Knights Apocalyptica

Chapter 181: To King Arthur

As the Silver Fire burst alive within Erec and exploded into the world around him, He reached an understanding.

Responsibility wasn’t fair. One didn’t pick and choose what life gave them to handle. Were it Erec’s choice, he certainly wouldn’t have been here, offering up his life to end the last vestiges of a grand corporate tragedy that dragged from a dead world into this one.

But being a Knight, one with power, was beyond fairness. A true Knight looked not at the things they wished for, but the matters that reality put down before them.

That understanding let him lay it all out. No cards left in reserve. Before this world, before this corporation, before even that bitch of a Goddess far above a world she’d wrecked, he’d accepted this responsibility. He accepted all of them. To Verdant Oak, to the Seventh Caverns, to the Kingdom, to the Pendragons, and most of all, to his family.

If those responsibilities clashed, he’d still follow his heart true. He’d beat the world into place and wield the power that flowed through his hands to fulfill his vows and carry what he needed. If he failed, he’d do so after pushing everything in him until it fell apart. Not until he let out his last breath, and his heart gave its last beat, would he accept defeat.

To do that, was a life well lived.

The fire inside lived, burned even further, the Silver Flames wrapped around; in his mind, he saw the solitary Knight. That strange figure clad in living silver flames, the man with the weight of eons and a mantle that felt like a planet on his shoulders. When that Knight removed his helm, beneath was the face of a young man. His face, but yet from a different time, a different reality. But they were the same, and together, they bore that mantle.

His axe, their axe. His Armor, their Armor. His heart, their heart.

The Silver Fire raged around Erec, bursting through his skin and venting outward with a surge of pain; it wrapped around him, forming a bright and powerful Armor. It climbed up his axe, growing and forming into a weapon of legend, adding weight to both his form and the axe that made it weigh an impossible degree. But Erec held steady. His stance didn’t break, his grip didn’t fall apart. Wielding this power shouldn’t be easy, and it should hurt. Regardless, he would hold it anyway. That’s what they had accepted—their responsibility.

As the silver flames coalesced, the monster predictably threw itself against him. Its fangs chomped into the living flame of Armor that coated Erec like plate from the old-world.

It shrieked and backed away, the silver flames running from its jaws like molten metal, dripping onto what was left of the velvet carpet below, and catching it on fire. Erec grinned and drew his axe back. The weight strained his muscles, tearing them in a hundred places as he channeled an impossible sea of silver flames from somewhere else, and then he swung his axe against the monster. It tried to jump out of the way, but it was too slow.

A wave of flame spiraled out of the edge, rocketing the monster into the wall far wall. The room shook as the burst of fire did the impossible. It screeched as its back slammed through the concrete layer, into the steel, and then past the steel into the thin lining of graphene behind. For a second, Dan flailed there, blood flying from him like a fountain, and then both the monster and the slash of silver fire broke past the graphene membrane. It flung Dan into the hall beyond the suite—a maintenance area.

After just that one blow, their vessel screamed to stop. Told it that it’d used all he’d had, but Erec agreed with himself and ignored that voice. It didn’t matter.

This would end with killing that fell beast, or being slain himself.

A burst of silver flame rolled off him in a wave, and he snapped forward, throwing his body through the hole he’d sent Dan through, joining the creature in the hallway beyond, reaching it before the thing even stood. He sent another slash flying at it.

This one, it dodged, rolling across the ground as it desperately jerked out of the way. A wave of fire followed the blow, rocking through the facility as the fire tore through two more rooms and no doubt threatened the structural integrity of this place.

[Hello, Boldwick?] VAL’s buzz cut through Erec’s ears, echoing off the radio and in his mind. But Erec ignored the chatter, ignored it, talking to someone else.

Everything in him was honed to a single edge, to a single battle. He threw another overhanded axe strike at his enemy; Dan reared back on all four legs, blocking with its arms as it took another wave of flame directly to the face. Both the monster and the fire flew outward from Erec, crashing through more concrete and steel, causing further shaking as it tried to survive the blast.

When the dust cleared, Erec saw his foe. It’d doubled in size again, filling half of the lab it’d been pushed into and giving up on resembling any creature that should exist on this plane. Indeed, an enchantment of the most dreadful sort, the type a foul sorceress might summon from hell to ruffle Merlin’s beard.

So be it, demon. Ye shall die in fire and flame.

He moved to pursue the thing, preparing to call upon more of his mantle to pursue it and end it in a single blow, but the demon had a trick up its sleeve. Another set of legs popped into existence from below, and the beast flung itself back at him, soaring through the air with a snap of speed accompanied by a boom. The glass in the lab it’d been in shattered as it landed on Erec—too close to get a good swing of his axe. It slammed Erec into a wall.

Its muzzle tried to get past his guard, going for the neck—a killing blow, but one that ultimately wasn’t enough. A wave of silver fire burst from Erec, tearing at the creature as it screamed, but it held onto his axe with two sets of those hands. Not willing to let him make more distance.

As if I require space to slay thou.

He let go of the axe with one hand, snapping forward and grabbing the demon’s muzzle with one of his gauntlets. His fingers strained, crushing, snapping the teeth beneath its foul red skin. Its face started to melt off as he dug within.

What trick doth thou hath now? Tis this thoust grave?

Its face did melt off. A whole layer of skin on its skull came free, like a fleshy mask, as it withdrew, letting go of his axe to make distance and escape his grasp.

“What the hell is happening…?” Boldwick’s voice came through the open radio as Erec flew after the monster, throwing more blasts of flame its way. The lights around them flickered to life before a screech from the monster as it dodged shattered the bulbs, and plunged them back into darkness, aside from where Erec’s silver flames glowed.

[This is VAL. I’ve restored power to the facility. And I’ve opened the door out—oh, your Arch-Magi friend is making a direct run towards the exit already. Huh. That’s a fascinating piece of subspace projection he’s got there in his hand. Anyway. No time! MOLLY is distracted. But Erec wants to let you know that you should collect everyone and get out of here. Run. Right now. Start running. All of you.]

“All Knights, we’re retreating,” Boldwick’s voice cut through the radio.

The monster flashed through rooms, breaking through walls as Erec pursued, trying to find an angle to come at him and attack. By the second it grew in Strength, its blows slammed into Erec and sent him flying whenever it got a hit.

A respectable demon, but nothing prevailed long against a fair Knight such as he. Those of the table were among the strongest in the realm, and it would fall to his weapon, of that he was sure.

They broke through several more walls, the intensity only flaring brighter as he pulled more of his mantle into this world to pursue this monster; lash of righteous flames after lash went towards the monster, turning the halls and rooms they burst through into broken and distraught things. With each attack, his grasp on this vessel shattered further, pulled apart. Only so much could come through, and this body wasn’t strong enough for the weight of it.

Yet, was there anything more noble than sacrifice?

In Arthur’s name, he’d slay this thing. He’d made his vow, and he’d honor that.

The demon stopped trying to block the blows, dodging and weaving as it tried to score and attack against Erec. He respected that, even as it grew more limbs, and he tore them off, ripping and shredding whatever he could. No matter what, this beast wasn’t going to run. A claw slipped through his Armor, tearing a hole right through Erec’s side as it sprang at him with another set of fresh legs and a wall.

Within half a second, the Silver Fire spilling through Erec closed the wound. His blood dripped on the floor, and he flung another burst of fire after the demon as it leaped away.

He lost track of the fighting amid the blows and scrambling as they tore through the facility. Erec’s eyes and full attention were on the demon. Testing it. Looking for the pathway that would lead to glory.

[They’re out.]

So be it. Soon, he would be, too.

Once he was done, he’d return to the table for a good rest. Share with his friends the glory of this achievement. And they would drink deeply from their goblets. A toast to him and his tale. Glorious.

Erec grinned with madness as he got a direct hit into Dan, and it stabbed him once more through the Armor. Somewhere along the way, it’d adapted to counter his defenses, but the Silver Fire would patch the wounds until it couldn’t. But this beast lacked the resolve; it had no fire burning within. It didn’t have vows to hold to. Therefore, it’d lost the fight before it’d even begun.

With a backstep, Erec caught the demon with an upper strike that sent the creature rocketing above and directly through several facility layers. He didn’t wait. Instead, Erec jumped after it, propelled by another wave of silver fire. they went into the sky, the sun above shining down on them, finally gracing their fight with its regal presence.

Erec caught the mid-air monster with another fling, tossing it into the ground and skittering across the street of the surface of this world. Another burst of fire sent him crashing down next to it, tearing up the street and catching loose wood nearby on fire as he landed. Like a comet slamming into the planet.

The monster twitched on the road, dozens of legs and arms broken and twitching, more mass growing as it tried to adapt further, to pull its pulsing body of red flesh into fighting form once more.

Tis the end.

Erec brought his axe on high, letting all of the silver fire pour through his mantle, letting his vows of duty and the rage that’d brought his flames to life condense at the edge of his axe.

“Farewell, daemon. Thou fought well, tis your fate to fall to I, slayer of the stag. Now Butcherer of Ghosts. Fret not, for thou shalt live in the glory of tale round the round table,” Erec declared, then brought the weapon down.

The blade tore straight through the monster’s neck, a wave of fire bursting into the ground beneath as it severed the skull from the body. A wall of silver fire burned upward from the street, diving into the underworld below and crashing into the facility, cracking through the concrete and steel membrane of Vortex Industries’ site hidden below. The ground at Erec’s feet came apart as he killed not just the demon but the hell that spawned it.

With that stroke, the mantle vanished. The air in his lungs disappeared. The silver fire evaporated; blood ran down Erec's face, his eyes rolling back into his head as the price of power came due.

Too much. A power this body couldn’t wield, and he’d broken his connection to it.

Erec dimly felt himself fall as his soul slipped away from this spent body, right toward the tumbling rubble and rocks burying Vortex Industries. It would crush this mortal vessel, burying it with the rest of Vortex Industries. Not that he could accompany it to that fate.

So be it.

Enide appeared next to him, and then together they vanished away from death.