He was going to die.
It didn't take a genius to come to that conclusion, with him backed to a ledge by the biggest lava golem that ever walked in Magma caves. Even if he was one of the most lethal lord knights in all of Rune-Midgard, he had little chance against the ten-foot behemoth of molten rock slowly lumbering up to him, its flowing hide glowing white from its temperature. Even from a distance, the lord knight could feel the warmth emanating from the monster, heat that made hellish atmosphere of the caves feel like candles in comparison. The lord knight had never felt something so intense before in his life.
He was going to die.
As the golem neared even closer, heat washed over the lord knight in waves, cooking him in his armor like a crab. He felt like he was being boiled alive, his own blood churning in his veins like liquid fire. Sweat on his skin steamed. Blisters rose and fell on his hands as the skin began to run like wax. He had to bend his head to the creature to avoid popping his eyeballs, and he swore to god that at last glimpse, his sword had warped as the thing neared him.
He was going to die.
It was not a fearful thought of what was to come. It was a simple despairing statement of what was going to happen. He'd been dog-tired and near dying even before the thing had appeared, courtesy of an adventure no sane man would have embarked on. Burn marks, claw scars, tooth punctures peppered his skin. His limbs felt like they were made of metal, too heavy to lift, too awkward to move. His body refused to move as he willed it, a sensation he had become all too familiar with, usually attributed to his ability to ignore fatigue until his body broke down.
He was going to die.
Slowly, the lord knight lifted his head, determined to confront his killer face to face. He regretted it almost immediately. The retinas fried the moment he gazed into the golem's gaping maw, agony like the lord knight had never experienced before. As he threw back his head to scream, the golem attacked, opening up it's kiln-like maw and enveloped the lord knight in a torrent of fire.
He was going to die.
It struck his entire body at once, a pillar of fire so brilliant it looked like light. The fireproof material of his armor began to melt, the metal dripping onto his flesh and eating away at it like acid. Black oridecon stuck to his skeleton and fused straight to the bone, frying what soft tissue there was on the knight. In mere seconds, he was dead, cremated in his own armor. All that was left was an obsidian statue, a horrifying end to a horrifying life.
Yet, he refused to die.