The problem with my fight with the lead Grey Knight was that it was too one-sided, it didn’t really teach me much. He beat me, until he beat me too much. Frankly, it seemed like a fluke but if the key to victory was simply spray them with gas and then a little of my blood then it was just a simple endeavor. Frankly, I didn’t know enough about their weapons and armor. At first, I thought their armor was just steel that had been painted, but when I watched the first knight get melted the metal was grey all the way through. It was like a matte grey, something that seemed to be darker than it really was. I believed that its relation to light had something to do with the arcane, in other words there was a good chance that this was an anti-mage squad.

My relationship with them was an interesting one. I was close to a mage that I tapped into another power to channel… something. What I was certain of was that their armor wouldn’t do anything to absorb my powers, as my power came from something way more ancient and powerful than some long departed god. I was the patron saint of the new way of life but there wasn’t time to get caught up in all that.

Stepping towards the puddle of goop I looked back at my reflection in the puddle. Instinctively I knew that this toxic sludge wouldn’t harm me, and I even felt an affinity with it. It felt that there was a connection to the void. Almost like if it was fed a little more something would come out of it, which filled me with endless curiosity. Something that was even more interesting was the fact that this mixture wasn’t burning through the ground, it had burnt straight through the knight but had come to rest on the floor. Was this because its purpose had shifted from defense to some form of gateway? I wasn’t sure but it was something that needed to be explored at some point in time.

Looking around I was doubly confused as to where the other grey knights were. I had taunted them; I had announced their leader was dead. Were they higher on the food chain then I thought? Were they so much weaker than their leader that they had fled? Or was the warden… narrowing my eyes since I hadn’t heard a single noise from the warden this whole time, and someone who was presumably getting beat to death wouldn’t make no noise.

Stepping around the puddle I head towards the door leading to the back yard. Stepping through the doorway and out into the backyard I see an even stranger then I had predicted. The first thing I saw was the warden with a slime dagger sticking out of his throat. Next to him stood someone wrapped in a shadow. Behind them lay twelve grey knights, all dead with long needles sticking out from the holes in their visors. These needles were apparently strong enough and thrown with enough force to pierce through the materials used to blackout the visors.

Immediately on guard, I look at the girl and almost take a step back. Glancing up at me, and probably seeing the blood on my clothes just looks up at me, simply does a once over of me and then glances back down at the warden.

Realizing they are a girl once they look at me, I come to a certain understanding of what happened. The grey knights were all attacked at once by the needles, which must have been thrown from a distance. The warden on the other hand had gotten stabbed in the throat from proximity, as the knife wasn’t lodged too deep within his neck. It didn’t look like the warden had tried to run away from the person in the cloak, meaning that they had either chosen not to run or were incapacitated. It looked like they had simply chosen not to run, whether this was because they had trusted them and was betrayed, or simply had chosen death. It didn’t matter, it seemed that the person in the cloak didn’t have any amenity towards me, so I simply moved past them and towards the bodies of the grey knights. Glancing down at them, I carefully removed the needles from their face, and neatly put it off towards the side. Upon contact with the needle, I realized that the needles were radiating with an intense energy that seemed extremely hostile in nature. Quickly circulating the Void throughout my body this foreign energy was quickly purged from my system, but in that time, I had suffered from extreme nausea and dizziness. Vowing to myself that I would gain enough control over this void to have it constantly circulating throughout my body. Continuing with the task, I managed to remove all the needles from the bodies, I tear a piece of fabric from my pants, carefully wrapping the needles up. Turning around I walk over to the cloaked girl and carefully place the needles down next to her. Still being ignored I shrug, and head back inside the house. Standing by the puddle and still staring at into it, my puppet is just standing there swaying back and forth, as if it was swaying in time with the ebb and flow of the Void. Tapping it on the shoulder, I once again make a mist of void spell out, “Grab the dead knights out back and carefully drop them in the puddle”

Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.

Looking at me, it nods almost as if still in a trance and heads out towards the back. Tapping my foot and waiting for the puppet to come back, I begin to think of a remedy to the fact that I was, in fact still mute. Not being able to speak was an issue. Thinking about it, I took out the buzzer the warden had given me earlier.

Walking to the back again I see the girl still kneeling by the warden, still not doing anything. The warden mentioned he had a daughter, but he had mentioned that she would need to be cared for. The girl seemed to be about eighteen or nineteen, long old enough to be taking care of themselves. Because of this, and the fact that it was most likely her who killed the warden, I decided they were probably not related by blood. Thinking that, I simply walked over to the body and reached out to place the buzzer on his chest. Faster than I could react to, a hand quickly darted out and several needles were thrown at my hands. Instead of stabbing into my hand, the needles simply seemed to disappear in shower of sparks almost as if they had been battered out of existence by a shield. Shock written all over her face, this mysterious girl somehow manages to leap backwards a good distance from where she was once sitting, shock written all over her face. More needles were quickly thrown at me, soon reaching me, only to once again disappearing in a shower of sparks. She was the real deal, if I hadn’t been subconsciously shielding the layer above my skin with a thin layer of Void, I would’ve become just another piece of the everlasting Void. The sparks were probably the material of the needles reacting with the void during their destruction.

Not wanting to be showered with sparks again, I put up my hand and slowly walk towards the warden. Reaching the warden safely, I simply place the buzzer on his chest, turn around and walk towards my puppet, who this whole time has just been trying to drag the knights from their resting place on the ground. In my rush to test out the void, it had slipped my mind that these knights were probably extremely heavy, and this puppet had struggled to push me in the wheelchair. I was lucky it hadn’t simply ripped its arms off trying to drag the knights away. Going to tap the struggling puppet on the shoulder again, I stop myself, peeling the void back from my hand like a glove, and then pat at the puppets back. Stopping, it drops the knight it was trying to drag, and tilts its head, “Sir?”

Motioning for it to stop, I reach down and grab the arm of the knight. Slowly grabbing one of the arms, I point for my puppet to grab the other arm of the knight and to start dragging him alongside me. While it was an arduous process, it went by smoothly and soon the knight was dragged to the edge of the Void puddle. Motioning for the puppet to step back, I step into the puddle of the Void, dragging the knight into the center with me netted a strange interaction, instead of eating away at the armor as I had anticipated, nothing happened. Quickly dragging the rest of the knight into the puddle, almost as if the Void puddle was sucking in the knight. Walking backwards out of the puddle, my work was finally rewarded as a reaction finally occurred once I had exited the puddle. Right before my eyes the Void worked its magic in front of me. Before the puddle was only deep enough kiss the bottom of the suit of armor, but it now seemed to be rising in depth. Upon second glance it was evident what was happening. The knight was being sucked down into somewhere, and so was the puddle it laid in!

In only a couple of seconds, the puddle and the knight seemed to disappear from this plane of existence. In their place there seemed to be a hole in the very fabric of the universe, but I knew what it really was. It was really a tear in the very universe, allowing the person to peer into the very Void itself. What came next surprised even me, with an almost terrifying rip, this tiny dot was seemingly ripped open from the other side. Stepping back, and pulling the puppet back with me we faced whatever was going to come from within this tear in the very fabric of reality…