An ominous darkness clouded my way down the dark hall, prompting the sudden halt of the clacks of my boots on the damp stone floor. I scanned the surrounding olden walls, lined with vegetation that seemed to be withering away to nothingness. There was no apparent threat, so far.
This has to be the place.
I adjusted the withering feathered cap that rests onto the top of my head, the smooth texture of my worn leather gloves rubbing against the degrading, yet still sturdy material of the headpiece. Making a quick run-over onto the contents of my supply pouch and the special papers stored in the special compartment, I then knew.
It was nearly time.
Traversing the darkness with no sight to aid me, I relied on my experienced hearing in pointing out any sign of danger. There was only a bellowing silence, save for the whispers and murmurs from within the dark, begging for me to heed their warnings for what was beyond.
It was par for the course in my job, gaining abnormal insight was a given. Over the years that had gone by, I was quickly desensitized to the point of setting these whatnot aside, and instead learned to direct my attention to the task at hand.
It was a necessity. Because of the tragic events that followed after the incident back at the Fishing Hamlet village, the horrors begun to plague the world.
Horrors, to which we were called upon to take care of.
Horrors, to which I am to take care of now.
The unusual irony from this? The local resident survivors have mostly stated that the horror that loomed in this place was present even way before the terrible incident. Meaning, that even without the tragedy happening, it would've still been present in any case.
How peculiar indeed.
Alas, it was never the place of a bounty man to ask the deeds of the bounty itself. Rather, it was theirs ask what the rewards are for reaping.
My short stroll in the darkness was stopped upon coming to a fog, a fog that stood out in the darkness. It was surely the place.
Traversing the fog, I finally came to have sight of a few lights in the distance, from which the fog shielded me from. Traversing even further, I took a pause before I stepped into the next room. I fetched a long parchment of the special paper from within my pouch, then grabbed one of the bladed armaments secured on my back. I quickly wrapped the paper around the blade of my saw-cleaver, a longtime companion of mine on this grim journey.
Prepared for anything, even my own demise, I finally stepped into the large hole opening. Hoping for the best, waiting for the worst.
As I've expected.
The floor beneath my boots now had a level of sticky and murky blood, which stubbornly clung to the leather of my footwear. The air was extremely thick with the stench of rotting flesh and death, which was almost enough to make me retch through my mask.
And then the pile.
The pile of bodies scattered across the damp space, a few rare of which were still trying to get up and crawl, yet proving fruitless against the slippery nature of their own fluids. There was no saving them now, I surmised. It was far better to put them out of their own wallowing misery than waste the remaining scarce resources of ours just to aid them in living again. Their fates wasn't in my hands to decide, anyways.
A sudden disruption caused by a distant noise alerted my whole body, gripping the saw-cleaver in my hand while reaching for the hand-blunderbuss in my other, primed and loaded for any situation.
I've learned that it wasn't just noise.
It was...
Whispering.
No.
It was... far too desperate in the tone.
The hoarse voice grew more apparent and nearer, turning out to be a pleading voice nearby, blocked in sight by the bodies.
"Aaahhgn... Please... Help us... Aaah..."
Then a loud sound, apparently a heavy crunching step. Huge shadows emerged from behind one of the piles, the source of the voice.
"An... unsightly beast..."
The voice bellowed out even louder, and that was the time when a large and long ghastly limb was seen, seemingly akin to that of an huge arm, yet littered with corroding bits of metal and complete with talons.
"A great terror looms..." The voice still began to continue on, now obvious that its origins isn't that of a human. More and more parts of the beast began to show itself from the piles of bodies, until I could finally see more of its form.
"Have mercy... Have mercy upon us!" It spoke in an unusual tone of sadness.
Ah, I can't believe what was brought upon my eyes.
"Lamorak... the hallow beast... is coming!" The beast itself spoke out, which must've been echoing what its victims' last words were. A twisted tone of a cackle sounded out from the beast, when I could finally confirm my guess.
Lamorak, the hallow beast.
Its lower body was thin, seemingly decaying and flayed, and sported beastly asymmetrical, but strong, legs where parts of forgotten medieval metal still clung onto decaying flesh. Its upper body was the embodiment of which humans aren't meant to comprehend. Between two huge limbs with large, sharp talons, grew a disproportionate hunch that showed a mouth lined inside with gnarly teeth and clusters of horrid eyes at the left side of its face, all apparently blind. But from right side was a declining metal armet that was hiding the remaining working eye, stretched over an elongated head vaguely resembling that of a decomposing knight.
And the beast's own former weapon, buried deep in its own back.
The stories were true, after all.
Far-away hearsays and tales spoke of an ever-wandering knight, who used to be from unknown origins and loyalties. It was somehow forced to travel the earth, mindlessly searching for something it wanted to seek. However, reasons unbeknownst to anyone, they have grown into this wretched beastly form, which became just an uncommon tale to share on a night of a bonfire.
But, interests piqued, travellers and a few rare cases of investigators came to where the beast has supposedly settled down to a far-off local village, only a couple of which returned.
Leading for a reasonable amount of bounty to be put above the beast's head. A bounty of which I would claim soon.
The beast snarled a high pitched tone and scooped up some of the reviling liquids on our feet to splash and distract me, with me fortunately moving my head out of the way just enough for my eyes to avoid the substance and yet coating my entire coat and gear with the sticky blood and stench. It then tried to lunge towards me, but before it could even get the chance to leap from its hind legs I brandished the blunderbuss from my steady left hand to blast off a shot, the projectiles soon scattering and painting one of the beast's shoulder joint with oozing holes.
It screeched it pain, howling out its pain, a frigid cloud of coldness coming out of its maw. I unlatched the cartridge hook of the gun with my thumb and gave a moderate swing sideways, allowing the empty shell to fall out. But instead of reloading the blunderbuss up again, I stowed it away inside my coat, the gun's sling hidden inside of it.
There was no need to waste ammo on this beast. Hallow being, Lamorak, or none of those, it was still a beast.
Something I've put up against so many times before, and gained experience from over the course of my work.
I felt around the handle of my saw cleaver and clicked on a trigger, causing a mechanism to make the wrapped blade unsecured from the lock. I made a strong flick towards the floor, the paper-and-metal sliding down the handle having friction together, emitting sparks that combusted the paper and blade into fire.
And beasts, even hallow ones, are afraid of flame.
Threading on the damp floor towards the beast, I hacked away with a couple of slashes with the blazing saw cleaver, taking advantage of the fact that the creature was still immobilized from the shot earlier. Screaming bloody murder, the beast suffered from the slashes and decided to flail around in a fit of rage. I hastily stepped towards my behind, avoiding the limbs that it was throwing around.
Tantrum done, the abhorrent beast was partly exhausted, opening up another chance for more of my lashings, this time at the elongated, horrid limbs, the decaying flesh being burned from my attacks. Snarling even more in pain, the monster forced itself to get up from the laying state to give a sudden and quick slash of its talons to my body. I didn't have time to fully evade the frenzy, giving me a considerable size of a gash down my left leg.
I hissed in pain yet tried to endure it when I had a quick retreat backwards, the wound proving itself to be a hindering one. Before the beast could seize the moment to retaliate again, I dove my hand back towards my pouch to pull out a dark crimson pellet, and scarfed it down without a second thought to taste its unique grotesque taste.
Beast blood pellets. As the name suggested, they were coagulated beast blood in the form of pellets, made for the purpose of consumption. Upon its use, it provides the uncanny ability of extreme pain tolerance that originated from the beasts themselves, even in cases of severe body harm. The few people who knew the existence of this product were extremely wary and doubtful of its safety, to which their questions were never answered.
Leading to the prohibition of legal distribution across the nations.
Illegal and loophole methods, however costly, were a different thing entirely.
The effects of the volatile pellet were quick to kick in, to say at the least. I looked down upon my leg and despite seeing a huge chunk of it missing, it felt as if nothing had changed. And in a way, I felt more invigorated and more... alive. I felt the blood in my veins boil.
The beast raised its left appendage up to take another swipe at me, but when it was brought down to strike, I hastily closed in towards the right hand it was supporting itself from, and hacked away at the wrist joint, causing it to lose balance and fall down yet again. With its back exposed to me, I hacked away where the rotting skin seemed thinnest, the areas near where its own blade was impaled and causing it to enlarge the wound that the weapon made.
The beast roared in anger, causing it to charge at my direction, which I narrowly avoided with another fast sidestep despite the short distance between us.
Failing to halt in its advance, it slammed its own head to the wall with tremendous force, causing a slight sound of a sickening crack of its own skull and part of the deformed helmet, and the ruins to rumble around us with pieces of the ceiling above to falling down to reveal a cloudy night, the debris somehow missing us both. Beast stunned by the concussion, even possibly dead, I fetched the pouch to acquire a bottle with dirty cloth in the lid, soon lighting that same cloth aflame with my weapon. Rearing my hand back, I chucked the bottle of liquid towards the disrupted beast, in particular towards its back.
When the molotov had hit it, the liquid content of the bottle scattered with the impact along with the cloth, it covered the beast with the violent, amber color of the fire.
And lo and behold, there was nary a whisper from the beast, signifying its death. I blew out the fading fire from my own saw cleaver, the paper had wilted to almost ashes and cinder at this point. I looked back at the beast again, for final cleanups and to gather proof for the bounty. I have yet to claim my rewards, and still make sure all of my efforts were not for naught.
But before I could even take a step towards it, I've noticed something out of place.
The blade stuck onto the back of the beast had become loose, and dislodged itself from its fleshy and vile prison of a sheath.
The clouds surrounding the night sky cleared out slowly, their heavy thickness soon dissipating to make way for the sole clear light from the lonely full moon, the sky lacking the usual stars that painted it.
The moon shone down onto the blade.
And the burning corpse of the beast began to shift slightly, just enough so I could see the now also blind eye on its head stare at the now-free blade. The blade, which seemed to be glowing with a pale, nightly light, reflected on their face. It seemed the beast uncared for how it was currently on fire, making no effort to aid itself.
Turning its sight from the blade, the beast refocused its blind eyes to instead somehow look at the moon above, now also shining down upon it.
"Ah... Ebrietas. You were by my side... all along."
The beast began to speak, talking towards the moon. I could've sworn I saw it glow a bit brighter in response, as if in affirmation. Before I could consider to put down the beast for good, I felt I was locked in place to my feet, unable to move. It was as if I should allow this to happen, and not interfere.
The moon was shining down on me too, but unlike the way it shone onto the beast. The beast, which was now starting to get up despite its injuries.
But to my shock, instead of going back to the four legged way of the usual beasts, it stood on its two legs, just like how humans would. My surprise didn't end there, because instead of focusing back at me, it returned its blind, longing gaze back at the glowing sword.
"My guiding consort." It began to pick up the hilt of the blade with both hands, the pale glow being emitted getting brighter each passing moment. The radiance of the light was no mere usual energy, still unsure to what it is so far. It raised the weapon over its head, the tip of it pointing towards the moon, which caused it to suddenly glow an almost blinding light for a quick moment.
This...
This was... No way.
The sword was vibrantly radiating hallow energy, concreted with the fact that even the stars were now starting to appear on the night sky, which shone in tandem with the pale moon for the one holding the blade now.
The one holding the blade...
It lowered the sword again, hilt in front of the chest area and the blade partially hiding the face. It hid the left, hideous and malformed side of the face, only allowing me to see the right, where the remains of the knight helmet still persisted, along with the relatively normal face, still keeping shape despite the decaying nature and blind eye. The flames on its back instantly extinguished when it declared its next words.
"My True Satellite."
It was very clear to me, right there and then.
I was no longer hunting a simple, hallow beast, which was savage and beyond basic thought. A beast, which only had the sole purpose to kill and devour. A beast with no mind.
I was reminded of one fact.
I was now locked in combat with a knight of times past and long forgone. A knight, which was loyal to its own cause and reasons, to its own mettle. A knight, which was bound in honor for servitude, whatever or whomever it may be for.
I'm no longer hunting Lamorak, a hallow beast.
I'm now about to fight Lamorak, the hallowed knight.
They lowered the tip of the hallow blade to their side at the ground, and slightly bent on one knee. Dodging just out of pure instinct, I rolled away to the side before I got struck by their ground slash, pronounced by a missed upper cut swing of their sword. I clicked the trigger for my saw cleaver again, activating the mechanism that allowed it to slide off near the handle and allow for two handed use.
My mind registered that they still haven't lowered down their sword yet, leading to another instinctual dodge roll from me when Lamorak did a two handed downward swing with it. Taking my chance with the now- exposed serrated side of my saw cleaver, I hacked at the bottom part of their exposed legs, able to produce a good amount of bleeding wounds. Wounds that aren't able to be easily healed. But even then, they stood their ground and kept their stance, doing a quick turn to slash at the ground again. Another expected slash, another step dodge from me.
Whiffing the attack again, they did a quick backstep of their own to create more distance between us. I pulled out another handy bottle of the trusty molotov, lobbing it right at the middle of their torso, to which they made no effort to avoid whatsoever. The bottle hit them dead on their sickly skin that wasn't covered by the bits of armor, and yet they didn't flinch. Shortly afterwards, the fire extinguished on its own again.
This...
This must be the power of hallowing.
Lamorak raised their sword towards the sky again, prompting it to glow brighter and brighter along with the celestial bodies in the sky. I used this chance to close in the distance and slash even more towards them while they were distracted. They were now showing slight signs of flinching, thus their poise being broken. When they lowered their sword again, I stepped away from its reaches.
The sword, now a glowing deformed mass of light, was slowly shifting itself to another shape with Lamorak honing it. The hilt became much more pronounced and elongated, and the tip grew branch-like points at each side. It was slowly making itself to be a huge trident. Lamorak then gave stretched lunging stabs towards my direction, with me narrowly ducking each one, due to the aid of the blood pellet effects. They readied the veritable mass of hallow light again to the both of their firm grips, and then swung it around them in an arcing circle. While the blade was far too away to hit me, the elongated handle smacked me right at my ribcage, knocking me away at a considerable distance. I swore I felt something crunch inside of me.
It wasn't just a crunch that I felt afterwards, however.
My chest was now feeling a unique type of... searing and yet chilling amount of pain, to where my mind was in complete shambles trying to understand. I felt the unfamiliar sting, reaching to my nerves and then my head, twisting the way how my train of thoughts worked. I forced my hands to reach inside the pouch again to retrieve another beast blood pellet then downed it at once, anticipating the relief it would give me. But then, while I could no longer feel the stinging of the broken ribs, I still felt the haunting singe of the strike.
This hallow energy...
The beast blood pellets have no power over it. It was almost too overwhelming to bear.
I forced myself to get up to face Lamorak again, who has turned back their weapon from trident to a sword form again. They raised the blade towards the moon again, and before I could close in to get additional hits, they lowered it again to the ground at their side. It was right then that I instinctively stepped to the side when they slashed upwards with their sword, which produced a bright, hallow beam that resembled the color of the moon. The now-familiar frostburn of the beam grazed by me, then Lamorak swung once more to project another, followed by another instinctive dodge from me.
Wait...
While I had fought and bunted beasts of all shapes and sizes before, and while this one is still in the form of a beast, Lamorak was fighting like real knight would. And I rarely do get a chance of having one on one combat with another combatant.
I didn't have the experience enough to fight and dodge all of what Lamorak was doing, except for my huge luck and pure reflex earlier. I lacked the general techniques, movement and stance. So, how did I get to dodge those beams earlier?
It must be because...
The singeing sensation from the hallow strike earlier, though still faintly present, was now mostly gone, and yet... it felt somewhat unexpectedly pleasant. And it felt like it was the one influencing my actions earlier, with me and the dodges.
Could it be that...
The hallowing wants me to fight on par with Lamorak, to have a fighting chance?
I looked back at Lamorak, which was taking a rather long time when they raised back their sword. Before I could even control the movements of my own body, it made itself step to the right and close in on them, just before they suddenly brought down the blade to land itself on the murky floor sending an erupting shockwave of hallow energy bursting from the ground towards my previous position, the moonlit colored lights in sharp contrast to the dark sticky crimson scattered on the floor. I was near them almost instantaneously, and this time reached up with my saw cleaver to lash out at the exposed parts of the torso. Bleeding even more, their poised posture was even closer to being broken.
Lamorak pointed the sword downwards straight at the ground instead at their sides, prompting something within to compel me to move away. Listening and obeying, I dashed out of relative vicinity to prepare what would happen next. Lamorak buried the blade into the earth, the area around them soon erupted with the same hallow energy earlier. Trying to retrieve back their blade, I got back within the appropriate range, and cut more near the areas that seemed to be crucial to them.
A slash across their decaying face, that scrapped away a huge chunk of their remaining armet.
With that, they placed one of their hands to their knees, the other towards the ground, now suffering the dire and severe extent of their wounds. They were starting to bleed out too much of the excessive damage done upon them.
I knew what I must do.
Without so much a sliver of fear, I got under their form, just beneath an exposed part of their torso, where my earlier inflicted wounds showed themselves. I seeked out the largest and most apparent one I could find, and without any hesitation, dug and buried my left hand deep inside the hole. Lamorak grunted, and yet made no effort to do anything due to exhaustion, their wounds, or anything else I haven't got much clue on.
I felt around the inside of the skin and flesh, wriggling my hand and fingers deep inside their own body, seeking out one particular thing. I felt around the hard and bony textures deep inside, also feeling the warm blood drip out from the wound and onto my elbow, the same crimson flooding the floor below. It took me a good moment before I finally found it.
A cord-like thing of some kind, deep inside their still sturdy bones and ribcage.
One of their arteries.
Making sure that I had a firm grip despite the slippery and fluid texture, I braced my fingers and knuckles for what I was supposed to do. I took one last look back at Lamorak, and even through their blind eyes, they were looking back at my own gaze.
It was as if they were telling me to go on. I had to do what I had to do.
I pulled and ripped out their artery with all the force I could muster, outside from its fleshy and bony confines.
Taking a step back, rather than howling or screeching in pain...
Lamorak only grunted, and gave out one last deep sigh, also giving out one last longing gaze back at the hallow sword. They still tried to hold it with both hands until the collapse of their body, still desperately clutching on. After gazing at the sword, which was losing its light, they peered back to the distant moon, which still shone, but this time alone as the stars had now vanished.Their mouth began to move one last time.
"Ebrietas, I... Thank you."
The wounds that I afflicted onto them earlier bled out the crimson even more, leading to massive blood loss. But it was apparent that it didn't matter that much anymore.
Lamorak's beastly body began to fade and lose itself, soon forming and turning unto ash. Along with the body also disappeared the metal and armor bits, leaving no traces of their own existence of being. There was no proof of them even having lived anymore.
Leading to the fact that it seemed I can't claim the bounty anymore, but at this point, I didn't mind. I gave a lost and exiled hallowed knight an honorable death, and I was content with that fact.
But before I could get the chance to walk away, something stood out from within the rubble and dust of ashes that were settling down.
Something glowing.
Lamorak had left behind their hallow blade, regaining its shine and faint glow. It had shrunk and lowered in size, akin to that of a normal sized sword that normal soldiers and knights could wield.
A size that I could wield.
I felt that I was drawn towards the presence of the weapon, feeling that I was compelled to do so. I reached out to touch the glowing hilt, expecting the same feeling of unique pain earlier yet bracing for it.
To my surprise, none such pain was given. Rather, I felt my mind processing my thoughts faster than I could manage, faster than I could even control it. I clutched my head in confusion, one hand still handling the sword.
I was...
I was trying to remember something...
Something that...
Something that I never even saw before.
Something that...
I can't remember.
Something that...
Is impossible to remember.
Something that...
Is impossible to remember, because i never saw it in the first place.
With that stage of crystal clarity, my mind regressed to its controllable and normal state. My thoughts were now not strewn about and incomprehensible, now manageable.
What happened back there?
Regardless, I took one more look at the blade.
It lost its brilliant shine from before, now replaced with a still present, and faint, tiny glow from the remaining hallow energy.
I still felt compelled to use the blade, as if my own. To use it in my own battles and hunts, to let it revel in the honor of fighting once more. I had to witness its own glory, and make new ones with me as the wielder.
I will not turn this in as evidence for my bounty of Lamorak.
I got some spare makeshift linen from my pouch, and wrapped the hallow blade in safety and preservation, until the time I would need to use it for the first. I stowed away the saw cleaver at my back, and adjusted the feather of my rimmed hat. In the distance, I still heard some of the bodies that miraculously survived crawling to "safety", to outside where they thought it would be normal. I chuckled to such thoughts. Someone ought to give them "mercy", but I won't provide them such comfort. I looked at my own wounds, nothing that a church clinic couldn't fix for a price. I inspected my money stash, still having a good amount and yet just enough to last me a week or a couple.
I suppose one more hunt soon enough wouldn't hurt too much.
Especially now that I have a new companion by my side. Now that I think of it, didn't this sword have a name by Lamorak...?
Ebrietas...
No. Something deep inside of me told me that wasn't its name. To name it that would be... unfavorable. I supposed I should just go with the obvious name for it then, I chuckled again.
Hallow Moonlight sword.