The Master
The Knight had walked through a secret tunnel in the royal waterways, fought the Flukemarm, a giant worm creature, possible the mother of the fluke creatures in the waterways, and now stood in the middle of a massive junk pit. What looked like a huge golden sarcophagus sat in front of it. It had a keyhole in its center.
The Knight put a simple key in the hole (quite a feat, given its height) and turned it. The sarcophagus opened, and a fat gray bug tumbled out, unconscious. It wore a gray cloak over its long body and a golden mask on its head. The mask had a shield-like protrusion in the top, and large gold plates ran down its back. A strange golden object came out with it, and the Knight picked it up.
It was a sort of gold tablet. Round, with a point in the top. In the center was a ball of gold, which began to glow a soft yellow when the Knight touched the tablet. The glow got brighter and brighter, then suddenly stopped. Circles of essence began to float above the strange bug.
The Knight hit it with the Dream Nail, then fell unconscious.
A voice spoke to it from the whiteness.
"Blasphemy! Rank blasphemy! Thou crawler! Thou cringer! Thou smallest of the small! By what right dost thou trespass here, in this home of the Gods? Shrivel away and begone! Begone!"
The Knight appeared on a ledge of a huge black pillar in the Dream World. Below it, a glowing circle of runes allowed exit from the Dream World. A black and gold building atop another huge pillar rose from the clouds not far away. The area was full of black pillars, topped with gold, and enormous sweeping bridges held up by them. The farther they were, the higher they reached. A trail of four relatively small pillars led up to the building.
The Knight jumped across the pillars, then landed on the ledge at the entrance to the building. Three strange bugs like the one in the junk pit, only smaller (slightly larger than the Knight) and with gray wrappings on their bodies, binding their arms and legs, stood around the entrance to a wide, tall hallway. At the end was a hole in the ceiling and floor, and a golden portculus on the other side. Three arch-shaped golden doors, their edges carved into flowery shapes, sat at intermittent points on the left wall of the hallway.
The bugs simply stared at the Knight as it walked into the hall. It stopped before the first door in the hallway and looked up at it. A strange winged design with a notch for some oval shaped object hung above it, the bottom protruding down to its center, where a lock surrounded by nine circular golden plates hung below it. Each plate had an emblem of a white mask on it, but the Knight had no time to process them, as they and the lock started to glow, then disappeared. The door opened, and the Knight went inside.
The voice from earlier spoke again.
"Wretch! Thou hast ordained thine own destruction! Through sacred combat are We attuned to this Kingdom's greatest beings. By entering this gate thou hast challenged the very Gods of this Kingdom! Dost thou consider thyself the equal of this pantheon, of its masters? Draw thy weapon then, fool of fools, and be damned for thy arrogance!"
The Knight appeared on a large circular platform. A circle of seats surrounded the platform, with a sizable gap between them, full of the strange golden-masked bugs from the area before (called godhome). A giant version of the bugs, obviously the leader, sat in what seemed to be a throne above the other bugs. Two huge black towers rose up on either side of it a short distance away, seemingly reaching all the way to the sun above.
Suddenly, a giant winged creature with white pincers, the Vengefly King, appeared in a flash of light and a cloud of essence in the air above the platform. It flew towards the Knight, making a sweep across the arena floor with its pincers, but it jumped over, slashing the bug with its nail. The Knight quickly dealt with the Vengefly King, having already killed two of them before.
Once it died A bell sounded, and a bright light shone from above, blocking all vision.
When the light cleared, the Knight was standing in a room with the Gruz Mother, a giant flying bug. The room was identical in size and shape to the one where it had originally fought the Gruz Mother, except that the back wall was missing, allowing the 'audience' to see the fight. The Knight dispatched the Gruz Mother, then the False Knight and the Massive Moss Charger (a giant moving bush, essentially) without difficulty. After that, he faced Hornet. It was a bit harder, but the Knight still dealt with her quite easily.
After defeating Hornet, the Knight appeared in a room containing a bench and a hot spring, as well as more of the strange golden-masked bugs. It rested for a short time, then continued out the doorway. It fought Gorb, a warrior ghost who claimed to know everything.
After that, however, it appeared in a room that was covered in balls of dung. Nothing happened, however, as the bell simply rang and the Knight went on to the next fight. It then defeated the Soul Warrior and the Brooding Mawlek.
Next, it appeared in a small round room with a large doorway on one side. The giant bug that had been sitting on the thrones in the previous rooms, the Godseeker, was standing in front of it, eyes locked ahead. The Knight looked up at it, and it looked back down at the Knight. It spoke. "Why hast thou crept into this pantheon, o meagre one? The noise of thine wriggling creates much discord, drowning out the godly resonances we attune Ourselves to! Dost thou mean to thwart our sacred goal? Dost envy drive thou to such madness? We pray that the Gods of this Kingdom punish thee, obliterate thee, utterly destroy thee!"
The Knight walked through the doorway.
It appeared in another room like the ones prior, with its back wall missing and the two large pillars, but the room was much larger, and nails of many sizes stuck out of the ground. Nailmaster Oro was sitting on the ground on the other side of the room, facing away from the Knight and polishing his nail. Suddenly, he noticed the Knight's presence, turning his head slightly to look at it. He stood up and let out a long yell. The Knight readied its nail.
Oro leapt high into the air until he was directly above the Knight, then came down, slashing his nail. The Knight dashed out of the way, turning shadowy and incorporeal for a moment. Oro followed up with two swings of his nail, but the Knight jumped over him and hit him a few times from behind. Oro turned around and swung two more times with his nail. The Knight repeated its previous maneuver.
Suddenly, Oro leapt into the air again, this time landing on the opposite edge of the arena. He held his nail behind him, and the aura of a charging nail art surrounded him. The Knight jumped up just as he flew across the stage, performing a dash slash much larger than the Knight could ever hope to (not that it would, for it was devoid of thought and will).
The fight went on like this rather uneventfully for a time, until the Knight landed the final blow with its nail. Oro fell to his knees, letting out a soft groan. The bell didn't ring, however, and soon, Oro's identical brother Mato dropped down from above, landing next to Oro. He looked down at Oro, and their eyes met for a moment, then both stood up and let their battle cry out again.
In the heat of battle, the two brothers were indistinguishable from each other, except for when one of them performed a nail art. They worked in perfect sync, having trained a lifetime together, and the Knight had a hard time keeping up with them. One would jump in, attack, and jump out again as the other jumped in. The Knight was the only truly empty vessel, though, and eventually it defeated first Oro, and then Mato with its nail and spells.
The two stood up, then bowed their heads, and the bell rang. The world turned white.
Merry Christmas!