The Beginning Of A Five Year Agony-Chapter 35: The Coming of The Black Knight

The high priest’s location was burned into Samuel’s mind... the underground cathedral, left down the hallways, a hidden passage. He moved with intense speed, a dark green and crimson blur streaking through the palace’s untouched corridors. Each step was a silent promise of retribution, his focus razor-sharp, his eyes already envisioning the path...like an eagle... novelbuddy-cσ๓

He stopped, standing before the shattered hole in the wall where Yvaine’s blast had torn through. This was the secret passageway.

Samuel stepped into the opening, his heavy boots grinding against the loose stones and debris. The passageway was well-lit, illuminated by the soft, glow of

essence crystals embedded directly into the rough Rocky walls.

Samuel’s eyes narrowed, taking in the unnatural light. He entered, his pace unwavering as he ran through the tunnel. After what felt like an hour’s, he emerged into a familiar, yet chillingly altered, cavernous space. It was the same chamber Lira and Yvaine had entered, but now the cages that once held the Outworlders stood empty, their doors swinging open.

"What happened here?" Samuel uttered his tone a low and dangerous rumble that echoed in the silent chamber.

Ahead of him, was a massive, ancient stone gate blocking his path. Without a moment’s hesitation, Samuel launched a powerful, one-footed kick. The gate groaned, a deep, grinding sound...then burst inward with a deafening crash, tearing free from its rusted hinges and slamming against the far end wall.

His eyes widened in horror. Beyond the shattered gate lay the devastating aftermath of the battle Lira and Yvaine had fought against the path-knight... The upper section of the underground cathedral had been blown apart, a massive, ragged hole allowing a weak shaft of daylight to pierce the rooftop. Pillars lay in ruins... some snapped clean, rods jutting out at impossible angles. The once-smooth walls were now covered in a dense spiderweb of cracks, evidence of immense, destructive force.

Then, on the debris-strewn floor, Samuel’s gaze fixed on a small, bloodied piece of fabric...a fragment of Lira’s clothing. He bit down on his upper lip so hard that a drop of blood welled up and trickled down his chin.

Clang... clang...

Samuel’s head snapped up. Standing directly in front of him, blocking a heavy, ornate door that appeared relatively undamaged, was the same Path-Knight that had nearly killed Lira and Yvaine. Samuel began to walk forward, slowly, With every step fueling his rage...

The Path-Knight, sensing the imminent threat, moved with rage. Proceed to summon its intricate shield, the metal glowing faintly, and lowered itself into a defensive stance, planting its feet wide, ready for impact.

"Do you think I have time for this?" Samuel uttered his voice was low and cold. In an instant, before the Path-Knight could even fully brace itself, Samuel’s fist was a gray blur... smashing into the Path-Knight’s armored chest plate with force. The Path-Knight reeled backward, its heavily armored body used as a projectile, slamming through the ornate wooden doors behind it. Wood splintered and shattered everywhere, hinges tore free with the metal lock, and the Path-Knight’s armor crumpled inward from the sheer force and impact. A thick, trail of blood began to drip from the threshold of the destroyed doorway.

"Aegirion, finish it off!" Samuel shouted, and his blade materialized in his hand, a surge of dark green energy.

Stepping through the shattered doorway, Samuel was met with a gruesome scene. Bodies lay scattered across the floor, a sprawling carpet of dead bodies. His eyes widened... a cold dread seizing his gut. A massive, glowing sigil, made of blood... comprised of intricate lines and symbols, covered the entire back wall of the chamber. In the very center of the sigil stood High Priest Malaki, a chilling, unperturbed smile on his face. To the right, Lira hung upside down, suspended by invisible restraints, her body limp, a thin trickle of blood weeping from her mouth onto the floors below. To the left, also suspended and unconscious, was Yvaine’s older sister, the tanned woman who had helped Samuel escape in the beginning... Yvaine herself was on the floor in the midst of the dead bodies.

A fresh drop of blood welled from Lira’s lips, falling to the ground.

"Aegirion!" Samuel called, kicking his materialized blade forward with full force towards Malaki. But the blade, just inches from the High Priest, struck an invisible barrier and bounced back hard. A force field, shimmering with a reddish...hue, as if it was woven from blood...surrounded Malaki and the entire glowing sigil.

"Ah, Samuel, how are you, my boy? I can’t believe you came to see me," Malaki uttered...while smiling with an unwavering, and sickly sweet expression.

"Hmm. So you took down a Path Knight with ease. You really came prepared." He chuckled in a dry, raspy tone that enraged Samuel’s nerves.

"Although I don’t recommend the style of entry... now that you’re here, why not relax and enjoy the show? I’m sure you’ll enjoy it. I mean, you’ve watched this kind of show before. Just take it as a new episode."

"I will kill you!" Samuel screamed, his voice mixed with fury and rage...

Samuel continued to kick "Aegirion." against the shimmering blooded barrier. Each impact sent jolts of pain up his leg, and more blood began to drip out from his skin from the sheer force.

"It’s not going to work, my boy. You’re wasting your energy," Malaki advised, his tone condescending and annoyingly calm.

"If I should advise you, you should conserve some. You’re going to need it soon." Malaki, with a disturbing nonchalant attitude, scooped up a drop of blood from Lira’s mouth with a single finger. He then moved with a slow, deliberate pace to Yvaine’s older sister and took a similar drop of her blood.

Samuel’s mind raced. He hadn’t fully considered it before, blinded by his rage, but he had played directly into Malaki’s meticulous plan. Malaki already had one celestial navigator...Yvaine’s older sister... but he needed two. That was where Lira came into the play. Samuel felt a wave of self-loathing wash over him, a bitter realization of how foolish he had been, utterly consumed by his fury.

Then, Malaki began to chant, his voice resonating with a dark, arcane essence power that filled the chamber...

"By the blood that stains the altar,

By the screams that haunt the dead,

Hear thy priest!

Tear the veil and feed the breach!

Open the gate, split the veil!

Blood to ash, soul to flame!"

Samuel continued to kick Aegirion against the shimmering blood barrier, desperate. Each impact sent searing pain up his leg as more blood seeped from his skin...In the center of the sigil behind Malaki, a portal began to form, swirling with dark crimson energy, coalescing from the very atmosphere.

Crack... Crack...

A Bust of dark red energy, like tiny lightning bolts, appeared within the still-forming portal, expanding rapidly. Samuel delivered one more desperate, powerful kick to the blood barrier. It shattered with a deafening crash, exploding outwards in a spray of red mist. Aegirion shot through, a desperate green and red streak, directly towards the High Priest.

But then, a massive, grotesque hand, unbelievably fast, shot out from the still-forming portal. It seized Aegirion mid-flight, its movements too quick for Samuel’s eyes to even track. The hand clenched Aegirion shattering it into countless pieces, dissolving it into liquid essence that was immediately reabsorbed back into Samuel’s body, leaving it unarmed.

Then, a second, equally massive hand emerged from the portal, its sheer size distorting the atmosphere around it. It moved with an impatient urgency, grabbing the edges of the partially opened portal gateway, and with a guttural growl, began to widen it further, tearing the very fabric of reality apart with just its brute force...

Then Through the rapidly expanding dark crimson portal, a colossal, armored figure began to push its way into the chamber. It was immense, standing at a full 15 feet tall, easily towering over the previously encountered Path-Knight. Its entire body was encased in thick, black armor that resembled jagged, charcoal rocks. From deep within the cracks and seams of this dark plating, a faint, dark essence pulsed, a visible, internal glow that seemed to absorb the light around it. Its head, when it finally emerged from the portal, was part of its helmet, featuring glowing, featureless red eyes that immediately fixated on Samuel. It let out a guttural, dry roar that vibrated through the very walls of the cathedral, a deep, resonating sound. The atmosphere in the chamber grew noticeably colder, becoming dense and oppressive, making it difficult to draw a full breath...

"Oh, don’t look so surprised, my boy!" Malaki’s voice cut through the heavy atmosphere, clear and mockingly. He stood still, calmly within the glowing sigil, the altar, now visibly soaked with blood, positioned directly in between him and the massive creature that was pulling itself from the portal...

"Did you truly think a mere blade, could harm a being from the Outer Dark? This, Samuel, is a black knight! A true being of destruction, born of the void between realms!"

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