It would not be good to die a second time, Suran thought, getting up from the ground and dusting himself off. His muscles were twitching from the force of the knight’s blow and was certain if he tried to block it even a moment later he would be decapitated. Winning on strength and speed alone was not possible, he concluded.

From the ravaged door frame, the tall, gray knight climbed through to the clangs and jitters of his armor. Brandishing a massive great sword molded after a cleaver, the knight began to vibrate in his armor. A hysterical laugh rang out.

“Ohohohohoho! Is that all you got?” The knight cried out, making a motion to a wipe a tear from his eyes as if he laughed too hard. He was wearing a great helm. Suran remained motionless at the provocation, instead assuming a fighting stance. Gray knight’s cackling stopped in an instant. “Insect still wants to play?” He remarked, cocking his head slightly. Gripping the handle of his great cleaver with both hands, he dashed forward without warning.

Suran responded to the leftward swing by crossing it with his sword. Even though he was ready this time, the force behind the great sword was immense, so, instead of letting the gray knight toss him around once more with his sword, he let himself get carried by the great sword, letting it slide off his own blade and using its force to propel him left in a roll. Clicking his tongue, Suran confirmed he could not stand up pound for pound against the knight’s abnormal strength.

He came out of the roll, regained his footing, and crouched on the unpaved stone. The knight was nowhere to be found. Frantically, Suran scanned left and right without a sign of his location, before hearing a battle cry from above.

In the air was the knight, crashing down with his great sword. Suran rolled to the left again to dodge the attack. The knight impacted the ground like a boulder that fell from the top of a cliff. Rocks and dust rained everywhere, and the force of the impact rocked Suran further back. At the center was a large dent in the ground and the unfazed gray knight. His strength wasn’t just abnormal, Suran thought; it was absurd.

There was no room for error as one direct hit would be an assured death. Even blocking the strikes was not practical due to the staggering strength behind them. Without any options, he resorted to doing what he does best: waste time. Leaping out of the hole, Gray knight resumed his pursuit, sprinting with sword in tow. Suran held his ground in anticipation of the next attack. The gray knight began his assault with an upward slash, pressuring Suran to evade backwards. Stepping forward to close the gap, the knight adjusted his body to match Suran’s movements and continued his strike by bringing his great sword down, placing his entire upper body behind the swing. The great sword came crashing down smashed the ground to pieces. With no option, Suran slid further back. Back into a wall.

Inadvertently, he had positioned himself right into the home he was thrown out of. Clicking his tongue, he went through his options as the knight hoisted his sword up. Without any more slack, it would take a miracle to get out of this. All the knight had to do was move up and slash horizontally, making Suran either address the blade and attempt to block it, or take evasive action to either the ground or air. Either case opened up a slew of opportunities for the knight.

“Games over!” The knight yelled triumphantly. Cocking his shoulder back with the sword, he lunged forward.

Suran side-stepped with ease, allowing the gray knight to pierce through the building wall. The knight attempted to remove his sword but it would not budge; the sword was firmly lodged in the wall. A miracle was born out of the pure stupidity of a blood thirsty fool.

Without wasting a moment, Suran slid by the knights waist and began slicing open his lower back. The armor resisted the incision, but Suran put all his strength it the slash, not knowing if he would get another chance. He completed the strike, rendering a continuous cut on the knight’s back. Rapidly turning his body, Suran went back in to rend the knight, but the knight would have none of it; the knight spun out and flung Suran back with a ferocious backhand.

Suran spit blood out of his mouth. His face already swelling in pain from the blow. Suran wondered how powerful the smack would have been if he had not injured gray knight’s back. The knight stood before him, slightly hunched over and heaving, clearly in pain. With blood dripping down, he endeavored to remove his great sword from the wall, but, no matter how hard he pulled, it did not budge. Refusing to give up, the knight squared up and prepared for fisticuffs.

The knight inched in, fists raised, completely cautious. Suran darted in to mount his offensive. He ducked the first jab, parried the second punch, then sliced the right shoulder-blade before bouncing out. The knight’s armor made it difficult to make a proper laceration, but blood oozing out of the tear in the armor indicated that the strike was true. In fact, Suran was quite pleased that his peculiar sword cut armor in the first place.

However it was not over yet. Standing strong, the knight refused to abate his aggression. He ran up swinging a left hook which Suran ducked under. From underneath, Suran slashed across the belly of the knight. However, the knight bashed back, jabbing him in the jaw with his right fist. Suran staggered back, but the pain abated quickly. His punches were slowing down and their strength waning. It was over, Suran mused.

Suran went in for the kill. On approach, the knight launched cross punch with his left hand, but Suran went low and gashed his right leg, causing the knight to stumble forward and drop to his knees. From behind, Suran drove his sword through the neck and out the chest. Choking on blood, the knight chuckled.

“What’s funny?” Suran asked, perplexed by the dying man.

Before falling flat onto the ground, the wheezing knight said just two words, “You are.”

As Suran walked towards the home to clear out the surviving lady, he pondered what the knight meant.

Climbing through the splintered door, he entered the ravaged house. It was dark and dusty, making it difficult to see. However, he could hear the clatter of pots and pans and the opening of cupboards and cabinets.

He strode forward and called out, “Is anyone in here?” As he ventured forward, the back of the home came into vision, and an eccentric pair of eyes greeted him. “I took care of the knight. It’s safe to go out now.” He could see clearly now and found a red-headed lady frantically rummaging through the household gathering all the food she could find and throwing it into a large basket. She was muttering what sounded like a list of groceries or ingredients, periodically chomping down on a potato in her hand.

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Clearing his throat, Suran spoke a tad louder, “Excuse me?” This time he caught her attention. Turning to face Suran, she spilled several items on the ground ranging from apples to oranges to potatoes. “Its safe now. You can leave,” Suran spoke slowly and clearly, making sure to enunciate every word.

Mouth full of food, she began to speak in an extremely energetic manner, but only gibberish came out. Suran just smiling and nodding his head along, pretending to understand what she was saying. She stopped putting foodstuffs in her basket and pranced out of the house with Suran following her. Outside, she took of down the road towards the smoke and screams of men.

“Uh, I think that’s the wrong way!” Suran shouted out. There was no way that could be the safe route. Plus, he had just cleared out the opposite path so he was sure of that one.

At his call, she trotted in a circle to turn around, then went prancing back down the other way. Passing by Suran, she came to an abrupt stop, rustled through her belonging for a moment, and threw an apple at him before taking off once more.

Snatching it from the air, Suran examined it for a moment before shrugging and biting into it. It was surprisingly sweet and refreshing. While munching on the apple, he continued down the street, clearing out all the houses he came across. Unfortunately, there were no remaining survivors. At the end of the road, the sounds of battle grew louder, and the air became thick and heavy from the smoke of flames.

Exiting the residential alley way, the town center opened up before him. There was no buildings in the circular opening and the floor was laid with brick. Several stands where various goods can be sold where set up, with trees planted throughout the area. A scenic pavilion stood at the center. It would have been a very pleasant area if not for the corpses littering the area, the screams of dying men, and the clangs of skirmishes.

There were two distinct factions engaged in combat: the rugged bandits and brigands Suran had sparred with before, and a smaller group of armor clad knights, draped in fabric of green and black. In numbers they were fewer, but they fought fearsomely, each of them taking on two to three, or more, bandits.

Suran skirted the outskirts of the raging battle, attempting to find something to do. With these new knights taking care of things Suran thought that this might be the best time to leave. He had already been stabbed once and nearly beaten to death afterwords, and it would be wise to avoid any further conflict. But, after examining the skirmishes, he found that the armored soldiers were steadily losing ground to the numerous assailants. As much as he desired to call it a day, he felt compelled to aid these knights.

On the far right of the battle, there was a wide stone bridge where green knights would come and go, relieving those on the front line and carrying out injured. Assuming that their command was across the bridge, Suran dipped through an alley way and hiked down a hill to reach the riverbank. The river was even more cluttered than before with heaps of rocks and stones and bodies filling its waters; it was a bloody mess. Using the debris as stepping-stones, Suran skipped across the water to reach the other side.

Climbing up the hill, he discovered an entire camp set up in the middle of the road. Tents were pitched and men were hustling about. He cautiously walked down the road, surveying the area. At the mouth of the bridge was another circular opening but much less in size. At the center was a pole with a green flag on top and on the edges were several more white tents filled with men and supplies.

“Who are you?!” A commanding, gruff voice questioned from behind Suran, overpowering the ambient noises.

Suran rotated around to answer the voice and almost turned into the point of a sword. Alarmed, he jumped back and slowly raised his hands up in concession. Before him was a tall Caucasian man with short, slicked back, blonde hair. wearing silver-like armor and carrying a helmet underneath his armpit.

Not fancying to cross the man, Suran calmly replied, “I am Suran Ibrahim.”

“What are you doing here?” He barked back.

“I came to help. Across the river, I was saving lives and killing bandits.”

He measured Suran from head to toe with a stern expression. “Alright, I believe you,” he concluded with a slight nod, lowering his sword. “Name is Greyson. Howard Greyson.”

Relieved, Suran let out a breath of air and wiped his forehead. This was the third time today he was in life or death situation.

“Pleasure to meet you, Howard.”

“We can save the formalities for later,” Howard replied with a wave of the hand. “Right now we need to deal with the bandits. They hold roughly two-thirds of the town with the river and the bridge begin the divider. We are severely outnumbered so we can use any help we can get.”

“I’ll try my best,” Suran nodded in acknowledgment.

“Right, so what im going to need you–” Howard was interrupted by the shouts of a short, fully armored knight.

“Captain Greyson! Captain Greyson! There is an emergency!” The short knight jogged up then bent over holding his knees, panting for breath.

“What is it, Harrison?”

“There’s uh… there’s uh…black knight,” Harrison was finding it difficult to speak out of breath.

“Out with it lad! We don’t have the time!” Greyson shouted at the knight, clearly annoyed.

“Sir, just look for yourself. Over the bridge.”

Greyson quickly glanced at Suran with eyes that screamed they were tired of this shit. Shaking his head with a sigh, Greyson lumbered over to the bridge, and Suran followed.

Suran did not – could not – believe what he saw. A knight on a horse? Not strange. With armor that gave off a black, metallic hue? Still not that strange. Shooting out flame from his hands, incinerating the people around him? Impossibly strange.