before we begin, I'd like to say that chapters -from this point forward- will most likely be monthly, with the occasional 2 chapters a month. during the summer these numbers should go up quite a bit more.
now then, enjoy! (yes I wont put anymore of these in the beginning)
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Through his dreamless slumber, the sun rose sleepily, once again. Hazy pinks and oranges sporadically pierced through the dark skies above, pointing to the dual of moons deep in the opposite direction. The light brown sands, which covered the graveyard of a desert, grew lighter in color with the sunlight piercing through the thinning clouds. Against the plateau wall, the knight of unknown origin slept quietly. And on the third day of his freedom, he woke up with a renewed sense of purpose. Blinking away the sleep, he studied the dunes around him. The corpses of both man and animal were seen throughout the lands. There were so many bones in his line of sight that he couldn't even count the numerous amounts of them in his lethargic state. However one did stand out in his bleary vision: A large skull lay plainly on its side. A single horn protruded from the side of its skull, while its jaw was nowhere to be found. Connected to the skull was a spine that was broken off halfway down the enormous rib cage. His eyes retreated to himself, searching for his sword which was once at his hip. It was not at his hip, but it was just a few feet away from him, lying on what looked to be the remains of a person's leg, which was crushed to bits by the sword's dramatic introduction to the sandy dunes.
Pushing himself up with the help of the jagged stone he placed himself against, the knight walked carefully to his weapon. Steadily, he bent over to collect his objective and quickly slung it back into its place at his hip. He once again peered at his surroundings and came to a single conclusion: something or someone was watching him. He knew nothing more, so he tightened his guard, placed his hand on the sword's hilt at his waist, and began trekking through the quickly hottening desert.
Various weapons were laid over skeletal hands, or stood tall, piercing the dunes in random directions. The once dazzling and glistening armor now laid shabby, large holes were plastered abundantly across what seemed to be thousands of metal suits. Covering the other humanoid corpses were the tattered remnants of many different articles of clothing from an even larger number of backgrounds. With the crunch of sand beneath his heavy foot, he made his way to one particular article of clothing that had caught his attention in the distance. He made his way over to it at a sedate pace, as he was in no rush, the sun wasn't even present yet, with it still being behind the plateau he had ventured over the previous day. Though he tried to watch his step, the occasional snap or crunch resonated in the air, and with a low, breathy sigh, he continued his attempts to avoid desecrating the graves of all lost; failing miserably, he ultimately decided to walk as if he wasn't impeded at all. Countless animal bodies were seen across the dunes. Many of them were unknown to him, some of them were battle animals, evident in the large plated armor covering a ribcage that only had half of it exposed to the world around it. Analyzing further out, he spotted the skeletal remains of the giant not too far away from where he was and the way he was walking in the same direction as the giant's resting place. Still, he kept at his objective, then would investigate further into the giant afterward.
The knight however was quickly distracted by a single skeleton that puzzled him greatly: It was a sea creature of all things, its jaw was banana-shaped, and thin long barbels were placed on each side of its mouth. Thin spikes stood out from the crown of its head and down its spine. Curiously enough, a single wound could be seen in the skull of the large sea creature. A puncture through the top of the skull. You could almost see the question mark above his head. Squatting down to the floor —which was followed quickly by the squeaks and squeals of his worn armor— his gloved hand raked over the rough skull and then traced the wound on the top of its head, slowly and carefully. He paused momentarily, With a sudden jerk of his hand, he removed the top of the skull from the lower jaw and the spine and brought it to eye level after standing back up straight. He held the skull part with one hand, while he reached for his weapon with the other. Once removed from the sheath, it gleamed dangerously in the morning light show above, and with a single swift motion, it slid into the aperture with ease, and it fit like a glove. He sheathed his sword thereafter and dropped the skull back into the sand, but not without heavy confusion. This was the creature he had killed three days prior, how did it decompose so fast; along with that question, an even bigger problem consumed his mind: How did these remains get into this desert, hundreds of miles away from where he had been residing for so long? Though he could ask questions forever, he quickly moved his attention back to the object that had caught his attention previously to avoid the headache encroaching on him if he thought about it any harder. However, he didn't seem to notice the skull piece he dropped to the floor sink into the sand, followed shortly after by the rest of the visible skeletal remains. He was already well into his trek past the remains when the skeleton of the Guardian sank into the dunes, which was well out of his mind as he focused completely on his next destination.
By the time he had reached his far-off target, the sun was starting to peak over the stone wall he fell off of the previous night. What he was currently standing before was one of his fellow royal guards impaled by his weapon, an intricate spear with a now shabby wooden handle. The royal red armor which was similar to his own was hidden behind many shades of brown, like everything with gaping holes throughout the suit of metal. Draped over his body was a maroon cloak that waved to him slightly in recognition through the light winds. He wasn't sure how Carter's remains had found their way here, as he was the one to end the traitor; this wasn't where he had used his seniors' weapon to kill him. If only he hadn't turned his back on them, he may have been a tide changer in the fight that destroyed them all. Although he was completely sure that this was his old comrade, He still surveyed the skull for one specific injury and wasn't surprised to see a long gash placed where his forehead would've been. Another wound that was his fault, but this time, it wasn't while they were in mortal combat against each other. The whistling of the wind pulled him out of his deep concentration as he pulled the spear out of the ground, allowing the corpse to fall to the ground. He flipped it upside down and stared blankly at the blade of the long weapon.
The blade was long, easily as long as his forearm with small serrations placed on the edges. During its heyday, this weapon had gold lining going down the blade, through the long wooden handle and met together at the tip of the rear edge. The spear he held now was but a shell of itself compared to the elegance it once held in the heat of battle, as well as the masterful use of it by its wielder made it quite the sight. That was back when he still had his oversized double-edged blade; a very long time ago. He then banished the spear back to the floor and grabbed hold of Carter's body roughly, scanning the cloak that was flowing in the wind around him. He removed it cleanly from the decayed body before it was unceremoniously dropped to the sand, causing a small cloud to form around the bag of crumbling bones. He sashed the cloak around his large frame and prepared to search for the next target of his curiosity.
His thoughts however were halted when he heard a boom, followed quickly by a geyser of sand stemming from behind him; in an instant, he pivoted and harshly removed the sword from its maroon sheath and readied himself. From the geyser, a plume of sand erupted, slightly above his height, from that plume was the reanimated skull of the guardian he had killed followed quickly by the rest of its skeleton while it continued to fly closer and closer to him. Its jaw was hung open, ready to kill the knight once it was in range to close its jaws at full force. However, when it got in range, it wasn't fast enough for the knight, as its head was quickly split down the middle, which led to the rest of the body falling to the ground with a low thump and a plume of sand.
Even though he had dealt with the enemy quickly, It was followed by swings from the remains of many others surrounding him. Knights of all different eras returned to their posts, enemies, allies, good and bad people all united for one thing, to end his life. His brow furrowed behind the darkness of his large single-eye hole. Though he dodged the lazy swings with ease, that didn't stop him from staying on edge. Glancing at the deceased traitor's current resting place, he was not happy when noticing the body and the spear missing. Returning his attention to the group of undead surrounding him, he could not see the lengthy instrument of death or its wielder. He swore silently while blocking a stray slash from some type of katana. He took several steps back when he noticed a large creature with curved and pointed bones exiting its skull forming at a quick rate in the nearby background. Its skeleton was being pulled together like a magnet, stray bones from deep in the dunes exploded out and placed themselves directly in place. It wasn't long before the undead's remains finished rebuilding itself and started its charge toward the only one alive in the crowd.
He scattered like the wind, plowing through various soulless creatures without care, similar to that of the remains of the one that was chasing after him. Though it didn't take much time for the charging beast to catch up to him; its skull crashed into his armor, sending the knight into the air for a short distance and then crashing down back into the earth beneath him. Recovering quickly, he got back to his feet and stared down the enraged reanimated creature. They both charged at each other, Sword poised to slice his opponent's skull in half and did just that. With a wide swing, he cut through the left tusk first, then it traveled directly through the skull. The rest of its body fell apart swiftly, crashing into the ground loudly, causing a large smokescreen to erupt, clouding his vision greatly. He moved out of the dustcloud with haste, not having any time to rest which was seen in him immediately blocking a strike from a sword after leaving said obstruction of his view, with his forearm, then pulling it out of the grasp of the living dead. Bringing his arm back, he launched the weapon like a boomerang, watching the corroding weapon land directly in the skull of a random skeleton.
The warrior evaded what felt like an infinite amount of strikes from the crowd while on the run from them, but the farther he ran, the more skeletons seemed to reform from beyond the ground. Although he ran over most of them with his larger frame, he was forced to stop when a giant construct was forming right in front of him. Two long hind legs, with Two large and strongly built arms with large claws pointed outward giving quite the menacing look, and large wings, connected a horned carnivorous-looking skull with cone-shaped teeth lining its exposed mouth. The body of a fire dragon was currently rebuilding itself. He dashed toward the exposed skull, not wanting this one to finish forming, but was unfortunately too late as the dragon flapped its bony wings stirring the sand slightly, and took off into the sky for the first time in a very long time. His eyes followed the creature who was currently circling the nearby desert skies diligently surveying his every move.
In all the chaos, he failed to notice the small fish pop up out of the sand until they latched onto his gloved fingers; he glared behind the darkness of his helmet at the group of four savages on three of the five fingers on his right hand. He continued his run with them still gnawing on his glove which was solved promptly by him putting his sword back at his hip for a moment, grabbing the pests by the fins, and throwing them towards a small horde of reanimated enemies who were charging towards him at a blinding speeds. The fish did hit their targets, crushing and passing through many skulls, leaving the bones of the different species of undead creatures to create a sort of barrier between himself and the rest of them.
He didn't pause his run, instead, he unsheathed his sword once again, ready to fight off the endless hoard once again. However, he was abruptly stopped by a spear flying from his right side directly in front of him. It was plunged deep into a large, vibrant green cactus after finishing its long arc through the dry air. In front of the knight was a single enemy, while the one identified earlier as Carter limped at a quick rate to the spear, preparing for battle. The enemy opposed to him was heavily obscured, wearing a cloak that reflected the deep blackness of the night sky, wearing a contrasting stark white porcelain mask with a faint blue symbol painted across it. The symbol held multiple strokes from what he believed to be a calligraphy brush. Though it was hard to make out, the right side of the sign looked faintly like the lowercase letter k but the bottom half of the line was longer than the top half, he could not tell much outside of that. As Carter joined the covered assailant he readied his weapon and prepared for battle.
Through the helmet a small grin could be seen, with a single thought blaring in his mind: 'This is going to be fun.'