Clarent swung through the air as I teleported around the man guarding the entrance to the newly constructed castle. Behind me I could hear the savage snarls and mauling of my hounds as they met the charging champions in battle. Black smoke billowed off all of us as Black Rage took effect the passive ability buffing not just me but my summons as well.
26 rank points gained.
More and more notifications came in as my hounds, which didn’t count as separate creatures but more like living weapons took down champions earning me rank points.
19 rank points gained.
Voice of the Chasm shattered the doors in the castle as I strode through. I found room with a round table with a map of the battleground carved into its surface. Hanging from the center of the table was their standard. I grabbed it and turned around. Helen stood there her knuckles tight on the shaft of her staff.
“You,” was all she could say.
“Me,” I agreed, I waited but she did nothing just stood there frozen. I pushed past her leaving her there standing and shaking.
Using Storm Fall I shot out of the castle into the air. Immediately I was bombarded by ranged attacks of every time. Arrows, bullets, and spells hit me spinning me through the air like a top. It appeared an aerial escape was not viable for an exit. I dropped from the air and teleported the remaining way to the ground. Looking around I spotted what I was looking for as champions came pouring out of their fortress.
My hounds were going down but they’d already taken down a score of champions at this point and had served their purpose well.
321 rank points gained from assorted kills.
Blood and Souls (Repeatable): Kill 20,480 monsters or humanoids. Current Progress 4,493 out of 20,480. When you complete this quest, you will gain 4096 Rank Points, and the next quest will require double the amount to be completed but will award double the rank points.
Running forward I dove headfirst down the hole in the ground disappearing into the battleground’s undercroft. The tunnels were around twenty feet wide and arched like that of a catacombs. The wet slimy walls glistened like the inside of some massive beast as I ran forward. I only had a general direction to go in but it would be easy to get lost down here.
Behind me the sounds of more and more people entering the undercroft. I ran forwards back tracking several times as I hit dead ends. It reminded me of my time in my first Event. This was just another maze to solve. The sounds of my pursuers faded, and I started to relax.
Pain hit me in the side, and I collapsed to the ground unable to move as agony coursed through me. I tried activating Wrathful Meditation, but it had no effect.
Why isn’t that working? I screamed in my head.
Your taking massive Soul damage, Voidra said. We’re doing our best to mitigate it but you’re trying to use something for resisting physical pain to ignore damage being done to your spirit.
“I wasn’t sure if that would work,” a soft feminine voice said behind me. Another stab in my back and my mind went white and I couldn’t even think anymore past the pain.
“I have to thank you, Mordred,” Ammerila said. “You showed me my weak points, once I realized how you were able to counter my poisons and stealth attacks, I hunted down the ingredients to absorb and the dungeons to me a set of skills to take down people like you.”
Ammerila was clearly enjoying herself as she monologued at me. “The ability to see the future around you, its powerful but there are ways to counter it. I also made sure not to touch the ground in case you had some other way of detecting people. Chronos Cloak is an amazing ability, I’m not sure if you can appreciate it right now though.”
Her voice faded as my mind went black and something deep within my soul rose up.
---
“I’ve been preparing to take you down since we last fought,” Ammerila said as she stood over Mordred’s crumpled body. “I must say you’ve grown much weaker since we last fought.”
“I agree,” the raspy voice of a corpse replied. “His weakness is evident, but let me show you, my strength.”
“What are you playing at Mordred?” she asked, taking a step back, a look of concern flickering across her face as the man who should have been paralyzed and helpless on the ground jerked shakily to his feet his movements off kilter, moving too fast or slow at times.
“Mordred’s not here right now,” the corpse voice said. “You can call me, the Shadow.”
A savage roar tore from his throat as he launched himself at the Assassin. She stabbed him in the chest three times, but he gave no signs of even noticing the damage.
“Fade,” Ammerila said turning to smoke she appeared behind Mordred’s body again driving two daggers past his cloak into his abdomen. The Shadow only reacted by slashing her across the face with his claws knocking her mask of her face and leaving long bloody scars. The wounds slowly closed but the Shadow had only started. He pounced on her, his massive hands wrapping around her slender throat as his other hand grabbed her right wrist. She stabbed him with her free hand, but he snapped the wrist of her right hand.
She dropped the knife in that hand the grabbed the hand of her left as she tried to stab him through the visor of his helmet. Squeezing the bones of her wrist ground together and she screamed in agony as she dropped the dagger.
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“How are you doing this Mordred?” Ammerila asked her vision blurred by tears of pain.
“I’m not Mordred,” the Shadow said. “he isn’t willing to go far as he needs to win. I’m better than him, all of his strength, none of his weakness!”
He slammed Ammerila against the wall with his chokehold on her neck. His other hand went out the claws slashing down her legs ripping open her leather pants and spilling the contents of her belt across the ground. Burning purple flames faded but they are left behind nasty wounds that only slowly regenerated.
“I know I can’t kill you here permanently,” the Shadow growled. “But when I’m done, you’ll be broken.”
He slammed her against the wall again the sound of her spine cracking audible over her whimpers.
“Body!” he snarled.
His claws sliced down again ripping off the leather tunic and the linen blouse she was wearing leaving her covered only in blood.
“Mind!”
He dropped her to the ground and kicked spreading her legs apart. “And soul!”
---
Mordred, wake up! Karnen shouted.
What’s going on? I asked, coming out of pain induced haze.
Your shadow’s gone nuts, Karnen said. You need to stop it.
I suddenly realized I was paralyzed. No that wasn’t right, I could feel my body moving and see through my eyes, but I had no control over my actions.
How is this even happening, I snarled as I flailed about in my own head. Have you always been able to possess me like this?
We would have to destroy your mind if we wanted to do this, Ares said. But your shadow… it isn’t a separate spirit, it’s your own spirit just separated from the main whole.
How do I take control back? I asked.
The same way you beat it before, Karen said. Spirit against spirit.
I mentally closed my eyes as I reached out. I felt the shadow pull back, but I grabbed hold of it. It tried to wriggle free, but I wasn’t the only one fighting it. Ares, Voidra and Karnen all grabbed hold. The Shadow thrashed in our grasp, but we dragged it back pulling it from the controls. I envisioned a prison, and we locked it away. The Shadow howled a wordless rage that tore through my spirit, but I wouldn’t heed its desires.
My eyes snapped open, and I looked down at Ammerila who stared at me with the fear reserved for the worst kinds of monsters. A shoulder slammed into me, and I was flung into the wall of the tunnel cracking my bones. Arthur stood protectively over Ammerila his sword raise in a low guard. The massive greatsword was ill suited for this close quarters tunnel fighting.
“Face me,” Arthur said challenging me like last time.
You have been given a Challenge, refusing the challenge will increase the damage dealt to you by the challenger by x10 for the next hour, reduce your Toughness Attribute by 25% and give you vulnerability to Holy damage. If you accept the challenge, you can only attack the target. Any attack that you make that strikes another target will break the challenge resulting in the above penalties occurring. If any allied creature that jumps into assist you will break the challenge resulting in you being penalized, any rival creature that assist the challenger will break the Challenge with no ill effect towards you; third party interference will have no effect.
Accept Challenge?
Yes/No
“Yes,” I said rising to my feet.
Arthur didn’t move, while attacking Ammerila would make me vulnerable I could easily finish her off with a croup de grâce and flee into the tunnels. The standard I had captured lay on the ground between us, my real goal in this whole encounter. I teleported to the right of him spinning low. My Hell’s Talons scrapped off the back of his legs as he raised his leg to block as I went for unarmored section behind his knee. The leg armor was also an artifact now I was sure of it.
“Did you have to earn even a single piece of your armor?” I asked. “Or was it just given to you? Like everything else you take for granted.”
“What do I take for granted?” Arthur snapped back at me slashing out in a rapid series of figure eight cuts. He didn’t move to far from Ammerila, he seemed happy to talk and drag out the fight. His strength would only rise the longer this took.
“Guinevere,” I said. “Forcing the princess to marry you isn’t exactly the actions of a hero.”
“So, I should just give her over to you? You’re nothing more than a beast,” Arthur said. “Not even human. You have no place with Guinevere.”
“I think she’s the one to decide that” I said coughing blood.
“No,” Arthur said. “Sometimes, the people we love need protection from themselves the most, if your really cared for Guinevere you’d see that your poison.”
I didn’t have response to that. I looked down on the naked, quivering broken and bleeding form of Ammerila and it was hard to deny Arthur’s words. Mordred god of Blood and Slaughter, the prophesied fate that awaited me looked a lot closer right now.
“You don’t deny it?” Arthur asked emboldened by the verbal point he had scored.
“Do you know what monsters are afraid of?” I asked.
“What?” Arthur asked thrown by the change of subject.
“A bigger monster,” I said. “You’re right that I’m a beast, but you’re wrong that it’s all that I am. I’m the monster that people like her,” I said gesturing to Ammerila. “are afraid of. Maybe I went too far but she prepared herself to go after me, not you, even though supposedly we should be allies. I’m the monster that keeps the others in check.”
“Heros are the ones who save others from monsters,” Arthur said.
“Then I guess you’re no hero,” I said as an arrow flew out from the darkness of the tunnel behind him.
“No!” Arthur shouted.
I didn’t move as the arrow blasted a fist sized hole through my side under my right lung. The damage was extreme, but the effect was worth it.
Duel ended due to outside interference on behalf of the challenger, no penalties incurred.
Teleporting behind Arthur I stabbed up towards his neck with Clarent. He blocked it only to realize to late it wasn’t my true target as the claws of my left hand slashed across Ammerila’s neck.
34 rank points gained
Blood and Souls (Repeatable): Kill 20,480 monsters or humanoids. Current Progress 4,494 out of 20,480. When you complete this quest, you will gain 4096 Rank Points, and the next quest will require double the amount to be completed but will award double the rank points.
Ability Gained, Shadow Allias (Rank 1): Not everything you can see is real, trust no one. You can change your description to appear as another person.
Cost:
10 mana
Cast Time:
60 seconds.
Upgrade this ability to increase the difficulty in piercing your false description. Each rank up increases your Perception by 1.
Excalibur swung around but I skidded back. Arthur didn’t reissue the challenge which implied he couldn’t; it likely had a cooldown. This would be the perfect time to test myself against him again but as much as I would like to take the time to kill Arthur with my real power that wasn’t my job. Killing other players was a bonus here, not the goal, he would just respawn anyway. I scooped up the standard rolling under the azure edge of Excalibur and teleported down the tunnel.
Heading west down the tunnel towards the Tower I started to run again, keeping a warry eye out for more ambushes, my paranoia on high alert. I found an exit and left the undercroft. The sun was at about midday by now. I returned to the tower, exhausted from my battles both physical and spiritual.