[New Campaign Zone Entered: Domain Keeper.]
[Galileo Regio, Ganymede. 81°N 54°W. 05:56. UGT.]
[Gravity: 0.146 g]
[Atmosphere: O2]
[Pressure: 0.3µ]
[Temperature: -107 C]
Jordan dismissed the presence of his heads up display entirely while he stared at the lone figure dominating the westerly horizon. Before the analytical gears within his mind could begin turning, the surrounding ice glitched vibrantly from an augmented fog of light blue shadows that suddenly expanded into a five meter radius around him.
[Domain Keeper: The domain beneath your feet grows as combatants are slain by your hand. Upon contact with another's domain, the smaller of the two will reduce in size until either their radii is the same, the domains have been separated, or one of the keepers of a domain is eliminated. Victory is claimed by the one with the largest domain by the end of the allotted time. Or, by those who slay all other participants.]
After the text faded from the foreground, Jordan came to notice the wispy clouds of a purple domain, sitting just a few meters beyond the edge of his own. Enhancing his vision while tracking the aura to the west, Jordan's heart sank while his simultaneously mind tripped from the rust colored patches of ice shifting around his perspective. The sensations of vertigo overtook Jordan's body while his vision magnified through a series of mind bending lurches that appeared to transport his field of view forward violently. Halting in place at a scattered pile of destroyed equipment. A field of broken and leaking bodies scattering the surface. And a leaf-shaped blade mounted on a long pole, implanted into the ice by the hilt.
Shimmering valiantly in the faint sunlight like it cemented the keeper's domain onto reality.
Poised proudly like a sentinel, a human whose entire body was bound tightly in etched, metal plates of glistening armor, stood unflinching at the weapon's side with their fists resting on their hips to proudly display some fanged, terrestrial beast etched onto their chestplate. The face of their helmet, while visorless, was strangely formed into a wedge-like shape with vertical black markings along the wedge's faces.
'Is that... a knight?' Jordan thought to himself, just as his heart skipped into a cold rhythim.
Without warning, the knight sprang forth like they were suddenly animated to life to silently pry the spear from the ice before crouching low in a deep squat and leaping from the ground. They lobbed over the ground on a trajectory clearly headed towards Jordan. Spear clutched in their hand, charged backward as if a throw was being prepared.
"Shit!" Jordan cursed to himself. Lunging forward, Jordan stomped at the ice in front of him to propel him backwards from the reaction.
Meager as it may have seemed, the small transfer of energy was more than enough energy to pull Jordan from Ganymede's Luna-like gravity. Yet, even as the ice loomed away under his feet at a brisk pace, the purple domain beneath him seemed to not even budge relative to his own. Eating away at the blue mist at a clearly visible rate that only seemed to increase.
Worse, the freefalling knight steadily closed the distance with each passing second.
"Fuck!" Jordan screamed out his frustrations while kicking out at the ground again to propel him away from the knight faster ,and doing everything in his power to do away with the domains entirely. "Fuck these games!"
While he grew up watching them, and thus very well knew the dangers involved. Jordan was confident nothing could've prepared him for what he now experienced.
It had long been said that Campaign was a life changing event for all who participated in one. Said in the exact same way that war had been described as 'hell' for all of human history.
This however, was something far worse.
Hell. In a soundless, airless, radioactive desert. Crawling with bloodlusted predators.
With only ice in sight and gravity being virtually non-existent, Jordan's mobility had been reduced to near-zero, the moment he stepped foot onto the surface. Having no real footholds, his strikes held no power. And missing held dire consequences. Making matters worse, he'd managed to get backhanded into a new biome by a mech; an event that still soured his prideful tongue greatly. To top everything off, Jordan managed to capture the attention of this freak. Who was all but obsessed with chasing him down.
The anger and frustration, the self-loathing and depreciation caused from himself being the conductor of this chaotic symphony, welled within Jordan until it became a torrential storm that threatened to consume his body in a self directed rage.
His obsession with Merit; his haste to Campaign, is what brought him here, face-to-face with the reaper's pawn. He had no one to blame but himself. Not that he would seek to anyway.
Still, he wanted to gag from the absurdity of it all.
Instead, Jordan's throat undulated as the knight finally bounded within reach. Like one of the loose rocks around him was forcefully swallowed, digesting his anxiety and frustrations along with it, leaving only the instinctual drive to survive.
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The sky shimmered as the knight thrust out the spear with a thunderous step forward. Being stuck in midair, Jordan could only curl his body haphazardly in an attempt at blocking as the spear with his arms. Slipping through Jordan's guard, the shaft scraped past his wrists, sending loud rattles racing up his arms for a brief moment before the leaf-blade dug into the seal of Jordan's shoulder. Sending throbbing pain ripping through his shoulder, followed by a blooming impact radiating throughout his chest after he bounced harshly against the ice.
Rabid, random sounds passed through Jordan's awareness as he clawed to right himself after tumbling. Digging his boots into the cragged surface once righted, he gently kicked off the ground while reaching out with his left arm towards the spear, returning to Jordan's body via an overhead thrust. Jordan's arm shook viciously as the blade of the spear impacted against his fingers and came to a trembling stop just above the crook of his neck.
Pushing back against the continuous force of the knight's thrust for what felt like an eternity, Jordan felt as if the very icy-rocks were on the verge of buckling to gravel beneath them. With each side refusing to yield, Jordan's boots began threateningly dragging backwards over the ice. Digging his right foot backwards instead, Jordan gripped the spear tighter and pulled it close while erupting his fist into the knight's chest plate.
The knight's back buckled as it their feet were barely lifted from the ice. Before Jordan could reel his fist back for another blow, the knight lurched forward in a blur. Clamping its gauntleted fist around Jordan's vest and another around his leg before the latter's entire body was pulled forth violently, right into the knight's pointed knee.
Jordan's body tensed in pain as he folded into a crescent curve around the sharp knee. Causing his stomach to spasm grotesquely, even after the pressure was pulled away. Jordan attempted to strike back through the pain. Yet the knight pulled forward again. Their feet once again left the tainted ice to lunge the knee they were attached to into Jordan's torso. Spreading the sharp, stabbing pain through his ribs in waves.
After the second impact, the two parted ways until the relative grips pulled taught. The knight's gauntlets on Jordan's vest, and the latter's fist, simultaneously clenched around the former's spear before they were reeled the other back to themselves. Jordan lashed out his free hand, rocking the knight's helmet to the side while they lunged their legs forth once more. Drilling their knee into Jordan's stomach and forcing the pair apart once more.
Their combined masses being thrashed about threw the pair in a dance of flailing limbs above the surface. Jordan's punches would rattle or dent the knight's armor as the knight's kicks and knees drilled Jordan from below at seemingly impossible angles. Again and again, their spine would twist in unnatural ways to yield a path for their knee or foot to reach Jordan's stomach. Ribs. Heart. Diaphragm. Even during Jordan's one handed assault to their wedged helmet.
After a final exchange of blows, the knight wrenched their spear free from Jordan's grasp at the extent of their combined reach. Preventing Jordan from being flung backwards from the reaction of his impact and instead sort of lobbing him above the surface as if he'd jumped. Upon settling onto the ground, the knight held the spear out to their side before flicking it lazily into the sky to cartwheel beside their body. After crouching and gaining as much footing underneath them as they could, the knight snatched the spear from the air and thrust forth the pommel at lighting speed.
Like he'd been shot, Jordan's head immediately snapped backwards as a toiling reverberation started to echo, dizzyingly, around his head.
Through his daze, Jordan saw the armored knight towering above him. The beast of inlaid golds and silvers etched onto their chestplate shined virtuously in the dim light. It's snarling muzzle, chipped and scarred from battle, proudly showcased the large fangs within. It's eyes stared menacingly at Jordan from behind a crowned, fiery mane as if it stood ready to feast upon the knight's slaughter.
The brief pause in their engagement; as minuscule as it was, allowed the damage that had accumulated in Jordan's body to cause a shiver of dull pain to start seeping through his body. Further clouding his mind. His chest rattled and rasped louder with each laborious intake of fresh air circulating throughout his mask and in turn splattering and smeared his face with viscous clumps of liquid upon exhalation.
With a lunge as if they were crouching, the knight stabbed at Jordan's gut with both hands. Pinning his bruised body beneath the blade now fighting desperately to penetrate the nanotube fibers of Jordan's vest.
A rasped scream gurgled from Jordan's throat as he fought to pull his feet under him. To raise his arms in defiance. To claw at the knight's wedged face. Anything.
Despite his tenacity, every action resulted in only a web of sharp pains to form through his body or a fruitless swing towards the knight. Rendering Jordan only able wriggle in vain and laugh despairingly at the certainly unmerciful murderous beast pinning him to the ground.
In an almost ceremonial fashion, the knight raised their spear overhead with both hands. Positioning the point of the blade just above Jordan's abdomen for a long moment, before thrusting it down with all their mass behind them.
The entirety of that force concentrated on the tip of the spear's blade upon making contact with, and failing to penetrate, the nanotube fibers of Jordan's vest. Transferring nearly all of the energy from the thrust into a kinetic blunt force that caved in Jordan's stomach.
The impact, to Jordan, was perceived as a jarring shock that both pulsed outward from the impact site and seemed to spread inward from every cell within his body. What strength he had remaining quickly faltered. Disappeared as if forced down a drain. Leaving him unable to even acknowledge the blade slowly pulling itself from his gut before it slammed back into his stomach once more.
The shock permeating through Jordan's body served as the catalyst to return his senses to hyper-clarity. His labored breath echoed in his helmet louder than jet engines. It grew raspier and louder as the endless seconds passed. Helplessly watching the knight once again raise their spear overhead and bring it down onto Jordan's stomach.
Over and over again. Until the nanotubes of his vest were finally pierced, allowing nearly all twenty-five centimeters of cold steel to enter Jordan's suit and skewer his gut.
With the final impact, Jordan felt a pervasive numbness assume control over most of his body. Leaving in Jordan's control only his eyes so that he could stare at the glistening pommel towering out of him with a revolting clarity. The last embers of his strength began to die out as his eyes fell to the base of the blade, barely sticking out of the frayed fibers of his suit.
Suddenly, the knight's arm jerked. Wrenching the spear deeper into Jordan's innards and bringing into Jordan's awareness a warm, fluid-like pressure that quickly began swallowing his body. In the following moments, or perhaps right after, patches of static-like blind spots began appearing in Jordan's vision. Growing larger and larger with each passing second until the impenetrable darkness was all that fell into view.
Along with the amber notifications glowing from the edges of Jordan's fading awareness.
[Warning! Flatline!]
…
[You have been slain. - 100 points.]