"Return to me my Legion!" Legion barked his order and the many servants that were still standing all slumped to the ground. Black wisps exited through the mouths of the minions and were absorbed by the black sword. Feelings of malice, madness, and jealousy emanated from each soul that flew through the air, each could have easily corrupted a normal civilian. Ulrich watched as the souls returned, wearing a look of disgust upon his face. After the souls returned to the sword, the body of Legion's host began to transform because of the excess souls and power that were residing within him. His body began to take the form of a demon, his muscles began to grow and it seemed as if his body would burst from how much his body grew. His limbs were slightly deformed and the black sword seemed to fuse itself to his hand in a grotesque fashion.
His magic grew even more foul with each passing second. Ulrich could already tell that his magic power was growing even more powerful. "What a vile transformation, why don't we get this started demon?" The voices of Ulrich made their disgust known. Leanna and Elizabeth had managed to escort the injured to the castle gates, but rather than enter inside with them, they returned to observe Ulrich. Atop the walls, Nina, Alicia, and Eve were also watching the action unfold. Unknown to them, there were many others that had ascended the walls and were watching the battle. Among them were, Hilda and some valkyries, Council members Robert, Richard, Laura, and Artorius, and finally, Princess Dianna, Ariel, and fairy captain Tatianna. The people of Camelot were all curious about the fight as well, however, Savaris and Barric warned the people that those with weak or no magic could be adversely affected by what was happening. All the people watching were in awe of the sight they beheld.
While each person on the wall could defeat a demon, each recognized that this was no ordinary demon. However, Artorius was more intrigued with Ulrich than the demon. Likewise, Richard, Robert, and Nina were observing their king closely, unlike the others on the wall, they were among the few there that could cross blades with this demon and, more than likely, come out on top. Artorius was the first to notice that there was some sort of rune on Ulrich's hand. There was also the same rune on Excalibur, however, Artorius was able to pick up on it because both runes weren't silver like the rest, instead, they were glowing blue.
The two charged towards each other, both with incredible speed, before they both clashed swords. Exchange after exchange, the sounds of their blades reverberated through the air. Each blow causing a small shockwave at the point of impact. With each strike, a crack of thunder could be heard. The two jumped back at the same time, almost as if in sync, followed by Legion swinging his sword towards Ulrich. Ulrich's eyes narrowed, before he lifted his hand and spoke. Though his mouth moved, no sound was audible, however, the result of what he spoke was clear. Unknown to everyone, except for Dianna, Nina, Artorius, Leanna, and, most importantly, Ulrich, multiple blades of air had been launched at Ulrich. The wind blades were numerous and left Ulrich unable to dodge, even with his speed, however, it was unnecessary. In the blink of an eye, a wall of ice exploded from the ground, with the wind blades cutting into the ice and breaking the wall apart.
As Boudica was being carried to the church to receive medical treatment, one of the runes on her spear, which she had refused to part from, began to glow with magic energy. Her eyes widened at the sight of the color. She attempted to sit up from the stretcher, however, she only managed to, very weakly, sit up. Sister Therese immediately moved to stop her. "Lady Boudica, you mustn't strain yourself! Your injuries haven't..." Boudica then held out her spear and spoke with a weak and shaky voice.
"Sister Therese, please, throw this into the sky. My king, needs me..." Before she could finish her sentence, Boudica fainted, causing the spear to drop from her hands. Sister Therese quickly caught the spear before it could hit the ground. She was perplexed by her words, but, she knew that Boudica wouldn't just offer her spear up like that. Sister Therese could feel the magic inside the spear and also took note of the rune and decided to listen to Boudica. As Boudica was being taken away, Sister Therese tried to imitate the way Boudica threw her practice spears when she saw her training at the church. Sister Therese used all of her strength to throw the spear high into the sky, although it was wobbling quite a bit. She then saw the spear point towards the battlefield, before it shot forward with such incredible that it looked like it disappeared.
The wall of ice had broken apart completely, revealing Ulrich standing on the other side. The spear's blade was stabbed into the ground, before Ulrich pulled it out and stood there with both sword and spear in hand. Legion's face contorted with anger at the sight of the uninjured Ulrich. He let out a loud howl into the air. As he did so, his left arm began to become mangled, before it seemingly exploded, however, it was replaced with a shadowy, black appendage that reached the ground. The shadow itself seemed to spread and cover half of his face. "That human body cannot contain the corruption of such a large amount of demons whilst using magic. Thou art tearing thyself apart from the inside and replacing thy own limbs with what thy true demonic form." Ulrich spoke out loud, however, the voice was no longer two, instead it was only Viviane's voice that exited.
"I see, then we need to make sure that we stop it before it completely transforms. Have you integrated the spear's power yet?" This time, it only Ulrich's voice that spoke.
"Yes, thou shalt be able to use it, however, it will be unstable. If thy wants to overwhelm with force, allow thee to be of use. If thou wants a specific form for thy ice to take, then thy would suggest we use the spear my love." Ulrich closed his eyes, concentrating his senses on his weapons, attuning his magical power to match each weapon.
"Understood. Then I believe we are ready. Viviane, let's show this thing what it means to truly bond together as a sword and human." Ulrich then opened his eyes. Nina, Robert, Dianna and the fairies, and Leanna were the only ones with the eyesight to notice a change. Ulrich's right eye was silver, while his left eye had become golden. Ulrich then dashed forward, dragging the blade of the spear along the ground. Legion's eyes narrowed as he reacted by throwing more blades of wind towards Ulrich. Unlike the first time, the attacks were rushed and inaccurate, allowing Ulrich to dodge the incoming attacks easily. Before Ulrich reached Legion, he swung the spear upwards from the ground, the blade barely missing Legions face. Legion cackled at the failed attack as he began to thrust his sword forward. However, before he had the chance to complete his attack, multiple ice spikes erupted forward at Legion from the ground. The spikes impaled Legion at first, however, the spikes didn't stop moving, instead they continued to launch Legion higher and higher into the sky.
Legion was stunned at the amount of ice that was summoned, however, he composed himself when he saw that Ulrich hadn't stopped moving forward during the exchange, in fact, he was now running up the slope of ice. Legion then concentrated his magic around his demonic arm, allowing it to break free from the ice that was impaling it. Before he could use his arm to break free, Ulrich had already began to start an attack with Excalibur, the blade itself beginning to generate frost on the blade. Legion quickly maneuvered his arm in front of Ulrich's thrust, catching the sword inside of the black mass. Legion then laughed at Ulrich's attack, "You're pathetic attack can't harm a limb made out of curses!" Legion quickly broke his sword arm free and proceeded to swing his blade at Ulrich, however, he simply deflected the attack with his spear.
Ulrich then spoke to Legion, "We normally wouldn't be able to get rid of it, even with magic, but what you don't know, is that Excalibur..." Ulrich then smirked, "is a divine blade. Which means, any magic that is generated by it, is blessed." Legion then began to feel an intense chill begin to consume his arm, followed by intense pain throughout his arm. Ulrich then lifted his spear into the air and stabbed it into the ice while shouting a single word, "Burst!" Legion immediately used his sword to cut off another part of his body to separate his cursed arm from himself. Just as soon as Ulrich spoke those words, the ice began to exploded underneath Ulrich's feet. Legion's arm then had the ice generated from Excalibur, burst from within his arm. Destroying it, while also purifying it at the same time, removing any chance of the cursed arm harming the surrounding land.
Legion's body then landed on the ground. Ulrich looked at his body from a short distance away, taking note of the hole in his stomach. Ulrich then walked up to the unmoving body, "Don't disappoint us now. Get up!" He then delivered a kick to the gut of the body on the ground, which proceeded to fly a few yards away. After his body landed, Legion then stood up, the hole in his body now gone.
"Alright King Ulrich, I will show you the full totality of my power. I wanted to take over your body, however, I no longer wish for that. Now, I am going to kill you, then I am going to go into your city and kill all of the inhabitants within. I will torture everyone you love and break their spirits. Your sister will suffer the most out of all of them. You have brought all of this upon your city because of your actions." Legion's voice had sounded human before, but now, his voice was completely different. It sounded like a thousand different human voices in one, while also having an inhuman pitch to it. His face was now completely covered in shadows, however, that inhuman mouth was ever present.
No fear was present on Ulrich's face from Legion's words, but what surprised Legion, despite his hate being almost tangible, was what he saw on Ulrich's face. He had expected some hesitance or reaction from him, he even expected no reaction, but what Legion saw unnerved even him. Across from him, Ulrich stood with sword and spear, the lightning that had merged with Ulrich's aura began to become more unruly, the aura itself appeared to be a silver blaze, and his face now wore a smile. Legion could tell from the look on his face, that his eyes had an unbridled anger within them, while the smile seemed to emit a sense of excitement. "Now you're speaking like a demon should. Come and kill us then, if you can." The two voices spoke in a mocking tone. "Show us the totality of your power, so that we may crush it and reduce you to nothing." Legion gritted his teeth at the words of Ulrich.
Legion quickly sprinted forwards, firing off wind blades with his sword. Ulrich quickly used his sword to deflect and cut through the blades of wind. Legion continued while beginning to speak words that were not of the human tongue. Ulrich's eyes narrowed. While being careful to dodge the incoming projectiles, he ran the spear along the ground around him. As he finished, Legion appeared next to him, swinging his sword with amazing strength and ferocity. Even though Ulrich had managed to get the upper hand in their last clash, this time was very different. Even though Ulrich was managing to hold his ground within the circle he made with the spear, it was taking all of his concentration to hold back his attacks, even resorting to using the Ice Spear to counter the attacks. Unknown to Ulrich, magic circles had begun to form and surround him.
Legion then delivered a lightning fast strike that managed to cut Ulrich's arm, causing his body to feel heavy. Ulrich then thrust his spear forward, however, Legion then retreated with a wide grin on his face. As Ulrich returned to his stance, he finally noticed the dark magic circles that were around him. Ulrich stabbed his spear into the ground, causing ice to erupt from the circle that he had made. The walls then formed itself into a dome. The magic circles then began to fire black shadows into the ice. Unlike the wind blades, the shadows burrowed deep into the ice, until they broke through completely. The first that broke through was cut apart by Excalibur, then the second one broke through, which was quickly dodged. Each subsequent one became harder to dodge each time because of the cut on his arm.
The ice then began to break into pieces. Before Ulrich had a chance to figure out what caused the ice to break, multiple slice wounds appeared on his body, which allowed the shadows to strike Ulrich. Each shadow that hit Ulrich was being blocked by Ulrich's armor, however, the armor was beginning to break each time it was hit. His arms were hit multiple times, the lightning surrounding him was beginning to attack his own body before the shadows could spread any curses further. As the shadows struck his body, the more he began to feel heavy. Though he was able to block any attacks coming at his head, it was extremely taxing on his body and the pain he was feeling was becoming immense.
Ulrich decided to use what little strength he could muster to try and escape. He lifted his spear and threw it towards Legion, who was still firing wind blades. The spear flew through the air, narrowly missing the shadows and piercing the wind blades. Legion, who had already lost any semblance of reason once the magic began to fire, was easily pierced through the chest. Ulrich quickly used the blood from his injuries to draw a reverse rune on the palm of his hand, which he used to make himself appear in front of Legion, via high speed movement. After the spear hit Legion, he returned to his senses, but just as he did, Ulrich appeared, rendering his dome of magic circles useless. He gave an evil smile to Ulrich, before using his magic to aim his circles towards the two of them, knowing that Ulrich could barely move, and that it would only strengthen himself if he was hit.
As he began to move them, Ulrich, who still had a few moments before he suffered from the recoil of using a rune on his body, quickly concentrated all of his magic into Excalibur, making it become engulfed in silver flames and lightning. His body immediately felt the massive drain of energy, however, he had enough to raise his sword. Ulrich used all of his strength to fight against the curses that had managed to taint his body, so that he could raise Excalibur into the air. As he began to raise it, Legion saw the motion and decided to kill him on the spot. The magic circles had fully turned and were about to fire. Legion moved to raise his sword, however, he couldn't move his arm, he turned his head to see that ice had raised from the ground and grabbed ahold of his sword. Ulrich's sword was now pointed towards the sky and the magic circles just began to fire again.
"Excalibur, rain down!" Ulrich and Viviane yelled at the top of their lungs, sending the lightning of Excalibur shooting into the sky, as the shadows began to take flight. The lightning shot back down immediately, just as the shadows were about to make contact with Ulrich's back. The lightning was fired at the tip of the spear on the other side of Legion, which Ulrich still had ahold of. The lightning blinded any who were watching, before a deafening crack was heard. The ground itself shook from the impact. Dust covered the area in which the two were standing. The dust slowly began to clear, as the bright white light in everyone's eyes faded. Ulrich was spotted far away from the impact, having been thrown far away from it. Legion's body remained at the location of the strike, seemingly motionless.
Leanna and Elizabeth began to run towards Ulrich, however, before they reached him, Ulrich began to slowly push himself up from the ground. He fell back to the ground two times, before he made his way to his knees. His silver eye was blue again, while the gold eye seemed to be fading. His body was numb and his injuries were bleeding profusely, "My love, thy wounds...are bleeding too much...thou may die at this rate." Viviane spoke to Ulrich through sobs in his head, instead of through his mouth, wanting to conserve as much energy as possible. Ulrich managed to block the connection for a split second, just as the lightning struck.
"Good...I was...able to take the brunt of it. Listen...when I tell you...to save yourself,...I don't want you...to die with me." Ulrich raised his hand and gathered whatever magic he still had left in his body, and generated a small flame in the palm of his hand. Everyone that was watching was stunned at what had happened. Artorius himself was shocked that Ulrich had been pushed to the brink of death. The only ones who could move were Leanna and Nina, but only Leanna was capable of taking steps to Ulrich, Nina herself was barely able to step forward even once. Leanna began to make her way to Ulrich, but stopped in her tracks when she saw Ulrich use the flame in his hand to cauterize his wounds, passing it to each hand to burn each wound. The only place that he was unable to reach was his back, however, he only had three wounds there that had stopped bleeding earlier.
Unknown to everyone, except Ulrich himself, Legion was still alive, but barely. His body was now missing the limbs on his left side, while his right leg was burnt to a crisp. All that was left was a few organs that allowed what was left of his physical body to remain alive. To his dismay, his two eyes remained intact. He looked on as he saw what he thought was Ulrich's lifeless body, begin to rise, as if from the dead. He watched as he saw him struggle to even get to his knees. Then he watched as Ulrich managed to use magic, even though he should have had none left. Again he watched, as Ulrich cauterized his wounds with fire, even though his body must have been in so much pain, that he probably felt it in his soul.
Ulrich's vision was blurry, so he could barely see anything in front of him. Viviane spoke once again, and even though he heard what she said, he was more focused on the brief reprieve of pain he felt from hearing it. "Thou art a fool, thy beloved refuses to allow thee to die before me. Now, allow thy beloved to assist thee." Ulrich reached down to pick up Excalibur from the ground in front of himself, which, unknown to everyone else, was what he was crawling towards. He reached down, however, when his hand reached the handle, nothing was there. He realized that his vision was making the sword appear either closer, or farther, away. Ulrich wasn't sure which it was, however, just as Ulrich was about to reach down again, Viviane spoke to him again. "Move thy hand lower." His hand then felt the handle of his sword. He moved to grip it, but his hand was too weak. Once again, he felt weak and began to hate himself, however, once again, Viviane's voice seemed to pierce through all the pain and weakness that Ulrich was feeling, this time, her speaking changed completely from what Ulrich had grown accustomed to, "Don't turn back into your old ways my love. If you will reconnect the bond completely, then we will both finish this, just like we promised. Your pain is my pain, no matter what, I will eventually feel it, but I would much rather suffer with you than watch you go through this alone. All you need to do, is have faith in your sword, yourself, and to have faith in me."
Ulrich's hand once again attempted to grip the sword, but this time, Ulrich could feel another hand over his, which helped him to close his hands and grab ahold of Excalibur. He planted it into the ground, using it to support himself, as he weakly began to rise to his feet. He didn't know if what he was feeling was real, or if it was simply Viviane projecting the thought into his mind, but he could feel someone helping him stand. It didn't matter either way to him, because he knew that she was giving him the strength to keep going, the city and everyone he loved were making him fight off death, but it was Viviane that was allowing him to fight it in the first place. The very sight of Ulrich reaching his feet, was enough to make Leanna stop dead in her tracks.
Legion's eyes grew wide with fear and awe, as did the crowd's. The sight of King Ulrich Pendragon, bloody, battered, his armor rent, his left eye having no color to it and the golden eye seemingly glowing, and his body moving on nothing but his willpower frightened Legion. The crowd watching was no exception to that feeling, but instead of fear, what they felt was indescribable, not even their faces could tell you what it was. Some were moved to tears, others could hardly breathe, none dared move, however, there was one single thought that Legion, Artorius, and everyone else watching all had. He had nothing left, no more to give, yet, there he was, walking forward. He was fighting off the goddess of death, and yet, he continued forward. The thought Legion had in his brain, the one shared by everyone when they gazed upon him, was simply, "What is he?"
With each step, the look in Legion's eyes grew more and more noticeable, until finally, Ulrich stood in front of Legion. Though Ulrich's vision was heavily impaired, he could easily spot the terror in Legion's eyes. He could also tell, that the black blade was now cracked and on the verge of breaking. The sun had almost completely set, but there was still enough sunlight to cast shadows. One such shadow rested upon Ulrich's face, the sight of which made Legion feel ice cold. Each soul inside of him all froze when looking upon him. None had felt such fear in thousands of years. The only discernible features were, Ulrich's glowing gold eye and his colorless left eye, which seemed to suck in the shadows around it. Ulrich and Viviane then spoke, and even though it was clear that Ulrich's voice was far weaker, the words carried by it felt as if they reached within one's very soul. "It appears...that blast...blew half of your...face off. It's a shame...we won't be able...to hear you beg...for your...pathetic life. We'll make due...with that look of...fear and hopelessness." Ulrich lifted his sword into the air with both of his arms, mustering what strength Viviane was able to give him, "We won't... send you...back to hell." When Legion heard those words, he felt a brief glimpse of hope. Ulrich then asked Viviane to take some of the burden when he spoke, so that he could say his final words uninterrupted. "Because I'm going to use what I have left, to destroy you, sword and soul alike!" Legion then realized that no matter which vessel he escaped to, it wouldn't change a thing.
Legion then remembered what Ulrich said he would do to him for attacking those he loved and cared about. The fear and hopelessness of his situation made the final moment of his life feel agonizingly long, until finally, Excalibur cut through what remained of his body, before shattering the Black Blade itself, removing any trace of Legion's existence. Ulrich managed to maintain his balance despite using all of his strength in that swing. His grip then faded and Excalibur fell from his hands, sticking itself into the ground. The rune on his hand then turned itself back into a brand. His gold eye reverting back to blue, and then colorless. The silver streak in his hair then faded and returned to its original color. Ulrich then turned his head, seeing a figure quickly approaching him from the distance, followed by another figure a bit farther back. He was beginning to lose consciousness but fought against it, until he finally saw who it was that was approaching. Leanna was running towards him, her mouth was moving, but Ulrich could hear nothing. She grew closer and closer, however, Ulrich could no longer stave off the inevitable. His knees buckled and he began to fall forward. Leanna managed to catch him before he fell to the ground. Ulrich felt drops of water on his face, along with the warmth of Leanna's embrace. "Please...don't...cry....Leanna." The last words out of his mouth were no more than a very weak whisper, but Leanna was able to hear each word since she held him so close.
"How could you say that in your condition, you idiot."