Northern and his clone lunged at the castle lord simultaneously, Northern’s onyx blade tracing a crude arc while his clone’s silver sword followed the same pattern but in opposite directions.
The castle lord parried intensely, diverting his hands in all directions as Northern and his clone moved around it.
Night Terror joined the fight too: shooting forward with its jaws gaping wide as it sought to engulf Koll in a tidal wave of void flames.
“Thinking you can overpower me with numbers is nothing but wishful thinking!” The castle lord snarled.
He swung his hands, releasing a pulse of red essence that repelled both the clone and the beast, buying him precious moments to regain his footing.
The battle continued, the combatants trading blow for blow in a fever pitch of violence that threatened to tear the very castle asunder.
Northern’s clone fought with the fury of a cornered animal, his blade leaving behind trails of silver lines as he unleashed a relentless barrage of strikes.
Koll deftly parried and countered, his claws a whirlwind of motion that danced perilously close to the clone’s flesh.
Despite the injuries that spread across its body, Night Terror punctuated the clash with earth-shattering roars, its void flames searing the air and bathing the chamber in an eerie, nefarious glow.
The stalwart monster’s claws rent deep gouges in the stone with every swing, its sheer size and strength a force to be reckoned with.
Northern feinted and struck, his blade a blur of black that sought any chink in the castle lord’s defenses.
Yet, for every blow they landed, Koll seemed to shrug it off, countering with strikes of his own that pushed the three of them to the brink of their limits.
The monster paused as he watched them struggle to land a hit on him. All three had retreated and where standing surrounding him.
A smirk contorted his pallid face.
“This I find amusing. What did you say about purging me?” He giggled eerily, “You will purge me? You insignificant being siding with a vicious and power drunk king, and with a fake entity.”
He laughed villainously for a couple of seconds.
“This is by far the weirdest cohort I have ever encountered in my life!”
Northern frowned as the monster laughed again.
‘Insignificant being… I guess that’s me. Fake entity… that’s my clone… vicious and power drunk king…’ his eyes slowly shifted to Night Terror who was standing with a feral composure, about to dive in.
‘Night Terror? Impossible.’
Before now, all the clue that Northern had gathered to prove that Koll the castle lord is the king that filled his kingdom with blood for the sake of power.
He was sure.
But at the same time, something was not right.
The way Koll spoke, the things he said and what he addresses himself to be—Follower of the Origin of Blood.
Northern’s instincts felt like Koll just wasn’t the one.
However, there was no better explanation.
‘I thought I was just overthinking it…’
But everything changes if Koll is referring to Night Terror has the power drunk king.
Then it would come to make a lot of sense as to why the stalwart creature was so different from the rest.
And why it seemed to hate the castle lord so much even though it should be a monster subjected to the hierarchy regardless of its defiant nature.
‘Night Terror of course could not bow to the hierarchy because Koll was never a part of that hierarchy. If Night Terror really is the mad king that sacrificed his kingdom all for power then it would mean he is supposed to be the one at the top of the hierarchy. However… Koll’s presence changed all that.’
Who then is Koll? And what was he doing here?
As more walls of questions were broken through even more formidable ones seem to arise. Northern was so confused.
‘Night Terror is the deranged king?’
He had been living with the cause of his problem all this while.
‘Wait, let’s not rush this and make the same mistake again. I think I should calm down… and play with this bastard again’
Northern straightened his back and placed his sword over his shoulder wetting dry expression with a smug grin.
The castle lord frown deeply in response. Seeing such confident grin on Northern’s face despite the insignificant human losing fill him with so much rage.
Northern knew it would. He needed him to lose his composure after all.
“You sacrificed your people, because of your deed the land became a place of horror and bloodshed, you made them into savage monsters and turned them into instruments driven mad by the hunger for blood…”
Koll frowning, suddenly interrupted Northern.
“I will have to stop you right there? What nonsense do you speak?”
‘Ah, I’m so lucky this bastard has mouth and can speak. This would have been so hard. Gosh, it’s so easy to fool him’
Northern retorted with a stern glare.
“This kingdom, this destruction, the madness that fills this realm…”
“While all this is my deed… it was only asked by the people of this land. I was just on my own when they began to offer so much blood to bring down the greatest quiddity of power.”
He looked at Night Terror and continued:
“However, the bloodshed they wrought filled me with so much vigor and gave me the opportunity to break two parts of myself free from the shackles.”
“Oh, so the kingdom brought you here?”
“Something like that…” Koll replied disinterestingly.
‘He’s amazingly honest for an advocate of chaos.’
Koll had mentioned that he divided himself into two… which was baffling but Northern suddenly connected it to something he saw.
That was none other than the fire in the cave that he came across twice.
If it was a monster of this level of of intelligence then perhaps Koll was indeed telling the truth. He did split himself into two thanks to the bloodshed.
‘The bloodshed filled him with power. Does that mean there is more to him than being a monster?’
Northern was slowly beginning to understand why Koll since the beginning as been referring himself to be a follower of the blood tyrant, the Origin of Blood.
Whatever this Origin was, Northern suspected it was a being with Supreme power over blood. But not just blood, also rage, honor, strength and hate.
There was something linking through all of them. Northern however couldn’t put it together just yet.
He wasn’t even in a place to do so.
Northern breathed and said, raising a corner of his lips.
“Telling me all this information… aren’t you worried?”
Koll raised his chin with a vile laughter, then as it receded, he replied:
“Worried? Whether I tell you or I do not tell you, it changes nothing. I will do what I plan to do.”
Northern grinned.
And that there… was the last piece of the puzzle.