The Darkness Steals The Light - The Elim Chronicles

The Great Elim

A father's love transcends reflection, unburdened by fate's constraints. A silent love, profound and timeless.

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Lord Varesh, The Great Elim, stands alone, a luminous ball of sapphire light consumed by unforgiving darkness. He gives a relieved nod as Jain and Nubina disappear from his sight. His eyes ignite with growing power as cobalt plasma ripples around his body, crackling with arcane energy. Static charges the air, sparking against the heavy weight of dark oppression. He gazes upward with narrowed eyes at the harrowing demon, Azgorath.

Azgorath steps forward, and the anticipation of death consumes all. Metal grates as the demon drags its monstrous sword along the stone floor. The sound begins as a low, gritty scrape, until the air whistles with a heavy blast of wind as the cruel blade rises from the floor. The demon's grotesque, faceless head looms over the mage.

The Great Elim gazes up through the coiling wall of shadows, his illuminated sword held high in a guard position. The sword pulsates, thrumming, as he channels his surging power into it.

Azgorath's voice rumbles like scree clattering down a mountainside. "You will suffer, Elim, as will your son. He is also made of shadow, and all shadows loathe the light." The demon spits his words like stinging hailstone. His blade parts the darkness with an overhead hew more suited to an axe cleaving a tree. The air whooshes with a blast of cold wind as his blade parts the unyielding darkness.

The Great Elim sidesteps the attack at the final moment as the breath of the enormous blade kisses his cheek. He then spins in a tornado of azure energy, his blade humming as he counters the demon's attack with swift and precise strikes. His blade bites the demon's flesh, slicing through the darkness with lightning strikes of cerulean, cutting deep into Azgorath's mucus-covered stomach. Then he cleaves into Azgorath's right leg before he cuts deep into the demon's towering chest.

Azgorath's inky black blood spurts from the deep cut in his chest like a freshly struck well of oil. Gooey black blood rains down, covering the mage in a fountain of putrid, oily gore. The rank stench of death saturates the air. Azgorath roars in enraged agony, shaking the chamber to its deepest foundations. Shards of debris plummet down from the cavern's ceiling, settling on the demon's glistening black flesh.

The Great Elim takes a step back, raising his blade back into a high guard, feet set. "I have not lived six hundred great cycles to toy with words. The abyss will welcome you home, Azgorath, defiler, guardian of the cursed gateways, demon of the deep."

Azgorath spins to face The Great Elim, and the guttural rumbling in his chest vibrates throughout the chamber. His blade swings in a furious side cleave, slicing with unimaginable speed with a single purpose; to hew the mage in two.

The Great Elim instinctively changes his stance, stepping backward, his sword falling into a mid-defensive block. The clash of the blades resonates with a mighty ring as the metals collide. The bone-shattering blow sends violent vibrations through the mage's entire body. He parries the attack, and in a swift motion, he retaliates with a thrusting upward slice, causing blue sparks to fly off the blades.

Their blades lock as the demon leans with all his immense weight onto The Great Elim's sword. Azgorath's blade, tall as a man, pushes the mage's blade back against his own body, the flickering steel a hairbreadth from his face.

The Great Elim, overwhelmed by the demon's sheer strength, falls to one knee as Azgorath forces him down to the floor with all his might. Blood trickles down the mage's cheek as his own razor-sharp blade bites his flesh.

"Weak, vile, sacks of meat," Azgorath taunts, his voice dripping with wicked malice as he exerts relentless pressure on the buckling mage. "Mortal," his blade sinks deeper into The Great Elim's face, slicing into his cheek, drawing a flood of blood.