Eliza stood there, bloodied and battered, but defiant. Her once majestic form was a shadow of itself—one of her horns shattered, her right arm severed, and Excalibur, the legendary sword that had defined her strength, lay in ruins at her feet. Every breath was agony. Her attempt to regenerate her arm with her dragon meta-ability had failed, blocked by some curse from the dark blade her opponent wielded. The most she could do was staunch the bleeding. Yet, through the pain, her eyes still burned with the fierce determination of a warrior who refused to yield.
“I will see this fight through to the end… no matter the cost,” she growled, voice hoarse but unwavering.
Across from her, Faker sneered. He stood untouched, unscathed, his malevolent aura swirling like a storm ready to devour all light. In his hand, Mordred, the dark twin to Excalibur, pulsated with an eerie glow, the weapon itself seemingly alive, feeding off the despair and destruction in the air.
“Mordred, look at her,” Faker mused aloud, his voice dripping with disdain. “She wants to keep going. How…adorable. But let’s be honest, it’s far more beneficial to leave you alive. You can scurry back to your precious boss and tell him my name. And after A.E.G.I.S. sees the pathetic state you’re in, the fear will only spread further. You were never anything like that man, not even close. You’re just… a disappointment.”
Eliza’s vision blurred for a moment, the pain clouding her mind, but his words struck something deep within her. Her body screamed at her to give up, to collapse, to succumb to the inevitability of defeat. But her soul—the fire within—roared louder.
“You’ve been going on and on about this ‘swordsman’ the entire fight,” she spat, her voice filled with venom despite her weakened state. “But the way you talk about him… it’s clear. You never got to finish your fight with him, did you? You ran away. Not only that, but you ran like a coward, just before he could kill you.”
Faker’s mocking grin faltered for the briefest second, a flicker of something far darker flashing in his eyes. His grip tightened on Mordred, and a low, dangerous growl escaped his lips.
“You’re pathetic,” Eliza continued, ignoring the searing pain coursing through her body. “You think you can intimidate me by comparing me to someone I don’t even know? Well, I’m not him, Faker. And neither are you. You never stood your ground. You ran from him like a spineless coward, didn’t you?”
Faker's expression twisted, his eyes now filled with an unhinged fury. “What did you just say?” His voice, once mocking, now dripped with barely contained malice.
Eliza took a step forward, her right arm severed, blood trickling down her temple, but her resolve never wavering. “You heard me. You’ve been hiding behind your puppets, swords, and little tricks. You’re too afraid to fight anyone with your real body. That man probably isn’t even around anymore, but you're still hiding from him, aren’t you? Terrified he’ll finish what he started.”
The air seemed to crackle with tension, Faker’s entire demeanor shifting. His composed arrogance shattered, replaced by something raw, something primal. His eyes, wide with fury, locked onto Eliza, and Mordred trembled in his grasp as if feeding off his rage.
“You dare…” Faker hissed through clenched teeth, his voice low and menacing. “You dare call me a coward?”
“You know it’s true,” Eliza shot back, the faintest smirk tugging at the corner of her mouth. “I may be broken, bleeding, but I’m still here. I’m still fighting. Meanwhile, you’ve never stopped running. You’re more afraid of that swordsman than of death itself.”
“Mordred, I’m going to kill her,” Faker said, his voice chillingly calm. “Then I’ll slaughter every single person in this facility. One by one.”
The words hung in the air like a death sentence, and yet, amid the darkness and destruction, a faint light began to pulse from the shattered remains of Excalibur. Though broken, the legendary blade still resonated with Eliza’s unyielding will. The fragment of blade still attached to the hilt, glowed with an intensity that surpassed any power Eliza had ever drawn from it before, as if the sword itself recognized her refusal to surrender and answered her call.
Faker raised Mordred high, the twisted blade humming with malevolent energy, ready to bring it crashing down in a lethal strike. The force of his downward slash would have obliterated any ordinary opponent. But Eliza was no ordinary opponent.
With a surge of strength, she raised Excalibur’s broken remains, meeting Mordred’s dark energy with a blinding flash of light. Sparks flew as the two legendary swords clashed, the ground beneath them cracking under the sheer force of their collision. Eliza gritted her teeth, her arm shaking from the impact, but she held her ground.
Summoning every ounce of willpower left in her battered body, Eliza deflected the blow, her movements swift and precise despite her injuries. Mordred’s arc was thrown off-course, and Eliza seized the moment. In a fluid motion, she spun and slashed at Faker with all her might, her blade cutting through him like paper.
For a brief, glorious second, Faker was split in half, his upper body sliding apart from the lower as blackened blood sprayed across the floor. Eliza’s breath came in ragged gasps, her heart pounding in her chest, but she did not waver. She had no time for relief.
Faker’s sundered torso fell to the ground, and then—like something out of a nightmare—his body began to writhe. From his severed halves, maggots poured forth, slithering and crawling over the bloody remains, wriggling together in a grotesque dance of regeneration. They coiled around his body like living sinews, pulling his flesh back together, reforming his grotesque shape with sickening ease.
Eliza's lip curled in disgust as Faker's body reassembled itself, his eyes gleaming with twisted amusement. He looked down at his now-restored form, stretching his limbs as though nothing had happened. “How tiresome,” he muttered with a smirk. “Is this the best you can do?”
Eliza met his gaze, her own eyes burning with the same fire that had kept her standing this long. She raised her sword again, a smirk forming on her bloodied lips. “I wonder how many times I’ll have to kill you,” she taunted, her voice cold and unwavering. “Because I can’t wait to find out.”
Faker’s grin twisted into something more feral, more dangerous, as Mordred’s dark energy crackled around him. The game was far from over, and he could see in her eyes that Eliza wasn’t going to back down.
“Then let's see who breaks first,” he said, his voice laced with malice. The battle between them, the clash of wills, had only just begun.
Eliza's breath came in short, ragged bursts, her mind racing as she calculated her next move. Without hesitation, she rushed in, her body a blur of motion. From deep within her, she summoned her dragon fire, unleashing it in a torrent directly in front of Faker’s face.
The flames erupted from her mouth in a fierce blast of crimson heat, engulfing Faker in an instant. His twisted grin flickered in the blaze, his body igniting as the flames roared around him. His skin sizzled, burning away in the inferno. But before Eliza could press her advantage, Faker's leg shot up with a sickening speed, morphing mid-motion into a grotesque scythe.
With a fraction of a second to react, Eliza twisted her body just out of the blade’s reach. The scythe whooshed past her face, close enough for her to feel the deadly wind it left in its wake.
Faker wasted no time, immediately bringing Mordred down in a brutal, downward slash. Dark flames spiraled from the blade, twisting in the air like malevolent serpents. The ground beneath their feet scorched, cracked, and Eliza could feel the weight of the sword’s power threatening to crush her.
But she was faster. Dodging to the side, she slipped just out of the sword's range, and with the remnants of Excalibur in her grip, she thrust it forward with all her might. The blade, though broken, surged with light, brighter than ever before.
The jagged tip of Excalibur pierced straight through Faker’s chest. A radiant explosion of power followed, the light bursting from his body, sending cracks of brilliance through his form. A gaping hole appeared in his torso, light pouring through him as he staggered back, his face twisted in a mixture of shock and fury.
Before he had a chance to regenerate, Eliza struck again. She slashed across his arms with relentless fury, Excalibur carving through flesh and bone, severing his limbs in a swift, brutal motion. Faker dropped Mordred, the dark sword clattering to the ground, its flames dimming as it slipped from his grip.
Eliza didn’t stop. Her Berserker ability surged through her veins, amplifying her strength with every strike. Her attacks became more violent, more ferocious. She hacked at Faker's body with unrestrained rage, each blow pushing her further into the crimson aura of her power. Her bloodied body trembled with adrenaline, but her determination only grew fiercer.
Faker’s body, now little more than shredded pieces of flesh, began to convulse. His severed form disintegrated into writhing masses of maggots, the swarm crawling and diving into the shadows like a flood of nightmares.
“Coward,” Eliza spat, her voice filled with disgust as she watched the remnants of Faker retreat into the darkness. Her breath was ragged, her grip tight around the broken Excalibur. She didn’t let her guard down for even a second, knowing this fight was far from over.
The shadows beneath Eliza’s feet seemed to pulse with malevolent life, dark tendrils stretching out from the ground, twisting and writhing as they formed numerous clawed hands, all grasping hungrily toward her. Eliza's instincts kicked in, her body moving with blinding speed as she dodged each attempt to pull her into the black abyss.
But the shadows didn't relent. They split apart, crawling and contorting, and from their depths, dark wolves emerged. Their eyes gleamed with an eerie light, their bodies made of pure shadow, rippling and shifting with every step. The wolves snarled and charged, their forms low and fast, circling her like predators preparing for a kill.
Eliza, undeterred, raised the broken Excalibur high. Each time a wolf lunged at her, she met it with a powerful slash, the radiant light of the sword carving through their shadowy forms. Every swing cleaved them in two, the light searing their darkness, but for every wolf that fell, another rose from the depths of the shadows.
Just when it seemed like the onslaught of wolves would overwhelm her, they began to shift. Their bodies melted into dark, oily forms, twisting in the air and splitting into countless ravens. The birds cawed and screeched, their wings flapping chaotically as they took to the skies in a blackened swarm, blotting out the dim light above.
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The ravens converged, merging midair into a grotesque mass that began to take shape. Eliza watched, her heart pounding, as Faker reformed above her, now with massive wings—a monstrous blend of raven feathers and dragon scales. He hovered in the air, his eyes gleaming with madness. His left arm had transformed into a dragon's head, its jaws snapping with hunger.
A guttural growl emanated from the dragon head, and without warning, it opened its maw, unleashing a torrent of shadow breath. The dark miasma surged toward Eliza, the very air around it warping as it sought to consume her life force.
Eliza leaped to the side, narrowly dodging the deadly attack. The miasma hissed as it passed her, dissolving the ground where it touched. She quickly gathered her strength, summoning her own dragon fire deep within. Flames erupted from her mouth once more, burning a brilliant red as she aimed them directly at Faker.
Faker countered with his own shadow breath, the dark miasma clashing with her fiery blaze. The two forces met in midair, a violent explosion of light and darkness. For a moment, the power between them was equal, the struggle fierce. But Faker's wings beat furiously, propelling him forward through the clash.
He descended with terrifying speed, his dragon-head arm lunging toward her, jaws wide open to devour her whole. Eliza saw the attack coming and, in a swift motion, brought Excalibur up. She dodged to the side and slashed horizontally, the broken blade still gleaming with unparalleled power.
Her strike was perfect. The sword cleaved through Faker’s torso, cutting him cleanly in half. His body split, the top half spinning away, black blood spraying into the air.
But Faker's severed form didn’t fall. The surrounding shadows swirled, pulling his dismembered body back into their depths. Once again, his laughter echoed through the room, eerie and haunting, as his form retreated into the darkness.
“You can carve me up as much as you like, Slayer. I’ll always come back,” Faker’s voice taunted from the shadows.
Eliza gritted her teeth, tightening her grip on Excalibur. Her body was screaming in pain, her strength waning. But she wasn’t done. Not yet. She wouldn't stop until Faker was destroyed, no matter how many times he reformed.
Faker's frustration was palpable as he howled, “Just die already!” His voice echoed, thick with rage. From the shadows beneath them, blades shot out in every direction, razor-sharp tendrils of darkness slicing through the air. A few caught Eliza across her side, leaving shallow cuts, but nothing that her regenerative abilities couldn’t handle. Her draconic aura flared, the minor wounds already sealing themselves shut.
With a determined snarl, Eliza drove the broken Excalibur deep into the ground, piercing through the heart of the shadow. The blade, despite its damaged state, pulsed with an intensity that belied its shattered form. In an instant, a brilliant light burst forth, shattering the darkness.
The shadows exploded outward, disintegrating into a writhing mass of thousands of maggots that scattered into the air. The grotesque creatures crawled over one another, multiplying unnaturally as they began to spill across the battlefield. They replicated endlessly, a nightmarish cycle of bodies birthing new ones, a continuous tide of filth.
“Enough of this!” Eliza roared, her eyes narrowing in disgust. She swung Excalibur again, its radiant light sweeping through the air, disintegrating the maggots as they crawled closer. But no matter how many she cut down, they just kept coming, relentless and multiplying faster than she could slay them.
The maggots didn't stop there. They began cloning themselves at an alarming rate, one crawling out of the mouth of another, and then another, in an endless cycle of repulsive duplication. The air became thick with the squirming creatures as they floated upward, condensing into grotesque eyeballs that hovered in the air. Each eye gleamed with malice, their gaze locked on Eliza.
Their lids flickered open, revealing malevolent, bloodshot irises. Without warning, they charged at her from all directions, exploding one by one in fiery bursts. Flames licked at her skin, but her dragon scales, thick and resilient, shielded her from the worst of it. The explosions only left a few scorched marks on her body, but the onslaught never seemed to end.
In the chaos, Faker reappeared, lunging forward with inhuman speed. His fist collided with her face, the blow rattling her skull. He didn’t stop, punching her again and again. Each impact was fast and brutal, yet Eliza’s resolve was stronger than ever. She gritted her teeth, blood dripping from her nose, but the pain barely registered.
With a growl of fury, she swung her sword in a deadly arc. Excalibur, though shattered, was still formidable in her grasp. It cleaved through Faker’s neck effortlessly, his head flying from his body once again. His decapitated form stumbled back as his headless corpse began to dissolve into maggots once more.
But Eliza, undeterred, wiped the blood from her face and scoffed. “Is that all you've got? Those punches don't even hurt,” she sneered, her eyes gleaming with savage confidence.
Faker's head reformed in the distance, his face twisting in maddened rage. “You’ll regret that,” he growled, his voice dripping with venom.
But Eliza only grinned, flames crackling between her teeth. “Come on then, coward,” she spat, preparing for the next round. “Let’s see if you can make me feel anything.”
Faker’s patience was visibly unraveling. His once calm, mocking demeanor had been replaced by an unhinged, seething frustration. His eyes flared with dark energy, and his hands trembled as he clenched the hilt of Mordred. “You… insufferable wretch!” he spat, the shadows swirling more violently around him, warping and twisting like a living storm.
The maggots that had scattered in the explosion reformed again, but this time with grotesque speed. Faker’s body reassembled itself in a sickening display, his limbs jerking unnaturally as the creatures fused into his form. His wings, still a horrid mix of dragon and raven, stretched wide as he let out a furious roar, the sound shaking the very walls around them.
“You think you’re strong? You’re just a weak, broken imitation!” Faker shouted, his voice carrying a maddened edge. His form flickered in and out of the shadows, becoming harder to track, harder to hit. “You don’t even realize you’re just a puppet, swinging a sword that doesn’t belong to you!”
Eliza, however, stood her ground, her eyes narrowing in determination. Her body was bruised and battered, but her spirit burned brighter than ever. The crimson aura of her Berserker ability flared once more, wrapping her in a fiery, chaotic blaze of power. The broken Excalibur in her hand pulsed with each beat of her heart, as if the sword itself refused to give in despite its damaged state.
“Your words mean nothing, Faker!” Eliza shot back, her voice unshaken. “I don’t care about your past, or your pathetic grudge with that swordsman. I am the Slayer, even the strongest monster, will be slain by me!”
Without warning, Faker surged forward, his body morphing mid-flight into a whirlwind of darkness and claws. He swung Mordred down with reckless fury, the blade seething with dark flames. Eliza parried, the force of the blow sending a shockwave through the air. Their swords clashed again, sparks flying as the dark flames of Mordred battled against the radiant light of Excalibur.
Faker snarled, his face twisted with anger. “You talk too much!” His free hand morphed into a grotesque claw, and he slashed at her midsection, dark tendrils snaking out from his fingers to ensnare her.
But Eliza was faster. She ducked under his swing, her footwork swift and precise, and in one fluid motion, drove the broken Excalibur into Faker’s abdomen. The blade glowed fiercely as it pierced his flesh, releasing a blinding flash of light that illuminated the entire battlefield. Faker let out a howl of pain, staggering backward as his form momentarily destabilized.
“You think this will stop me?” he growled, his voice layered with malice.
“Then I’ll keep cutting until there’s nothing left of you,” Eliza hissed through gritted teeth. She lunged again, slashing at his chest with ferocity, each strike more powerful than the last. Her Berserker ability heightened her senses, making every movement sharper, faster, deadlier. Each blow from Excalibur tore through Faker’s form, sending chunks of shadow and flesh flying.
As Eliza’s blade carved through Faker, the seemingly endless stream of maggots that comprised his body writhed, spilling from every gash she inflicted. The broken fragments of Excalibur glowed with righteous fury, but it was not enough. Each strike, no matter how vicious, seemed futile against the sheer, grotesque power of Faker’s regeneration. His flesh was reborn, again and again, from the swarm of maggots, and the madness in his eyes only deepened.
“Enough of this!” Faker screamed, his voice now laced with a dangerous edge, a crack in the calm veneer he had worn throughout their brutal duel. The ground trembled violently beneath them, the air thickening with the suffocating presence of malevolent power.
With a deliberate and chilling motion, Faker lifted Mordred, the blade pulsating with a sinister energy. “Mordred,” he murmured, almost lovingly, “it’s been a while, but let’s use our full power. Soul Release.”
Without hesitation, he plunged the blade into his own chest, and what followed was nothing short of a nightmare. The maggots that comprised his body began to squirm and writhe, not in regeneration but in agony. A guttural scream echoed through the room as each maggot twisted and contorted, their grotesque forms warping into something far more abominable. The air grew thick with a dark, oppressive energy, and a sickening crackle of dark lightning danced along the edges of Faker’s form.
Mordred began to dissolve into his body, merging with the flesh, as if blade and body became indistinguishable. His form twisted, elongated, and morphed, the once humanoid figure now becoming something else entirely. Black armor, ancient and jagged, materialized across his body, snapping into place like the carapace of a demon. The shadows themselves seemed to cling to him, warping into the shape of a living, breathing abomination. His once pale skin was now riddled with draconic scales, gleaming like onyx under the dim light, and where his face should have been, there was now only a gaping, monstrous maw filled with razor-sharp teeth.
Wings sprouted from his back, enormous, twisted things—a grotesque fusion of raven and dragon wings, the feathers and scales slick with dark, dripping ichor. His eyes glowed a hellish red.
“I’m sick of this charade,” Faker growled, his voice no longer resembling anything human. It rumbled, low and guttural, dripping with venom and malice, reverberating through the room like the final toll of a death knell. “No more games.”
His very presence warped the surrounding space. Shadows bent to his will, crawling across the walls like a tide of pure darkness. The air turned cold, the light of Excalibur dimming in the face of such overwhelming evil.
Eliza could feel the weight of his transformation pressing down on her, suffocating her, but she refused to yield. Her breath was ragged, and her body was battered, but her spirit remained unbroken. She steadied her grip on the broken Excalibur, its light flickering in response to her unyielding will. Even in its damaged state, the sword pulsed with defiance.
Amid the suffocating darkness, as the grotesque form of Faker loomed over her, Eliza heard it—a voice unlike any she had ever known. It cut through the chaos of battle like a blade through flesh, clear, calm, and brimming with an ancient power that surged through her very soul. It was a voice that thrummed with authority, commanding yet comforting, and it filled her veins with a fire she hadn’t realized she possessed.
“Do you want to win?” the voice asked, its tone almost conversational, yet laced with an undeniable power. “Are you willing to do whatever it takes to survive?”
The question seemed to reverberate through every fiber of her being, shaking her to her core. The weight of it hung in the air, as if time itself had paused, waiting for her answer.
Faker’s monstrous form circled her, his grotesque wings casting a shadow that seemed to swallow the battlefield whole. Yet at that moment, Eliza felt detached from the world around her, as though nothing else existed except this voice, this presence.
“That man is right,” the voice continued, soft but unwavering. “You’re very similar to him, which means you can wield my true power.”
Eliza’s heart pounded in her chest, the realization dawning on her like a sudden burst of light amid darkness. She knew who was speaking to her. She had known all along, deep down, but had never dared to acknowledge it.
The voice belonged to her sword—Excalibur.
Her breath caught in her throat as the weight of the revelation settled in. The blade, broken and shattered in her hands, had always been more than just a weapon. It was a conduit, a vessel for something far greater. And now, at this moment of absolute despair, it was speaking to her directly.
“You can call me Arthur,” the voice said.