Sir Richard Longblade pushed open the great doors into the Demon King’s throne room. He could feel the whirlpool of power being siphoned from the world itself. Draining Gaia herself of her life and weakening the children she had across the realms. If not for his soul of steel he too would have felt the drain on the world in his own bones.
The Demon King sat in prayer under a star of black magic that swirled and flamed like a star made of black fire. His great horn erupting from his forehead and twisting out like a great spearhead. Its ruby gemlike visage shining with an inner light as the beast of a man channeled the most powerful spell the world would ever see. Two black orbs took in the entire room and his face, handsome and strong, matched Richard’s, almost a mirror of it.
“I see they have failed.” It was a cacophony of a voice. As if a dozen throats were speaking as one. “Shame, I had such high hopes for them these last millenia.”
“Your machinations end here, Klagona. I may have spared you when we first met but now I know your true intentions and guise. You promised me that you were here to save the world, yet here you are dooming it.” Richard took a step forward and swatted a flare of dark magic from the orb aside with his blade.
“I am saving more than this world. I am saving all the worlds. This place is a cancer. Rotting slowly from the inside as corruption burrows its way into the bones of every living creature. So much magic, so much power given so freely to all those that walk upon your world. Where is the struggle, why are there heroes that can shatter mountains? Why are there those that wield such power in a mere few decades.” Klagona turned looking up at the ball of power above him. “It is such an imbalance.”
“Yet your generals were able to wield such power. They reached that on their own merits before they came to this world. I know how fresh they were to my world. And yet, you complain.” Another step and this time an unseen force, like a wall of pure power, pushed against him. He shielded his face at the powerful wind, leaning against it until the ground beneath his feet cracked.
“Millenia of gaining power. Of reforging their souls over and over. Rebirthing and regaining each last morsel of power. Yet a man barely in his thirty-seventh year defeated them and remained untouched.” The Demon King spat a hissing spot of acid onto the stone as it sizzled. “Disgusting.”
“Yet without it what would you do? Ruin and conquer? Do not forget that I have walked upon the lands of the Abyss when you banished me to your old realm. It is a mockery of logic and rules. Where up is down, left is forward, and backwards is the only way that stays the same. You would turn my world into such a thing with your very presence.” Stone shattered as Richard forced himself forward another step.
“And if I took this power with me I would fix my own world. Yours can withstand being rewritten. Your people adjust quickly to change, where a generation could overcome odds that even their predecessors struggled with.” He leaned forward placing his hands on the ground and reached deep down.
Richard could feel it in his bones. That the Demon King was robbing this world of its potential. Of its power in its core that let others reach near godhood. Or even those that ascended into the higher realms and become the lords that watched the world. The very place where Richard wanted to walk. Bringing his sword up he turned the blade against the force and focused on his cutting intent, parting it like waters hitting stone in a rushing river. “Then I must stop you. You will not rob me and those that will be my heirs from reaching the heavens.”
Klagona sighed and knew that the end was getting closer one step at a time. His eyes bore into his enemy. Richard Longsword. The thorn in his side since he had stepped from the Abyss as a mere fledgling. This world, it had so much potential in every dew drop upon the leaves. Where people could grow to rewrite reality. That is what he had done. He had basked in the power and cultivated it in the way the demons spend thousands of years doing. And it had embraced him like a long lost child. His bones had hardened into diamonds, his skin tougher than hellsteel. His arms could shatter stone and his very footsteps shake the earth. Even in the demon realm he had been a prodigy but here. It was easy.
“It will not be your world that will continue being able to reach beyond the mortal coil. When I drag this back into the abyss the Demons will flood the heavens and rewrite the world in a truer image. They will bring you mortals to heel. Instead of letting anyone reach out into the clouds to rewrite worlds. To get to such power that they can wave planets into existence.” The Demon King stood up slowly, the black star rising with him.
“I can’t let you do that!” Richard was through the wall of power and stood before Klagona. “It is not your place to change what the cosmos does. Just because you and your realm have grown weak doesn’t give you the right to come into mine and take what you want.”
The Demon King laughed, “You only fight now because it will keep you from reaching the heavens. I can see it in you. You do not fight for this world. For those that live upon it when you would walk amongst the Gods! For what?! Why do you want to even do that! What use does a human have to walk with those that weave the eternal tapestry of reality!”
Richard’s blade shuddered as the power saturated the air. His clothes were tearing just being in proximity to the maelstrom. Falling apart while reality shuddered at the changes being wrought here. He could feel it, instead of force separating them Klagona was working his reality manipulating power to put more and more distance between them while not changing his place in the world. Stretching inches into miles.
Raising his blade and gripping it in two hands finally Richard focused on cutting the space, severing it between him and Klagona to summon the enemy to his feet. No distance would save the Demon King from retribution.
“Tell me! What do you want from even reaching the Heavens! Of shattering past the mortal coil!”
“I want satisfaction! I want to reach an opponent that pushes me past my limits, an enemy that forces me to evolve once more. Lay with a woman who would survive my truest power! You know how careful I have to be at the pinnacle I have reached. How fragile everything is to me! Nothing can satisfy me! AND IF THE HEAVENS CAN’T I’LL GO BEYOND THEM TO THE NEXT CONQUEST!” The blade dropped, slicing through space, destroying the concept of distance between Klagona and himself. Causing the world to snap and shatter for a moment and then they were next to one another. The blade moved.
A horn shattered and fell. The black star grew unstable. Klagona fell back as a thousand strikes sought his life. Yet he slipped through time and reality to save his life. Taking a great portion of the power he could and looking Richard in the eye.
“Then I curse you! I curse that you will never reach the heavens alone. That without someone to carry you there you will never reach it. You will never find satisfaction! No flesh will sate your lust, no battle will challenge you again. I curse you to a life eternal in this state. And I’ll even give you an ounce of control over your fate.” The Demon King’s hand sailed off in an arc, then his nose, piece by piece he failed to dodge enough and was being taken apart while he wove the power he had gathered into two purposes. He only needed another moment. “You will not be a man any longer! Not even a blade! You will be nothing but a necklace to be draped upon the shoulders of another.”
Richard felt the power settling over him. Molding him into whatever Klagona was imagining. A path lay before him. He could cut the spell on his shoulders. Giving the Demon King the chance to escape, to finalize his spell. Or, he could fight what he could of the spell and end the threat for eternity. There was no time to dwell, no moment for a conscious thought to happen.
A blade plunged into the Demon King’s heart. Tearing up through the shoulder and a second swing taking a head. The Demon King died with a smile on his face. The stub of a horn shining bright as it shattered and the room filled with laughter. “I will return, this isn’t my end!”
The black star flickered as tethers of half of it disappeared into the aether, no doubt to infuse the Abyss with its power. The other half hardened into stone before exploding and sending its shatters over the world to see it with magic made material. Richard could feel it. The fundamental change that had taken place on his world. No longer would someone be able to reach his heights. It would take a miracle for someone to learn how to harness what had changed to reach the power to reach the Heavens and take him there.
The spell to change him started to take full hold. Dropping Richard to his knees. He fought it with his mind. Feeling his skin crack. He wouldn’t be able to put his soul in the blade he had. It was warped, nearly shattered and wouldn’t withstand the power. But he wasn’t doomed.
He looked at his hands, dropping the sword and forcing all his power. The accumulation of a lifetime and the spell into his hands He meshed his fingers together as if grasping someone gently from behind.
“I will be no necklace! I will be more. I will be armor to protect my wearer so that they may grow to be so powerful they will be able to rewrite this world. Will gain so much that they can march into the Abyss and take back what has been stolen. Maybe even walk the realms of reality below the heavens until they can reach even that!” His force of will couldn’t sever the spell, but it could shave it, reshape it. He would have to be able to take a measure of the wearer. He made it copies of his hands, with a way to change and reshape itself.
One leg turned to dust, making Richard fall. The armor would not have eyes of its own but he infused it with his soul. Maybe he would be able to bond with his wearer so he will not be bound in eternal darkness. But he would test every wielder. To see if they would be like him. To ride the line of lust for life. For women, men, food, drink, for battle. A lust for all to drive someone forward into a freedom that no one could take from them.
More of him disintegrated. Falling into nothing as he watched a gorget made of hands fall from his shoulders and hands. It shaped itself, becoming something that could grow and measure whoever donned it. Indeed he would not be a necklace. He had succeeded. Part of his face fell into dust and the last things that remained of his were his eyes. Steely as a blade as they forced the last of himself into the artifact. The last thought he would have for now was that he would not fail. When he found the right person they would strive across worlds and into the heavens.
Nothing but dust and a gorget made of ivory hands was where Sir Richard Longsword had stood. With a shattered horn of ruby strewn about that glowed with sinister light.
The ruby shards hovered, rising into the air and exploding to the edges of the seven kingdoms that existed at the time. Richard wasn’t the only one that had left his will behind.