Icarus's blog: "Somantics"

"What was this feeling?
Sharp... and cold
warm around cold..."

The priest gently traced a pair of fingers over the steel protrusion growing from his chest, pulling back red tingling warmth.
He had just enough time... but not the strength, to praise his god once more before sleep.
He slid from the blade like a thin branch bending with the wind.

Leaves strewn about, severed from the branch, hacked from the limb, as Kei went through the God king's church chopping away, stripping the bark- until all that was left was the root.

Dyroneus had not even stirred from bed. Making prism and light dance overhead as he felt each of his faithful fall.

When he was certain all was still, he emerged from his chambers, and parted the great iron doors to the balcony overlooking his chapel. His crimson gilded robes flickering against the moonlight streaming from the hall's many windows and overhead. All temples to Dyroneus were built as solariums. However what was brilliant and dazzling in the light of day had a queer tinge of cynicism and revolsion in the night. The patterns and prisms cast ghastly colors and shadows by the tricks of a weary mind gone dull from unchecked slaughter.
The lambs were placed in front of him this night on purpose... like a screaming, bleeding shield to rattle his senses.

"Am I afraid of you sword master?" He said, twisting a shard of many colors mid-air with his peculiar gifts.
"Even at darkest hour- there is light in my house, there are devout suckling at my love- what can one man, with one sword possibly do against the infinite love of God?"
The prism under Dyroneus' puppetry began to splinter at the edges, multiply, and grow, to a faceted and beautiful snowflake now thrice its original size, and pointed in more surfaces than three men could count with all their fingers and toes.
A gently crinkling, and then silence as the object stopped dancing and was sent straight for Kei's exposed throat
with a flick of his wrist Kei deftly cut the shard in mid air
all common sense saying it should've shattered into a billion pieces as he braced for a shower of splinter and dust- but the prism remained in-tact, bouncing off the blade and lodging itself into the wall.
It was dense, it Kei's sword with enough force to rival an iron mace.
Without even a gesture of the hand or eyes, a segment of the imbedded prism broke away and went speeding toward Kei's spine
There wasn't time to deflect, block, or dodge
Kei opted for an alternative to paralysis-
"Hah! In two moves I've drawn first blood- isn't that traditionally a good indication of who will win a duel?"
Dyroneus turned from the balcony as Kei struggled against the sharp glass tearing through his left forearm, and pushing with some invisible force toward his eye. He held it with the pommel of his sword, but the missile gave no sign of waivering in strength or enthusiasm.
He had to calculate what the risk was of dropping his sword, and placing his good hand over the sharp point ripping through his useless left arm if it meant keeping the thing from piercing his skull.
He couldn't feel anything in his left hand... his sword swing would be at half strength now. Not to mention the loss of strength and sense of all the blood gushing to the floor.
Drop the sword while your enemy draws nearer?
Dyroneus stepped into the chapel, and as he did so, Kei flung his arm toward him, letting the prism rip through and rocket toward its master. The shard dug cleanly into the God king's shoulder, reeling him slightly, more shocked than pained.
Dyroneus was visibly perturbed.
"Fitting..." he said pulling a hand back covered in dark, thick blood- though Kei couldn't make out the actual color in this accursed light.
"What? That a charlatan monster can bleed?"
Dyroneus let out a dry, bemused chuckle as he dug the sharp missile from his shoulder.
"No, that I'd be the only one in this fight to draw either of our blood."
That light, gentle crinkling sound returned as it began to grow in the palm of his hand, layer upon layer, length upon length, one corner of a small edge had become a great, straight blade with a point finer than a needle- the length of a man's body.
Kei pondered how strong such a weapon could be... its just glass, a crude, brittle spike.
But that was the bloodloss talking. He shook the sleepy, defeated feeling from his head, and remembered
as Dyroneus whipped back and swung the blade down with a hideous strength and speed-
This blade was thicker than iron.
With a resonating crash, the prismatic-blade carved a great crevice into the floor.
Kei had scarcely managed to roll out of the way, had he tried to block that attack, he would've broken every bone in his arm, before his sword snapped and he was cut in half.

There was no defeating this monster...
No solution to facing a god...
All his speed, all his skill
boiled down to this unimaginable, improbable force before him.

Dyroneus stepped forward, pulling the prism blade from the ground and twisting his body to string an extra attack to the first, it caught Kei mid panic, mid flight, cleaving his left arm at the elbow, and knicking a deep gouge below his ribs.
A superficial bleed on top of the massive one.
...
but there was no running either.

Not with all this dancing about. Who had time for first aid? Even if he wouldn't bleed out, he'd leave an obvious, grisly trail for Dyroneus to follow at his leisure...

Dyroneus followed all the way through in his swing, completing a spin, and with that power and torque still in his attack, he lunged forward and transferred the motion into a slash that would catch Kei just right at the jugular... missing that it'd settle for cutting out his heart with raw power and speed.

Kei saw the swing. He felt the steps. He walked them a hundred times before he even reacted. From the very moment he was certain he was about to die...

He sheathed his sword, shut his eyes- and lunged forward- straight into the arc of the attack. Counting the steps, trusting the rhythm of a thousand victories and his own unreal speed,
Holding the sword close to his body, as his enemy's blade drew nearer.
It began to collide with his scabbord- he raised his arm out as the sheath disentegrated under the force of his enemy's attack. When Kei felt his back against Dyroneus' stomach he knew he had evaded the attack-
however
his spine and heart had already been pierced as he lay snug against the still body of the God king. Ended the very blade that had been his life. His partner. His strength... his heart all these years.
Dyroneus' own strength colliding with Kei's sword had driven the blade through both of them- frozen in its final gesture in Kei's still clenched fist.
Kei realized he had never named the sword that had ended his life.
After all
They were just two mongrels in a very bright and noisy world...

Dyroneus placed his hand firmly on the back of the swordsman's head and pulled the corpse and offending weapon from his body.
A noble effort.
But again, it was his strength redirected that had even pierced his body. ... The swordsman had concocted a brilliant plan in a split second.
Still holding the body by the top of the head, the living god studied the serene, peaceful look on Kei's face.
His eyes still open, faded and flat.
He flung the vessel aside like the contemptable refuse it was.
Dyroneus was correct in his assessment of the mongrel swordsman...
he was the only man fit to kill him.
If given the time to formulate a full plan, team, and years to acquire rumor and superstition... this fight would not have ended as it had.

He allowed the prism sword to crumble to a fine dust and lift back into the air- taking its place with the rest of the peculiar windows of many shapes and colors of the solarium.
Had Dyroneus wished, at any time during the fight, he could've rained down a hail of sharp and efficient death... or a thousand cuts more cruel.
but it was good to hurt.
Good to feel alive... he hadn't felt such vigor and mortality in centuries.

And with Kei gone, he feared he never would again...
He was both surprised and disappointed that his old friend hadn't recognized him... Dyroneus had practically bank rolled and honed the assassin's spirit and skill for this day. A soul-slashing job here, an agent there an impossible challenge there...
Without Kei's knowledge, Dyroneus had practically nursed the mongrel to the killing machine he was today.
But now he was certain his theory was correct... and with the unruly aging prototype purged, he could bend the formula to suit his needs.
The second generation was nearly ready as it was, all they needed was time, light, and love. Like any good seed...