes us human."

"So it is."

Xeros thumps his head against the hard earth and gazes up to the Stars above. "Indeed, to follow one's conviction is what separates the beast from man. It is unfortunate I must rely on such an aberration, but I cannot allow myself to perish here. For that would go against mine oath."

Something is wrong. A cold wave of dread, of indescribable terror, suddenly courses through every single fiber of The Knight's body. It has never experienced this unbridled horror before in its entire existence. No, to be more accurate, for its entire lifetime spent on earth. Yes, the only other time it has felt this revulsion is towards Them.

Towards the Stars.

"I offer myself as a beacon," he chants. It attempts to slit his throat then and there, but its entire body shuts down before it even has a chance to move. The Knight and Ascalon fall onto the ground, body limp and throats silent, while a disgusting presence begins to intrude upon the very fabric of reality. "I call upon you, o' incarnation of the one steeped in all-knowing avarice."

"I call upon The Star of Insatiable Greed."

The world unravels at the seams. Up becomes down. Night becomes day. What is once dirt becomes the flowing waters of the sea, then the scorching sand of the desert, then the fiery inferno of the flame, all at once yet an eternity apart. Vanished, without a trace. Until it all comes back again, repeating and repeating and repeating forever.

But then it's over, as if it all never began in the first place.

Greed. That is what it is. That is what The Thing in the sky is, loftily drifting its amalgamation of a being in the emptiness of space. Flesh, metal, stone, earth, light, dark, water, fire, tree, grass, cloud, space, heavens, galaxies.

It is everything. Everything. All swirled together into a faint resemblance of a face. Its greed knows no bounds, and so it wants for everything. To become everything. And yet it can never become everything, for there is always something being created. It is cursed to lust for more. Forevermore. For that is its nature. For that is all it has ever known.

"Sacrifice," it says with the voice of everything. "Everything you are, everything you will be, everything there is to be."

"I sacrifice all I've ever tasted, the joys of a meal when hunger so voraciously consumes," Xeros pledges.

"More."

"I sacrifice all I've ever smelled, the musky oil of workshops embroiled in the passions of solidarity."

"More."

"I sacrifice all I've ever touched, the warmth of another when the chill of solitude creeps ever within."

". . ."

The face disappears. The world returns to its normalcy. But before the two can process what just transpired, Xeros disappears. The two look back towards the capital only to find a wall of everything rising up high into the bottomless cavern of space above.