A King's Treasure, A Fool's Welcome

Out of Character:

Closed to Shadowed.

Sleet and snow tore with ripping speed through a cavernous pass, the silver and gray clouds above darkening deeper into the craggy mountain range. In a violent onslaught of icy wind laden with an ageless malice, a large chunk of semi-frozen snow broke loose and hurtled earthward, shattering into chunks at least three or four feet wide as it met an outcropping. Several of the smaller projectiles nearly missed an almost imperceptible speck of black as it clung terrified to the rock, only reminded even stronger of its perilous height.

A sigh of relief was devoured by the roaring wind as a practically frozen brown glove moved from one crack to another. Makeshift sleeves of freshly skinned wolf fur covered his otherwise bare arms, with another layer of fur underneath his vest. Completely out of his element and covered in snow and rain, the shivering swordsman’s eyes briefly fluttered, his hand missing the next crack completely. A startled gasp became the prelude to a beautifully serene yet terrifying view as his torso twisted away from the rock face and towards a steep valley of jagged stone, and icy water.

He had no lover to think of, no family to fill his mind with comfortable thoughts, only his own mortality. His heavy cloak whipped up above him, digging at his neck like a noose, and he immediately pried his gloved fingers in between. Combined with his already exhausted state, he almost blacked out and fell to his dismemberment; however, he managed to rip the cloth apart, the heavy garment tearing out of his hands and off into the wind.

Finally freed of his strangling accessory, his fur-covered arms clamped together, each of his gloved fingers interlocking with eachother as he quieted his mind and felt out his quickly changing surroundings as thoroughly as he could. In between the stinging gusts of wind that nearly ripped his skin, he assessed there was a massive cavern in the mountain he just fell from. He couldn’t take another day out in this weather, and though it would take up most of his strength to get there, he’d use up even more trying to slow his descent enough to regain his footing and continue through the mountains.

He kept his eyes propped open as he began to focus on the nudging little feeling in his gut, and narrowly missed a jagged outcropping that slightly broke his concentration. The wall he fell from was growing closer as he descended, and attempting to spring off it in passing would surely break his legs. He managed to pull his awareness out through his chest, and placed it directly below him as he fell. Building more energy into it, he created a similar point of concentration within the massive cavern, and through the thousands of feet of solid rock between a certain icy death and his possible survival.

He felt the portals in the making already tugging at him, and had to close his eyes to finish, hoping he would connect them before he met another outcropping. Unclasping his hands, he spread both arms in front of him, and with a grunt of exertion, he disappeared into an impossibly thin disk of black that had appeared beneath him, and disappeared just as fast.

Opening his eyes again as his portals closed behind him, the Void mage gasped as massive towers of finely crafted stone rose up before him, scattered beneath the several shafts of light that pierced the dark. Without his cloak, the two large blade hilts behind either shoulder offset his broad shoulders and chest, and as his eyes readjusted to the mostly pitch-black cave, he spotted a moderately sized building close by which he could land on. This cavern was not nearly as cold as the outside, and the wind actually felt refreshing.

With hardly as much effort as he put forth earlier, a series of small disks, practically invisible in the darkness formed above him, and toward the building he wished to land on. Their combined suction grew powerful enough to slow his fall to a halt, and they shifted place to carry him over to the roof. These ruins were massive indeed, for he could not even see the ground beneath this canopy of stone. His boots landed lightly on the edge of a steel rail, and the vacuums disappeared, the adventurer by heart hopping down onto dry stone. Laying his back against the railing, he began pulling all the fur from underneath his vest and pants. Having not bathed in weeks, his grimy skin cried for fresh air.

Finally, he was free of the stifling, and still bloody fur, and stretched his arms and legs as he strolled around the roof. In the far distance, he could see a beautiful waterfall illuminated by a single, huge shaft of light. It cascaded down what seemed like the entire mountain itself, and like the building he stood on, disappeared into the darkness below, nothing but a dull, quiet roar. His breaths, which before drew deep, became shallow as he recovered from his earlier mishap, though he still felt slightly shaken and humbled. However, few people can fall off a mountain and just run out of breath.

Out of Character:

Note: Using a full-powered version of Honuse Relaiyent. Also, all bunnies approved from here to infinity.

In all the realms of Yggdrasil, from the pit of Hel to the lofty mountains of Asgard, all manner of oddities and rare occurrences may be found. Yet none as unusual as the sight of Thor, god of all that is bloody and vengeful in the world, walking alongside a living human, conversing as if they were of the same blood. For this was the scene within the palace-fortress of Valhalla; Thor walked casually with his trusted servant, Honuse Relaiyent, past the grand banquet halls of his father, Odin, speaking to the man as a brother would speak to his sibling.

“Verily, my Lawmaker, thou art truly a wise and noble servant. I would give unto thee all that thou wouldst ask of me, if thou should ever utter the word.”

Honuse Relaiyent, former abomination and reviled of men, walked in silence, pacing his Lord with a supple ease of step. His body, which was half again the size of his given brethren – and many times more muscular – stood comparable in girth to the mightiest of warriors, as they strolled past the central courtyard, observing the eager violence of warfare the Einherjar partook of each day. While Thor gazed casually at the massive conflict, Honuse Relaiyent watched with a different sense, seeing the world as if through a cloud of thick, pervasive smoke; for his eyes had been lost many hundreds of years before, and his vision restored only with his honor at the hands of the Supreme God.

The leather of the Lawmaker’s matte black armor creaked softly as the pair came to a stop, the taller of the two gazing fondly at the masked visage of his servant. “Indeed, my friend, thou art too noble in thy service to ask of such things. Therefore, I give unto thee a task: Deep within the mountains of Scandinavia lies an ancient city, one which belongeth to the Jotun Lord Behlok in ages past. It is said that the treasures bereft of Jotunheimer lie deep within those caverns, hidden from mortal eyes. Go now, my servant, and seek this treasure. Let none stand in your way, for this is my reward unto thee for thine service these past years.”

The black pits of his eyes stared at the smiling face of the god for several long moments, before dropping in a quick nod. He bowed deeply before Thor, scarcely waiting to raise his body before walking off, his mind already set to the task at hand.
<hr>


Pervasive darkness filled every one of Honuse Relaiyent’s senses; the smoke filling his vision drifted aimlessly, the walls invisible behind the milky haze. The choking stillness of twenty thousand years of deathly quiet pounded into his sensitive eardrums, forming a primal rhythm with his heartbeat. The cloying stench of dust invaded his nostrils while the cool dampness of the rock at his back soothed him into a state of dangerous ease. The cave was perilous, and the Lawmaker found himself tasting the bitterness of fear for the first time in four hundred years.

For fifty-seven days, the giant monstrosity of a man had scaled the walls of the primeval fortress, seeking any sense that his task was at an end. He had traveled through miles of underground chambers, finally emerging in this, the largest of them all; judging by the echo his early shouts had created, the cavern was several dozen miles in any direction, even reaching to the highest echelons of the ceiling. Along the far wall dropped a massive waterfall, cascading its life-giving stream twenty miles to the murky basin below. However, the immensity of the grotto settled a preternatural stillness upon the air on the far side, making it feel as though the weight of twenty millennia were pressing down upon aching shoulders.

Several shafts of light pierced the omnipresent gloom, doing little more than magnify the sweeping emptiness of the fissure, emphasizing the tremendous scale of it all. Exquisitely wrought stone and metal buildings covered the floor and lower tiers of tunnel networks, hiding hundreds of square miles of rooms to search, all hiding unseen and unknowable dangers. History had not deigned to reveal why the murderous giants had left this impregnable mountain fortress, and it would not do the Lawmaker well to meet his untimely fate in these earthen mazes.

He had just begun an investigation of a ledge suspended over a mile from the highest curve of the roof, when a great thrashing sound found its way into his ears. The electricity arcing through his skeleton crackled as it came in contact with something that no rock contained: a bioelectric field, as would be found on a living, thinking being. Somehow, defying all reasonable belief, a man – or otherwise – had found a way to pierce through thousands of feet of granite without making a sound, only to fall for miles on end, until meeting a most spectacular fate.

Honuse Relaiyent was tempted to crack a smile, until, a minute later, it registered that he had not heard the bone-shattering crash of a body slamming into the buildings below. Stretching out with his innate recognition of living organisms, the Lawmaker strained his senses to perceive…yes, there it was. Living tissue, all in the distinct shape he had come to recognize as a mortal biped, all alive and well. Whatever magic had granted this man continued existence would not avail him against the terrible strength of the Lawmaker, the elect of the gods.

Without a thought of caution, the behemoth leapt off his perch, falling headfirst through unfathomable darkness, the wind catching painfully in the pits of his eyes. The air began to crackle around him, swirling about in a growing wave of pure, burning white light, the emanation of electricity in its raw form. For months, the Lawmaker had stored this electrical energy, letting it build up in his bloodstream, screaming for joyous release. As the surge of electricity grew, Honuse Relaiyent forced his body to produce pure adrenaline, dozens of times over from that of a normal man. The energy hit his heart with the strength of a charging Jotun, sending his blood pounding through aching veins, moving so fast his skin beneath the back armor started to glow a pale red.

The electricity inhabiting his skeleton reacted to the friction caused by the rapidly moving blood cells, sparking and crackling with renewed vigor as it burst from his skin, setting his body alight in pure, unadulterated energy. His screamed, letting the deep roar pound the distant walls, feeding his adrenaline rush. The mortal shell continued to accelerate, now streaking towards the earth with the intensity of a falling star, alight in dreadful power. Feeling his skin begin to crack from the strain of heat-induced friction, the Lawmaker forced the electrical comet out ahead of him, letting it move at several times his speed as it neared the ground and the unseen interloper alike.

Thrusting both hands down to his sides, Honuse Relaiyent grabbed fistfuls of black metal daggers from the sheaths along his torso, readying them in his gloved hands. Tucking his chin to his armored chest, the former abomination spun into a roll; as his head fell backwards to point at the earth once more, he released the six-inch blades over his back, flinging them all at his newfound enemy. The blades fell in a circular pattern, catching up with the electrical star. The energy crackled as it conducted along the metal weapons, shooting forks of lighting to the earth, surrounding the stranger in a halo of fire, heralding the arrival of a dozen kilojoules of electricity.

With a grin bearing both malice and contempt, Honuse Relaiyent quickly drained the muscle from his arms, feeding the raw biomaterial into his back, forcing it outward in the shape of thin, translucent wings. The patch over his leather armor opened, allowing the wings to spread graceful, unmolested as the caught the air, sending the giant soaring to a quiet landing a thousand yards away. With a grunt, the wings retracted, once more turning into a pair of finely muscled arms, unique in both their size and the blade protruding from the top of each limb, stretching out past the hand.

Shaking his head, Honuse Relaiyent casually strolled forward, eager to inspect what little remained of this foolish intruder.

The casual stroll of the half-elf was interrupted by an unusual light source from above, and then a great bellow drew his attention toward the blindingly bright thing that drew closer and closer to his paltry mortal form. The Void mage instantly began focusing himself beneath his feet, and three stories down, and even as the light separated from its master, accelerating at a frightening pace, the black nothing that was his only connection to otherworldly things ate the swordsman whole, leaving nothing but a building in the path of the death meteor.

Falling to his knees three stories down and gasping, the half-elf stood in time to hear a massive rumbling and cracking from above, which was every indication that he should probably dive out of the window ten paces to his right. His legs were moving before the first cracks even appeared in the stone ceiling. A few chunks of it even managed to fall before him, like the whole building was collapsing in on itself. Nevertheless he managed to avoid them and took a daring dive out of one of the few windows just as the blinding white light of the earlier attack he thought he had avoided engulfed everything.

Shattered glass flew with him, his trailing raven locks slithering through his vision as the room he just left exploded in white light, and the darkness below was quickly engulfing him. He twisted his torso, flipping over to fly feet-first towards the side of another building. Closing his eyes, he focused on the underlying framework of reality that was the Void, feeling out his surroundings. In this state he easily created hundreds of tiny vacuums covering the bottom surface of his boots as he braced his legs for impact and landed on the stone wall of the building across from the one that now had its top three stories literally disintegrating in the wake of a brilliant white mass of energy. Whatever created that attack was obviously very skilled in the use of that energy, and simply redirecting its own attack back would probably do nothing more than recharge the monstrous Goliath that even straight from Hell itself would've had a hard or long time coming up with such a force.

The many vacuums covering the soles of his boots let him stand parallel to whatever ground was far below in the dark, arms crossed and eyes closed as stone, glass, and metal rubble rained down from the building across from him. He kept searching, feeling out the great disruptive flow that must emanate from such a powerful being. He kept expanding his awareness as much as he could while keeping up with the suction keeping him standing against a vertical wall. He couldn't afford to break another window to get somewhere safe, and the building he left was not only obvious, but still crumbling.

No, he had to bring the fight straight to this beast. He felt himself slowing and weakening, the drain of transporting himself thousands of feet in an instant still weighing heavily on him. As much as he feared he may lose himself, there was no way he could continue to fight such an opponent without the aid of his other half. He paused his awareness expansion momentarily to search within himself. It didn't take him long, nor was it hard to establish a connection given his exhausted state.

I need you again, demon.

At first nothing but silence met his projected thought, but soon a painful tingle rushed up his spine and he nearly lost his concentration on his footing. A pressure grew in the middle of his forehead, and his ears rang loudly. A very powerful lust for gore and even suicide gripped him, and he struggled to even maintain the will to keep himself standing on the side of a building amidst many shrouded in darkness. Finally these subsided and he felt a moment of profound clarity.

How amusing. In over your little mortal head again?

A sickness grew in his gut as his arms and legs seemed to grow stiff, even his control over the Void freezing like he didn't have to concentrate anymore for it to happen. His sense began to grow at a rapid rate, and after a few seconds he located the only other being anywhere near him, some thousand paces away on another roof-top. It felt angelic, almost godly, but only in its disruptive force. It was very obviously human. This no longer mattered, however. Though fear gripped him, so did power, and he knew exactly where his enemy was.

A plan took little time to form, for he knew full well that the interlacing matrix of the Void was really best used indirectly, and against such a monster as this he couldn't afford to preserve any energy he had left. Without opening an eye, or even really recalling the motion, both of the swords above each shoulder were snatched from their hilts, tightly gripped between tightly clenched fingers as a few drops of saliva dripped from his slightly open mouth. His head was arched back like he was intently staring at something with his eyes closed, and with one blade in a forward grip and the other wielded backhanded.

His eyes snapped open, their normally dark irises swirling with crimson taint as he quickly surveyed the chaos of the building across from him. The entire top three floors had collapsed into the fourth, though the outer walls remained more or less intact. Glancing down to the blade in his right hand, which he gripped normally, the Void mage immediately reversed the vacuums holding him tight to the wall, while creating a few more in a stair pattern towards the top of the rubble that had become the building he originally landed on.

In a blink he was standing atop a flat chunk of stone at least seven paces wide, and a few feet thick. He glanced up and the darkness seemed to take on a pulsing red tint that slowly grew brighter over time, almost lighting the area like some form of night vision. He clenched his hand and saw veins and tendons raise noticeably, assuming the monster within himself must be manipulating his adrenaline output. With a slight smirk he dropped to one knee, slamming the blade which was already held earthward into a crack within the stone slab on which he stood.

The blade broke stone and screeched in to a stop about two feet down. He hadn't broken through the other side, so it must be pretty thick, and thus perfect for his uses. His head shooting up, a couple black strands fell upon his face, though he stared straight through them as he began concentrating. His first step was to relocate the goliath which attacked him earlier, which was no challenge as his awareness seemed to freeze in place, rather than diminishing once he set his concentration to other things as was usual. The location of the behemoth was some thousand paces in the darkness, to his right, and he seemed to be idly getting closer, probably in a search for the remains of whatever he just attacked.

The half-elf would not give him the pleasure, and quickly picked a spot some seven feet above and behind the monster that casually strode towards him. Within mere moments a portal was opened above him, and he almost doubted it was one of his own, but he felt out the frequency and it resonated perfectly. At first a great wind gripped him, threatening to pull him from the stone to which he clung, but his sword was driven deep and soon the boulder itself began moving, eventually lifting off the roof top and disappearing into another impossibly thin black disk along with the swordsman. The darkness engulfed them both.

He appeared facing nothing but pulsing red darkness, and after a quick look around spotted a literal giant of a man dressed in black and as monstrous as some of the demons he had fought. Truly this was no normal foe, and as such he'd give him a rebuttal worthy of his earlier display. Leaning his comparably small form back toward the giant behind and below him as he fell, the rock to which he clung slowly flipped over, and as it lined up almost perfectly with his target the half-elf gritted his teeth and pulled the blade from the stone, leaping off it as he did. He quickly spun his torso around, gripping the blade he had just pulled which he still held in a backhanded stance, and swinging down his other sword toward the boulder he just parted with while screaming out a mighty roar that almost matched the one of his gigantic foe. His pupils flared bright red as a glimmering white and blue streak of light erupted from the tip of his blade and shot down towards the huge chunk of stone and the slightly smaller chunk of muscle and man some fifty feet below that.

The brilliant white wave of light that erupted from his weapon noticibly drained him, but almost as soon as it left his body seemed to be rebuilding itself and its stores, strengthening its muscles, thickening its bones, all in preparation for the fight to come which surely would overcast both of these paltry first attacks. His attack quickly grew to some twenty or thirty paces in length, and as wide as the behemoth below was tall. As it impacted with the stone in between them the deep blue shards of energy, which were then still forming, chopped it into smaller, angular chunks which were swept along with the rest of the attack by the wall of solid energy accelerating his 'shards of force,' an attack which had served him well in all but the earliest of his forty eight years of fighting, cursing, and surviving.

In the omnipresent gloom, subtle shifts of the air, the body, the stench permeating the cave, all worked to create a silent symphony, creating music where there was none. The soft thrum of air moving to fill the gaps where oxygen rose in the wake of the superheating his electrical attack had induced. The whisper of dust settling to the ground, amidst the crackling and rumbling of shifting stonework. The soft breathing of the giant. All sounds were heard in the stillness of the immense cavern, dampening the distant, ominous noises of what could only be a living intruder.

The enemy had survived the attack, somehow clinging to life far away from the impact crater. Honuse Relaiyent could feel the living tissue calling out to him, beckoning him closer; this was no simple man. A demonic stirring awoke in malevolent, smoldering rage, blasting into awareness with all the subtlety of a dying Jotun. The very atmosphere of the ancient city cried out in anguish, reeling from the poison of this defiler, this abomination.

Cautiously, thoughtfully, the Lawmaker continued his slow stride toward the impact zone, silently praying to the gods that this maleficent interloper was simply a hallucination induced by his hair-raising descent through the abyss. But with a disturbing surety, the frenetic emanations continued, erupting into a full-fledged conflagration, igniting even Honuse Relaiyent’s cold heart in residual anger, forcing its will into the periphery of his consciousness.

The air parted behind him. Through some arcane invocation, the great devil had forced itself through several tons of granite and steel to appear unbidden at the Lawmaker’s back, bristling with maniacal glee at the thought of inducing pure, rampant destruction upon the elect of the gods. The unseen smoke of the nether twisted through the air before Honuse Relaiyent in a crazed dance, heralding the Messenger of Doom, fleeing with unmitigated panic into the smoky abyss. What had begun as a measure of well-earned reprieve from the boredom of the search had suddenly and inexplicably become a holy war, a measure of the will of this sacrosanct warrior against the terrible might of a defiler.

With a shriek, a blade, ignited by a mystical emanation of apparent power, split the air. The Lawmaker’s jaw dropped noticeably as a second sound filled his ears: a large chunk of rock, which had gone entirely unnoticed by him, was torn completely asunder as the spread of sharpened energy hit it, adding the fury of jagged earth to form a much more potent weapon. A wave of pure energy sailed unerringly at his back, while he wasted precious seconds listening in abject wonder at the powers this demon exhibited. Feeling a twinge of hopelessness, his instincts forced his muscles into action, propelling him into a sideways flip, kicking his feet high into the air.

As his spin reached a full revolution, Honuse Relaiyent forced two long arcs of electricity from his booted feet, splitting the air with a shriek. The currents polarized, creating a magnetic levitation and acceleration, flinging the Lawmaker along an invisible rail, flying at breathtaking speeds as he gyrated madly along a blazing white axis. His erratic flight grazed the edge of the energy field, sending sharp daggers of somehow weightless blades into his armored flesh, sticking nearly two inches into his thick skin, nearly piercing the muscles hidden a mere two inches below the deepest tip.

Regaining conscious reasoning, the Lawmaker stabilized himself upon the rail, reaching out with his right hand to pull the larger chunks of granite out of his left arm before closing the wounds, sealing several foreign objects within his skin; they would, perhaps, be useful later on. He twisted his course upwards, flying well above the demon below, seeking desperately to formulate a plan; with a soft grin, he realized the most likely way to overcome this foul creature, the only way to prevent the man-shaped warrior from vanishing through the rock once more.

Flipping his feet over his head, the Lawmaker sailed once more down to his enemy, accelerating rapidly in the descent. Moments before the collision, he pulled up, encircling the beast in a web of polarized efflux, creating a seal of negatively charged ions. Electricity arced between the two blades affixed to his skeleton, casting wicked shadows on the ground below as he continued to circle. With an answering roar, Honuse Relaiyent thrust the positively charged steel into the cocoon of negative ions, igniting a magnetic explosion of pure energy, kicking the lawmaker onto his back, where he lunged to his feet, thrusting with both blades at the center of the conflagration, the last place he had sensed the demonic aura, praying to Odin that his blades would fly true.

Out of Character:

I am also using a stronger version of my character, and all bunnies in this thread are approve-d.

A thundering heartbeat was all that the roar of battle faded to as the half-elven blade mage's vision grew still a brighter red, pulsing with clarity in time with the beat in his chest. The before brilliant shine of his 'shards of force' faded in comparison to the engulfing darkness around him, and he was suddenly aware of the sheer enormity of the cave they were fighting in. It was almost as if the God's themselves had hollowed this mountain out to house some apocalyptic confrontation. The uninviting depths below the rooftops the two behemoths of might were battling on whispered to the demonic ear that one such conflict had already taken place here, that even the God's themselves might have been expecting this fight, planning it.

His breath was caught as the giant skimmed the edge of his attack, flying along on some invisible track that the half-demon thought he could almost see as his vision grew momentarily clearer with each heartbeat. A sneer shot across his face as he was filled both with annoyance, and a growing excitement. His muscles tensed and he prepared to dive towards the warrior as he turned upwards and flew above even the half-demon. The swordsman, still gripping both his blades in gloved fingers, pondered at this maneuver, expecting the creature might try to recreate his original attack. The thought made his skin crawl, but the growing sensation of invincibility snuffed his doubt.

A flash of light brought his attention below, and the great shrieking of torn metal and stone was the first sound to grace him as his sense of hearing returned to normal. His vision faded to a duller red as well, but still upon each heartbeat its clarity momentarily increased. His attack left a huge scar in the monotonous tone of the roof below, and he could see it went down several stories, perhaps a great place for a sneak attack. Feeling out the area around him through the infinite number of infinitely small voids passing matter and information between dimensions, he located his attacker high above him, the great momentum he displayed earlier slowing to a halt as he began a dive back down towards the swordsman who was now gently falling towards the huge hole left in the roof of the building below by his attack.

He landed a few paces away from the crescent-shaped hole as the great beast above him had come half-way since turning back toward the ground, and the half-elf did not like the situation at all. He could try to stop the creature, or man, but with the momentum it had already worked up, it would be too great of a drain, even now. Still he could feel himself growing more sure of himself, just as he felt himself growing less like himself, and he guessed that he might do better to conserve his energy until the battle wore on and the demon within him woke further. It was obvious that whatever was about to happen would be big, so rather that teleporting himself again, he prepared to open many great vacuums to speed him down into the depths of the building through the hole behind him, and hopefully out of harm. In anticipation he re-gripped his other sword so that both were held before him, and he thought about fusing the blades and using his omnidirectional 'shards of force' as the beast grew closer, but its weak spot was directly above him, where his foe was attacking from; or was attacking from.

Suddenly the monstrous man pulled up some how and circled around his grounded prey with all the speed that it before plummeted towards the ground with. Through his concentration on the Void the blade mage became aware of a great, polarized force growing within the area around which his speeding attacker was circling, and a growing force of opposite polarization taking form in the blades the man wielded. This last fact was confirmed as flickering light jumped around the massive form of his enemy, the great polarization taking physical form. Every hair on his body stood up, whether from the growing force of this attack, or the growing realization of what was about to take place. He dropped one blade earthward and thrust it into the stone at his feet, flipping the other up into the sheath on his shoulder. He immediately clasped his hands together before his chest and closed his eyes.

Finally the forces had reached almost equal power, and the half-demon quickly reigned in his sense of the Void and focused on the area of effect of his enemy's attack. By introducing the opposing force from the outside, the majority of the reaction would be directed inwards, towards the center of the circle. He prepared a dome of large, negative voids directed outward around him, tuned to filter out all but the force generated from this great introduction of opposites. Just in time the two forces met, and a blinding explosion ripped through the air. The Void mage instantly surrounded himself in a close-knit barrier of black disks which sucked the energy into the Void itself. As he struggled to handle the massive amount of force generated, several arcs leapt in through his dome, striking his grounded sword, and he immediately covered the gaps with more, smaller disks.

He sensed the forces equalizing, and slowly released his voids, only remembering about his attacker soon enough to find the great monster barreling toward him with two huge blades outstretched from his massive arms. Only by redirecting the energy he was using to seal away such a great explosion into thousands of tiny vacuums to greatly augment his speed was the then almost skewered half-elf able to grip his grounded sword in time, but instantly something felt wrong. His once swirling maroon eyes grew a thick and fiery red, and his vision faded completely. The demon within did not bother with pleasantries in seeing the gross oversight of its host, and of its own volition opened a particularly strong portal behind the barreling beast to slow its gargantuan momentum.

Taking charge of the body in which it was housed, the demonic soul Malnmre pulled its host's blade from the stone, and bearing it with both hands met the blades of the familiar feeling mountain of muscle. With another string of tiny voids he redirected the then much slowed momentum of the weapons down to the side, narrowly missing his host's leg. With seething irritation at this intruder the demon released one hand from his blade, raising it up towards the huge chest before him as another wide, black disk appeared, immediately expelling a powerful gust generated from pressurizing air that was sent to the Void in slowing the big bastard.

"Fuck OFF!"

The booming baritone of the demon filled the air as its enemy was flung backwards, but it quickly faded as the energy used in forcing the thing back forced Malnmre to return to his slumber. The vision of the half-elven swordsman snapped back to normal, and he gasped for breath, falling to one knee as his sword clattered against the stone. He had no idea why he had blacked out, or what had just taken place, but he felt severely drained, and could not even feel out the presence of the man who moments ago was about to kill him. What few guesses he could come up with felt like shots in the dark at best, and he brought his head up to look for his attacker, his chest still heaving.

Of the many peculiarities inherent in a being of the Lawmaker’s size and mass, the deadliest was exhibited in the flow of blood through his veins. The rush of pure adrenaline released into his body forced his heart to beat many times faster than normal, pumping the blood at a speed unseen in the normal human spectrum. Typical men could survive for a minute or two with a hole in their neck, a giant such as Honuse Relaiyent had a critical few seconds to repair the damage.

Such was the predicament the giant found himself in; the overwhelming force launched against his chest had propelled the Lawmaker dozens of feet through the air, pitching his body into the rough stone side of a neighboring building. His head broke through the wall, leaving his neck surrounded by jagged edges, unable to move without rupturing his arteries more than had already happened. His breathing became ragged and shallow as he started hyperventilating, desperately trying to force air through his abused neck to fuel his muscles.

Blackness overcame his senses as Honuse Relaiyent sunk into the war waged internally, his struggle to muster the last remaining ounce of focus in his mind to control the powers instilled within him long ago. His body went limp, saving its strength for the mental battle he engaged in; with a conscious effort, he drew skin tissue from his chest, redirecting it to patch the holes in his neck. With the worst of the damage repaired, at least temporarily, the elect of the gods could focus on the last vital task; replenishment of blood.

Directing his mental probe to his organs, he selected his spleen, grunting involuntarily at the sheer pain of forcing all of the connections closed. The Lawmaker then began breaking down the composite biomaterials, changing their form into that of blood, which flowed into his heart. The life-giving stream brought fresh vitality to his worn body, allowing him to regain total consciousness. A flash of condensed electrical energy erupted from his pores, traveling through his armor, releasing their potent destructiveness into the wall that still held him captive. The ancient stone crumbled, flying out in all directions with the force of a Mjolnir in flight.

Sagging forward, realizing for the first time that his feet were considerably lower than his neck than he had previously believed, he fell into a somersault, landing on his feet with far less grace than he was accustomed to, only to fall onto one knee as dizziness clenched his sense of direction. His muscles shook from the renewed flash of adrenaline being carried into them by the converted biomass, stretching out the kinks that had somehow worked their way in during the few tens of seconds the giant was trapped. His head swam and his sensitive ears began ringing, scarcely recognizing that his was not the only heavy breath to fall in this ancient kingdom.

Subtle shifts of violet drifted into the smoke-ridden spectrum of his vision; the skin above his eye sockets rose in abject wonder at the first sight of color to grace his mind in hundreds of years. The nuances of this uninvited change to what had previously been a constant part of his reality aside, the Lawmaker felt an odd hollowness retreating from his bones. The demonic stirring that had plagued his strange assailant was fading into the mist, leaving nothing but the lingering sentiments of anger and loathing that it had imbued into the granite walls of the ancient city. A spark of triumph lit in his chest, forcing Honuse Relaiyent to regain his feet about him, to settle his resolve on slaying this mortal before the power of the Betrayer could again haunt the man.

The heavy leather of his boots crashing into the ground echoed across the massive subterranean complex, heralding his swift approach. The man had made no aggressive moves since defeating the Lawmaker’s previous attack, denoting the proper time to strike, while the advantage lay in aggression. His mind grew clearer, albeit distracted from the loss of his spleen and the energy drain his actions had required, allowing him to consider the strange force he had been confronted with. The energy he had unleashed was not seemingly deflected, but was instead absorbed, stolen by some unseen power that this strange man wielded.

Resolving to provide no more energy to this devil, lest it be turned back against the giant, Honuse Relaiyent instead prepared his physical tools, even as he took the last few steps to confront the swordsman. The small, twin swords on his calves were unsheathed as he ran, filling his grip, eager to rend the flesh of yet another challenger; the steel blades resonated in the lingering touch of necessary evil that was associated with the slaying of those whom the gods despised. In his customary fashion, the Lawmaker held the right blade in a traditional grip, hand near his right hip, the tip of he blade facing outward, paralleling the ground below. In his left hand, the sword lay reversed amidst his fingers, the arm crossed to the right side, leaving the blade sideways across his body at chest height.

His arms had scarcely settled into position when his last footfall sounded, marking the arrival of death.

An inexplicable yet glorious sight the swordsman saw as his deep black eyes looked up from cracked and aged stone; the first thing to grace his eyes in coming back to consciousness from whatever river of hell he was drowning in. His flesh still seethed and raged as if he just emerged from a bath of fire, though the very core of him was ice cold. Still, the great beast which had ambushed him here under the mountain was lodged in the side of another stone tower nearly forty or so paces away, and inexplicable though it was, this pleased him. With another gasping breath as his shock receded after seeing the creature which had nearly killed him twice already flung so quickly away, the half-elf gave a grunt as he stood, picking his blade up once more. His arms were limp but for his iron grip on the enchanted steel, and his mind oddly clear and focused as he caught his breath, and his strength began to return. The figure embedded in the wall before him emitted a strong pulse of energy that shattered the stone in which he was stuck, and flipped forward onto the same rooftop the half-elf rested upon.

...what the hell does this damn thing want?

As the demon thought in unison with him, the swordsman once again became aware of that familiar sensation of being watched from within, though watching was all it seemed to be doing at the moment; waiting. As the soreness left his muscles, and what energy he had before came back, the half-elf once again probed the voids with his returning mind. He couldn't reach far into the darkness, but he at least took note of the general layout of both the building he was on, and neighboring ones. If he had to, he could escape lower into this building through the gaping crescent left by his attack, which cut through approximately four stories of the building. While the swordsman was busy planning, the mountainous man had not only gotten up, but managed to regenerate what should have been a fatal blow to the neck; apparently the half-elf was more screwed than he had previously estimated. The monster thudded forward in a jog, retrieving two great swords from his calves which matched the two the smaller barbarian wielded; though now only one was unsheathed.

Shit.

As the giant neared, with one blade parallel to the stone across which he thundered, and the other held across his massive chest in a reverse grip, the swordsman quickly calculated his chances of escaping this situation, and found them exceptionally slim. Gripping the hilt with his free hand he stood, poised, with the tip of his blade still touching the stone behind him as the monstrous man drew the weapon which he held in a normal grip further back to avoid his other sword, and spun the tip of the blade down and to the right, releasing it at the perfect moment to catch it in a normal grip and swing down hard towards the little swordsman. The smaller competitor brought his blade up from the stone ferociously, catching the steel of the bastard trying to kill him. He could barely compensate for the weight and momentum of the swing, and was nearly thrown back, but with a few voids stabilized the pressures, only to see a flash of steel to his left. Quickly slowing that weapon with another few voids, the blade mage released the weight on the sword above and to the left of him, sticking his steel-heeled boot out to catch the other blade as it swung horizontally. The momentum of the sword which he planned to ride out of danger was greater than anticipated, and he was nearly flung into a spin, but stabilized himself long enough to leap off the blade at the right angle, flipping over the other blade as its momentum was stopped, and it was pulled straight back up to catch the half-elf mid-flight.

The edge of the weighty sword caught the smaller man's calf, leaving a long gash as the force of the impact changed his momentum into a spin. Instantly a pulse of delightful hatred filled the half-elf, and he was invigorated with blood lust, and grinned wide as he swung at the exposed arm of the beast, his sword singing as it caught the blade sticking out of the top of the monstrous man's forearm, and the half-elf quickly pulled down on his, catching the left arm of the beast with a beautiful cut raining delicious blood. He barely brought his Greatsword back up in time to catch the counter-attack from the creature's right arm, which now roared back from the other side of its body in a slightly downward slash. At first the swordsman feinted a block, but left his blade loose and narrowly ducked the slash, catching the spinning motion of his blade to bring it up from the stone once more against the giant, though he was too far away, and the slash barely missed.

Before the half-elf even landed, the great beast bore his blade down on him once more, this time much faster and with more ferocity; a swing from above his large head which might even cleave stone in two. Scarcely opening enough voids in time, the Void mage hastened his landing, and quickly shot to the side, narrowly avoiding a deadly strike than left a deafening crash in the mortal's ears. Deciding that he could not keep up such combat with this beast for very long, the swordsman leapt backwards, flipping his feet over him as he spun to catch the stone edge of the hole left by his attack with the tip of his enchanted steel. Just before the weapon collided, the blade mage uttered two quiet words, seemingly to himself.

"Earth Split."

A deafening crack roared through the air as the blade passed clean through the stone, cleaving almost the entire roof in twain; a jagged, black line shot between the monster's legs, and many more split off, chunks of stone collapsing into the building below as the cracks spread to including most of the remaining roof on that side of the crescent hole the swordsman was escaping into. His fall sped by many small vacuums, once more the demon opened one great eye, and laughingly looked upon the ambushing creature now as the demonic soul regained its strength and came closer to entering the battle once more; something it could hardly wait for.

In the rage of battle, there is tranquility. In the heat of fury, there is the cool of reason. And in the embrace of death, there is life renewed.

The words, spoken by his first mentor, Eldar Njörðr, hundreds of years ago in the early stage of his training, came unbidden to the Lawmaker’s mind. They were given to him as a lesson that the song of battle embraced balance; when a man became engulfed in rage, his was to find peace, or else he would fall. Thus was how he found himself now, swinging his weapons around with all the presence of mind of a drunken brawler, displaying none of the finesse ingrained into his being through ten thousand such battles. The smaller man had even scored a hit, minor though it was.

As the giant struggled to restore the balance in his movements, his wiry opponent jumped backwards towards the hole that had previously been opened in the rooftop. Idly wondering if his enemy was aware of the obstacle, the elect of the gods found his question answered; the man fell through, cleaving a massive tear in the stone and metal construct directly beneath Honuse Relaiyent’s feet, forcing him to leap sideways, clearing the lip of the building by mere feet.

The former abomination fell hundreds of feet through the air, confident in his safety as he mended the cut on his left arm. The wound had scarcely closed when the Lawmaker landed into the deep river flowing from the distant waterfall, the slap of the surface galvanizing his brain further. Forcing his head back above the water, Honuse Relaiyent took a moment to consider his next move; yet before his thoughts had the chance to progress, that same hunger erupted into consciousness, settling itself deep in the pit of the giant’s stomach.

Betrayer. Usurper. Defiler, master of devils, spawn of all that is wretched…I hear your cries of lust! I feel that which you would defile, but know this, Betrayer; I am the Lawmaker, and my lord embodies the clean of this world. I will take your blasphemous head from your foul body, be it through whatever host you have deemed to be your own. The days of the Betrayer close, beast!

A cold rage settled over the Lawmaker, dropping him into a state of supple ease, ready and anxious to renew the fight against the foul monster that kept revealing itself. His mind stretched out to the surrounding area, taking in the bastion of life flowing lazily through the river; billions of microscopic bacteria inhabited the waterway, along with hundreds of fish that seemed to call the mountain home. Clenching his fists, the former abomination called the disparate forms of life to his side, condensing the bacteria around the fish, then breaking down their composite elements, reforming them into a more useful shape.

For every aquatic beast he gathered and transformed, a new weapon was added to the growing pile floating serenely beside him. The stack grew until fifty of the creatures sat ready, at which point they were picked up one by one, hurled into the building Honuse Relaiyent had so recently fallen from; they made their way through the cracks and window housings, invading every floor that had an opening facing the underground river. Within moments, his arsenal was depleted, leaving the man to provide the catalyst for his next tactic.

Pulling himself to the shore below the target building, Honuse Relaiyent dropped to one knee, resting his hands against the construct. The electricity buried within his skeleton ignited, feeding on his bloodstream, doubling and redoubling its current as it flowed through and finally out of his body. His hands glowed a bright white before they started blistering from the sheer heat of the lightning as it moved to engulf the entirety of the building, weaving itself into an electrical mesh cage, circling the abandoned house.

With the cage generated and self-sustaining, it began to randomly fluctuate polarity, shooting off tongues of forked lightning through the empty rooms, caressing the lumps of biomatter strewn about moments before. As the kilojoules of energy struck the items, the chemicals stored deep within compacted and ignited, exploding outward in a massive wave of force, crumbling the ancient stone with every blast, weakening the supports. The electricity of the cage traveled along the metal imbued within the walls, adding their own potent energy to the destruction unleashed within the tower, overloading the walls until they sagged under the weight of the upper stories, collapsing the entire building in on itself.

Giving himself a mere moment to recuperate, the Lawmaker leapt into the sky, draining the muscle tissue from his legs to once again form a set of broad wings, which took him far above the dying building below. He gently eased back, heading in the general direction of the waterfall, watching with every available sense tuned in an attempt to see if his unholy foe had survived; the hunger in his stomach did not subside, leading Honuse Relaiyent to believe that the Betrayer had indeed cheated the death it so rightly deserved, prolonging this holy war.

A rolling dark engulfed from below a scene of collapsing stone and escaping prey, and the grinding shriek of a mangled roof resigning itself to gravity resonated in a crashing cacophony of thirst for the blood it couldn't drink. Brooding hate awoke out of the blackness as its shell fell to the seventh floor down from the roof, landing on spry mortal legs and standing to its full height as the flicker of polished steel whipped up behind its head and into a sheath. A quiet came over everything, infinitely small wormholes relaying intricate information on the surrounding area. The demonically cursed swordsman felt the fall of his prey, and struggled to follow it down into the depths. His mind bent earthward and his body dropped to one knee. Breaths came deeper now, and the dust still lingering, highlighted in the shaft of light from above, filled his nostrils. A hunger rumbled from within, and once more the darkness was tinged in crimson delight, though this time the change brought weakness to his mortal frame, and his concentration wavered. The target fell endlessly it seemed, and he had lost track of it. The frailty seeping into his muscles now grew rapidly, and he lost to gravity, barely catching himself with one elbow and quietly gasping for air. The weariness from his days-long journey through frozen mountains had caught up with him, and he could hardly keep his eyes open any longer. It seemed the pulsing red shadows were growing thicker and deeper, whispering a lullaby in an ancient tongue.

Sleep

The command tore through his psyche from every side, and the swordsman quickly lost all feeling in his extremities, his lifeless husk descending gently onto the dust-covered stone. Breaths still blowing tiny clouds up from the dirty floor, no sound escaped the cracked lips. Though his eyes remained open, they focused on nothing, staring into the dark like a freshly felled corpse. Beneath the wind-scarred skin a war begun, and the half-elven blade slinger found himself again on the mountain, ravaging winds ripping away what little warmth remained in his body. His hand slipped, and the same endless, frozen death stretched below him as he twisted away from the mountain face. Just as before, he began to feel out the intricate net of voids permeating everything, and found them absent. When he peered within, the only thing he saw was a cold, still black. The winds were ripping at his eyes, tearing at his throat. He was too numb to feel the cold anymore, and fell helplessly towards an icy grave. Time seemed to stretch forever, and his terror was prolonged and horrible, too afraid of his own death to realize what he was within was a mere recreation. The demon had him, and it casually opened its other eye.

The agitated hunger which had been borne from the darkness before roared into new life, filling everything with its presence while attempting to hide its full awakening from the foe below. A horror arose from the floor, disguised as a mortal half-elf with a penchant for sword play, and in the corners of its mind it felt out that of its enemy, that of its foe, and focused upon it. Life had gathered around the beast over a hundred stories below, in the shallow river running through this gigantic cavern, and he seemed to have altered their bodies in some way. Already several had been thrown into various windows in the lower floors, and there were only a few left at his side. The joyriding demon could not assess the reason for this, but felt it a bad omen, and with one nimble hop flew some twenty paces backward, and out of a window. The crash of broken glass came in time with the crackling of a strange, seemingly electrical field that engulfed the building, and even managed to leave a deep burn on the right leg of the demon's body, blackening its boot and pant leg. This presence, however, was not so weak as its mortal counterpart, and the burn was shortly healed by the pure, unadulterated energy of creation which flowed through the soul of the demon, and into this mortal's body.

The demon's host bounded from building to building as it fell, occasionally glancing back to witness the collapse of what should have been its death. Its opponent did his work well, and all traces of the structure sunk into a dark, watery grave. Undoubtedly its foe had survived, and seeking a plan the subdued swordsman was forced to land on the side of another building, this time initiating a few small, but powerful voids both to keep its traction, and its balance. It stood there calmly, closing its deep red eyes, perpendicular to the building itself, and once more felt out the presence of its foe. The beast of a man was now flying steadily towards what it probably surmised was a huge waterfall in the distance, and that it was. Such an abundant source of explosive elements like hydrogen and oxygen was certainly a boon to the demon, but it desired some more fun before it finished things, and with an audible grunt of concentration began establishing links to voids in a straight line towards its enemy which it could open and close instantly. With a sufficient number amassed, it rerouted the exit of every single wormhole to a point directly behind him. Finally the demon opened its mortal eyes and the plan initiated.

Accelerating from a stop so suddenly threw its limbs back, though its mind opened and closed the necessary voids with perfect precision, pressurizing the huge amounts of air sucked in to create such a strong vacuum by 'squeezing' each specific void tunnel as it passed to the opening behind the half-elven body. Only half-way to its target, and already the demon was preparing to curve its flight path after the first pass, and come back around again. A gigantic roar filled the cavern behind the attacking half-mortal as its speed overshot that of sound itself, and only through some very powerful stabilizing voids was it able to draw its blade and prepare for the first strike. With its crimson eyes it spied the wings which had sprouted from the man's back, and pondered the disappearance of his legs. That the man could have this level of control over his own body excited the hunger within, and the sword-wielding demon mockingly imposed upon the mind of its foe to announce its presence mere tenths of a second before it struck at the upper edges of the target's left wing.

A flash of steel reflecting from the shafts of light above was the only trace of the demon's attack, and even the demon itself could not have felt the resistance of flesh meeting steel at such speeds. The increased gravity pulling on its body as it pulled sharply around for another strike was far too much for a mortal's mind to take, and the demon soul had to constantly maintain the muscles to keep them from tearing to shreds under the sheer centrifugal force. The blade was once more brought up to strike, and this time it hurtled towards the flying beast of a man's torso from below and to his right. Another flash and the demon was gone, pulling some thick wire from a spool hidden in a pocket of its vest and wrapping it tightly around the hilt and handle of its blade. Every single movement of its limbs at this speed required significant strength and stabilization with other, smaller voids. It redirected its momentum one last time, creating an extra void beneath its oppoent to drag it closer to the water below. Circling up above the man, the half-demon flew earthward with frightening speed on a direct course to collide with its foe. Instants before the two were to meet, all of the current voids disappeared and were replaced with one of monstrous strength, which completely stopped the demon's momentum in under half of a second. All of this force, all of this air was redirected through a series of smaller and smaller voids until it was released once more from the outstretched palm of the possessed swordsman, which opened without fear mere feet from the winged monster's back.

"Die."

A huge shock wave ripped towards the ground, carrying the body of its foe down into the water some hundred or so paces below, and following him hurtled the mortal swordsman's blade, still trailing wire from the now gently floating form of the body-stealing immortal. The blade entered the water mere seconds after its owner's enemy, and crackling blue energy tore down the wire, filling the water below with a bright glow as hundreds of square feet were instantly vaporized by transformed energy wrought from the demonic hand so far above. As it pulled the blade back up towards it, the half-mortal split from the rising steam hydrogen and oxygen, and condensed the two into separate orbs supported mid-air by tendrils of the glorious energy referred to as 'alpha' on this plane. The blade was finally re-sheathed, and the wire unraveled, while two orbs of volatile elements orbited the head inset with crimson eyes, searching for signs of life below, though it could still feel the distant presence of the indestructible man. A true battle would begin if this creature could find a way to survive being flash-boiled in a river.

The devil had taken form.

A sadistic leer flashed before his smoke-filled gaze, the red eyes of his adversary blazing as the fires of Surtr in the mist, igniting the cavern in the heat of a funeral pyre, sending shivers across the Lawmaker’s skin. The twisted mouth opened further, hissing in glee as it flew unerringly towards him, embracing his mind in its twisted grasp; the demon forced its way beyond the mental barriers Honuse Relaiyent had placed long ago, establishing the briefest of contacts, filling his mind with clouded visions of hatred and lust.

The lingering echo of the touch forced an unbidden recollection to spring to his mind, filling his sightless gaze until it engulfed every ounce of his being, forcing him into a troublesome past. He stood before the gates of Hel, Alsvid in his right hand, his left struggling to prevent his organs from falling from the gaping wound across his torso. Blood stained the intricately crafted bridge beneath his feet, pooling around the iron-shod boots of Loki, the defiler. A prayer in a language he had not heard uttered in a hundred years shook the bridge, forcing the former abomination to his knees, as he coughed up a final spray of blood. His broken neck snapped as his head slammed into the boards, plunging the man into utter darkness.

Yet his failure was to be redeemed, and his life to be spared.

Odin, the lord of all, descended from Asgard, interposing himself between the Betrayer and his servant, forcing the wretched beast to his retreat in Jotunheimr. His heart was softened by the stalwart bravery the Lawmaker had shown, even while fighting an impossible battle against a god, and, with a simple utterance, restored the life of Honuse Relaiyent. The failure he had exhibited that day clung to the memory of Loki’s blade rending his innards as none had the skill to do before. His life and his death were in the service of his lord, yet both had rested on such a frail bond that day.

And now this demon, this defiler of Odin’s creation, stood before him. His gaze returned to the present, to the assumed knowledge that this unholy being was none but a son of Loki, a vile and wretched abomination, one to be destroyed and burned, until none remained save the foul ash of his corpse. And such was the duty of the Lawmaker, to uphold the oaths and bonds of honor that had been laid upon his shoulders. Such was the task the mighty Thor set upon him; the wise god must have foreseen this worthiest of opponents, and decreed it a fitting task for Honuse Relaiyent to slay the foul creature. The touch faded to nothingness in a heartbeat, replacing itself with the realization of impending mortality.

With hardly a thought, the Lawmaker sent a renewed wave of electricity coursing through his body, thrumming and pulsing in time with his heart. The first attack struck; the steel, flying at a speed far beyond even the comprehension of the former abomination, sliced clean through one of his new wings. The blade moved so fast that it found no resistance in his tough skin; neither did the second strike, that pierced through his waist, splitting him in two.

The electrical field, which permeated every molecule in his body, was suddenly changed by the advent of metal. The electricity arced off the blade, severing the continuity of the stream; when the sword had passed, the positive and negative electrical fields in each body part pulled them back together, seating them long enough for the Lawmaker to extend his will into the severed muscle and bone, reconnecting them in a solid, if temporary, bond. To an outside observer, it would appear as if the weapon had flown through the body without leaving a mark, though such a feat was bought with a terrible price of pain.

Grimacing at the mind-numbing influx of nerve reports, Honuse Relaiyent shut down several parts of his brain, having no more time or attention to place into regulating the flow of information. All pain suddenly vanished, along with much of the sensation of touch throughout his body. The tinting of red that had crept back into the smoke disappeared as well; his perceptions were normal, though in the second it took to rework his biological information network, his place within the world had suddenly changed. He found himself hurtling through the air, the river rising up at him at an alarming rate; he was midway through a roll to reorient himself when he hit the surface, his shoulders and wings taking the brunt of the blow.

The electricity coursing through his body flowed into the river, igniting it in a sea of yellow and white, sending sparks dancing along the banks in a wildly undulating display of potent energy. The surge worked its way through the Lawmaker’s skeleton, revitalizing his body in the wash of pure, unadulterated violence. Taking only a moment to shift his head towards the surface, he sprung from the water as a sword plunged in with him, removing the water from the electrical storm. The liquid seemed to shift and divide, coalescing into two spheres of its base elements, suspended next to the head of the now-still demon.

Gritting his teeth, the Lawmaker flew straight at the beast, a column of electricity riding the spray of water behind him. “Pray to the spirits of this forsaken mountain, son of Loki, for your time is spent!” He shouted, hauling Alsvid from the sheath along his back. The blade glowed faintly from proximity to the demon, its own demonic energies stretching out in lustful agony to embrace the torment of its brother, though it did so with such malice that the Lawmaker had no doubt his weapon found itself to be superior to whatever foul emanation of hatred that stood before it. The sight of hundreds of thousands of souls, wallowing in abject misery in their hellish trudge through the river of blood, cast a yellowish-red glow upon the face of Loki’s ill-fated child.

The blade bucked in hunger as the electrical storm burst from the river to encompass the outstretched sword, arcing across it in a maddening stream of fire and light, casting wickedly glowing shadows across the ground, across the distant walls, across the face of the Lawmaker, locked in a hateful grimace. The stroboscopic effect only served to deepen the pits of his eyes, reflecting deep into the abyss of his skull, to the wellspring of hatred and loathing for all who opposed his masters. This was the purpose of his being, and the height of his glory; those who dared to oppose Odin would fall.

The sword swung of its own accord, flashing once, twice, three times through the space the demon inhabited. The first plunged the electrical current into the globes of molecules, igniting them spectacularly in a flash brighter than a thousand suns, threatening to engulf the thick leather armor in a sheen of blue and white fire. The second strike was carried from the momentum of the first, spinning the giant around, lunging the blade upwards in a diagonal slash, aimed across the chest of the betrayer. So much weight and power was placed into the strike that it spun the Lawmaker upside-down, launching him past the demon in a roll; with his body acting as counterweight, the sword launched through the space inhabited by the beast’s head, moving at a speed far beyond that which could be seen with mortal eyes.

With the demonic pulsing of Alsvid thrumming in his ears, the Lawmaker did not know if he had hit anything; his spin continued, launching him end over end for a hundred feet, gaining altitude relative to his foe, his hate-filled heart beating ever faster as he prepared for his next attack.

Roared words full of hatred rose from the steam as the winged beast-man shot up towards the calmly floating demon, who looked down with displeasure on what few injuries had befallen its foe. A blade was pulled from the back of the advancing warrior, and the moment crimson eyes met with the ethereal weapon an overwhelming sensation engulfed the demon's mind. Be it fear, excitement, or simple madness, the millenia old soul Malnmre found a twisted malice and strength that matched; no, possibly even surpassed its own. The struggle not to give in to the alluring pain and insanity that reminded it so much of its mortal death was maddening, enraging, distracting. The blade, so fierce and so fast, ripped through the base elements suspended mere feet from the demon's own head, igniting them instantly upon contact. No breaths were drawn, no eyes blinked; as fire engulfed the mortal flesh of Malnmre a portal opened directly behind it, an instinctual creation wrought from a deep uncertainty about this newly drawn weapon. The portal had not been strong enough.

As its body was pulled into the wormhole, the same, gruesome weapon rent through the right arm of the demon, cleaving it clean from its body as the rest disappeared into the blackness of the void, along with the portal. Several hundred feet away Malnmre reappeared, spewed upon the stone of one of the last rooftops before the cavern opened up into nothing but a gigantic river and a far-off waterfall. Landing unceremoniously, and with the unnerving image of that demon blade still fresh in its mind, a roar of pain and frustration leapt from its lungs while blood still gushed from its severed arm and burnt face. The entire right side of the demon's head was but blackened bone and muscle tissue, and a deep, deep hatred brewed while blue arcs of energy engulfed and regenerated its muscle and skin. Turning its attention towards its arm now, the same blue light ensconced it, slowly restructuring bone, tendon, muscle and flesh. Malnmre disapprovingly rose the new arm, stretching its naked digits. Because of the nature of its bond with its host, they shared some personality traits, and it was rather fond of that steel-plated leather gauntlet.

It was now extremely clear that this fight very possibly could kill them both, and it was no longer the time to play with its foe. A brilliant azure aura surrounded the body of the demon, and pure carbon was rent from the atmosphere to form diamond scales as thick as leather which became bonded to the very skin of the half-mortal. Infinitely small arcs of alpha energy met each molecule and freed it from its bonds, before spreading through every other nearby molecule exponentially. The carbon was fused to every inch of skin, extending even under its bloodied leather vest, and brown cloth pants. Every muscle in the demon's mortal body was strengthened threefold, its bones absorbing some of the carbon to create a diamond coating, which also protected the tendon and muscle attachments while allowing full mobility. The veins and arteries were strengthened and widened, and unnecessary body systems such as digestion were temporarily shut down to maximize energy efficiency. Throughout all this its lungs breathed deeply, and quickly, hoping only to lessen the energy lost from such a transformation.

The adrenal gland of the demon's host body was augmented to double the output, and hardwired to allow direct stimulus and activation of it at any moment. The hand which was without a gauntlet grew black diamond claws and a smooth blade extending three feet up and out of the elbow, both filled with oxygen pressurized to such a point it solidified and became red, exhibiting even higher explosiveness than the liquid form of the element. Veins of this same red oxygen, only this time visible underneath thin layers of clear carbon scales, grew to cover almost every outer inch of the blackened armor, branching from thicker veins nearer the center of the body. Each of these was designed with enough shielding in between the mortal flesh of Malnmre and the oxygen to direct the blasts outward should something break the thinner outer scales covering them, and sections were blocked off to prevent them all igniting at once. The rest of the excess oxygen created from splitting the carbon dioxide molecules, along with pure oxygen drawn in from the air, was also solidified under pressure induced by a globe of voids surrounding the assembled element, and sent directly to the Void itself both to avoid another mistake, and to maintain its solidified state. Finally, the crackling blue arcs of Alpha receded, leaving the regenerated and armored demon standing atop the edge of a dark blue oblivion.

Both arms raised to grasp the hilts of each sword on Malnmre's back, and the blades sang their gratitude as they flew from their respective sheaths and collided, handle to handle, in front of the demon. Its deep red eyes closed as lips covered in black diamond scales uttered ancient words of amalgamation. Light burned from every angle as the two enchanted swords fused, their blades curving in either direction and serrated edges forming on the inside edge of each. The hilt of the double-bladed sword grew blackened fingers at each end, which twisted up and away from the edges. Veins of crimson, which pulsed in time with the demon's heart crawled up each blade, and as the light subsided an ethereal, white flame engulfed the weapon held in its master's gloved hand, though no harm would've been done to its owner even without the protection of blackened scales. The other hand opened its claws, violently drawing carbon dioxide towards it with powerful vacuums as it created a chain whip at least thirty paces long, with familiar veins of crimson oxygen crawling along every link, though that was merely a last resort. The true advantage of the chain lie in its ability to create a connection, if even momentarily, which might allow the demon to deconstruct a weapon of its opponent, and maybe even its opponent directly. The physical distance from the chain itself in which the deconstruction was effective was up to three feet. Malnmre boldly stood, defiant in the face of another power such as itself, and willing to push its host body to the absolute limit to destroy this unwelcome intruder. It even grinned, blood red eyes pulsing brighter in time with the exposed veins on the blades of its swords in their strongest state: Ashyrn.

And in the hour of reckless disgrace
The time of wolves on a throne of fallen aspirations
Lead us not unto the shattered halls of fate
But unto the bright fields of day
For unto this eve shall we kneel
Supplication of one unto honor
A sacrifice of blood and a song of glory
Even unto the bitter taste of death
Onward we gaze, unto the morn

The prayer echoed through his mind, an unbidden remnant of his long-deceased childhood, brought to recollection through his pondering of the forsaken beast he hunted. The devil had vanished in the cloud of flame, though the preternatural warrior caused lingering echoes to resound through the steel of his blade. The weapon, which had been bathed in the blood of demon, giant, and a single fallen god alike, was awash in eager hatred, anxious to kiss the flesh of its brother once more.

Shaela’manre alidka ne dolcre
Shaela’irkr Malnmre filahn sh’aode’ke
Duriske tr’ael’a minre

Awoken is he who slumbered
Rising from sleep, Malnmre calls
His soul is of ancient flame

The blade whispered into Honuse Relaiyent’s mind, piercing it with customary suddenness. So the beast was named Malnmre; one could never curse a demon to destruction without first learning its name, and as such, his blade had found the connection that allowed it to discern such information.

T’rael’a shin’o ashalah faeln
T’rael’a chalahn obian chahl

The demon is being made anew
The demon beckons in hunger

Crimson flame covered Alsvid, the film so thin that it was nothing but a vague aura, projecting the heat of menace into the chill confines of the mountain. Deep within the steel, the image of Hel began to boil, eliciting tortured moans from the souls cast within the blood as they stirred. Electricity sparked along the spine, shooting bright arcs outward, to fade in the open air. Distant shadows roiled along the walls, dancing in haunted movement by the shifting brightness, creating smoky movement everywhere the Lawmaker gazed.

His sight did not extend far enough to see the reappearance of his adversary, though the stillness of the cave carried the noise of his passage as though it were mere inches away, rather than hundreds of feet. Moving as swift as the lightning Thor had introduced to his body, the former abomination swept through the air, his wings bearing him rapidly in the direction of his foe. Sweat continued to pour freely below his leather vestments, doing little to cool his body from its exertions, as the beating of his wings shook it free through the recently opened slits in his armor.

He arrived beneath the level of the rooftop Malnmre was resting upon, apparently unseen by the devil. Considering the continued whisperings of Alsvid, Honuse Relaiyent did not yet raise his blade to strike; instead, he plunged it deep into the side of the building, a dozen paces below the lip. His grip released when he rose several feet higher, alighting on the weapon in a precarious stance, his wings fluttering to support him as he rested gently upon the hilt, while he focused his attention on Alsvid.

She’lokte nombre, hamalen de’shi’noth
Shaela’manre telkinoth belahamen
Ke shinombel’ar ken’t’ro habinam

Shaela’irkren Ashyrn

The flesh is of blackened diamonds
Awoken is the blade of cruelty
As is the tendril of life

Ashyrn is risen

While Honuse Relaiyent had been unwilling to press the advantage against such a worthy foe, preferring to test his mettle upon the unrelenting strength of his adversaries, the quavering of Alsvid’s presence spoke of the uncertainty, bordering on fear, that it felt for this augmented opponent above. Extending one arm out towards the side of the building, he slid the opposing armblade across his flesh, slicing open the veins. They sprayed blood across the rock face, until a minor exertion closed the wound, and forced his body to produce more blood to replace that which he lost.

Touching a gloved finger to the edge of the stain, he changed the molecular structure, first letting it spread through the myriad cracks of the building, then changing further to a composition that would rapidly expand when the proper stimulus was introduced. A wave of electricity proved to work nicely in that regard. The blood turned explosively gaseous, blowing one side of the roof upwards and outward toward Malnmre in a hail of rocks, as Honuse Relaiyent dropped below his blade, reaching out to grasp it once more as he flew into the air.

His lips peeled back in a feral grimace, while white fire shot from his flesh, surrounding his armored form in an impenetrable shield of tangible power. Sharp protrusions rose out from his knees, elbows, shoulders, and heels, which hung limply without any muscle tissue to support movement. Appearing as an oversized human form wrought of pure energy, he rose above the lip of the building, a comet flying through the darkness of the abyss.

Solemnly stood the sole figure perched at the edge of an ocean of stone, which was composed of steel-reinforced waves and windows of glass. Its mind had not been idle in the critical moments when it was regenerating its body and preparing for a deadly battle, so no surprise came from the flying figure as he landed on the side of the same building to begin another attack. The strange misshapen man perched atop his blade, setting to work immediately it seemed. At first the nature of this assault was unknown to the demon, but a slight shift in the molecular makeup of the building upon which it stood provided a hint. Just as it assessed the explosive nature of this foreign substance, and the various weaknesses in the stone it exploited, the entire lip of the roof in front of the augmented amalgamation exploded upwards in a hail of concrete and steel. Its surprise was quite obvious, and the creature mouthed a single curse as it crouched to the shifting stone beneath it. The clawed grip of its right hand tightened around its chain whip, and its legs bulged under the pressure.

A powerful jump flung the figure away from the giant shrapnel, and to eliminate the largest threats Malnmre slung its right arm around, rendering several boulders nothing but dust. The glowing chain ate through the stone before it touched the surface, concrete and steel wrapping around its path as the material caught within its reach disintegrated. The momentary flash of its ascending foe brought another idea to its twisted mind, and it extended its still gloved hand, clenched in which the mighty blade Ashyrn trembled excitedly. A dense collection of voids appearing as a single, tiny sphere flickered into existence in the thickest concentration of airborne chunks of stone. All surrounding shrapnel jerked towards this ball, but it dissipated just before the stone reached it, and several pieces shattered into smaller shards upon impact. Sharp glances from crimson eyes assessed the situation around it before it proceeded with the next part of its attack.

A large disk of crackling black formed in front of the defending demon, and an explosive wind carried the shrapnel up and towards the flying beast of a man above. Tiny stabilizing voids guided the stones to within a hundred paces of the being before closing and leaving the attack to its own momentum. While the effectiveness of combining such an assault with a wave of energy from its blade was very obvious, the demon didn't want to lay its entire strategy bare, nor waste any more of its energy on this exceedingly agile foe. Instead, it honed in on the presence of its enemy within the permeating net of the Void, and prepared a portal to carry its blade closer to the creature it sought. There was a minute disturbance in its control over the mind of its mortal host, but the creature merely ignored the sign and sank into the blackness which appeared behind it. The exit portal ripped open just a few feet on the other side of this malicious soul's enemy, matching its speed and direction to that of its prey, while a wave of stone roared up at both of them from the below.

Within an imagined trap of realistic threat the half-elven swordsman flew to his doom, cursing the gods, the winds, and every other damn thing he could think of. His normally calculating mind had been put into overdrive, and despite his many attempts at a solution to this problem, his continuing inability to connect with the Void seemed to spell his doom. The one thing that continued to nag at his mind was the apparent endlessness of his fall. Having continually quantified the time he had left since he began falling, the fact that he had yet to hit the bottom of what should have been maybe a thousand foot drop troubled him. That very seed of doubt started his mind on a way out of this bind not exclusive to his physical predicament. He could very well be fighting and dying somewhere while his consciousness was stuck in this endless doom, and that he could not allow.

In the glistening artificial twilight of the cavern, the deepening shadows took upon the shapes of the lesser gods, the self-proclaimed lords of the dark places. Their laughter echoed silently in the flickering of their own amalgamation; the abyss of their forms huddled as one upon the distant rock face, watching eagerly as the combatants circled about. With a deft flick of its wrist, the half-demon disintegrated the remains of the masonry, before redirecting it into a spread-pattern launched at the giant.

Stretching his electrical field into the stone pieces, Honuse Relaiyent sought the fragments of iron still trapped within their granite casings; the metal, slowed by the magnetic repulsion, seemed to float in the air before the giant for a heartbeat, before falling to the ground. Recognizing the potential use for the same shrapnel that had nearly perforated the Lawmaker, he reversed the polarity of his magnetic field, attracting the stone to cling to his body, a second layer of armor atop the leather.

A flicker motion caught his attention, as it was followed by the unmistakable sound of a body moving swiftly through the air. Turning, he thrust Alsvid about, a strike intended to intercept the demon on its flight to striking range. However, the blade instead struck the chain, the end of which wrapped around the tip of the demonic sword. With a fierce pull, the betrayer forced Honuse Relaiyent closer, swinging Ashyrn about to intercept the former abomination’s sudden movement. Releasing his right hand, the Lawmaker intercepted with an armblade; the weapons came together with a mighty crash, throwing sparks high into the air.

Shaela’manloth dethril a’e’laen.

The waking corruption entices.

That single thought was the last to fill his mind, as a flash brighter than a thousand suns lit the cavern, etching shadows into the very rock, a still image of the final moments of conscious thought to grace the Elect of the Gods. Formless shapes flashed before his vision, sounds with no discernable meaning assaulted his ears; waves of icy pinpricks, followed by the searing embrace of flame, rolled across his body, manifesting itself as beings of incredible fury, intent upon escaping through his skin. Time lost all relevant meaning in this interminable period of death; for what could this be, save the eternities of mental and physical anguish that a man was subjected to as he was carried to the cruel embrace of Hel?

Outside of his mind, in the cave once again lit by nothing save the glare of electrical energy coalescing about the leather-shrouded man, giant and demon were locked in combat, their bodies unable to move, held in midair by an unknowing force of will that bound themselves to basic functional survival in this treacherous affair. The face of the Lawmaker was caught in a furious snarl, while the visage of the demon seemed confident, yet bordering on confusion, as if a deep uncertainty was rising in its mind. The tendril of life, still wrapped around Alsvid, was pulsing in time with the furious emanations of rage coming from the sword.

The haze surrounding Honuse Relaiyent’s mind suddenly lifted, finding him still locked in the struggle; yet this was not his physical body that he possessed, but rather an apparition brought to bear upon some mental conflict, on a plane of existence attached to, yet still outside, his own. There existed no directions, no scenery, no floor nor ceiling nor walls; they were within the void, the space between spaces, unable to gain advantage upon each other in a place where all power is of equal strength in relevance and effect.

Shinombel’ar ken’t’ro habinam dulcre
Shaembela’kero aelivaan minre

The tendril of life seeks
Grasping in hands of flame

The chain, which had the power to deconstruct the natural and forged things of the earth, had attempted to force its will upon Alsvid; yet the blade, being of many souls, only one of which from the earth, resisted, throwing the wielder of both chain and blade outside of their own existence, locked into their eternal struggle in the barren expanse of the void.

With a voice low in menace, the defiler spoke, his words filling the empty spaces with malice. Through it, Alsvid whispered into the former abomination’s mind, translating the words almost before they were uttered.

Telamaenori shalvenr kirnil’aen faellahn shinimorae

The ages have embraced that which speaks the corrupted tongue

Honuse Relaiyent would have spat, had he been able to. “The language stolen and twisted from those that birthed Yggdrasil is not one that I would utter, defiler. Though Alsvid, bearing the immortal blood of your kind, is one to pass the intent upon my mind.”

Shevjinla, faellah’kron, theshbahn ke saeil fielnema ko’ ro’eul’kre ahlanm’re. Dreiln keil’bo’rok vrelnmrt ko’ro’vanwe hrael mrewl’k’ro, shinaeminl era’faht’askle shi’neir’to baelekor qret’lk. Hraestvelm shi’naer’trema, Ferlk’chro ko Asgt’kro!

Defiler, corruptor, he who taints the earth of which he is borne. Though a line be gilded in silver to your eyes, it would vanish after a time through such torment as I have taken. Consumed by the Black, Hound of Asgard!

The Lawmaker’s face tightened in rage, even as he snarled incomprehensibly at the demon. He pressed harder, seeking to gain any sort of leverage in this vast emptiness. “Speak no more of such foul perversions, Malnmre. I own your name, yet to you, I am the Lawmaker, Hand of Odin and weapon of his vengeance. It is your soul, mighty in its corrupted state, that I am here to secure, a fitting prize to offer She who Thirsts. Release us from this existence, that I might throw your carcass upon the mountain, where no less than a score of valkyries will scour the land for your remnants.”

Geilkr’no fvreltinh wrilv kae’l’nre ahv se’kliro, fraelt’kri’nomre drelt’greiv k’rle sh’nerl, haelw’rent’kre cre’lt shvreal’q wrielh. Ken’rokto’borhn fvel shreadn, Vrekt ko’r Xcreal, Vhikt ko Odirnk g’ras’tvel fe’lkr’tem xiel’n’rol kha’ch’al vrtensh. Shaelw’resl’tanke odst gninv’kre, ke’rn shieralenv q’r’t veilnomr, t’re shalnim alh’earan, Ferlk’chro.

The cycle of moons will pass beneath their gaze, for this is a land not of gods, but one of my own which defies pursuit. You amuse me yet, Maker of Fool’s Laws, Hand of Odin which he would sacrifice to whim upon the thought of a single burden. Victory may be yours in the song of blades, but I will live to force your hunt through the eternities, Hound

“I have hunted through many such lifetimes, son of Loki, yet your face shall be the fairest reflected upon my blade. For in your blood is the will of a god, and to slay that which disdains the will of mortals is to affirm power beyond that of my kin; Thor will commend me upon the telling of your end, and all the host of Valhalla will sing my name; such I have been promised, and such I will do.”