This was the moment where the fate of Nosgoth had been decided… twice.
Here, in this moment where two beings clashed for supremacy would the election be finalised.
Our blades smacked against each other in mid air, sparks flying back to highlight our faces as we scolded at each other before breaking away.
Sabre was without a doubt the most gifted and skilled opponent I had ever faced. He was amazing agile, able to dodge around my swings with ease and strong enough to retaliate so much that his own blows sent shivers through me.
He was a master of both magical combat and swordsmanship and had expertly integrated both techniques into a form of aerial combat that left me struggling even to find a way through his defences.
The storm raged around us as below us, on the seat of the pillars themselves my other younger self battled as well; fighting the possessed Mortaineous.
Bolts of lightning illuminated the almost perpetual night, some of them come dangerously close to hitting the two of us as Sabre and I duelled in mid air.
"You've lost, you know that don't you?" I asked him as our two swords clashed together and we tried to overpower each other. "Even if you beat me… the others have won their elections. You are alone."
Sabre simply grinned and his new neon blue eyes were alight with humour.
"The pillar of balance is all I require. That nexus of creation will make me near all powerful. Your circle will die and I will raise their successors myself, train them to be perfect disciples of my lord!"
My punch caught him unawares and stunned, he left himself wide open for an uppercut that sent him spiralling through the air.
Unleashing a spell I discharged a bolt of lightning at him.
The spell was barely affective. I had already depleted most of my mana unleashing my earlier attack and without reverses I was coming up short.
Sabre simply slapped the lightning aside with a shield spell and drew his own runes in the air, calling upon magical fire that manifested as a ring around me; a band of flames that started constricting in an attempt to entrap me.
Grasping the Reaver tight in both hands, I called upon the elemental power of Water and with a single swing turned the flames to steam.
Flying through it, I charged at Sabre bringing the Reaver around in an arch. Sabre parried the strike away with his own sword and threw his head forward, head butting me backwards.
His kick caught me by surprise and sent me flying down until I managed to regain my composure.
Sabre came at me again before I was ready to defend myself, his sword prepared to run me through and coming to my defence; Raziel's projected form manifested. My first born pulled down his cowl in his attempt to pull a scary face.
It stunned Sabre just long enough for me to ready the sword, flying up with a slicing arch.
The tip of the sword caught Sabre across the chest, slicing through the flesh on his chest just over his heart.
He gagged and carried out in pain and I could see that the blood flying out was not black but rather, like his eyes, neon blue and glowing.
I surmised that up until now, throughout our various encounters, I had been fighting his human disguise and that is where the black blood had come from.
Now I was fighting the real Sabre, a being created by the Elder God to replace Moebius.
Growling, he clenched his teeth as he healed the wound shut and turned about to face me.
"Temper, Temper." I told him slyly. He took a moment to regain some of his gentleman like charm and he managed a grin of his own but not quite as large as the one he had been wearing up until now.
With clashed again, our swords blurs around each other. The voices inside my head were still murmuring, speaking to me so quickly it was impossible to hear what they were saying.
It was intensely distracting and in a duel with such an opponent I could not afford to have distractions.
Blocking them out as best I could, I fought with Sabre looking for some sort of flaw in his fighting style. Perhaps it was because I was unused to fighting in the air that I could not see one, despite how adaptable I knew I could be.
"When you see Moebius, do be sure to give him my warmest regards." Sabre told me, flying in close with a thrust that caught me across the side. I grunted, pressing my teeth together to block out the pain at the cut I only just managed to avoid making fatal.
"Why not tell him yourself?" I asked, bringing my elbow back and slamming it into his face to knock him to the side.
Flying back to a safe distance I realized that this was not an opponent I could defeat by attrition. Sabre would simply heal any wound I inflicted upon him, regenerate himself and I would be left back where I started.
The only way to defeat Sabre was to complete and literally destroy him. Every part of his body had be vaporized.
I was out of energy and the only weapon that had been affective against him thus far was the Reaver Blade. I glanced down at the sword in my hand. An unleashing of its spiritual energy before had destroyed Sabre's human disguise.
It was going to need more than that again to defeat him.
"I will give you all the power contained with the sword." Raziel told me telepathically. "The elements as well as the spirit. Unleash it all… at once."
I had never contemplated that. It seemed insane. Combined, the various elemental powers of the Reaver was a tremendous amount of energy. I doubted I had the ability to control it all.
Looking up, I could see that Sabre was reaching the same conclusion with me. He did not wish to drag the fight out any longer.
We could not remain here any longer than the fight below us allowed. The moment my younger self chose to damn the pillars, one way or another, this fight could end.
We both wanted to finish this…now.
I held the Reaver up with a sudden twitch of my hands, revealing the challenge and Sabre accepted; copying my move with his own sword.
There was silence for a moment and it ended as a bolt of lightning crackled across the sky.
Wings beating hard we flew at each other hard, swords held back at the ready.
In those final seconds I could feel the elements within the Reaver surging to the surface one by one.
Fire, the element aligned with the aspects of Nature and conflict blazed down the blade.
Following closely was Water, combined from the aspects of States and Death, the polar opposite of fire.
Air, made from the aspects of Mind and Dimension was a surging rush of power that added itself to the growing collective.
The power of Earth made from the aspects of Time and Energy was like the stead bedrock upon which the mountains themselves stood.
The primary elements of light and darkness came together within and added themselves to the energies sparking light lightning down the Reaver blade.
But I didn't stop there. Calling upon the energies of the completed balance emblem, I combined them with those of the elements and lightning itself came to my aid.
Finally, boasting the power a hundred fold, came the purifying power of spirit.
I could feel the Reaver tremble in my grasp and my own body almost buckled under the weight of all that energy. It took every ounce of will power I had merely to point it all in the right direction
Sabre's own blade responded in kind, becoming ablaze with an unearthly blue fire, a bright and unendurable inferno.
"Come then Kain…let us decide the fate of the world and ourselves!" He declared and with a single powerful flap of hi wings he soared forward.
I responded in kind, flying forth with all the speed and power I could muster; committing myself to this single charge.
The voices in my head voice to a deafening height and within them I could hear the voices of those I had killed and they reminded me of my journey, the long road I had trudged in order to arrive at this single moment.
The voices of the assassins who had killed the mortal Kain.
The voices of the Hordes of the Nemesis I had battled long ago.
The voices of the Sarafan knights I had torn the life from within Meridian.
The voices of many Hylden who had died when I closed their gate to the Demon dimension.
The voices of the Razielim, pleading with me, demanding to know why I had put their entire clan to the torch.
The voices of the vampire hunters from Moebius' crusade.
The voices each and every single guardian I had killed in my first quest to restore the pillars, even those resurrected and still alive in this time, such as Malek.
And in those voices there was a resolution. Despite my skilled opponent, despite the voices constant nagging, I would not be stopped. I had come too far, forsaking so much and regretting all.
I would not be killed here during the final testing of my engraved pathos.
Our blades met in mid air and slicing through Sabre's blue inferno, I snapped his sword and plunged the Reaver with every ounce of strength I could muster directly into his chest; the tip bursting out between his wings with a spray off glowing blue blood.
The sheer force of my attack sent the two of us flying towards the pillars until the emerged tip sank directly into the cracked pillar of Balance and pinned there Sabre cried out in pain.
In that single instant, far below us my younger self had also won the battle and decided to reject Ariel's machinations chose not to sacrifice himself. As the shockwave hit us, our surroundings warp as we were transported back through time back to the present, where our election was to take place.
The energies burning through Sabre from the inside out, all he could do was scream as light shot forth from his eyes and mouth.
With a wrenching, I tore the Reaver back from his body and freed from it I let him drop down from that great height.
Trailing white feathers he dropped down, spinning as he fell until with a loud sickening crunch he impacted the ground at the base of the pillar.
I took a moment to catch my breath before slowly gliding down, following him as I gently came back to the ground.
Sabre was still alive, at least barely. Parts of his skin was still bursting open. The energy I'd pushed inside his body was slowly burning him away from the inside. It was a slow death and not the instant end I had wanted but practically in produced the end result. The decomposition of his body was happening quicker than Sabre could regenerate.
"I…I do not fear death!" Sabre stated, smoke and steam rising from between his teeth.
"'Tis a pity." I told him. "I've been there before. There's much to fear."
Sabre coughed forward, spitting his glowing blue blood forth.
"I go to the embrace of my master. He will grant me life once more."
I sighed and shook my head.
"That is what Moebius said… and you master granted him nothing." In that single instant I felt extreme pity for this being. Whether he would like what I had to say next or not, he deserved to know the truth.
Gently I laid the Reaver across him, bathing him with the purifying spirit and as I had done with Janos I showed him my memories.
He saw the true face of the Elder God, the true form and intentions of the one he had called God.
In return, I saw his memories and I realized that I had met Sabre before.
Many years ago… when I was still human….
Sabre had been a hunter, a man who prowled the wilderness of Nosgoth for his prey. Desperate for food one winter, he had had no choice but to accept a job from a mysterious man in a black robe. He and others were to ambush a man in the village of Ziegsturhl and kill him.
With no other options left to him that winter, Sabre accepted and he had been the one to knock the poor targeted man down and drive a sword through his back.
"You…you were the one who?" I started, raising a hand to the scar on my chest.
The memories continued to flow and I saw that not long after this, Sabre and all others who helped him ambush the poor man were hunted down and killed by a vampire.
Sabre himself had died with a sword blade between his ribs and it was there that his soul was delivered up to the Elder God, who toyed with it and twisted it until Sabre was a reflection of his inner mind.
"No… a lie all a…" Sabre gasped as the truth was made clear to him. "No…all…all meaningless."
Without another word he fell back and crumbled, his body dissolving into dust that sprawled out across the base of the pillars.
"It was my fault." I stated after a moment of silence had past. "I made him what he was. He was a good man, just trying to survive and I…"
Raziel said nothing and the eight restored pillars before me were indifferent to my regret.