Solstice was terrified at what he was looking at.
It was Rykel's true body, Rykel's real self.
Every part of Rykel was completely black, except his amber goat-like eyes. Rykel was about three meters tall, long black unkempt hair that reached down to his shoulders. Rykel was wearing a strange hat as well, it looked like a large straw hat that a farmer would wear, completely black as well with small black candles hanging upside down around it that were lit with red flames.
Rykel's clothes were also completely dark, he was wearing a sleeveless tunic made of dark wool that looked like it had been two separate pieces sewn together at the shoulders. He was also wearing pants that were cut short and folded inward just past his knees. Rykel's shoes were made of leather with laces that were wrapped around his ankles and lower calves.
For calling himself a lord, Rykel was wearing the clothes of peasants, quite contradictory.
Another feature, or if it could really be called one, was extra terrifying for everyone that was looking upon Rykel. There were quite a bit of long, dark metallic spikes, each about a meter in length, all stuck inside Rykel's body, which looked extremely painful. Strangely enough, Rykel seemed to enjoy the pain each spike caused him. Rykel pulled two spikes out from his body slowly, his dark blood flowing out from the wound they exited, and wielded the both of them in each hand, and even more blood seeped through his rotted yellow teeth as he held a wicked grin.
That's when Solstice realized that one of those spikes is what put a hole through his stomach.
A low deep laugh came from the depths of Rykel's body, together with his demonic figure, terrified the dying Solstice as well as the knights guarding the entrance.
"I'll enjoy some target practice until 'he' shows up".
Rykel took the spike he was holding in his left hand and stuck it into the ground, then slid his right leg back while lifting his right arm up into a throwers stance. Rykel's muscles drew taught as he gathered power starting from the base of his feet, up his calves and hamstrings, to his hips and eventually his upper body and arms as he began his throwing motion.
The spike soared strong and true, carrying the premonition of death itself, its speed so fast it looked like a black blur as it found its target, which had been the already injured flail knight. The superhuman showed some reaction before it would strike, but it was too late. It cut through the flail knight's abdomen like butter, completely exploding his body into two bloody halves. A delayed deafening thunderclap was heard a few seconds after as it spread throughout the surroundings. The frighteningly sharp spike of mysterious dark metal had already stopped its momentum finding some beautiful white stone to nestle itself in.
Solstice was thrown on his ass by the force applied from the shockwave. Solstice as well as the knights, stared wide eyed at the corpse of the strongest human among them, the one person who seemed nearly invincible. The explosion of sound even caused some of the knight soldiers to bleed from their ears, silence befell them as they couldn't believe what just happened.
'He broke the sound barrier, and Rykel did it so casually'.
The humans were all silent, like they were all in some sort of trance, or day dreaming, but they all snapped out of it shortly after.
"Ha! You all probably thought that someone of his caliber was strong, but you feeble peasants do not know true power".
Rykel grabbed the spike he stuck in the ground earlier with his left hand, and gave it a lackluster hip throw, or at least lackluster for someone like him, for the humans, the power was still devastating.
One of the knight soldiers that had caught the Lady's body, found himself as the next victim, the upper half of his head completely blown off. The knight soldier's body crumpled down as it no longer carried any strength.
"That's two. I wonder how many of you will die before 'he' shows up".
"That will be all, you will claim no one else."
It was a new voice, one that sounded very regal and posh.
"Ughhh"
Rykel grunted as he absorbed a powerful impact to his side, creating an equally powerful shockwave and thunderclap as before, flinging him across the ground like a skipping stone, eventually spinning himself midair to plant himself on the ground and stand himself upright. Oddly enough, his straw hat was not thrown off, as if it was glued to his ugly head.
Rykel showed his rotted yellow teeth as more black blood seeped through the crevices.
"You've arrived, my old acquaintance! It was not wise to hit me with a non-lethal blow, as you know, I thrive off the pain!"
"I can't be bothered to get too much of your filthy blood on me, I'd rather burn you to a crisp you disgusting vile fiend"
The man speaking was a dragon's descendant just like Lady Eryn, but was most likely not from the same bloodline, nevertheless, a relative to her.
He was just as tall as Rykel, standing at 3 meters, the both of them managing to be taller than Solstice's Drifter body which was already very tall. He had very clean, curly blonde hair that rested just past his shoulders, deep red eyes that seemed to hold immense wisdom within them, and two fearful black horns that pointed forward, which sprouted from the top of his head.
The Dragon's descendant donned a lavish velvety fur coat, a white sleeved tunic made of fine linen, breeches and a necklace holding a priceless large red ruby. The Dragon's descendant took off his lavish coat and threw it to the side while he took two steps towards Solstice and stood over him.
"Lie down"
Solstice complained and fell onto his back, it was extremely hard for him to breathe, his intestines were hanging out of his abdomen and he was losing blood fast. If not for his Drifter's body enhanced stamina and endurance, he would've already yielded to the pull of oblivion.
The Dragon's descendant took his hand that was covered in crimson scales, and clawed the other's palm, letting his blood fall on Solstice's skin around the hole in his stomach. The Dragon's descendant's blood was seemingly alive and quite vigorous, it swiftly sunk into Solstice's skin and began to hyper-regenerate his abdomen. Solstice's organs began to regrow, his muscle tissue, his skin, spine, everything continued to regrow magically, almost like the wound had been reversed in time.
"Why?"
"You're the only one harmed yet not succumbed to death, you won't be of any help to me in this battle so I'm only doing this on a whim".
'Gods! I'm one useless bastard in everyone's eyes. But I'm the lucky fellow that claims the handouts from all of these powerful people! Whether they be enemy or ally! It really is unbelievable, it is like I was not meant to die in this Chain Trial at all! Despite its best attempts at imitating hell.'
The hole in Solstice's abdomen completely healed, the Dragon's blood worked even way better than expected, his body's scars disappeared and he looked less emaciated, his hunger subsided, his skin felt moisturized and saturated as well. Solstice did not waste this perfect opportunity and sprinted straight towards the Bright Castle for protection, away from what was going to become a battlefield for people who wielded true power.
'This guy might actually be stronger than Rykel….he's the real monster.'
"Being pretentious will not save you from your fear".
"If you're trying to convince me to be afraid of you, it's not working".
The Dragon's descendant and Rykel both stood upright, glaring into each other's eyes unmoving, until they both declared something at the same time.
"For my name is Rykel, as I'm the Marquis of Fear, now I force my rules unto those who wish to come upon me, now unto them is My definition of Fear, be ready to face death".
"For my name is Agar, as I'm the Marquis of Power, now I force my rules unto those who wish to come upon me, now unto them is My definition of Power, be ready to face death".
An invisible wave expanded from both Rykel and Agar, throughout the world. Solstice instinctively felt as if there had been things that weren't supposed to change, had changed.
'This is a fight someone of my strength is not supposed to witness…'
Solstice had managed to make it behind the formidable gate of the Bright Castle, but he was too curious to not watch something of this spectacle so he sped his way to the battlement. Some of the knight soldiers were too distraught to even give Solstice any attention, so he simply ignored them and went on, while the majority of frightened people ran towards the inner keep to seek shelter. He was now second guessing his decision to watch. There were things not meant to be seen, especially if the person seeing it was too weak to bear it mentally.
'This cannot be real.'
Agar had sprouted wings from his back, weaving in and out in the air as Rykel was throwing the eerie black spikes at the demi-dragon, each thrown with the force and speed to far surpass the sound barrier. Countless thunderclaps were falling upon Solstice and the knights, who were closer to regular humans than superhumans, making them feel disoriented.
The demi-dragon, Agar continued to dodge the deadly black spikes and dove from the sky with astonishing speed, with his crimson clawed hands ready to tear Rykel apart, but Rykel was easily as slippery. Every time that Agar had missed, his clawed fist struck the ground, completely shattering it, creating various sized craters, some of them being as large as 30 meters in diameter.
'What in the hell are those….'
In the craters that Agar had created, black ooze ascended through each crevice, assembling into a devilish creature so dark, light seemed to be absorbed by it, its form seemingly not certain at what it wanted to be. Some of them were extremely tall and skinny, while being humanoid, some of them looked like a small wave of pure darkness that began to fly and chase Agar in the skies, some of them looked like a swarm of black locusts which their hunger could devour anything.
Solstice noticed that Agar had a frown on his face, but it quickly dissolved as the demi-dragon stopped and became stationary in the air, his crimson scales began to glow and so did his horns. Agar seemed to struggle a while, he started to bend forward a little bit, then the look in his eyes changed as he straightened and looked upward releasing a primal roar. A flame as large as a small sea exploded out of Agar's body, incinerating the dark devils that had chased him the skies, the fire then began to descend towards Rykel on the ground like the wave of a tsunami.
The heat from the sea of fire could easily be felt by everyone in the Bright Castle, some of the wooden buildings even began catching aflame. Luckily for Solstice, the demi-dragon's blood his body absorbed earlier seemed to be providing him some resistance against the insane heat.
However, the remaining mundane people that did not enter the keep for safety weren't blessed as such…..
The heat intensified, and with it came many a casualty.
Anyone who wasn't inside the keep began to burn, then they began to melt, the knights in their metal armor began to cook alive in the incandescent metal, while the average workers in their linen or cloth clothing just simply melted away. Fortunately and unfortunately, the people died fast due to the shock, only some of them having to suffer a terrible death.
'He's killing his own people that madman!'
The heat became so intense that Solstice's added resistance began to falter, the sweat on his body began to turn into steam, his clothes had already burned away and his hair caught ablaze.
A familiar uncomfortably painful feeling came back to Solstice, one that even though was barely bearable, promised him that he had made it.
Solstice's mind fell out of his Drifter's body as it collapsed and he once more was pulled downward into an endless void.
As handheld as it was, nevertheless he still had survived his Chain Trial, he was now returning to his real body.
Back to Earth, his home realm.
'Safe…'
Solstice felt his mind settle back into a body he was more than familiar with.