GoldenCat/CrushtheDead
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Hand Of Death
It is dark. On a faintly dark-blue sky, the Unconquered Sun vanishes, but Luna has yet to take over. Dusk settles. Time of death. The living incarnation of the vanguard of the lightless night, Vorpal holds her blade against the ghostly elite around her, the pale form of a crucified angel around her, her anima pulsing and shining like a frozen sun.
It is dark, and yet, it is clear in this valley, somewhere in the northern plains, as the Exalted shine, bringing the light of the celestial incarna to the ground. The light of a chosen of the sun at its zenith, golden light shining upon the calm, small river, upon the ground covered in dead snakes, upon the corpses of malfean agents.... the light of a chosen of Malfeas, shining like a frozen sun over the remnants of the Dead Hand, the Bishop’s great elite templars. Covering tarnished, torn and shredded armors in its pale light... and the green, eldritch light of the night holding to its blasphemy before dawn, covered in thunderous winds, howling in sheer elemental fury... around the Exalted, one of the greatest elites ever created in the Underworld lies broken and destroyed, but a few still daring to oppose the righteous rulers of Creation.
Around Vorpal and her dead horse, four Souleaters stand, their eyeless moonsilver faces grinning, jagged teeth throbbing hungrily around its runic restraints. The crimson-armored creatures circle around the Deathknight, waiting the quickest opening to dine on her essence and flesh... of these, only one stands hurt, a deep cut in his chest, standing as the only survivor of the pale angel’s earlier strike... all around her, she sees the souls of the dead rise from their corpses, only shaking their heads as they recover from the shock of losing a body... for them, something not unlike the mount Vorpal had just lost.
Only a few steps away, the two remaining Soulbranders, badly hurt from Selina’s earlier necrotic flare, prepare something... as the two remaining hunters, shining in their white and brass armors, holding large straight swords with both hands as they forget the wounded zenith for a moment, the thin eyes on their golden masks intent on the Dark Angel... just as five of their brothers take out their blades to strike at the Hungry Ghosts Vorpal has placed on their way. And not too far, the remainder four enemies watch, cloaked from normal vision, but not from the Angel’s mystical senses – waiting for the results of such carnage as the first droplets of rain fall from the sky over the burning pines...
Selina De Windia: Readying Angeldust once again, the deathknight cloaks it within a corona of shadow as she slashes at one of the Soulhunters, then the other.
Using the momentum of her slash to come about, she repeats the tactic with the twin Soulbranders behind her, crackling energy of her scythe coursing through undead flesh where the weapon bites.
Dead Hand: Moving their straight swords under the sunlight and the elemental onslaught, the Hunters try to stop the Scythe... with little success.
As she spirals around, she cuts through the bodies like wheat, harvesting blood and bone as all four corpses fall to the floor....
Hurting and bleeding, still, the young prince did not fall. Breaking out of his defensive position, he does only what comes naturally... following the flow of the battle, only barely noticing the pale light coming from Vorpal, the dark light same as those who destroyed all that he loved.... he simply moves foward, with amazing speed for one hurt as he is, and strikes at the Souleaters behind Vorpal with Ainerach, sunlight trailing on its wake as its mere touch burn the undead....
Vorpal: Nimbly leaping off the saddle and rolling to her feet when her horse stumbles to the ground, Vorpal rises in a crouching battle stance. In the corner of her eyes she sees the nemissaries slowly abandonning their dead hosts, and silently she curses in her mind. It seems she would have to slay them twice before this battle is over...
Although, her foes had made one mistake when they had taken her horse down... This thought causes a little, tight smile creep across Vorpal's white lips as she shifts her grasp on Mournful Kiss and prepares to launch her deadliest technique anew...
...on foot, the Pale Angel's fighting style was on its most efficient.
Human Windmill...
Dead Hand: As two living beings and four ghosts fall under the windmill of death radiating from Vorpal, the Soulhunters, swords off, move for the kill on the Hungry Ghosts, cutting through them with their straight swords with the cold serenity of the void. No more than thirty yards away, they stand, the Corpus of the Hungry Ghosts falling around them like snowflakes. The Soulhunters look down at the angels, unnaffected by the carnage but careful not to jump in against such impossible odds....
Vorpal has not a moment to rest. Allowing her sword's momentum to carry it over her shoulder at the end of her deadly dance, she shifts the grasp on its handle once more and immediately proceeds to charge at the rest of the ghosts in her near vicinity, to eliminate their threat for once and for all.
"Watch out for those monks!" she barks out sharply.
Selina De Windia: Monks?
Shrugging, Selina transforms her scythe into a sickle again, then draws her rapier as she looks to the dematerialized ghosts in the forest, ignoring the Soulhunters.
- Over the Angel's heads, it begins raining, pouring from the darkened sky in response to the smoke of the pines... and then...
White Sorrow: “Bravo!” comes a voice from the woods, the sound of hooves against rock heralding his voice. “Pale Angel, aren’t you? I never imagined to see this, as long as the shadows stood. The Exalted, breaking the Dead Hand.... we have lost count how many dragons we have drained, tired, and slayed, Pale Angel... and Celestials we have hunted as well, the children of the sky. Don’t be mistaken, Your only advantage was to catch us unaware while we wer about to wear down the little prince. Look around you, and see my cohorts rise, you little, treacherous Heir of Dust and Ashes. All you did was to tarnish some of our gear. But no matter. After you are both beaten and killed, we shall ravage your souls, and make you fix every broken armor, and set it on them when they get new bodies. You have only bought our enmity today. Nothing more. What is dead may never die, Pale Angel.”
”I am White Sorrow. I shall be your adversary now.” He appears clad in a monk's white robes and cloak, hood pulled over his masked face. His robes are white, but far from plain, as they are stark and whole, trimmed with His Gospel in shining dark red chalcedony, simply shining dark until light touches it and it shines dark red, almost violet. Unlike the mask, all white with simple black slits painted for eyes, but which he can see perfectly through... and lined with shining auburn chalcedony, burning like flame between light crimson and orange... and on his hand, the great Soulsteel blade that shines with a myriad stars in a mysterious night sky held by a web of thin slivers of bone... Sorrowful Dreamer's Demise. Under him is Azrael, a pale mare with eyes that burn with violet flame and teeth sharper than it should ever be, moving leaving afterimages, without making a sound, like a terrible nightmare... he brandishes it, galloping slowly...
“As for you...” He says, waving his blade at Selina, “I don’t know whose servant of the Lover are you, whore, but just as with the Pale Angel, you must be drained... face the visages of our master. Wyield to them, and through them, to the lord of oblivion, to the holy ruler of the Underworld.”
From behind him, come three Heirs of Dust and Ashes.. the Visages. Castrated and trained by their dead ancestors from birth to think only of the scriptures, and be only the scriptures – their bodies are lithe, omnijointed and gray-skinned, wholly shaven, and in their pasty, almost plastic flesh is tatooed with The All-consuming lithany of oblivion, the initiation they all know by heart, the one their nightmarish training seared in their minds until they knew only that, lived only for that.Their robes are all white and simple, protective like a Lamellar, yet totally undecorated, showing that they are not people in themselves, only conduits to the scriptures marked in their flesh, only busts to show the Visage of The Lord in Death.
Vorpal: Vorpal halts her charge at the ghosts in mid-stride at the appearance of the new, mightier adversary. Pale wisps of Essence still smouldering around her silhouette, she slowly lowers the Mournful Kiss in her hand. Even the black sword's moan has lessened into mere a whimper as if to give Sorrow's speech its due respect. Straightening her frame, the Pale Angel stands silently, a tiny frown pulling her eyebrows slightly together as she studies this new foe...
- Looking around, Vorpal can see the shine of orange around the Ghost-Blooded Monks as they step towards Selina, the dimming Indigo around the young prince, and the flickering yellow around the sultry assassin... knowing exactly how much essence they had left, and feeling the tinge of ghostly hunger as she sees it, so delicious...
Selina De Windia: "Take your toy soldiers and leave, nemissary." Selina states, glancing at the monks then back to the leader. "I've dealt with stronger warriors than you."
Vorpal: "You forget one thing, White Sorrow", Vorpal responds, her voice a soft, venomous whisper. She shifts her right leg backwards and turns her shoulders side-ways to her adversary, balanced and ready to spring in any direction at the moment's notice. Slowly does she raise the Mournful Kiss ready to her shoulder-level, both of her gloved hands caressing its familiar handle. The black blade points straight up towards the rain clouds, with the blood of the undead she had already spilled glistening on its surface.
"I am already dead myself."
Selina De Windia: Leaping into the air as the group of enemies approach her, Selina smirks contemptuously at the lot of them, rapier ready to defend if she should somehow be attacked in her state.
What manner of fool does he take me for?
Her left hand points at the charging nemissary as her crackling aura diverts some of its energy to the out-thrust palm, creating a pinpoint of nether-light. The pinpoint grows into a small ball, larger and larger as Selina ascends, moving toward the nemissary to put more distance between her and his hunters.
And then she lets the crypt bolt go, black lightning dancing over the (now sizable) blast of void-energy as it streaks toward the rider.
White Sorrow: The Ghost turns his face, smiles, and waves his Soulsteel Daiklave around with an air of Contempt, moving the great blade as if it were feather-light to parry the incoming blast... but he is not good enough. It goes through the blade, the void, striking him deep into his chest! The violet stars on the Soulsteel cry out as he falls out of his horse and into the ground!
Nimbly, however, he turns around and balances himself, his horse stopping and circling behind him as he narrows his eyes at the Dark Angel... and stands, proud. The smoke flutters out of his cloak... and despite the impact, he was mostly immaculate, unharmed. "My faith is my armor."
Vorpal: The Pale Angel's face flares with a sudden gush of... anger? Is it really anger that twists her cold features so as she sees Selina intruding into her own private matters?
"Mind your own business!" she snaps, her voice cold and sharp as a frigid razor as she abruptly darts forward, taking advantage of Sorrow's momentary confusion and sending the Mournful Kiss arching down towards her foe, pale-white wisps of Essence trailing in its wake.
...their blades clash together in a blinding shower of sparks, and the Pale Angel twists her body, Mournful Kiss shrieking against the Grand Daiklave's edge as she pulls the weapon back and downwards into a sweeping blow across her opponent's midsection...
White Sorrow: Sorrow moves Sorrowful Dreamer's Demise through the mists of incense to stop the first strike from Mournful Kiss, the two great soulsteel blades kissing with the shriek of souls as it repels the smaller blade... and yet, doesn't move in time to catch its second strike as it cuts deep on his chest....
"You fight better than I expected, Pale Angel... but without honor, are befits as heretic such as you. But not even your little companion's aid shall help stay my blade..." He says barely grunting as he is cut and burnt, taking two steps back as his blood flows, then kicking down on one of the corpses at his feet, taking the air, almost impossibly with all the weight in him, spinning his Grand Daiklave to the side, bringing the blade to Vorpal's flank....
Vorpal: Vorpal grimaces as the sudden blow descends upon her. Gritting her teeth, she flips her own blade into a parry, seething as she does so.
"I did not ask for her silly aid!"
Selina De Windia: A fine one to talk about honor, as he sends eight to overwhelm me. Selina thinks as the dragon iconic within her aura growls down at the nemissary. I will deal him the death he deserves.
White Sorrow: The Lord Pursuer of the Dead Hand looks at Vorpal in disbelief as his blade simply bites to her flesh instead of cutting her in half, and takes the blade out, the Vestiments shimmering as they deflect it and push it back... Sorrowful Dreamer screeches. Living blade and living armor, and the armor wins, almost cackling triumphantly as it pushes the blade away!
Vorpal: Bless the Vestments the Lover gave me...
Cutting Vorpal with the Grand Daiklave feels like hitting a pillar of Soulsteel... both for the sword and for the Ghost-Blooded herself. A little grunt escapes Vorpal's lips as she staggers backwards from the mighty blow, shaken by the sheer force behind it.
"Quit your wheezy little whining!" she exclaims above her head. "You said you could handle all of this alone - so shut your petty little mouth and start earning your pay, you pretentuous little whore!"
Selina De Windia: Selina giggles as she sees the eight originally intended for her head toward Vorpal. "Perhaps you'll be less inclined to make me move to your tune once you've stepped a bit in it." She muses at the sight of it all, and waves her hand languidly. "Dance for me, little warrior." And then she watches them converge. Draw them to you with your dance, and I will reap them all at once.
Vorpal: Like a little kid hiding up in her mother's arms. Whimper and whine when you are in danger, boast and taunt when you are in safety. The Pale Angel thinks.
Alexander: For a moment, the young prince closes his eyes... his dimming anima becoming icnonic for a single moment, as the knight of essence points his sword towards the soulhunters. "False white" a voice that sounds... old, comes from him. "You deserve not gold on your faces, insolents!" With this, he darts foward, spreading his wings and jumping towards the Soulhunters, pasing close to Selina and riding her calming winds down, his celestial sword coming to the neck of one of the Hunters from far up, ready to cut him from neck to stomach...
.. The soulhutner whirls asround, seeing the golden anima coming towards him with the heat and warmth of the sun stirring the maggots and rooting flesh of his borrowed body, moving his straight sword to try and parry the Celestial Blade....
... And so Alex does, cutting through the white armor as a hot knife through butter, going down to his stomach, his blade making the corpses burst in golden flames as he whirls around to behead a second of them....
The three hunters turn around, closing on one another, pointing their swords foward to the boy then, who meets the thin black eyes on their faces with defiance....
Vorpal: Oho?
The spectacle she beholds in Alex is so interesting that it momentarily stris even Vorpal from the depths of her seething. It is an oddly moving sight to her, despite the painful flare of Solar anima, to see a beautiful young prince like him take such a valiant stand.
Well, I cannot be any worse, can I now? she shrugs mentally. Then she inhales deeply, and with a screech befitting for a Banshee, begins her dance of Soulsteel and death for the third time that night...
Dead Hand: “Heretic, prepare...”
“...yourself, for you ...”
“... will fall to to us. Present...”
“... yourself to...”
“... the great lord of the void.”
The Ghost-Blooded say in unison, every breath making the scriptures on their skins heave...
Circling Vorpal at all sides, before twisting unnaturally, running to her with open palms!
Vorpal: A sudden idea, insane in its daring, blooms in Vorpal's mind. Without thinking about the consequences at all, she chooses to put it into action.
Look carefully now, oh Tar-Dipped Chicken in the heavens.
Her red eyes bright and hot, a wide, almost delighted smile creeping across her lips, Vorpal simply lowers her sword and lets them come, using her own body and Essence as the bait to lure the enemies in.
Dead Hand: As the Heirs of Dust and Ashes hit Vorpal, she feels a fundamental part of herself taken from her, feeling... colder. One of them, though, in virtue of his half-heritage, errs in his use of essence, burning his hand with necrotic essence, leaving only bones over rotting skin... but instead whole.
Vorpal: The Soulsteel armor under her cloak shifting back and forth to protect its mistress from the incoming blows, Vorpal holds her ground before their ghastly hands. She shudders, she flinches, she feels the chill of their Essence-draining touch, but she does not fall.
"Write your doctrine anew", she says, her voice hoarse and sultry. Flashing them a smile that is oddly beautiful in all of its insane, feverish glee, she lifts her sword once more. "The Pale Angel never fell."
And with swift movements, the human whirlwind moves again, cutting Sorrow's helpers like a hot knife through butter.
Dead Hand: The three remaining Soulhunters prepare their straights swords with prayer, shining with Diamond that seems to... vibrate under the prayer, responding to it, sanctified by it. The prince's face appears on their well-polished golden masks as they move foward... as one. Simple. With devotion. It is prayer, for them, it is a march, he is their church, and his blood their offering. Three swords come to his golden skin, without faltering!
Alexander: ... But, with a flash, his celestial blade swirls around, stopping each and every one of the strikes guided by golden essence pouring forth from the full sun on his forehead, pushing his assailants back effortlessly. Despite the bleeding, the injuries and the pain he feels, the prince grins, the full sun in his forehead defiant to the darkness, to the last...
Selina De Windia: Looking down on the carnage the other deathknight wrought, Selina does a little salute with her free hand's index finger, then plunges down toward the three hunters confronting the boy, Dreamshard held at ready.
She dances the tune well,
She will be the one to dance it henceforth.
Hitting the ground with practiced ease as the lightning within her aura jumps from one part of her body to the other, the Abyssal strikes at each one of the weaker nemissaries, trying to do so before they can turn and defend themselves against her.
White Sorrow: White Sorrow watches her move.... and two of the Visages are cut down in front of him. "Destroying your own, Ghost-Blooded..." The Daiklave goes through them, the liquid from their veins, purely dark and almost gray, not red at all, pouring over the ground, over the corpses of others of the Dead Hand, of all the dark creatures, snakes and spiders and rats that White Sorrow had called to corner the little prince before...
He lifts his blade, the Soulsteel wrapped within a web of bone slivers shimmering with the light of endings... violet afterimages trailing behind it. "But now, you are against your betters. Iranor is too heretic to tell you? I am what you should become. The last step of a Heir of Dust and Ashes is undeath." Another leap, and Azrael comes behind him, and he falls upon his saddle... "I will give you that apotheosis."
Vorpal: "Incorrect", the Pale Angel responds, her blade streaming with ghostly blood as she pulls the weapon back into a defensive stance. "Last step of a Heir of Dust and Ashes is Oblivion. You are a coward if you cannot even admit that to yourself."
White Sorrow: ... There is no response, at first. Of course he feels it. Every ghost does. The pull of the Oblivion, the Whispers of the Neverborn on the other side of the Pull of Lethe... both forces that ask Ghosts to let go, to become Nothing or to Go On the Cycle. Their fear. Their end. Vorpal can hear his teeth clenching under the pale mask. ... maybe that is the fate of you, Deathknights. Where your Mistress lust will take you.
And then he he pushes the reins of pale and silver, writing as intricate as that on the skin of the Visages, and charges towards the Pale Angel, his white, violet-eyed mare's eyes burning with power as it lifts its legs... Azraels every step on the ground raising a wail from it. And the closer he comes, he lifts his blade, cutting the air towards the General! We will see now! He bellows, and from a vantage position, comes a slash to the Pale Angel's face... with a prayer. A prayer repeated by the soul within the sword, honoring and mocking Sorrow's prayer all the same! The blade bursts in Pale Fire, surrounded by the Sorrow of a Thousand Prey, of all their wishes for the Pale Angel to join them in their infinite fear!
Vorpal: There is little time for style or elegance, only for raw power as Vorpal swings her own blade up to bash the attack away. The deafening clang of their pass resounds throughout the clearing, the eruption of sheer pressure buffeting at the dancing flames. Vorpal staggers under the weight of that blow, but where a dozen men would have fallen like broken sticks into the ground, she stays proudly on her feet. As the horse and its terrible rider thunder past, she shifts her weapon to one hand and reaches under the mount's belly with the other, her fingers clenching, vice-like, around the saddlestrap. The horse's immense momentum takes the saddle in one direction. The strength of Vorpal's arm pulls it in the other.
White Sorrow: Vorpal almost manages to hold to it... but the blade comes and swathes her hand away, as White Sorrow begins to circle about the Pale Angel, angered... "... strong. Solid. You would be great with us, if you had faith."
Vorpal: "Ouch."
Vorpal winces a little as the saddlestrap slips from her grasp. What a slippery thing! It is fortunate that she's wearing gloves, or else she might have lost more than just her grasp.
White Sorrow: Memories of the Death that did not come. He remembers the lessons of his Sifu, and using his knowledge of the end, draw upon what will be... falling from his Horse, losing his footing... and sever that Fate in advance. Drawing too much of his fate, his blade feels weaker on his hand. Ten Thousand Virtues had told him it would...
He focused now. And then... he begun to melt. Reality around the Pale Angel did. He was nowhere and everywhere... running in circles around the Pale Angel, a White Whirlwind, striking down so many times, guided by the dark fate woven in his blade!
Vorpal: "Tch..."
As the reality melts away from around the Pale Angel, so does she. She blends in with the pandemonium, her form becoming transcluent and mist-like, a silent mirage in the eye of the white whirlwind. She stands calmly as White Sorrow's blade whooshes through her, her image flaring out like smoke in the wake of each stroke before reassembling again.
White Sorrow: And all the strikes... simply go through her body...
He is a nightmare.
She is a phantasm.
They dance, but never meet...
And all is smoke in the heart of the nightmare.
Vorpal: White Sorrow's blade is still swinging ineffectually through her ethereal form as the Pale Angel raises her own sword. Silent pale flames streak up the length of her blade as she draws the weapon back for a swing. She does it slowly, carefully, taking her time to shift into the proper stance, the sword hanging in a perfect balance behind her head. She pauses, silent and watchful, and waits for the opening to come, a vision of stillness against the roiling speed of ghostly wind.
And then it comes.
White Sorrow's blade dips down for the fourth and final stroke, a masterful cut that cleaves her in two at waist. And suddenly the Pale Angel is moving - or rather, her upper half is. Her feet are still firmly planted on ground, but her arms and torso flip in mid-air, dragging the sword in a full circle around her. Pale fire drawing a flaming wheel in the air, she brings it around at her enemy from an impossible angle.
White Sorrow: It strikes... and he flares with power! A flare that raises far above the battlefield and the burning trees around them! Reinforcing, armoring, shielding his fate from the kiss of her Daiklave! After the light is gone... she has still cut through his white cloak, but not too deeply. "So.. you are... that sort. I should have known. Those lines... that corpus... you are a Banshee's Tear."
Vorpal: Her sword plows right into her enemy, but the blade barely even cuts his dead skin. The Pale Angel squints at the bright light, trying to discern him amidst the flare as the ethereal mist that is the Pale Angel solidfies into a physical form again. "Bloody persistent, aren't you?"
White Sorrow: "This is Sorrowful Dreamer's Demise, Pale Angel. It was the Blade of Saint Vicious. The man who idealized the Dead Hand, but did not see it created in his lifetime." Vorpal knows of him... she heard the tales, the failed Crusade stopped by Whitewall and the Realm long before. "It hates souls like yours'. Heretical souls."
Then... he brings the blade to his face. The Pale Angel can see his eyes... through the webbed blade. Through the stars of his dark sky... and she can see, that they arrange themselves for her. She knows those stars, those that shone when she was born. And then he lowers the blade... and all of his Mask is now a dark sky filled with violet stars. "I walk between worlds now. Sorrowful Dreamer whispers of you. She wishes to devour your soul, Pale Angel."
"And I intend to give her her wish."
He smiles. "Of course I am persistant. I am Lord Pursuer of the Dead Hand! Persistence is all for a hunter." He charged towards her, then, the blade shining as it fell... and the bones of White Sorrow's borrowed body snapped as he channelled such strength behind his blow! The same technique of strike Vorpal had just used, turned against her!
Vorpal: Again Vorpal bashes her own sword against the attack. The strength behind his strike is terrible - her arms tremble with the effort, a momentary wave of numbness stealing away all feeling from her fingers. She strains against him, their blades flaring with their unearthly light.
"Then -- " she finally gasps and takes a sudden step to the side, allowing White Sorrow's own weight to move him past her, "I shall grant you what you wish!"
"Death!" she shrieks and drags her blade into a whirling blow towards her enemy's undefended back.
"Death!" she shouts again and cuts down in an overhead chop.
"Death!" she bellows for the third time and thrusts the sword towards his gut, spinning the blade as she plunges it forth for the added effect.
White Sorrow: He watches her to come.... "No. Death will not come yet."
"Not yet."
"Not Yet!"
Gripping his blade with both hands, he turned around, both great swords splashing in a sea of sparks...
He saw his death. He remembered it. And he would draw upon it to make it not come!
The strikes came... but his dark fate, the stars of the Underworld, did not help him enough. They held... but poorly. He was shining like a pale white star himself now, his mask a map of the sky angled with the stars of the Pale Angel, prepared to devour her spirit... but his own spirit felt empty. Her blade came through him, but only luck kept him there.
Luck! Mere luck!
He thought about stopping the hunt. It would be so easy to stop now. But he could not. He looked at the Prince and the Dark Angel, not too far away, fighting the last few of the Soulhunters, the Visages... and at the Prince. He had tasted the Prince's blood. He had to finish this! He had to! He was a hunter! This was his gift! His power!
He simply could not stop!
And thus he charged towards the Pale Angel, brandishing his blade with a war cry!
"For the Bishop! "
Vorpal: "For the Bishop"" her own exclamation echoes his words as their blades cross one more time, white tendrils of flame spitting forth from along the edges. Her boots scrape along the ground, pushed back by his assault. Their faces inches away from each other, their eyes locking, the Pale Angel finishes her sentence quietly: "...You shall die."
But then her face twists into a snarl and she bends their blades down with brute force, stepping forward so that their shoulders brush against each other. She yanks her sword up and then back down again with dazzling speed, slashing a cut across his arms.
White Sorrow: He almost lets go of his sword. One-handed holding that great blade now, he brings his fingers to try to stop her blade, to hold back the tide of that black ocean on his fingers alone!
Vorpal: Raising the dripping sword, Vorpal takes a smooth step backwards and to the side, to give room for the next blow - this one falling cruelly across his muscular thigh.
White Sorrow: His fingers lost, his hand lost, there is nothing he can do but be struck in the middle of his charge....
... and fall, heavily on the ground!
Vorpal: "And the final step of a Heir of Dust and Ashes", Vorpal intones, her eyes cold, her voice low and hollow. She whirls around, the great sword scything in a circular cut towards the dead man's head, "Oblivion."
White Sorrow: And the soulsteel comes...
Cutting through his mask.
Cutting through his soul.
Breaking his shell....
And dirtying his immaculate pale white robes with his dark blood.
Azrael, his horse, runs away....
Leaving Vorpal there, on the rain and the fire and the smoke...
... victorious!
And not too far, the Dark Angel had destroyed the others without much effort...
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