'We can't change ourselves overnight, no matter how hard we try, but someone can change our entire world with no more than a few words. That is how insignificant we all are.'
- immortal of the forgotten era
Vanat stood still, steam rising from his body as ge breathed slowly, watching the cell's door.
It is said that in ancient times a woman, who had mastered an ability to enanche attacks, could shatter space itself and still she is barely remembered by the tales, funny thing to think about in a moment like that for Vanat.
Using 'aura' he concentrated all his mana in a single hand, positioning himself right in front of the door he punched it.
No thing that you could even project with science would have been as effective.
The door flew away to the other side of Tartarus while Vanat held on his broken arm, it was so strong to crack the nearby wall and make the bars fall, they were still fine tough.
Mei slowly walked toward Vanat with unease, her lips were smiling with bitterness.
"What's wrong?" Vanat asked.
"Nothing, how do we get out of here now?" She said.
"We push trough to the gate, then we crack it open with the security devices" vanat responded.
Mei nodded, looking at her she must have not been in a very different from Vanat.
Mei wore a really, and i mean really, provocative outfit, still perfectly fitted for combat, that highlighted her beauty and gorgeous body to the extremis.
"I... I have a grudge against Phaal... If i can't do it could you kill him for me?" Mei said embarassed.
"I too, have no reason to spare the little **** headed lord of blobs" Vanat announced.
"Thanks" Mei said as she began to walk to the next floor.
The hard floor was made crimson stone, or bloody stone, from the vampire's castles of the past while the railing and most doors were done with dark steel like the cells.
It was after three steps that Vanat stepped on a trap for the first time: dark bolts flew toward him casted by flying creature happeared a few meters above.
Picking a small rock Vanat aimed at the flying sphere above him, it reminded a bat of sort, and trew it as fast as he could.
The stone bullet hit, the target fell.
Vanat smiled while watching his very own success, first in a long time.
Turning around he then looked at Mei, she was smiling at him, standing a few meters away from him, she had walked further and triggered no traps.
"Good shot." Mei said.
"Thanks, how come they didn't give you a try too?" Vanat asked.
"Who knows..." Mei said.
"You know, you remind me of my... daughter..." Vanat said with a bittersweet taste in his mouth.
"Oh... Is that so? She must have been a good daughter." Mei said.
"Yeah, she was." Vanat responded.
Vanat took a step further ahead and continued to climb over to the seventh level of Tartarus.
There were more cells there along with golems who were swarming in from the upper floors.
Vanat held on his broken arm, still not saying anything about it, and prepared to fight them.
Ten humanoid golems and a bigger one stood in his way.
The humanoid golems surrounded Vanat and began to close in while the bigger one watched from afar.
Vanat charged at one of the golems who were perfectly human-shaped punching his core on the chest and trying to meddle with his mana, in the end he found himself a few meters toward failing to do anything more.
Now he was before the bigger one.
"No!" Mei screamed as the golem landed a solid hit on Vanat sending him toward the others.
It was almost a strike, tough it was painful now only a couple of golems were left to deal with.
The bigger golem advanced with his mechanical body as dark as the steel of wich he was made of.
The pulsing core of the golem was protected by dark steel thick bars and the arms were long five meters each.
Vanat was not eager to fight it given the odds but ge still got up with a fierce look in his eyes.
The golems charged at Vanat recklessly as he jumped on the smaller one dodging a blow from the bigger to land on his core and hit it with strenght.
His hand hurted more than it ever had.
Getting up fast Vanat proceeded to the next floor.
On the sixth floor more traps awaited him: he was nearly impaled by dark steel spikes, burned by hot pitch, melted by multiple acids, shooted with magic or stone-wood arrows or crushed by falling barriers at every step.
He barely survived that only to find himself in a pitch black floor at the fifth floor, where magic keeped everything obscured and dark.
He walked for so much that he could barely remember why he was doing so.
Finally at the fourth floor he could stop yo rest.
The fourth was a quiet floor, yet one of the harder to climp.
Vanat watched Mei, she was unscratched.
"Follow me, don't do anything rash and be careful not to slip." Vanat said.
"I will." She responded.
At the fourth floor there were no direct passage to the other floors but instead a combination of stairs, flying platforms and portals that ran trough the walls in a confused pattern, a labyrinth on three dimensions.
Vanat slowly walked trough the path that he, as a hero of the former ruling country, knew.
First he gone up, took a portal, a platform to the other side, he gone down and took another portal then gone down again and took one last portal.
It was a rather hard task since a portal that leaded to another didn't mean that the other portal could bring you back to the former.
Now Vanat stood at the center of a square room with three portal, each in a corner.
Vanat looked around him knowing that he could guess the right portal with the empty corner being the down-left one.
At the upper left corner the portal brought to the fifth floor, at the upper right the portal brought the trepasser to the third floor and the lower-right corner had the portal leading to the heavy guarded armory.
A difficult choice it was, still Vanat decided to go up.
The third floor was rather shabby, barely guarded by golems it was an easy tak for Vanat to walk trough it.
"You know most elites would struggle to even see one of the slowest golems here attack, right? How can you make such a short work of them?." Mei asked.
"Becouse they are not as strong asthe difficulties i faced before." Vanat responded.
"Like? The demon king? Then why is this place so infamous? I tough it could held the demon king imprisoned if someone could capture him alive." Mei criticized.
"This place can. The ninth floor can hold even the strongest demon king." Vanat announced.
"Then why is there another one?" Mai asked.
"The last floor... It has only one cell. It is already full at the moment." Vanat responded.
"Wait, what? Who is that strong to need such a level of security." Mei said not believing it.
"A being... A being who knows how to defy death, too dangerous to be let free i suppose." Vanat reasoned.
Silence fell while a chill ran down both their spines at the mere tough of it.
At last Vanat stepped on the stairs with firmness.
Reaching the second floor an unexpected face greeted them.
To introduce him, i will report this words:
'Wearing a dark armor he settle with his horse, dark as the night. He has red eyes and his body knows no fatigue. His enemies know no pity because he hunt them day and night if his lord permit him to. His sword is long almost as a great sword and cuts anything it meets while his dark shield protect him from any damage.
This is the black knight.'
-bestiary of the demonic ones.
The black knight stood right before the stairs to the first floor with his eyes set on Vanat.
"Why are you here? Does the demon king want to declare war?" Vanat asked.
"I follow only the orders of Ki'in'shar not those of the current demon king." It responded.
"Is that so?" Vanat said preparing to fight.
The black knight jumped at Vanat trying to slash him only to find himself barely standing after parring Vanat's punch.
"It seems that you have gotten even stronger than last time." The black knight wishpered to himself while Vanat charged at him again.
Dropping sword and shield he then took on Vanat's charge taking the bull by his neck.
But Vanat's charge was strong and the black knight could not help but be sent flying back while Vanat was coughing due to the black knight's hit to his neck.
They gone at it a few more times, Vanat's charges were as unstoppable as the first even after hours while the black knight got more exausted every clash.
Exactly five hours, fourty-two minutes and three seconds after the first charge Vanat stood glorious upon the exausted black knight.
That was no easy feat, sure a demon king was stronger but the black knight hardly found someone who could rival him in his whole time under the last demon king.
Vanat stepped up the ladder, watching back only for a slight moment, and rised to the next floor with a grim look in his eyes.
[Ability: 'vengeful possession'
After the wielder's death manifest itself as a blessing upon someone who holds a grudge against the killer, if any, enanching his rage against him, making him stir clear of any of his problems with alcohol, lust, gambling and the like and allowing the blessed to see an echo of the spirit (that may not resemble the former wielder of the ability). This ability can stay latent for months before manifesting itself.]
To the next epiode 'The gatekeeper of Tartarus'.