Mortals and immortals break from their conflict as they watch the duel of gods.
The Knights burning sword lances in great burning arcs towards the Demon. Every strike is the pinnacle of swordsmanship, every action is perfect, each strike enough to bring a sword master to their knees in joy. And every strike just misses.
Despite its colossal size the Demon of darkness moves as smoothly as water as it glides out of the way out of each and every strike. It moves elegant as a dancer avoiding each blow by the smallest margins, its colossal feet moving it impossibly fast as the pair trample the once impregnable citadel into dust. The Knight uses its wings to hurl itself into the air with a thunderclap crack of compressed air before descending in a blur of light towards the Demon. The Knight moves in a blur striking the Demon dozens of times in a single heartbeat, Salvation scours blows across the Demon's flesh in long cuts that weep pitch black blood. The Demon seemingly unable to keep with the Knight's sudden increase in speed stretches all six of its arms outward, jet-black ritual circles and diagrams appearing from nowhere covered in runes that make mortals eyes bleed cover the Demon's hands.
The Knight moves even faster its form blurring as light heaved to keep up with its pace, the Knight smashed its blade into each of the Demon's hands in a single devasting strike shattering each ritual circle nigh simultaneously. The Demon staggered its colossal form tilting backward dangerously, the Knight's wings hurl itself into the air again with another thundercrack of force. The Knight raised its sword in a two-handed grip above its head. The Knight hung like the sword of Damocles in the air promising annihilation in a single devasting blow to finally end this conflict.
Well. What should have been a single devasting blow.
The Knights blade descends on the Demon like the concept of annihilation itself. It moves faster than thought reaching furiously towards the monster. The monster in response simply smiles.
In the pinnacle of efficiency, the Demon twists its body at the waist dodging the strike by fractions of a nanometre. Salvation crashes into the ground with the power to rend continents tearing a canyon through the earth for a dozen miles. The backblast robs the Demon of its protective miasma and holy flame from the great blade scours its grinning face.
The Knight attempts to pivot realising too late its mistake, it spins its body away from the monster but a clawed foot crashes onto Salvation beautiful edge ignoring the fire that attempts to unmake it pinning the blade beneath the creature's weight. The Knight its spin interrupted by its pinned weapon had a split second to snap its head upward awkwardly staring into the monster's cyclopean eye before three of the monster's colossal fists shattered into the Knight sending it flying hundreds of metres in the span of seconds.
The Knight cartwheeled twisting head over heels as it flew slamming into the ground repeatedly and gouging a small canyon in the earth as it slammed into the ground its wings desperately flapping to stabilise itself. The Knight slammed through entire regiments of soldiers reducing both friend and foes into paste before it finally stabilised itself. As the Knight flew the Demon opened its colossal maw, darkness gathered in a miasmic whirlpool that grew to half the size of the Demon. The Knight tore itself out of the canyon it had carved with its own body, forcing itself to its feet it stood unsteadily and desperately raised its sword into a pre-emptive guard position.
The darkness gathering in the Demon's mouth exploded outward in a stream of jet-black annihilation covering the distance between the two in a heartbeat. Salvation trembles in the Knights hands, the blade held flat acts as a breakwater against the oncoming tide of destruction. The blade shakes more and more in the Knight's grip as the stream of darkness lights up from within with veins of purple and crimson light as the intensity of the beam grew, causing the ground nearby the Knight to liquify under the intense heat.
Despite being on the back foot the Knight refuses to back down, power radiates outward from Salvation and the blade began to shine with a new golden light that coated the blade in a protective aura. The stream of darkness broke like a wave on the rocks as the intensity of the glow made the sword look closer to the sun than a weapon. The Knight tore Salvation through the beam of energy splitting it in twain and sending its own arc of golden power towards the Demon.
Which was no longer there.
The Knight wheels but is too slow. The Demon having accelerated fast enough to shatter the sound barrier was already inside the Knight's guard and slammed its fists into the knight dozens of times in a second tearing chunks out of the Knight's armour in explosions of violet gore. The Demon lashes out with clenched fists and elbows as it dances around the lashing sword that attempts to annihilate it. Despite its size it moves like a pugilist bouncing on the balls of its feet as it dodged dozens of strikes with commiserate ease. It sheds its earlier ponderous like a man slipping off a poorly fitting coat and reveals its true terrible power. A clenched fist smashes into the side of the Knight's helm, an elbow cracks the guard of its majestic blade, three fists strike in unison into the Knight's guts in a soul wrenching uppercut. A foot slams sideways into the Knight's knee felling it like a tree as it collapsed into a kneeling position, before it can react a fist slams into its helm shattering the beautiful helmet and sending its now exposed head crashing into the ground.
The Knight stunned but furious roars hurling itself upward as it lances its sword upward lashing it towards the throat of the Demon. One hand lashes out and seizes the Demon's chest the other thrusts Salvation with all the god's strength at the monster throat. The blade roars forward shattering the speed barrier in an explosion of golden light.
Salvation burning blade slams into the Demon's throat puncturing its hide effortlessly and sliding through flesh.
For a second the terrible spectre of hope rears its tenacious head as the watching multitudes take simultaneous gasps of hope and despair. Silver eyes now revealed by the shattered helmet blink violet blood out of the Knight's eyes as she desperately forces the blade into yielding flesh. The blade digs. It gores into the Demon punching halfway through the creatures throat. And then sticks.
The terrible weight of failure blooms on silver eyes as the Knight meets an implacable cyclopean orb. The Knight's arms tremble as it attempts to force the blade further into the creature's flesh but just as before the blade stubbornly refuses to move. The Demon stands unperturbed by the currently impaled in its throat, its upper four colossal arms seizing the blade with an unshakable grip.
The Demon unbothered by the golden fire consuming its hands and throat slowly spreads its lower most arms out wide. Its maw splits in a perverted facsimile of a grin as it revels in the Knight's helplessness. Then like a master percussionist striking a drum, it slams them into the Knight's solar plexus.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Each blow lands with enough force to generate localised wind currents ripping unfortunate mortals from their feet as the Demon forces all its strength into every punch. Relentlessly the Demon continues its hammering as the Knight's armour begins to warp and bend under the pressure of the assault. Violet gore begins seeping between the cracks in the Knights armour as organs jellify turning into pulverised liquid which starts to leak out from the compromised body. The Knight sags, the damage done to its form unspeakable but still it refuses to yield. Roaring with pain and rage the Knight begins to force the blade, inch by agonized inch further into the Demon.
The two combatants stare hatred at each other as they enter a death frenzy both attempting to incapacitate their opponent before the other lands the death blow. The pair remained locked in their death match for a seeming eternity. The Knight utterly indomitable simply refuses to allow itself to fall. The sound of shattering bone and the pulverised sloshing of liquified flesh resound throughout the battlefield and yet either through herculean effort or sheer spite the Knight simply refuses to fall. It drives it colossal longsword through the Demon skewering it like a writhing fish, Salvation's golden flames incinerating more of the Demon's flesh with every passing second as the Demon's bones begin to blacken and char.
Neither side relents. They cannot. Too much is at stake for either side to even consider retreat. It is the unstoppable force against the immovable object. Two paragons of nature locked in endless combat, each perfectly matched against the other. Each indomitable. Each unshakable. But one of them must break. And one of them does.
The Knight breaks first.
Winded from another colossal blow, the Knight rocks backward barely able to stay on its feet. Exploiting the moment of weakness, the Demon roars and slams its horned head forward. Willingly impaling itself on the whole length of the blade the Demon crashes its colossal horned head directly into the Knight's exposed face. The Knight reels, its facial structure rearranged and bent inward as a blast wave of force levels the ground surrounding the two for a kilometre. The Demon clutches at the blade impaling itself and rips Salvation from its neck in an explosion of tar black gore. Screaming it hurls the blade over the horizon before seizing the stunned Knight with all six of its arms. Its arms and legs immobilised the Knight is lifted like a helpless child into the air.
Still struggling vainly tendrils of silver light gather in the Knight's hand and lash towards the Demon's eye. The Demon screeches in impotent pain and rage as it cyclopean eye smokes for a moment before it lashes out a hand in petulant fury and crushes the Knight's hand into a violet mush. The Knight screams in agony before the Demon sends it crashing face first into the ground its spine contorting into a C-shape under the impact of the blow.
Not sparing the Knight a second to recover the Demon seizes the Knight and lifts it into the air before sending it hurtling into the ground again. Once. Twice. Thrice. As the Demon slams the Knight into the ground a fifth time one its great wings rip outward in a spray of violet gore.
The Knight sags into a pile of violet mush and broken bones in a crater made by its own body. It's limbs are hopelessly broken, each broken appendage twisted at impossible angles, shuddering it lifts the mush that was once called a face out of the shattered ground leaving a fair volume of mutilated flesh behind it as it impossibly tries to claw itself to its feet. One broken hand reaches out and Salvation hurtles over the horizon racing towards the Knight's hand only to be intercepted by the Demon who drives the burning blade through the Knight's spine pinning the Knight to the ground. Who with all the respect the Demon can give it takes the blow with admirable determination, not making more than a pained grunt as its spine is severed.
The Demon presses hands to the gaping hole in its throat and staggers almost falling to its knees as it tries to endure the death blow it has been dealt as. It's form may have been a mockery of biology, but any being would suffer from having a several hundred-metre-long blade thrust through its throat. The Demon lets out wheezes breaths as it fails to stay upright falling to its knees its burnt and ruined hands desperately trying to seal the savage wound. Wheezing its eye widens as it watches the broken ruin of the Knight trying to pull Salvation from its spine. Utterly indomitable even as its body fails it the Knight reaches broken hands backwards and slowly tears the blade from its flesh. Even the Demon is taken aback by that monstrous display.
In response its foot lashes across the Knight's face breaking its jaw before it kicks Salvation out of the Knight's broken hand. Dark sigils appear around two of the Demon's hands and second later jet black spears race outward and impale each of the Knight's limbs pinning it to the ground chest down, like an insect on a dissection table.
The Knight even then still thrashes weakly but even if its spirit is unbreakable, its body is not. Standing the Demon spits a goblet of black blood that hisses as it smacks into the ground, raising all six of its arms it holds them in front of itself as though holding an invisible blade. The air bubbles and splits disgorging a sea of tar black fluid that hardens into the form of a monolithic lantern headed mace. The weapon is more than just abyssal coloured, its surface absorbs the very light itself making it look like black hole was shaped into a form comprehensible by mortals.
The weapon is colossal even by the titans standard, standing easily three quarters of the Demon's own immense height. even with its monstrous strength it takes all six of its great arms to hold the colossal weapon. The monolithic lantern headed mace head lights up with golden flames a twisted parody of the golden light of Salvation though these flames heralded something far worse than death. The flames twisted and spasmed as though they were alive taking on the forms of screaming faces contorted in agony recalling their final death throes before the weapon took their life.
The greatest and most perverted weapon ever forged even by the standards of the demonic. The blacksmiths of the monstrous weapon perhaps ashamed of the travesty they had brought into creation had left the weapon nameless. The things that had the misfortune of that weapon being pointed at them had named the weapon Death. For that was all it brought.
Standing perfectly still the Demon lifted its perverted parody of a weapon above its head, it stared at the ruined broken Knight that even know thrashed to escape its bindings. Burst eye sockets that once held silver orbs stared blind fury at where the Knight guessed the Demon to be, as it in yet another monstrous display tore one of its hand out of the spear impaling it to the ground. The appendage almost ripped in half by the motion flopped uselessly towards the haft of Salvation that remained just tantalisingly out of reach.
The Demon stared down into the broken, immobilised form of the Knight that thrashed pinned in front of it. It hesitated before bringing the mace down the weapon hanging awkwardly between the two like a friend interrupting a budding romance. The Demon stared into the ruined remains of the once proud Knight's face. Burst eye sockets met its gaze unflinchingly as its fingers caressed the edge of Salvation. The tableau held for several seconds as the world watched hope die. The Demon stared down into the face of the Knight, into the face of a being it once named friend.
The Knight seized the pommel of Salvation.
The mace fell with a roar that heralded the end of civilisation.
And that o reader mine is how my world died.