Red.
Red against white.
Warm, sticky, red fluid against the cold, powdery, white snow.
Blood.
Fire.
Dying moans.
Sighs of last breaths.
The combination of the fiery setting sun and flickering flames cast long wriggling shadows against the white land decorated with splashes of red.
Dismembered and bloodied bodies of both humans and beasts littered the grounds. Black smoke billowed from burning buildings. Roofs crashed to the ground after it lost its structural integrity.
A rural village in the snowy plains had been wiped out by a sudden onslaught of beasts. This, however, was not an uncommon sight. Rural villages far away from the protection of cities often fall prey to harsh environments.
A boy and a girl lay motionless on the ground in each other's tight embrace. A severed, gnarly tail which had belonged to a beast pierced through their small bodies. The girl had long left the world, but the boy clutched the shoulders of the girl with his remaining strength, not wanting to let her go.
He wished to continue to protect her even after her death. His mouth curled up feebly. At least he would follow her soon, reuniting in the afterlife.
A man with a blood-red long sword stood in the midst of the devastation. He flicked blood off his sword with a single practiced motion. Glowing red runes danced along the blade of the sword. They seemed to have a life of their own. In fact, the sword itself seemed to crave more blood and emitted an unholy and unrestrained aura. It shivered with greed and emitted a faint howling that can only be heard with uncommon ears.
The man surveyed his surroundings and sheathed his sword with a sigh of disappointment.
'Such weak beasts,' he thought with a hint of annoyance.
The beasts did not pose any challenge to him. He had been tracking them for sport just to pass his time. When he finally caught up to them, the village had already fallen prey to the beasts. He merely arrived to slaughter them, not to save the villagers.
Faint coughing came from under some rubble.
"Oh, there's still someone alive?" surprise flashed through the man's cold eyes as he walked towards the rubble, past the bodies of the two children.
A wrinkled hand emerged from the rubble. It pulled itself out of the rubble and an old man stumbled and fell on his side. He coughed weakly before facing the man.
"Oh, exalted Dark Knight. I beg of you, please, save the boy!" The old man crawled towards the man and pleaded.
'I didn't expect a mere a villager to know my true identity,' the man thought and clicked his tongue in surprise.
The old man looked up to the Dark Knight and pleaded again, "Please… please save him! He mustn't die here. He can't die! This child… he's our hope! The hope for humanity against Zetearophs! It's not his destiny to die!"
The old man pleaded deliriously and coughed up blood. He did not have long to live.
"Destiny?" the Dark Knight laughed cynically and glanced over to the children. "If it's his destiny, why is he lying here, dying?"
"Fate… brought you here… therefore fulfilling the destiny! Please! I can only appeal to your kindness!"
"Old man… you know that I'm a Dark Knight. Does kindness exist in the same world as Dark Knights? Hmm? You should know that saving him means that I have to turn him into one of us. Do you really want that?," the Dark Knight crossed his arms.
Although it seemed like the Dark Knight seemingly said this out of concern, he actually could not be bothered about the fate of others. As for why he stopped to chat with the old man, he himself did not know.
The old man trembled and said weakly, "I know… I know! What choice do I have!? He must live no matter the cost! Please!"
The Dark Knight cocked his head. He wondered why the old man was so desperate. The latter must be more than an ordinary villager in the rural snow plains to be able to discern his identity. He observed the dying old man.
Blood soaked the old man's tattered clothes. What caught the Dark Knight's attention was the old man's eyes. Specifically, the absence of his eyes. There were sunken-in gaps in place of eyeballs. The gruesome wound was aged like the old man. It seemed that his eyes were gouged out a long time ago. Most importantly, the old man's disheveled hair was an unusual blood-red color, fading into white from old age.
The Dark Knight turned to look at the dying boy. The latter had the same hair color, without the whites.
"Could it be…?" a flash of realization flashed passed the Dark Knight's eyes.
He went towards the boy and lifted his eyelids and peered into the boy's irises. They were dark gray.
"Hmm… they're not amber? … Nevermind," he frowned and smeared some of the boy's blood onto his finger. He tasted it.
His eyes widened and he trembled, unable to contain his excitement.
"Hehehehe… hahahahaha!" the Dark Knight laughed gleefully as he found a treasure.
"Fate… hahaha! I never believed in fate before this, but I might believe in it now! Old man, why didn't you tell me this earlier? Hahahahah! I would have 'saved' him immediately!" he exclaimed.
"Please… o-our future… depends… on him," said the old man while gasping for air.
"You can rest assured, old man. I, Grizz, swear on my name that I will save him. Truly, it'll be such a loss if he died!" Grizz, the Dark Knight, laughed with glee.
What a stroke of luck!
Grizz was elated. The boy's blood was like magic essence itself. Although it did not contain a hundred percent purity, the concentration was high enough that one would strengthen their bodies and increase their powers once ingested.
Grizz swiftly pulled out the beast's tail from the bodies of the children. Blood poured from the hole in the boy's chest. He groaned and his eyes fluttered open. In his blurred vision, he saw a man with a crazed expression. A wide and unsightly grin was plastered onto the face of the Dark Knight.
"You're still awake from all these wounds? How tenacious. That's great. It makes turning you into a Dark Knight much easier," Grizz laughed while he removed a ring from his finger.
A menacing power was unsealed and burst forth from the Dark Knight. Howling winds with traces of disembodied voices blew outwards from the man. The sparse and dry vegetation dotted among the crystalline snow wilted further under the winds. Any living being would quiver and stop in their tracks from the sheer horrifying and dreadful force exuded by the aura.
Grizz's originally ice-blue eyes turned crimson and gleamed in the dark. Maniacal laughter escaped his lips as he reveled in his unsealed power.
He unsheathed his sword and pointed its tip above the boy's heart. His dark powers concentrated into the blade of his sword. Grizz took a deep breath and composed himself.
"Within the Crimson Abyss lays my soul,
Within my soul, the Crimson Abyss reigns.
Eternally bounded, my body and my soul,
As I gaze into the abyss, its powers I gain."
"May the Laws of the World be my witness, jury, and judge."
The Dark Knight's voice reverberated in the silent air as he recited the ancient oath of the Dark Knights. The seemingly simple words belied the power it held. Once a person takes this oath, that person is forever bound by the rules pertaining to the oath. In other words, that person is forever cursed to become a Dark Knight. It was an unbreakable curse.
The souls of Dark Knights were eternally bounded to the Crimson Abyss in exchange for immortality and powers exceeding human limits. The Crimson Abyss would also gradually corrupt and erode their humanity, pushing them into an endless spiral of insanity.
It was a steep price to pay, for those who were unwilling.
As the last echoes of Grizz's voice disappeared into the air, a faint, high pitched sound buzzed. He pushed his sword into the boy's heart. Energy from the Crimson Abyss poured into the boy's body.
An anguished scream interrupted the silence. The boy screamed as incredible pain flared throughout his whole being. Piercing pain from deep inside his head threatened to split his skull. He could hear the oath repeating in his head like an endless chant.
At the same time, he saw horrifying apparitions as he gained his first glimpse into the Crimson Abyss. The apparitions were sometimes tangible, sometimes intangible. At times, they resemble twisted humans. Other times, twisted beasts. Disembodied whispers and intermittent wails invaded his senses and threatened to overwhelm him.
The Crimson Abyss was a collection of horrors from the collective consciousness of all beings. What one would see in the abyss depended on the fear that shrouds one's heart. However, one thing was common among all who gazed into the abyss:
Crimson.
The color that painted their vision. The world dyed in crimson. All shades of crimson converged to paint the world. Sometimes, they were fuzzy and mottled. Other times, a dizzying array of swirls, like splashes of crimson paint on marbled water. Often times, they were sharp, piercing into the depths of one's soul.
The apparitions spread their wraith-like arms towards the boy. They went through his body as they grasped onto his soul. He felt like his soul was on fire. The pain was so great that a normal person would have already fainted or maybe even died from the pain. Alas, this tormenting experience happened in his soul and had nothing to do with staying awake or not.
The pain gradually dissipated as the soul branding was completed. The boy breathed weakly from his ordeal. He was, however, very much alive. His wounds had healed completely. It was faint, but the same aura that surrounded Grizz was felt around the boy as well. Finally, his eyes bore the same crimson gleam as Grizz's.
"It's a success," Grizz laughed as he kneeled down to catch his breath.
He turned over to the old man and said, "It's done, old man."
The old man did not reply.
He was dead.
Grizz's cold eyes glanced over to the boy. A gentle breeze fluttered through his clothes and picked the boy up.
The boy felt comfortable in the breeze. It was like being swathed in a mother's embrace. He closed his eyes and drifted into a deep sleep from exhaustion.
"An air elemental spirit," Grizz observed dryly.
"Greetings, air spirit." Grizz politely said, with a slight bow, albeit begrudgingly.
In addition to the dark powers obtained from the Crimson Abyss, Dark Knights are naturally contracted to an elemental spirit. This was supposed to stabilize their existence. After all, being immortal was an abomination that violates the Laws of the World. The Crimson Abyss was said to be an otherworldly source of energy. Being contracted to an elemental spirit helps ground Dark Knights' souls to this world.
The air spirit was silent.
"Ahh, where are my manners," Grizz slapped his head and summoned his contracted spirit. He could feel hostility emanating from the air spirit and decided that his contracted spirit should do the talking.
An ice elemental spirit emerged from the snow. It possessed a humanoid form that was made of ice. Its hard and transparent body reflected the glow from raging embers nearby. The temperature of the surroundings dropped instantly.
"Greetings, fellow spirit. I am Esklar," its low and cold voice sounded.
"Shirin," the air spirit replied curtly. Hints of rustling leaves and whispers of the wind can be heard in its soft and ethereal voice. Unlike the ice spirit who had a solid and tangible body, the air spirit can only conjure winds as its body. It was invisible to the naked eye.
Grizz eyebrows raised in surprise. Contracted spirits did not have a gender, but they will mimic the gender of their contractor. Therefore, the voice of the spirit will reflect the gender of the contractor. The air spirit's voice was undoubtedly feminine. Nevertheless, Grizz did not care much as it did not mean anything to him.
The breeze around the boy dispersed and he was laid back onto the ground. He was in a healing sleep, recovering from his traumatic experience.
'Hmm, so the boy's soul and the spirit isn't fully connected yet,' Grizz thought.
Perhaps the boy was too young, or that both the boy and the spirit were newly contracted. Therefore, the connection between the contractor and the contracted spirit was weak. They were not able to communicate with each other. The spirit would not be able to assist the boy as well.
'That's for the best,' Grizz thought and sneered. He had plans for the boy. The last thing he wanted was for the spirit to interfere.
He went to pick the boy up by his shirt. The thick fur-lined clothing he wore was dyed red in blood and clung to his body. A book bag drenched in blood hung across the boy's shoulder.
Grizz's sneer inched wider across his face.
"How interesting. An Estavan turned Dark Knight," Grizz chuckled.
He turned to the sky and guffawed, "Hahahaha… Fate! How amusing. Is this what you want, Fate? Hmm? The Laws of the World? Hah! Whatever it is, I don't care."
His hand grabbed the chin of the boy. His tone changed considerably into endearment and fanaticism.
"This, however, is what I care. Ahh… the blood of an Estavan," he licked his lips in anticipation as he imagined the exquisite taste and increase in power that he will obtain from the blood.
"Boy, you're a Dark Knight now, an immortal. You'll give me your blood no matter how much I'll drain it from you!" Grizz stroked the boy's cheek and laughed gleefully, his crimson eyes gleaming ominously.
Such was the fate of the boy. The old man had wished well for the boy, for the latter to continue living despite the risks included in becoming a Dark Knight. Unbeknownst to him, the boy jumped out from the frying pan into the fire when Grizz decided 'save' the boy. Alas, what awaited the boy under Grizz's clutches was far from peace.
If one wished to view this situation optimistically, the old man's wish was fulfilled. The boy lived, and he will live on…
Forever.