#demonic entity

Just one Vascai remained alive now.

One, single, damned human soul to walk this planet. Destined to join his cursed compatriots in hell, soon enough.

The Steel Drake who had once laid his sword against Tarsyn glared defiantly, silver sword gleaming in the moonlight above his head. Rain poured down in droves now, washing away blood from the large balcony they stood on. Tarsyn flicked his tongue out and tasted static as lightning flashed abovehead, seeming to angle towards him and the Steel Drake.

“Why do you not just lay down your sword and accept a quick death, human?” Tarsyn called out, raising his voice to a calamitous shout over the rain.

The Vasca stared at him, gauntleted hands clenching his sword. Despite the rain, Tarsyn knew the wetness in his eyes were from tears, no doubt at the loss of all his comrades and companions; a lover, even? His armor was stained now, having lost it’s lustre. He now shook with palpable weariness, no longer so confident as he had been. 

Slowly, he shook his head. No verbal answer came. It was abundantly clear how he wanted this to end. Very well, then. Tarsyn raised a freakishly long arm up to the heavens, and willed something down.

The skies answered. Flashing down to his hand in an instant, black, light-sucking electricity appeared, seeming as if to hunger for a soul. He thrust his arm down toward the Drake, putting a large chunk of mana down to strengthen the black lightning to a gigantic, frenzied bolt.

In truth, Tarsyn had expected that bolt to have simply done the Vasca in. Daemonic lightning never failed to leave ashes where a living being once stood.

And yet, as he threw it at the Drake, what Tarsyn instead saw was supremely shocking; The Drake lowered his sword to meet the bolt, and as he swung it aside, the jagged spires of lightning arced upwards and well away from him. He had redirected it elsewhere.

Soon after, that cursed sword started to crackle with blue lightning, soon followed by the Steel Drake’s entire body as his eyes widened and glowed. Tarsyn realized what was coming in a snap and raised his weapon just in time.

Even meeting the nullifying black steel of his greatsword, the bolt was powerful enough to send a jolt through Tarsyn. Powerful enough to make his innards feel close to bursting. Powerful enough to send a deep, horrific wave of humiliation towards him, even as he belatedly recovered and righted himself. Powerful enough that once he, one of the foremost daemonic lords, recovered, it was too late to stop the swift silverine blade of the Drake from thrusting into him.

Tarsyn staggered back as he swung with a mighty hand where the Drake stood. His fist narrowly grazed the Drake’s head as he ducked, and Tarsyn felt the blade rip itself away from him. Blood burst from his ruptured heart onto the floor, quickly getting washed away by the rain. The demon lord did his best to ignore the pain as he lowered himself and swept his greatsword at the Drake’s feet, forcing him back.

But despite the rapidly incoming numbness in his limbs, Tarsyn did not wait for his enemy to recover. Four daggers flashed into his hand as he threw them in a spread at the Vasca knight. The poor sod contorted himself into a tangle trying to dodge them all, but one struck him square in the arm. To his credit, he was quick enough to inch away yet again before Tarsyn’s sword could take his head. Yet again, Tarsyn did not stop.

He rained an unyielding barrage of attacks upon the insolent human as he felt his life slowly slip away. Tarsyn swung mightily, hacked mercilessly and thrust quickly with his greatsword, a gift passed down by the Sacrasvend themselves. He unleashed dark spells of fire, of ice and water, of cutting wind, of soul-sucking lightning, and of the demonic arts of liferending itself as he battled both knight and time. He fought with utter disregard for his own life, as death was guaranteed soon now. 

The Drake parried, blocked, dodged and counterattacked to the best of his ability, ignoring his wounded arm just as Tarsyn ignored the numbness spreading through his entire being. The demon lord’s own spells were met by the Vascai analogues of their own; piercing ice, gleaming metal and radiant lightning. Spikes shot up and holes shot down on the ground beneath Tarsyn as the Drake leveraged the holy magic of his Order to disrupt the demon lord's footwork. But the human was tired, exhausted. Weakened. With no relief in sight. Even as Tarsyn’s considerable strength flagged, so did the human’s. His movements became noticeably shakier, choppier, less precise. The uncanny superhuman speed and power so characteristic of Steel Drakes had started dwindling. In time, Tarsyn would land the killing blow. It was simply a matter of time now.

Eventually, that blow came. One misplaced parry, and the Drake barely batted Tarsyn’s sword aside as he stumbled. A critical mistake. Tarsyn reached out for his throat and seized it, easily lifting him up into the air. Even the Vallastede steel around his neck crumpled with the force of the demon lord’s grip, and his blood-weeping eyes bulged. Before he could even do so much as ineffectually try to pry away his hand, Tarsyn ran his sword up the Drake’s gut, through his once-impervious armor. And for the first time, a pained, gurgling cry emanated from the Drake, like a reminder that underneath that grand armor of silver, lay a human. Mortal, and inferior just like all of his kind.

Even then, the man did not stop fighting. Gripping his sword from his good arm, he drove it into Tarsyn’s neck, cutting off his breath. Tarsyn let go of the Drake and grabbed desperately at the sword, trying to pull it out. Even his hands blazed with pain as they came into contact with that blessed sword. But wrenching it out gave Tarsyn no relief. Just as with every other wound dealt by such a sword, the gap in his throat refused to close, and Tarsyn collapsed to the ground alongside the Drake, leaking blood and air out his neck and feeling every sharp, agonizing bit of pain that ran through his body as he lived his last moments.