Gareth said to himself, his inner voice quiet, almost resigned.
This has really gone on for so long. He felt the weight of centuries pressing down on him every battle, every wound, every loss. It's almost at this point irritable.
He closed his eyes.
I hate this.
He thought about his existence the devil he had become, the monster he had embraced. Was being the devil not enough? What more should he pour in? What more depth of evil should he reach out to?
There was no longer anything that could be done.
If one uses the darkness as a source of energy, it will even get to a point that he would consume that very darkness reaching a level never seen before. If all darkness is destroyed, then what more is there to feed on? Nothing.
No.
The answer was wrong.
If there is no darkness, then he will feed on himself. He will feed on his will, his ideals, and even his life and everything. And he will burn it all to the ground, leaving nothing.
When nothing is left...
What more will give a man strength?
Truly, this man had lost.
And only the cold embrace of death could be with him.
This was the state of Gareth as he lost consciousness.
His body gave out every muscle, every nerve, every fiber of his being surrendering to the weight of everything he had done. His breath slowed. His heart faded. His will flickered and died.
With him still carrying an unconscious Lancelot on his back, he felt a deep cold within his soul. It spread through his veins, his bones, his mind a chill that promised peace, that whispered of rest, that offered an end to the suffering.
His eyes shut.
He fell into the cold embrace of death.
A way that could easily describe what happened if a child was thrown into a body of water, struggling, fighting, and then slowly, inevitably, losing his life. The darkness closed over him. The silence consumed him. The nothing embraced him.
But all of a sudden, Gareth felt a darkness going down his spine.
It was different from the darkness of death colder, sharper, more present. It pulsed through his body, awakening something that had been sleeping, calling him back from the brink.
He turned his head.
And he saw the blade that Lancelot carried, even while he was unconscious.
Arondight.
The blood-red steel gleamed in the storm-light, its edge pulsing with a darkness that was not darkness, a light that was not light. It called to him not with words, not with sound, but with presence. With will. With something that had been waiting for this moment.
Gareth said, his voice barely a whisper.
"Arondight..."
He paused.
"What is this?"
in the space between the devil's fall and the blade's awakening, between the cold embrace of death and the presence that called him back.
Gareth's hand reached for the blade.
The sea roared.
And something stirred in the depths of Arondight.