Volke vs Death Lord Kallikore [Aug Short Story]

Hey peeps!

Here is the short story for this month. It's a "what if" scenario where Volke must face down Death Lord Kallikore for the good of the world.

Mind you, this isn't canon. While all the characters are reflections of how they'll be in the story, this won't ever happen. o.o

Just keep that in mind!

ALSO, I wrote it in third-person instead of first-person because I thought it fit a little better? Hopefully no one minds. >.>

Shami

Volke Versus Death Lord Kallikore

The Twilight Gate was unlike any other gateway in the world.

It wasn’t made by human hands—it was a structure that had existed as long as there had been water in the ocean. To the unknowing, the Twilight Gate appeared to be an upside-down structure built into the stone of the deepest ocean chasm. It was over fifty feet tall, a hundred feet wide, and seemingly made of nacre, the same substance as pearls. The bars would’ve glittered if the light could ever reach it, but that was impossible. The gate sat in the darkness, tucked away from the world, a portal to the abyssal hells.

To people in the know, the Twilight Gate had once been a living structure, with a pulse that beat into the rock around it. But that was no longer. The day the abyssal hells were sealed was the day the Twilight Gate had “died” to the hands of a god-arcanist. Unable to open or close, the wondrous and ancient structure blocked anyone from entering or leaving the abyssal hells—except for souls and the occasional trickle of water.

On one side of the dead gate was the vast midnight depths—the part of the ocean where light never touched. On the other side of the dead gate was the first abyss, the top layer of the abyssal hells.

Volke Savan, Warlord of Magic, stood in the first abyss, the Twilight Gate only twenty feet from him, the ocean beyond the other side.

Salt water leaked from cracks in the ancient gate, spilling into the abyssal hells like waterfalls. Within the hells, the gate glowed with a light blue hue, and the bars were twisted into the grand stone walls that seemingly stretch on for eternity. There was no “ceiling” in the abyssal hells, just a mist of soul fragments that glowed with a faint white, giving illumination to the otherwise dreary atmosphere.

Ankle-deep waters surrounded Volke on all sides. He stood at the ready, his sword, Retribution, in hand.

Luthair, his true form knightmare, stood by his side, his twinkling cape fluttering in the nonexistent wind. The hollow suit of shadow plate armor kept his gaze straight ahead, his vigilance never faltering.

“Here they come,” Volke whispered.

Amidst the mist that clung to the ancient stone walls like ghosts of forgotten battles, there strode a figure of ominous grandeur… Death Lord Kallikore.

His armor, a macabre tapestry of bones and twist metal, seemed to resonate with the whispers of the past. Each white bone, meticulously arranged into his ornate armor, told a tale of lives extinguished.

Kallikore was a tall man, with dark tan skin, hair as black as night, and eyes that seemed to glow with a pale yellow. Unlike other Death Lords, Kallikore appeared… not altogether human. Kallikore had taken a part of his abyssal dragon’s flesh and stitched it to his own. Part of his torso was rotting flesh sewn to his own. Pale blue wings made of human souls sprouted from his back and trailed behind him—a cape of death’s design.

Normally, only abyssal dragons, and not their arcanists, could graft souls to their bodies, which was exactly why Kallikore had stone part of his eldrin’s body for his own. He had done something unthinkable, and now he was… twisted. The souls on his back whispered and moaned, their face permanently frozen in terror, their grasping hands reaching in all directions.

The very air trembled in Kallikore’s presence, an acknowledgment of the darkness that held dominion over his being. His stride was deliberate, each step sloshing through the hellish waters.

Behind him walked his mangled abyssal dragon—a creature with no wings. It was a rotting dragon with four legs, six eyes, and tail that lashed about, several tips twisting together like a pile of tentacles. Its back had been gouged and torn apart, and blue ooze covered the injury, never healing, just “bleeding.”

Volke readied his stance and held his sword tightly in his hand. “Halt,” he called out, calm and confident. “I’ve been tasked with protecting the Twilight Gate, and I won’t allow anyone near. Not even a Death Lord.”

He was the last line of defense. The only one left behind to hold back any darkness that would approach. Volke had accepted the duty without hesitation, even though he knew it may be his last.

“It’s already over,” Death Lord Kallikore replied, his voice raspy, as though he hadn’t spoken in over a century. “With my power, nothing can stop me, not even this corpse of a gate—or the once god-arcanist who has lived a little too long.”

Volke took a deep breath. Luthair already knew what was needed. The knightmare melted into the purest shadow and then rose up again around Volke, coating the man’s body in darkness. The knightmare hardened again as plate armor, with horns on the helmet, claws on the feet and gauntlet, and wings made from a cape that ripped itself in half to form glorious wings.

With the cold power of his knightmare coursing through his veins, Volke and Luthair said as one, their voices perfectly mixed, “Your power doesn’t scare me.”

“Feh.” Kallikore stopped his approach. His abyssal dragon eldrin came to a halt behind him, his head lowered, his movements sluggish. “You have yet to meet my friend.”

Kallikore raised his hand. His fingers, clad in skeletal gauntlets, flexed, and then he snapped, the sound piercing and betraying the power held within in his twisted body.

From the mists of the abyssal hells came the beats of wings flapping. What emerged next was something unlike Volke had ever seen.

It was a dragon, that much he knew, but it was a frightening beast with a distinct form unlike any other dragon before it. The creature was the size of a tavern, and its wings stretched outward, four times the width of its body. The dragon had crimson feathers and scales, and its wings were both sickly yellow leather and the grace of a hawk’s wing.

The dragon’s claws resembled talons, and its mouth was somehow reptilian and beak-like, lined with hundreds of fangs.

The beast pulsed with a sickly blue glow, and fragments of souls floated around its neck, creating a bizarre necklace or halo of death-like energies.

This was an elder phoenix dragon, the very last of its kind, and twisted by the hundreds of souls it had consumed in the abyssal hells. When it flapped its wings, the mist shifted, and the waters splashed.

“You stand before Xuandi the Emperor Dragon,” the monster said, his voice powerful enough to cause the mists to shudder. “Bow or be consumed.”

The creature stayed aloft, watching from on high with eyes as blazing as the sun.

“Behold your demise,” Death Lord Kallikore said with a laugh. “You are a frail being, capable of dying—but the beasts you see before you are far beyond that. You have no hope of defeating us. You lack the magic, you lack the skill.”

When Volke tensed, the water around his ankles rippled. He held back a laugh.

“I’ve lived as a man, ruled as a god, and died a hero,” he and Luthair whispered. “At every step of my journey, they said it would be impossible—for me to be arcanist, for me to rise to the challenge, for me to defeat corrupted magic itself—and yet here I am, waiting for you, fiend. You sound like everyone else who thought they could stand in my way.”

The Death Lord chortled. “No one outruns death forever.”

Kallikore reached into the rotting body of his eldrin and withdrew a gold weapon made of abyssal coral. It was a spear, carved from the coral and sharpened to a terrible point. The man twirled it in his hand and then motioned for Volke to step forward.

Volke spread his knightmare wings, his thoughts on the warnings Gray had given him. If I’m too slow, or if I falter, it’ll be all over, Volke thought. He closed his eyes and took one deep breath. Confidence. Without it, we surrender too early.

When he opened his eyes again, red energy crackled around his knightmare form. The shadows danced and reached for him, the darkness that dwelled in the mists bent to be nearer. With his heart racing, and his mind cleared of all distractions, Volke shadow-stepped the distance between him and Kallikore, and then shot out of the darkness upward with a powerful flap of his starry caped wings.

Death Lord Kallikore was fast. More so than any normal man. He had consumed souls to empower his body—Volke knew all of this. But Volke also knew he would only have one chance to take the Death Lord by surprise, and it would be the opening blow.

Instead of dodging, the Death Lord had lifted his spear to block the attack. Since Kallikore was also far stronger than a normal man, this would’ve been a sound tactic, but what Kallikore didn’t anticipate was Volke’s sword, Retribution.

Imbued with both knightmare and world serpent magic, and forged from the bones of the apoch dragon, the weapon was a magic ender. It slid through the abyssal coral of the spear, and then the flesh of the Death Lord’s neck, as though they didn’t even exist.

Volke felt no resistance as he decapitated the Death Lord, flapped his wings to sail over Kallikore’s eldrin, and then splash down into the water a few feet away.

Death Lord Kallikore’s weapon had been sliced in half. Both pieces splashed into the water.

But not Kallikore’s head.

The souls on his stolen wings reached out, their arms spindly. They grabbed the Death Lord’s head, and then placed it back on the neck, their fingers clawing and scraping. Blue, disgusting ooze gushed from Kallikore’s injury, practically squirting from his arteries. It mended his flesh in an instant, sewing his head straight back onto his body.

But one soul was extinguished in the process.

According to Gray, it was lost forever.

Death Lord Kallikore, within seconds, could rotate his head and shrug his shoulders, his yellow eyes blazing with hatred as he glared at his ruined weapon.

“It’s a heinous and unforgivable act to wield the apoch dragon’s power,” Kallikore drawled.

Volke slowly turned around to face the man, his weapon still held high. “I’ve met the apoch dragon,” he and Luthair said as one. “And I’ve known its touch. If there’s anyone in this world worthy of holding a piece of its power—it’s us.”

The air grew stale and the mists practically froze.

Kallikore lifted his hand, and the souls of his wings shuddered, responding to the dark energies that coursed through the Death Lord’s veins.

“We shall end this,” Kallikore stated.

His abyssal dragon whipped his head around, his mouth glowing with raw magic. The two evoked beams of raw power, and Volke stepped into the darkness to avoid their life-ending attacks. When Volke emerged, the two evoked more magic—stronger than before, faster than most could handle. Volke’s knightmare form crackled with sinister scarlet as he shot through the air, speeding away from their beams of raw magic.

The phoenix dragon, Xuandi, in the air, the mists swirling around his beating wings, laughed a guttural laugh.

“The age of mankind is over,” Xaundi said, his voice deep and gruff, coming from his belly and echoing through his massive throat until it came out of his mouth. “You are nothing more than souls to be harvested—the flour that will make our bread. Die, knightmare arcanist—you’re standing in the way of our new future.”

The phoenix dragon evoked a mountain of flame from his breath. Volke was too far away from the ground to shadow-step, and instead took the force of fire across his body.

With his focus unshattered, Volke flapped his star-studded wings and soared through the flames at lightning speeds. Again, he would only have this one opportunity to surprise the dragon—his opening attack.

Volke emerged from the fire unharmed.

He slashed with Retribution, hoping to cleave a slash through the dragon’s skull. Unfortunately, Xuandi was just as empowered as Kallikore. Xuandi was fast, and it managed to lean away before Volke struck.

With a clean swipe, Volke took a slice out of the phoenix dragon’s skull. He flew by and then angled back to the ground, once again hitting the water with a splash, just as the chunk of Xuandi hit the ground behind him.

“Knightmares cannot handle the light and hunger of fire!” Kallikore roared.

Volke stood, Luthair’s amusement on the edge of his thoughts. When Volke turned this time, it was a laugh of his own. The runes across his body had given his skills and abilities a normal knightmare arcanist would never have.

His father had given him a blue rune that ran down his spine and wrapped around his ribs. It granted him immunity to fire—one of his greatest weakness, up until his father had bestowed this benefit.

But it had limited Volke’s options. Since it was such a massive rune, he wasn’t able to take many others. Sure, he had one on his eye, and his arms, but Volke had made hard choices.

Volke shook away the thoughts. He had missed his opportunity to kill the phoenix dragon in one strike, and now the dragon would know Volke’s capabilities.

Death Lord Kallikore, given impossible celerity through his soul augmentation, dashed toward Volke. He reached for the knightmare arcanist, the wrinkles of his palm glowing with sickly energies.

Volke slid into the darkness, traveling through the depths of the shadows and emerging fifty feet away. But Kallikore lunged again, faster than before, on top of Volke before there was any time to rest.

Gray had warned Volke—if the Death Lord took his soul, it would all be over. And all Kallikore would need to do was touch him.

Volke manipulated the shadows, his resolve and focus at their peak.

Tendrils the same thickness and durability as metal bars lifted from the watery depths. They lashed out, grabbed Kallikore, and slowed his movements. The Death Lord evoked raw magic. Whenever the shadows were struck, they broke in an instant.

No one was immune to the destructive force of raw magic, and Volke had no way to protect against that either.

Kallikore’s dragon lumbered into the fight. It breathed magic across the area, breaking the shadows. Volke took the sky, and once Kallikore was free, he flapped his soul-webbed wings and gave chase.

Red energies crackled across Volke’s shadow-clad body, and the darkness from his armor sprang forward as deadly spikes. Kallikore dodged. Volke evoked his terrors, the Death Lord faltered—for just a moment—but that was enough.

Volke stabbed him with the shadows, enough to puncture through his armor and his body.

The Death Lord wore no trinkets or artifacts. His armor was made from mystical creatures, but no permanent magics had been imbued. It was just normal protections, which weren’t a match for Volke’s deadly shadow manipulation.

Xuandi roared. He flapped his wings, and then power radiated from him.

His siphon aura covered the whole first abyss, increasing the temperature of the area and causing a haze of steam to waft up from the water below.

Gray had warned about this, too.

The legendary phoenix dragon had a powerful siphon aura would draw energy from all sources, empowering the phoenix dragon and preventing death so long as at least one other living thing was nearby.

Death Lord Kallikore plummeted to the ground, the shadow spikes through his body. But the souls on his wings repaired him a second time. Another soul was extinguished, and the wounds to his chest healed in an instant.

When Kallikore stood, another wave of power washed over the area.

The color drained from the surroundings, leaving the world a husk of blacks and whites. The Twilight Gate, the water, the mists, the phoenix dragon—all was mute as the power of the Death Lord’s aura took hold.

The inevitable aura.

“It’s all over,” Xuandi growled.

And he wasn’t wrong. The cruel grip of death’s fingers wrapped around Volke’s heart. The inevitable aura was a magic only Death Lord’s possessed. For once someone was caught inside of it, they would die within sixty seconds, so long as the aura maintained for that length of time.

Xuandi’s aura made him immortal so long as something living was nearby. Death Lord Kallikore couldn’t be killed, thus preventing Xuandi from dying. And since Xuandi couldn’t die… Kallikore’s aura wouldn’t strike him down…

Which meant all their enemies would die within sixty seconds, leaving them perfectly alive and well.

A clever strategy, Volke mused. But he had been warned.

Although Volke had hated the fate Luthair had once been corrupted by the arcane plague, remnants of its power remained in the shadowy suit of armor. Volke embraced such corruption, allowing the red crackling energies to course through him, emboldening him, twisting him. Spikes sprouted from Luthair’s armor, and his glittering starry wings became tattered at the edges, frayed by the enhanced magics his body could barely contain.

Fifty seconds remaining.

Volke manipulated the shadows. He grabbed Kallikore just as he sped toward him. The Death Lord didn’t have time to move. Volke slashed him through.

Another soul disappeared as the ghostly ooze gushed to mend the injury.

Volke touched the water with one foot, the shadows gathering to help change his momentum, and he rushed at Kallikore again, Retribution cutting through the Death Lord in a single strike.

Another soul.

The abyssal dragon screamed. It turned its head to evoke more magic. Volke’s concentration was second to none.

An eclipse had slowly been forming in the first abyss, and it was only in that moment than his opponent’s realized it.

Volke’s eclipse aura filled the area, casting everything into darkness. With the blackness all around, Volke was empowered further, heightening his speed and strength to feats he had never known before.

His opponents were blind, even the powerful Xuandi.

Volke manipulated the shadows to bind the dragon. Then he flew at the creature, and sliced off its head.

Just like with Kallikore, the souls could still be used to prevent death—which meant another soul.

Volke went back to the man.

Thirty seconds.

And slashed at him with a frenzied pace, cutting and hacking and slashing—his blade never meeting any resistance. He chopped and sliced, rending the man into a fine pulp, the soul arms struggling to fix everything, their hands frantic, their faces still frozen in horror. One by one they vanished from the wings, each more desperate than the last to save the Death Lord.

The inevitable aura…

Despite the damage to his body, Kallikore maintained it.

Fifteen seconds.

With the darkness acting as more arms and claws, Volke tore apart the dragon and Death Lord Kallikore.

The souls… There were so many…

Perhaps he wouldn’t make it…

Persistence… Volke thought, his body struggling against the latent corruption. Without it…

Xuandi hit the ground, splashing water in waves in all directions. The foul monster couldn’t see, and instead breathed flames in random directions. Volke didn’t care. He continued his toil, ripping the dragon apart, and the Death Lord, desperate to deplete the souls.

Ten seconds…

But Xiandi had seen them. With the fire, he had somesight. The dragon lumbered over, and Volke couldn’t stop his assault—he had no time to waste on dodging.

The dragon slashed with his talon claws. They burned with foul fires. Volke didn’t take extra damage from the heat, but the sheer steel of the talons cut through Luthair’s mighty shadow plate. Volke staggered, his concentration threatening to leave him.

Five seconds…

More souls gone. The wings were tiny. Almost no more.

Xuandi attacked again, gouging through Volke’s back, cutting deep. For a moment, Volke’s sight tunneled. The dragon was so huge, so powerful, and the attack would’ve been fatal to most arcanists.

But…

Volke had a little extra healing from his rune granted to him by Zaxis. Even now, his old childhood rival was helping.

“You’ve lost,” Volke shouted as he attacked the remaining fleshy pile that was Death Lord Kallikore.

And then the final soul vanished—just before the inevitability aura concluded its insidious countdown.

Gray had said there was only one way to beat a Death Lord—to graft its soul—but clearly there was another. The grinder method.

But…

Xuandi roared and attacked again.

Volke shadow-stepped away, his body weaker, his movements sluggish. He knew, when he had taken this duty of protecting the Twilight Gate, that it might come to this…

He knew.

Which was why Volke had said goodbye to his children, and to his wife, and to his friends, and his colleagues. He had done this once before, and the pain of leaving them had been so terrible, but…

Dying a hero twice would be the greatest accomplishment Volke ever pulled off.

The steam from Xuandi’s siphon aura maintained. And as long as Volke lived, the phoenix dragon would persist. Its draining effects wore him down, even now, like the water evaporating all around them.

“Humans are weak,” Xuandi roared. “You’ll never defeat me, an immortal, not as long as you still take breath!” The eclipse still stole his vision, and he huffed flame with each word, just to see. “I’ll partner with Umbriel, or Naiad—it doesn’t matter who—once you’re dead, I’ll continue forever! I am above death, above time itself! And you? You’re nothing.”

“If a single creature like you can bring so much darkness, then a single man can bring an equal amount of light. You’ve met your match, Xuandi.”

While Volke still had his strength, and his will, he spread his wings, shot from the water, and flew straight for the beast’s mouth. Xuandi happily opened his fang-filled maw to meet the knightmare arcanist.

Volke handed his blade to the shadows, and slashed far wider an arc than he could’ve with just his arm. He slashed at the phoenix dragon, cleaving the half in half right where the top jaw met the bottom, leaving the lower half of the fangs still attached to the body while the rest of the head sailed clean off.

And as Volke passed over, the blood splattering across his dark armor, he made peace with his decision.

Gray had said he would handle Naiad and Umbriel.

Which meant…

This was the last threat. Volke couldn’t allow Xuandi to live.

Once Retribution returned to his hand, he took his last breath, and plunged it deep into his heart, the cold bone blade, twinkling with Terrakona’s power, somehow didn’t hurt him. It felt like…

The time the apoch dragon had given him peace.

Volke collapsed into the water, his shadow armor bleeding off. Knightmares, when merged, became one with their arcanist. They lived and died as a single unit. And Luthair had no qualms.

Without another living being nearby, and before Xuandi could heal from the fatal blow, his siphon aura failed.

The elder phoenix dragon died, just as Death Lord Kallikore had.

And so did the hero who had lived twice.