Mordred was inside his own head.
The darkness stretched in every direction infinite, absolute, empty. There was no ground beneath his feet, no sky above his head, no boundaries to contain him. He existed in a void of his own making, a prison of his own design.
And yet, he felt something.
What's this? The thought echoed in the void, bouncing off nothing, returning to him like a whisper. I feel... somehow...
He tried to describe it. Tried to name it. But the words would not come.
I feel like I'm eating myself.
The realization was strange alien, uncomfortable, disturbing. He could feel his own consciousness consuming itself, digesting itself, turning inward until there was nothing left but the core of who he was.
All I can feel is myself.
He looked down at his hands his mental hands, his imagined hands and saw nothing. No flesh. No bone. No form.
All I know is myself.
He looked around at the darkness at the absence of everything he had ever known and felt something he had not felt in a long time.
Alone.
For the first time, Mordred felt alone within himself.
He laughed.
The sound echoed through the void sharp, brittle, genuine. There was no one to hear it. No one to judge it. Just him, and the darkness, and the laughter that filled both.
"So this," he said, his voice carrying through the nothing, "is what enlightenment feels like."
He spread his arms.
"Ironic, isn't it? To reach the peak of understanding... and find nothing."
He closed his eyes his mental eyes, his imagined eyes and felt the void press against him. Not threatening. Not hostile. Just... present.
As Mordred stayed within himself, he felt a resonance in his soul.
It was subtle at first a hum, a vibration, a whisper of something deeper than thought. Then it grew stronger, clearer, more insistent until it filled the darkness with a light that was not light.
Perhaps, he thought, it is an accumulation of all I have ever been. Every battle. Every kill. Every moment of joy and rage and sorrow.
He let the resonance wash over him.
All of it. He smiled. Coming home.
The zone.
He had heard of it, of course. What warrior had not? The state of enlightenment that only the greatest could reach. A place beyond thought, beyond instinct, beyond the limits of the human mind.
A state that not all great warriors can reach.
He thought about the stories the legends, the myths, the whispers passed down from generation to generation.
To reach this level does not take anything like training. Rather... it falls on luck. And talent.
He opened his eyes.
There are those who can easily access it.
He thought of his father of the angel who walked toward him even now, his hair blazing, his sword burning.
And then there are those who access it on the verge of death. When everything is about to end.
He thought of the knights he had killed the ones who had fought to their last breath, who had found something in their final moments that had eluded them their entire lives.
But for me...
He smiled.
...it was not any of the above.
Of course, he thought, if it were, then there wouldn't be anything special about me.
He let the thought settle.
Mordred is a genius.
It was not arrogance. Not pride. It was simply the truth a fact he had accepted long ago, a burden he had carried since childhood.
I have always heard of the zone. He looked at the darkness at the nothing that surrounded him. And now...
He spread his arms.
...I have access to it.
He laughed again within himself, within the void, within the core of his being.
"So this is the zone."
He looked at his hands still invisible, still formless and felt a strange sense of disappointment.
"Truthfully, I have nothing I can gain from it." His voice was quiet, almost philosophical. "For reaching the path of enlightenment is reaching the path of stagnation."
He thought of water of rivers, of streams, of the ocean that covered the world.
"Like stagnant water that is unable to flow." He shook his head. "What do you want to find deep within yourself? You are yourself. There is nothing more."
He paused.
"I see it as weakness. Not to come at that early stage of your life." His voice hardened. "To need to retreat into yourself to find answers... that is not strength."
He sighed.
"But I accept it." His shoulders relaxed. "There is something that I need. Within here."
His eyes his mental eyes narrowed.
"Another level of perception."
He reached out not with his hands, not with his body, but with something deeper. Something that had always been there, waiting, patient.
"Even in trash," he said quietly, "one can find something that is extremely precious."
His fingers touched something.
"The divine sense."
He smiled.
"Something that doesn't need the body for it to work."
He collapsed within himself.
The darkness folded inward, downward, inward again until there was nothing left but a single point of awareness. A spark. A seed.
And then he unlocked it.
The world rushed back.
Not through his eyes his eyes were still blind, still closed, still cut off from the senses that had been poisoned. Not through his ears, his nose, his skin. Through something else.
The divine sense.
He could see the battlefield the sand, the bodies, the grey sky. He could hear the clash of distant steel, the cries of dying men, the whisper of the wind. He could feel the weight of his armor, the grip of his sword, the blood that still dripped from his wounds.
Without his body.
Without his senses.
Without anything that should have made it possible.
He stood in the zone detached from the world, yet aware of it. Present, yet absent. Alive, yet beyond.
Gareth saw what he was doing.
The devil's eyes sharp, calculating, ancient tracked every shift in Mordred's posture, every flicker of his expression, every breath that passed through his still lips.
He's doing something, Gareth thought, his hand tightening on the broken blade. Something dangerous.
The intention rose in him to attack, to kill, to end this before it could go any further. His muscles coiled. His feet shifted. His blade rose.
Then he looked to his side.
Far from him across the battlefield, across the bodies, across the carnage the king was about to arrive.
Arthur.
His hair blazed like a sun. His sword burned like a star. He walked toward them slow, measured, inevitable.
Gareth sighed.
The tension drained from his shoulders. The blade lowered. The intention faded.
"Perhaps..." His voice was quiet. "...this is not my battle."
He looked at Mordred at the nephew he had once loved, at the monster he had helped create.
"No." He shook his head. "It is my battle. But I am not the one who shall fight it."
He looked at the approaching king.
"A battle of Camelot is a battle of the king." His voice hardened. "And a battle of the king is a battle of Camelot."
He moved.
His feet carried him across the sand not toward Mordred, but toward the bound knights. Sir Lamorak. Sir Tor.
Lamorak was closest.
Gareth grabbed him his hands wrapping around the ropes that bound him, tearing them apart with a strength that should not have been possible. The fibers snapped, fell, dissolved.
He removed the gag from Lamorak's mouth.
The knight convulsed.
His body heaved. His stomach emptied vomit, bile, blood spilling across the sand in great, heaving waves. The nausea that had built up during his captivity, during the gag, during the horror of watching his comrades die all of it poured out of him.
He gasped for breath.
"What..." His voice was raw, ragged, broken. "What is the meaning of this?"
He looked at Gareth at the devil, at the man who had freed him and his eyes burned.
"Let's kill that bastard now."
He stretched out his hand.
From across the battlefield from where it had fallen, from where it had been discarded his sword flew.
Storm Cutter.
The blade shot through the air like lightning, like judgment, like fury. It slammed into his palm hilt first, edge humming and he grabbed it.
"After all the things this bastard has done..." His voice rose. "He is a darkness to Camelot!"
He turned to Gareth.
"You should feel greater hatred for him! Since you're the devil!" His eyes narrowed. "Where is that hatred?"
Truly, Gareth felt an impossible amount of hate for Mordred.
It burned in his chest hot, constant, unending. The same hate that Lamorak felt. The same hate that all of them felt.
He blamed Mordred for every love that had been lost. Every brother who had fallen. Every hope that had turned to ash.
But then he placed his hand on Lamorak's shoulder.
His grip was firm not restraining, not comforting, just... present.
"So if that's the case..." His voice was quiet. "...who do you think is the one whose heart is filled with the most grief?"
Lamorak's eyes widened.
"Who do you think it pains the most?" Gareth's voice grew softer. "To the point that it feels like he was the creator of this problem?"
He looked at Lamorak at the knight who had suffered, who had bled, who had lost.
"Our pain. Our hatred. They are great." He paused. "But who do you think bears the greatest hate and pain here?"
Lamorak's mind became clear.
The fog of rage the red haze that had clouded his vision, that had consumed his thoughts, that had made him want nothing but death began to lift.
He thought about the king.
About Arthur.
About the man who had fathered Mordred, who had loved him, who had lost him.
There's no other one, he thought. Than the king.
He looked at Gareth at the devil, at the man who had shown him the truth and felt something shift in his chest.
Gareth and Lamorak looked at each other.
No words passed between them. No explanations. No arguments.
They simply understood.
Lamorak lowered his sword.
Gareth nodded.
And somewhere in the distance, the king walked toward his son.