AN: Content warning. This chapter has a lot of content. In fact, it is so far, and probably will remain until the end of time, the longest chapter in this story. This chapter is filled with months of choreography and plot buildup to make the emotional payoff. While we're still a few chapters off from the end of this book (and fear not, there will be a sequel, not to mention alternate endings at some point) one could argue this chapter actually makes for a better ending than the intended finale. I won't. The conclusion I have planned also has a lot to add to the story, and we'll get to that soon enough. For now, though... enjoy.

Chapter 24: The Endless Night

Blighttown, Solaire discovered, was aptly named. The wooden platforms of the upper levels - including the one he now stood upon - were rotted and decayed, seeming almost diseased. It was a miracle that they had not yet collapsed. And down below was worse. A rickety lift system - two wheels rotating flexible straps of leather to bring wooden platforms up one side and down the other - let out into a mire of poisonous gunk. The entire place, from top to bottom, was filled with horrid, disease-ridden mutants, and if that wasn't bad enough, the destination at the end of the path was a mound of yellowed spider silk - with a diameter requiring a spider of a size beyond anything Solaire could comprehend.

It was only reasonable that his jaw dropped in shock when Kirk, who was guiding the party through the area, mentioned that the Demon Ruins below the blighted town were worse.

"How can anything be worse than this?" Solaire asked, fearing the answer.

"It's simple," Kirk replied, "Lakes of liquid fire. The swamp down there might poison you, leech your life away slowly, but the mires of the Demon Ruins will burn you to ash in little more than an eyeblink. Supposedly, a ring exists which creates a barrier of safety between you and the flames, but in my time down below, I have never found it."

"That isn't even taking the demons into account," Havel added, and Kirk nodded agreement.

"Demons?" Priscilla asked, incredulous, "What is meant by that? Evil spirits to possess and destroy? Or the horned creatures imagined in children's stories?"

"Neither," Tarkus replied, "Chaos Demons. Mutant combinations of man and beast, birthed by a corrupted flame. I've faced a few in my time - they wander into the upper reaches of Lordran on occasion. They never went down easily. I dread to think we'll be entering their homeland."

"It would take a fool not to be afraid," Kirk announced, "for the number we face is not one or two. No. The Demon Ruins, and Izalith beyond, are guarded by scores of the beasts. Not even Gwyn's legions of Silver Knights could breach the city once it had fallen. And the eight of us must succeed where they failed - or light will be lost forever."

At these words, Solaire looked up with determination.

"We shall not fail. Though we may die a thousand times, we'll return on the thousand and first to fight onwards. Every beast of the whole world cannot stand against one man immortal, let alone eight," Solaire announced, stepping up to the lift as a platform wrapped around.

"Six," Sieglinde put in, "Neither Priscilla nor myself afford the luxury of the rest of you. We are not undead."

"Then you'll stay behind, Lin," Siegmeyer said sternly, placing his hand on her shoulder, "I'll not have you risking your life where it's not needed."

"But-" Sieglinde began to complain, but Havel cut her off.

"No. Your father is right. Where we go is no place for a human. Your death will be permanent."

"The pair of them can remain in Quelaag's Domain to await our return. My lady shall provide them sanctuary," Kirk said, as he stepped onto the platform alongside Solaire, Oscar, and Tarkus. The rest of the group waited for the next platform to arrive.

"Take these," Kirk said, handing each of the members a clump of moss, covered in purple and white blooms, "and eat them should you begin to feel nauseous. The swamp here is toxic, and I doubt you would appreciate having to traverse the upper layers again." Solaire nodded his understanding, and as the platform reached the bottom of its arc, leapt off of it and into the swamp.

A hydra, even dead, Raven decided, was a thing to behold. The massive beast lay sprawled out in the lake, slowly seeping blood into the shimmering waters from hundreds of cuts across its necks and heads. Several of those had been severed completely, and lay disembodied either on the shore or in the shallows of the lake. Oddly enough, there seemed to be almost twice as many heads as there were stumps - indicating that the beast was capable of regrowing lost limbs, including heads. Thank goodness it was already dead - Raven didn't envy the task of fighting it.

The whispers began to rise around her, reminding Raven not to tarry too long. She started off across the lake, wading through the shallows towards the far bank, where she saw something of interest - what seemed to be the source of the whispers. A hole in the air, where blackness seeped out and light seemed to be yanked in, unable to escape. The whispers, and her sense of duty, urged her towards it, and soon Raven felt not only an urge, but a physical pull towards the anomaly.

Raven had not been aware of traversing the final stretch of lake, but suddenly found herself standing before the vortex. As she reached for it, her instincts screamed against the whispers, telling her that something about this was terribly wrong. Raven started to step back, but the hole of blackness would have none of it, as a hand materialized from the wrongness, larger than Raven herself and covered in red eyes. Raven tried to react, step back, draw her Zweihander, but there was simply no time. The hand snatched her, enveloped her, and slammed her against the ground several times. The final impact sent a spike of pain shooting through Raven's head, and then she felt herself being yanked towards the void, into the wrongness. Nausea overcame her, and she slipped into unconsciousness.

No. Not unconsciousness. Darkness. There was a difference. Raven found herself in a space between - between worlds, somehow, between times. Emptiness surrounded her, filled her. And then, a deep, guttural voice boomed through the nothing.

"Give it BACK! My pendant... my love... stolen! GIVE IT BACK!" Raven felt a force yanking at her neck, at the pendant she wore around it. She snatched it, and held it tight, preventing it from being yanked away. Something deep within her would not allow her to part with it, not now, not ever, and she suddenly understood why the thing in the nothing wanted it so badly. She feared that if someone stole it from her, she would find herself feeling the same. And so she clutched to the pendant tightly.

"Fine. You won't give it up? You may keep it - and I'll keep you." Abruptly, Raven felt herself yanked from the space between, from the nothing, and thrown to green, grassy ground. She groaned in pain and climbed to her feet, assessing her surroundings.

She was in a moss-covered tunnel, with a bonfire sitting at the dead end at the bottom. Raven lit it, allowing its energy to wash over her, before turning towards the far end of the tunnel. It led upwards, and ended in a thick white mist. A warning against what was to come. Raven readied her Zweihander, and pushed through the wall of fog.

Quelaag had begun to worry that Kirk would not return. Her sister desperately needed humanity, and the thorned knight was, as of late, the only one willing to provide it. She had begun to fear that Tarkus - the knight he had brought back with him, on his last visit - had stolen him away forever, and in doing so doomed her sister to death. It had been far too long since Kirk had last visited.

Now, she had a different concern - why the knight had brought so many companions back with him. Following him into the cave was not just Tarkus, from before, but a total of six others as well. Five knights - one bearing the sigil of the Nameless Prince, another wearing the stone armor of Havel's warriors, the third wearing a generic set of plate, with blue and gold heraldry, which was completely unfamiliar to her, and the final two wearing armor which, in many ways, resembled onions. The final companion was a woman in a white dress, with a scythe in hand and a furry tail trailing behind her. A distant memory stirred at the sight of that one, but Quelaag couldn't quite manage to recall who she was. That happened, now and then, after a thousand years of life trapped within the same cave. She stepped forwards, blocking Kirk's path and glaring down at them.

"May I ask what you were thinking in bringing all of these here?" Quelaag demanded. She couldn't possibly hope to watch seven strangers - even if one of them seemed mostly trustworthy. This was too many.

"Do you expect me to breach the city of Izalith alone, Quelaag? These shall assist me. All but two, who are not undead. I would ask you to keep them safe."

Quelaag barely even registered the second half of what Kirk said through the shock. The fool was going to try to breach Izalith? She had heard him dream of retaking the city many times, but she had always thought it nothing more than idle fantasy. Now he was actually going to try it.

"Well?" Quelaag nodded absently. She was willing to watch two strangers - much more doable than seven - in exchange for her city back. She had wanted to attempt an assault many times as well, but had decided against it. If she got herself killed, who would be left to look after her sister? Eingyi? He was a bumbling idiot who couldn't be trusted with Quelaan's well-being, not in the long term. And Kirk was gone far too often, doing a duty that could not be done from her domain. She had no choice but to remain.

That didn't mean that Kirk had to. And with a party of five other capable warriors - all undead - he might actually have a chance of making it through. Her concerns melted away. This was going to be a good day indeed.

Raven found herself facing a monster the likes of which she had never seen. Bearing the head and torso of a lion, ornamented with horns like those of a goat, feathered wings like a bird, and the wicked barbed tail of a scorpion, the creature was certainly imposing. The monster threw back its head and unleashed a mighty roar of challenge. In response, Raven spun her Zweihander down off her shoulder, and raised it towards the beast in a neutral stance, her feet wide apart.

The beast's attack was something she hadn't expected - it inhaled, and fired a mass of lightning from it's mouth, streaking towards Raven. She had only a split second to react as the sphere of energy hurtled towards her, but the Rook Ring saved her, allowing her to quickly roll to the side, with the ball of electricity harmlessly striking the earthen wall behind her. Then the beast jumped, moving as fast as the lightning it breathed in closing the distance between them. It came crashing down with a headbutt, which Raven blocked with the flat of her blade braced in front of her and her weight shifted to the right, before using the momentum of the impact to transition into a spinning slash, which connected solidly, creating a long, thin cut in the creature's tough hide. The beast reared it's head to the side, trying to catch Raven with its horns. Raven quickly backstepped, again impressed by her own reaction time due to the ring. The beast followed up with a swipe of it's left paw, which Raven caught on her Zweihander as she angled it down, spinning the blade to dig into the side of the creature's leg. She had hoped to sever the limb completely, but only left a sizeable gash and singed the fur with the sword's enchantment. The monster, still engaging her sword with it's paw, lunged forwards in a headbutt. Raven quickly drew the Zweihander upwards, flinging a line of blood into the air as she braced it forwards against the creature's head.

The impact was still massive, causing Raven to slide several feet back, throwing up the shallow water that she stood in in every direction. The beast jumped backwards, exhaling another sphere of lightning as it did, and landed on the far side of the basin to Raven, who rolled forwards underneath the ball of lightning. The creature roared again, before exhaling four more spheres of lightning in rapid succession. Raven broke into a sprint, moving diagonally towards the monster, and closed some of the distance while evading the spheres of lightning.

Raven immediately had to transition into a sideways roll as the monster bounded forwards, moving with blinding speed despite having to favor it's left foreleg. Raven came out of the roll in a horizontal swipe, matching the slash she had but on the beast's right flank with a similar cut on the left. Raven let the momentum of the slash carry her towards the back of the beast, taking another step before slashing at the creature's left hind leg, and creating a score in it as well. The beast immediately counterattacked by stabbing at Raven with it's tail, and she reacted quickly, deflecting the barbed stinger to one side before bringing her Zweihander around for a rising slash at the tail, which severed it completely. Unlike the rest of the creature's body, it seemed that the tail was rather vulnerable. The stinger and a good four feet of the tail splashed into the water, while blood spurted from the tail. The creature whirled, and it almost seemed a hair slower than before. The difference was so slight that Raven could well have imagined it, however. Raven immediately caught the spin, bringing the Zweihander back down on her other side to catch the side of the monster's face. The cut caught the creature's eye, and it reared back, howling in pain. Raven immediately spun the Zweihander into a horizontal slash, catching the monster's belly, and it reared back further, to the point of losing it's balance and toppling over.

Raven returned to her neutral stance as the creature rolled back to it's feet and charged again - definitively slower, now. Almost half of its hide was covered in blood it had lost, and it was starting to tire. As it lunged for another headbutt, Raven had time to sidestep to the right, slashing across it's right forepaw before bringing her blade up and across it's right flank once more. And then, in a single moment, it was over. The beast spun to lunge at Raven again, and Raven countered with the same downwards slash - catching the monster's other eye, blinding it. It reared back in pain once again, and Raven slashed it across the belly a second time, toppling it once again. She stepped back as the beast rolled back to it's feet sluggishly, and turned back towards her. She quietly stepped to the right, and the creature lunged right past her, before thrashing around in fury. She stepped back clear of the beast and waited.

The creature's constitution was remarkable. Even with all of the cuts Raven had delivered, the creature continued to thrash for nearly three minutes before laying still - and even then, it was still breathing. She stepped up to it calmly, and rammed her Zweihander through the creature's ruined eye, and left it there for a few moments, letting the sword's enchantment do it's work, reducing the beast to ash. That, too, took longer than it should have by several seconds. It was a shame that Raven had had to kill the beast - it had been a very beautiful creature, despite it's deadliness. Or, perhaps, because of it. Raven stood in silence for a moment, paying her respects to the noble creature before moving on.

The demon ruins were aptly named on both counts, Solaire decided. A massive cavern, with crags, valleys, and high vaulted ceilings bore cracked remnants of tan bricking, once parts of glorious structures. It was, from the very first glance, a ruined city. The lower parts of the cavern were flooded with glowing red-orange liquid, like fire, and the cavern's temperature was nearly unbearable in its heat.

Somehow, demons stood in the flame - Taurus and Capra demons in legions, as well as more hideous forms which Solaire didn't recognize - including one massive, twisted figure who could likely reach the top of the cavern. Liquid flame - lava, as Kirk had called it - poured from the monstrous creature, flowing down through the cavern and eventually out of sight.

"The city proper is further down below - submerged beneath lava," Kirk said, starting down the hill, "So we'll need a way to stop the flow and drain the cavern. That massive creature there was once a man - the only son of the Witch of Izalith. Qayleb, I believe his name was. Mutations caused by the effects of the Chaos Flame have turned him into... that. Lava oozes out of him constantly, filling the cavern as you see it. It's never gotten above a certain level, though, so it must drain out to somewhere. Kill him - put him out of his misery - and the lava should drain away, giving us a way to move forwards."

"And just how do you propose we kill that?" Solaire demanded in shock, "It's enormous! None of our weapons would so much as tickle it!"

"Do you have another way past that lava?" Kirk asked, to which the warrior of sunlight shook his head.

"Then we find a way to kill Qayleb. Tarkus' dragon king greataxe ought to do at least some damage," Kirk said, "But first, we need to reach him. There's a narrow bridge here, part of an old aqueduct bringing water into the city from Blighttown's swamp, which, believe it or not, used to be drinkable. It leads to a cliff overlooking the cavern from the far side - Qayleb's standing within reach of that ledge, it would seem. Follow me."

Kirk, as he had said, led them across a narrow brass channel, which bridged the gap between the two ledges on the cavern walls. The ledge on the far side led through an archway of brilliant white fog. Kirk stopped before it.

"Do you know what these are? What their purpose is?" the thorned knight asked. Solaire shook his head.

"I never stopped to think about it, but I suppose that they're warnings placed before powerful foes," Oscar speculated, but Kirk shook his head.

"That's mostly coincidental. The truth is, they're seals, one way barriers placed by some Lord or another. I suspect this one in particular was placed by Gwyn, in his retreat from Izalith in the Demon War. I suppose that ought to be called the First Demon War now, seeing as the six of us are about to start another one. When we break this seal, my best guess is that all Izalith will break loose - quite literally. So... any volunteers?"

Solaire uncertainty raised his hand towards the wall of mist.

Raven half believed that she had finally grown crazy when a mushroom called out to her.

"Well, look at this one. From what far away age have you come?" Raven hesitated, taking another look to make sure that it was indeed the large mushroom who had spoken. She couldn't find anything else which might have spoken.

"Thy sent is very human indeed... but, not intolerable. You bear another scent, as well, however. The stench of the abyss. You have walked within it?" To this, Raven shook her head.

"A shame. I had hoped to make a request of you. Perhaps I still might. The princess of Oolacile has been stolen, snatched into the abyss by that primeval man. I would ask you to rescue her. One has gone before you - a wolf knight with a will of steel - but such a hero has seen nary a murmur of Dark. He will almost certainly be swallowed by the abyss. You, however... you know of the danger, and are practiced in resisting the Dark. You just might survive." With this information, Raven could finally connect some of the dots. She was in Oolacile, the kingdom where Artorias had given his life to halt the abyss... and a vision of Artorias had instructed her to come here. She knew what she had to do - and it wouldn't hurt to rescue this princess along the way.

"I'll save her," Raven replied, "You have my word."

"Promises are a dangerous thing," the mushroom told her, "But I'm grateful to you all the same." Raven nodded to the mushroom, before turning to exit the sanctuary.

Darkroot - in this time, the Oolacile Royal Wood - looked simultaneously familiar and foreign. In one way, the land was much the same, some thousand years ago, as it was in the present. However, the trees were not only in different positions, but additionally were both cultivated - branches had been trimmed to keep them looking neat - and dying, rotting from within as the abyss began to touch them. Several gardeners - clearly hollow - still wandered the wood with shears and clippers, continuing their duties as the last things which they had known. A few stone guardians, wielding greathammers and greataxes rather than massive swords, stood guard staring into the distance. And something told Raven that she wouldn't be able to sneak past many of them - she would have to fight her way through everything.

This was proved the instant she stepped off of the stone bridge out of the sanctuary, as three of the gardeners immediately turned towards her, raising their clippers as improvised weapons. They were certainly long enough blades. In response, Raven raised her Zweihander and charged. The first gardener to reach her snapped at her neck with its clippers, and she ducked low, slashing it's legs off with a strike from her Zweihander. It's garment caught aflame as it toppled, and it thrashed on the ground as it burned alive. The second gardener lunged forwards with the clippers closed as a unified thrusting blade, and Raven brought her Zweihander up out of the low slash to deflect the clippers upwards and over the top of her head, before bringing it back down upon the head of the gardener. This one, too, burst into flame, although it was too dead to care by the time it hit the ground. The first gardener had also stopped thrashing, and now lay still as a charred corpse. Raven quickly raised the Zweihander in front of her again, just in time for the third gardener to impale itself on the blade as it rushed forwards. It burned to ashes in instants. Raven shouldered her Zweihander and started forwards - taking all of three steps before a stone guardian turned towards her. She sighed.

This was going to take a while.

"He's just... standing there," Solaire observed, baffled. He had expected Qayleb to attack them the instant that they had broken the seal, but Qayleb had ignored them, electing to continue staring blankly at the cavern wall just past them.

"Perhaps we should see what it is he's looking at," Oscar offered, taking a step forwards. Havel shook his head.

"There's no need for that," the archbishop announced, before rummaging through his bottomless box, "I'm no Gough, but that thing is massive. I reckon I should be able to land a few arrows in him. Aha!" Havel drew out a massive greatbow, likely used by Gwyn's forces against dragons, and placed it, drawing it against Qayleb.

"When you fire, he's sure to counterattack," Kirk advised, "Be ready to dodge out of the way. I think you're right, though - that greatbow may well be our best friend. Everyone else, your job is to cover Havel."

"I've got something as well," Solaire added, drawing out his cloth talisman, bearing the colors of the sigil on his chest, "I know a miracle straight from Gwyn's arsenal, which hurls a bolt of lightning. I'll toss it when Havel fires."

"Oho, I may have something, as well," Siegmeyer put in, before digging out his own talisman, "While it may not be as flashy or impressive as lightning bolts, I can do damage from afar with a miracle, as well. On Havel's mark." The Archbishop nodded, and nocked a massive iron arrow to the bowstring before hauling it back.

"Now," he said, and loosed. Solaire tossed a Great Lightning Spear a moment later, with a sphere of white energy being loosed by Siegmeyer alongside it. All three projectiles hit Qayleb solidly in the head, and caused him to stumble backwards a few steps. He groaned in pain, before turning towards the group and waving a grotesque, mangled arm. The lava which flowed from it splattered upwards onto the ledge, and the party all simultaneously ducked behind shields, with the exception of Solaire, Siegmeyer, and Havel, each of whom had put their shields away in trade for their offensive options. Lava splattered off of Havel's armor, hissing and steaming but not appearing to do him much harm, while Solaire ducked under the spray. Siegmeyer caught several blobs as well, and stumbled backwards with a shout of pain, before scrambling for his Estus. Solaire readied another great lightning spear, before hurling it at Qayleb, who stumbled back further. Havel fired a second greatarrow, which caught him lower down in the chest. Siegmeyer, having recovered from his injuries, courtesy of his Estus flask, fired another ball of energy a few moments later. Qayleb staggered back even further, before lunging forwards with one of his grotesque arms, bringing it slamming down on the ledge. Solaire dove to the side, but Havel's reaction time, slowed by the weight of his armor, was slower, and the archbishop was crushed instantly beneath the massive appendage. Tarkus bellowed a warcry as he sprinted forwards, and severed the limb with a single mighty blow of his greataxe. The severed limb melted into lava, which flowed off of the ledge and down into the cavern below. Qayleb bellowed louder than ever as he stumbled backwards further - and was caught in the chest by another ball of white energy, offbalancing him further yet. Solaire followed up with a great lightning spear to Qayleb's face, which was the final nail in the coffin.

Qayleb tipped so far backwards that he couldn't get a foot underneath of him in time, and fell over backwards, landing at the bottom of the cavern with a deafening thud. Lava splashed upwards nearly to the height of the ledge where Solaire stood, and when the massive splash finally fell back to the bottom of the cavern, Qayleb had already halfway melted into lava himself. In a few more seconds, there was nothing left of him at all.

"Massive as he was, the fall was probably what killed him. Crushed under your own weight... terrible way to go," Kirk commented as he looked down from the ledge beside Solaire.

"What now?" Oscar asked from beside them.

"Now, we wait for the lava to drain out of that cavern," Kirk replied, "It could take a few minutes - or even hours, with the volume of the stuff. Once that's done, then... then the real challenge begins."

Grimly, Raven drained the last of her estus, healing various bruises, and likely no few number of fractured bones, which she had suffered through her armor. It had done it's job, however - the greataxes of the stone guardians should have killed her instantly, but she had taken direct hits from them several times, at no more cost than a swallow of estus.

Now, however, her flask was empty, and the royal wood stood behind her. She would have no margin of error in whatever challenge came next - within a massive coliseum, cracked and ruined but impressive all the same. The entrance into the arena at the bottom was the only path forwards - and it was covered by another gate of fog. Some dangerous creature of the abyss, no doubt. Raven dearly hoped that it wouldn't be the black dragon who had briefly landed upon a bridge back in the wood. That particular challenge was likely beyond her without the help of an estus flask. Steeling herself, she pushed through the fog - and was shocked when the dangerous creature that she was to face stood barely taller than she. In appearance, it seemed to be a corrupted resident of Oolacile - no more than a common foe, in her estimation.

Before she could do anything, however, the figure was replaced by a greatsword - blackened and twisted - tainted by the abyss. And the knight who held it was none other than Artorias - his armor in little better shape. He turned towards her, the creature he had killed still hanging from his sword. His left arm dangled, limp and broken, at his side.

"Whatever thou art, stay away! I will soon be consumed, by them... by the dark." The voice of Artorias was just as Raven remembered it, from her vision - and from when he had spoken through the pendant to her in the Crystal Cave. Hearing it in person, however, filled with fear, almost panic... it was something else entirely. Even as he spoke, wisps of abyssal energy, black and purple, began to rise up from the ground around him, and he seemed to struggle against them for a moment before he was overwhelmed, screaming in agony. The abyssal essence rushed into him, and he took a stumbling step.

"All of you... forgive me. For I have availed you nothing." As Artorias spoke, he swung his sword - throwing the corpse impaled on it towards Raven, who froze. All around, the whispers taunted her.

"What did you expect?"

"No one can resist us forever..."

"May as well join him..."

"No," Raven said, not realizing that she was speaking aloud, or perhaps simply not caring, "It wasn't supposed to happen like this. You were supposed to win... What is this?"

"The truth," the whispers said, and Raven understood. This is what had always happened - Artorias had always failed. But that meant that someone else had to succeed.

That someone else had been, and would be, Raven. And she knew that she would have to let Artorias take the credit for what happened here. History said that he had to die as a part of that - by Raven's hand, most likely. Except... the more she thought about it, the more she realized that she couldn't kill him, because she wouldn't be here - wouldn't be sane - without his interference. And he had to be alive to become the guardian angel that had been watching over her. That meant that somehow, she had to save him from beyond hollowing, from the grasp of abyssal taint, all while he, the most accomplished swordsman possibly in all of history, was trying to kill her.

She suddenly found herself wishing for that black dragon as the Wolf Knight lunged for her. Raven knew that saving him would involve communicating to him through the pendant, just as he had to her to pull her out of the darkness. In order to do that, though, she would have to disable him - the best way to do that was by breaking bones through armor. Her Zweihander wasn't perfectly suited to that, but it was a far sight better than some weapons she could have had for the job.

As Artorias' blade reached her, Raven deflected it upwards and ducked inside his reach, before slamming the flat of the Zweihander against his left leg. Artorias stumbled slightly as Raven spun past him, but recovered quickly with a horizontal swipe. Raven met this in a static block, and instantly regretted it. Artorias, stronger than her and twice her size, generated enough power to toss her several feet across the room - and even though the blade didn't make contact with her, the impact to her wrists was brutal. She slid backwards, pulling the Zweihander up into a guard stance as she was tossed clear of the Wolf Knight's strike.

A good thing she had, too, because Artorias was already moving again - jumping towards her in a somersault. Raven spun the Zweihander up to block the strike, tossing it aside with a deflection - she knew better than to attempt another static block, not if it could be avoided. Artorias barely landed, however, before jumping into a second somersault. Raven deflected this one as well, in the opposite direction, and sidestepped Artorias' third of the same attack, before slamming her blade down on his left calf, which extended behind him as he landed in a kneeling crouch. Artorias grunted in discomfort, before twisting to his feet and slashing with a wide horizontal swipe of his sword. Raven brought her Zweihander around and planted the tip into the ground, trying to reduce the impact of an attack which she couldn't deflect. The impact still send her skidding several feet, the Zweihander's tip dragging through the ground as she slid. Raven yanked the Zweihander free of the ground as her momentum stopped, before anticipating the follow-up strike by Artorias to be another follow up thrust. She spun to the right side of the blade before it had even reached her, and struck again at Artorias' left leg, which trailed in the lunge. Raven managed to kick his leg out from under him, and he toppled sideways, planting his sword into the ground for balance.

Purple and black swirls rose around the Wolf Knight as he groaned - whether in agony or fury, Raven couldn't tell. She knew exactly what was about to happen, though, as abyssal energy grew around him, and jumped towards him to slam the back end of her pommel into his helmet. Artorias stumbled backwards, staggering to his feet and pulling his greatsword free of the ground. As he took a staggering step backwards, Raven brought her Zweihander down on his left leg again - and finally felt it get purchase, hearing a sickening crunch as the bone within the armor broke. Artorias screamed and took another step backwards - onto his broken leg - before toppling over a second time. His greatsword clattered to the ground beside him. Raven quickly stepped forwards and kicked it away as Artorias reached for it, before planting her foot firmly on his good arm. She clutched the shattered pendant in her left hand as she knelt down beside him, and pushed her will into it - or rather, through it, and into him. The whispers rose around her, nearly screams despite their hushed tones, trying to distract her.

"He is ours," One voice said, and others rose to agree with it,

"You cannot save him,"

"You will not take him from us!"

"Soon you'll be ours, too..." The voices taunted, dissolving into taunts. Raven ignored them, focusing on Artorias himself - and she found him, a very dim light surrounded by the darkness around it, and fading by the second. She reached out to that light. The world went dark, and Raven found herself standing in the space between once again, with Artorias standing across from her.

"Can you hear me?" Raven asked, reaching out towards him. The wolf knight looked up.

"Who... what are you? How is this possible?" Artorias glanced around, and Raven could still feel fear radiating from him. Raven pulled off her stylized helmet, revealing a human face. She looked up at him.

"I don't know how it all works, but I've given us a moment to talk. We can't stay here forever, but, for the moment, the abyss won't be able to touch you. Until this peace shatters, we're safe," Raven told him, and Artorias looked down towards her.

"A human... why? Why do you want to help me, a knight of Gwyn?" In response, Raven simply presented her ring. At seeing it, Artorias gasped.

"But... how? There was no ceremony for a knighting! How did I miss..." Raven shook her head.

"You didn't. It hasn't happened yet. In fact, by my estimate I won't be born for another thousand-odd years. I was dragged back here by... well, I don't understand what happened. But I am here."

"Time becomes convoluted, when the first flame fades. In a thousand years... I'm sure that's what happened. Something reached to break the already fragile fabric of time, and pulled you back here. But... why tell me this? What good does it do me? As soon as this peace breaks, as you said it would, the abyss will take me, and I'll be lost."

"That's why - because you're still alive, a thousand years from now. History said you died, today, but... I know better. Ornstein's spear, this armor, my knighting, everything that happened in the Duke's Archives... it was all you, helping from the shadows as a guardian angel. You have to be alive for that."

"How? I've lost... failed, in this ruin of a city. I'm already too far gone."

"The fact that you're here says you aren't. As long as you still have a sense of self... as long as you aren't hollow, you can fight."

"But... the whispers..."

"Are lies. They take what you know to be real and twist it, feed you things that are almost true, and all the more horrifying for it. But they are not the truth." Raven decided to take a risk, a stab in the dark at just what the whispers had been saying. Artorias and Ciaran had supposedly nearly been lovers - dear friends who never got the chance to be together.

"Ciaran does love you," Raven told him, "She just... hasn't found the courage to say it yet. The same as you haven't found the courage to confess your feelings for her. I don't know what else they've said, but it's all a lie. And it isn't too late to fight back."

"I can't... I tried so hard..." Artorias hung his head, "I was supposed to be better than this... a hero. Now look at me. Nothing but a failure."

"I know how it feels, to have the abyss whispering in your ear," Raven admitted softly, "You saved me from that. Or... you will. I still feel it now, but you... you taught me how to fight. I can't drive them away on your behalf. You have to do that yourself. But I can tell you that they can be fought - deny them. They lie. And... yes. You failed. You won't be able to finish your mission. But... be glad about that. It wouldn't have been any better had you won. You made a covenant with the abyss in order to walk it. You tried to use darkness to drive out darkness. But darkness cannot drive out darkness. Only light can do that." Raven nodded confidently. She was beginning to feel the strain of maintaining this space, and knew that there wasn't much time left. But she remembered one more thing - Oscar, not Artorias, had been the one, time and time again, to drag her out of the dark place where she had gone. Artorias had taught her how to fight, but Oscar had fought right alongside her. And so, she added one more thing.

"Remember your love for her, Artorias. It, out of everything, is what can save you." Raven put her helmet back on, and nodded, before turning away.

"Good luck."

The peace vanished, replaced once again with the tempest inside Artorias - a fading light amidst a churning, angry darkness. In that place, an instant seemed to last a thousand years - and a thousand years, the gap between them, seemed but an instant. Raven watched Artorias fight against the abyss within himself, and fight he did. The light grew against the darkness, slowly but steadily. And then, in just one more moment, he lost. Darkness like that outside welled up within the light, and in that moment consumed it. The glow winked out. Raven gasped as reality snapped back - just in time for Artorias to heave against her weight, tossing her into the air with only his single good arm. Dark purple mist rose around him as he staggered to his feet, planting his good right leg - and then his broken left - firmly. The wolf knight, now fallen, took up a corrupted blade in challenge.

Raven, after an unsteady landing, raised her own to answer. She had failed to save him. And now she would have to kill him, despite the consequences it would have.

This time, Raven didn't wait for Artorias to make the first move. She took a running step forwards, and threw herself into a lunging thrust. Artorias deflected it to the side, and Raven spun with the deflection, using the momentum of her first strike to power a second, horizontal swipe from right to left. Artorias blocked this too, throwing Raven's blade to the side before striking downwards at her. Raven allowed her Zweihander to pull her sideways, out of the path of the strike, before planting her right foot and yanking the Zweihander into a second slash, which connected solidly, slamming into the side of Artorias' breastplate. The wolf knight grunted, but his armor did it's job.

Raven pulled the Zweihander through the strike in a draw cut, bracing it across her body as Artorias kicked at her chest, tossing her backwards. Again, she went with the momentum, rolling backwards and coming to her feet again, before raising her sword to block the overhead strike that she knew was coming. Sure enough, Artorias dropped from the sky a moment later in a downwards somersault slash. Raven angled her Zweihander at the last moment, causing the strike to deflect to her left rather than catch the blade fully, before striking at the Wolf Knight's neck. Artorias recovered quickly, bringing his own greatsword up to block the strike. Raven ducked underneath him as her blade connected with his, drawing the Zweihander across his left side and stomach. It skated against the armor at first, but as it skipped off the breastplate near the end of the cut, it slipped through a gap between his breastplate's front and back - drawing tainted blood. Artorias turned towards her in fury.

Raven saw the wolf knight's true potential now as he attacked once again. Strike after strike, from every different direction, each with enough power to nearly knock Raven off of her feet. The speed of the onslaught forced her to her limits, even with the rook ring, as she blocked a strike from the left, a strike from the right, deflected a thrust, and sidestepped an overhead strike within the span of a second. Even as she stepped to the side, she struck back with a thrust, aimed at the Wolf Knight's throat. It was deflected in a moment, and Raven found herself with nowhere to go as Artorias brought his greatsword slamming downwards above her again. She braced the Zweihander above her.

The pain of the impact was immense - far greater than that which he had generated with any horizontal strike. Raven stumbled backwards under the force, and Artorias brought his greatsword up, before slamming it down again. Again, Raven had no choice but to brace against the blow, and was forced to her knees by the brutal impact. Artorias brought his greatsword down a third time. And the Zweihander shattered.

The resulting explosion - the chaos flame contained within the blade bursting outwards abruptly - was immense. Raven was tossed backwards, slamming against the colliseum wall, while Artorias himself had been knocked over, with a large amount of the cloth draped around his armor now burning. Both combatants rose unsteadily to their feet. And Raven now had no weapon.

Save one. A darkness that she had channeled once before, in anger. When a servant of Nito had nearly taken Oscar from her. She knew what it was, and had feared to use it. She still did. But she brought it forth anyways. The whispers surged in approval, chuckling, laughing as she channeled the power of the abyss into her fingers, forming as a blood red mist around her hands. She stepped forwards. Artorias lunged forwards again, and Raven causally deflected the blade with a wall of energy, represented as rippling air. She brought her other hand around, slamming into his stomach, and the energy which her hand released dented the armor with a flash of sickly white light. Two more strikes, one with each fist from alternating directions, put Artorias on the back foot, and a third - a jumping uppercut to the chin - toppled him completely, ripping his helm clear of his face.

The wolf knight appeared shockingly young - a man only in his mid twenties, at most - as he collapsed to the ground. Veins of black spiderwebbed across his face, evidence of the abyssal corruption within. As Raven raised her hand, charged with the energy of the art of Lifedrain, for the final blow, Artorias whispered his final words.

"End it. Please."

And in that moment, Raven felt a shock run through her. She had been about to kill him when there was no need. Lifedrain stole away a person's life essence - that which they held most dear. She didn't know how she knew this, but in this moment, she was certain.

And someone in the grasp of the abyss would treasure it above anything of their own. The abyss, after all, was nothing more than corrupted humanity - amongst the undead, a commodity valued above all others. Why should Artorias be any different?

The energy surrounding Raven's hand changed from blood red to a sickly off-white as she slammed it into the wolf knight's face - not with a lethal, killing punch, but with an open palm, which grabbed his face. In a moment, Raven felt that essence, reviling and enticing at the same time, flow from Artorias into her. Bit by bit, the veins across his face faded. The whispers grew, bit by bit, around her as she pulled that corruption into herself. Feeling that taint within her became uncomfortable, and in moments that discomfort grew to utter agony. And then it was over. Raven stumbled backwards, allowing the energy of Lifedrain to fade from her hands. The whispers, momentarily deafening, slowly faded into the background once again. Ignoring them had become easier now than ever, because for the first time she had managed to call out their lies. They had told her that Artorias was beyond saving. She had done it anyways.

"Why... why didn't you kill me?" he asked softly, weakly, as he shakily rose to a sitting position.

"I realized that I didn't have to," Raven said simply, sitting down beside him.

"And you... how are you still sane?"

"Sane?" Raven asked, before bursting into laughter. It felt good. It had been too long since she had done that. "No. The sane ones have all given up. You have to be crazy to keep fighting... even if you do have some margin of error for getting killed."

"You're undead," Artorias commented, realization seemingly dawning for the first time, "That's... that explains a lot. About how you said you were here, about how you broke through. About how you're bearing the weight of that corruption. And about why you still fight, when everyone else has given up."

"You're right... Remember what I said about Ciaran. I have a feeling that she'll be here soon." She patted him on the shoulder, and Artorias winced. Raven realized that she had patted him on the limp arm - which, on closer investigation, was twisted about, the bones inside likely shattered in multiple places.

"I'm no doctor, but... that looks like it'll need to be amputated. I don't think there's any saving it," Raven commented, and Artorias nodded.

"I'll take care of it as soon as I can. Probably in a hospital back in Anor Londo."

"About that... you can't go back. Not as yourself," Raven told him.

"Something about history needing to believe me dead?" he asked, and Raven nodded.

"Something like that. Ciaran, too. And Gough, now that I think about it. Ornstein is the only one still who survived to my time... although he died too, shortly after I met him. Sealed in the Painted World, with no sacrifice to save him."

"A shame. He's a good man. I trust you'll have a plan for how to fake our deaths?" Artorias asked, and Raven nodded, before standing up.

"I'll fill you in on that later. Right now, I have a job to do. Finishing what you started," she said.

"Unarmed?" Artorias asked, surprise in his voice.

"Well, I figure that there's a perfectly good sword here that you won't be using - at least, not for a while."

"Can you even lift the thing?" Artorias asked, impressed. Raven casually scooped the blade up with one hand. It was significantly heavier than her Zweihander had been, but the power of thousands - at this point, possibly millions - of souls increasing her physical strength allowed her to hold it without much issue.

"Well, I'll be. Go ahead and take it. I won't be doing much fighting until I've had a chance to heal. Good luck."

Raven smiled as she stepped out of the ruined coliseum into the township proper.

AN: Looks like I'm going to have to split this chapter into two or maybe even three parts. If it gets much longer, I won't be able to get it to upload it at all. It's still ridiculously long, but it had been over 20,000 words in length and that won't ever post.