Ensnared By Shadows: A Tale Of Love And Vengeance

The deafening sounds of the black trumpets could only mean one thing, the fourth gate has fallen. The worst fear of king Adynaeus has become reality, the knight of the red dawn has finally come to claim his kingdom.

"The walls have been breached, and the first batch of soldiers have fallen, what do you suggest, your majesty?" Leontius, the king's right hand man, and his best friend informed.

Adynaeus leaned sideways on his throne, his once jovial face overthrown with worry and despair. It was rare to see the king this way, but when faced with the might of the red dawn, every king was bound to despair.

"So they've come for her..." Adynaeus whispered softly, his fingers drumming theatrically on the armrest of his throne. "..I guess I have no choice then..."

"You don't mean t—"

"Leontius, are you willing to die by my side?" Adynaeus interjected, his right arm outstretched to meet the bowed head of his best friend.

"It will be an honor." Leontius answered. Although he had faith in his friend's capabilities, Leontius just couldn't see Adynaeus winning this war. The knight of the red dawn was not a title given to Adamine Icarus for jokes.

It was known within the two realms that Icarus had battled against Marbas, a president of hell and had made quick work of the demon. The stories told that Icarus had achieved this feat under the darkness of the night, and when dawn came all that was in sight was a sea of corpses drowning in an ocean of blood. This was the incident that had earned him the title, knight of the red dawn.

"Is she safe? The keeper of Avalon?" Adynaeus asked as he rose from his throne, his right arm outstretched into the nothingness of the room.

"Your daughter is safe, my lord." Answered Leontius before rising to his feet.

The first thing that Leontius noticed was the sudden heaviness in the air, as if it had been layered over and over again with a stifling invisible energy. The man before him was completely coated in an aura Leontius was unable to describe. It had a feeling just like the pure energy of the mages, but at the same time was corroded, or maybe a mixture of both.

Before his coronation, a seal had been placed on Adynaeus to prevent him from using his dark magic. The keepers of Avalon were meant to be pure, but Adynaeus being born to a demon mother had become an exception. His demon powers had been sealed, and the only trigger to releasing the seal was for Adynaeus to be caught in a situation that threatened his life. Leontius could grasp the seriousness of being confronted by the red dawn, but what he didn't expect was for his friend to go all out from the start.

"Come Leontius, let us lay our lives for the sake of our people."

Before the awestruck man could react, he was teleported outside, his feet hanging on nothing but air. Flying was not new to Leontius; powerful members of the Keepers had the ability to fly, but everything had happened so fast that he barely had time to react in the appropriate manner.

From where he stood in the air, Adynaeus tried to reach out with his senses to gauge the armored crowd beneath him. It was like standing in front of a raging flood that sought to crush and dominate all that stood in its way. But that paled in comparison to what Adynaeus felt from the figure that led the army. Which was absolutely nothing.

Only one who was knowledgeable about the dimensions of power could fathom what that meant. It was not a normal sensation of nothingness, but rather the distinct lack of sensory feedback despite the target of your focus being right there in front of you. It was like staring into a bottomless abyss, or the infinite void of an all consuming black hole.

In other words, this man was simply so powerful that Adynaeus could not comprehend it.

Pearls of perspiration fell from his forehead, but Adynaeus wiped them off instantly. To be conquered by fear was not something he could allow. For his daughter's sake, he was going to bring down this man despite the difference in their might.

"Demon child Adynaeus, I've come to claim what's rightfully mine. Give it up without a fight, and I'll spare you and your Kingdom." Icarus offered, his words spoken with no sense of hostility, unlike anything the king had expected.

There was no need to reply to that offer, nothing this man said was going to make him give up his daughter. The only way to solve this matter was by crushing Adamine Icarus in a fight.

Reading the situation, Leontius, whose ability was creation, molded an arrow of pure energy and handed it over to Adynaeus.

A spinning white glyph appeared on the back of the king's left hand. Flecks of snowflake-like shards burst from it and fluttered to coat the pulsating arrowhead with another dense layer of energy. The pressure intensified as the more layers of dark energy continued to coat the spear in his hands. The space around them was being contorted by the sheer power of the charging attack, yet the man maintained a perfectly calm visage.

Adynaeus's red eyes shone as he locked onto his target. He had no way of knowing exactly what sort of defenses Icarus would put up, the only way to make sure this attack caused enough damage to the army beneath him was to launch it at maximum output.

"Crush and destroy," he intoned and let go of the arrow.

Like a streaking red comet of death, the arrow blasted its way through the air tearing through space as it made its descent on the army below. Its approach triggered over thousands of defensive barriers much like the king had predicted, but Icarus remained unfazed by the attack's approach.

Blasts of raging flames, glaciers of freezing ice, even instantly created golems of stone, all were effortlessly shredded by the torque force generated by the rapid spinning motion of the arrow.

But the real show began as it neared the man in front. Three dark barriers conjured up using Infernal energy appeared to engulf the knight in protection.

The arrow slammed into the first one and it cracked slightly from the sheer force of impact. Then, as if it was being poisoned, a purifying light spread through the numerous dark magic circles that composed the barrier.

It was a matter of simple logic. The barriers were created using the dark powers, Adynaeus's arrow though corrupted by his demon powers, had been imbued with the Light properties from Leontius.

Light always canceled out darkness. In this instance, it meant that the foundation of the barriers were being contaminated and weakened to the point where...

With a sound not unlike the mass shattering of a thousand glass windows, the first barrier was destroyed. The arrow continued on to the next one, though it took considerably longer to shatter it this time. Adynaeus took note of the massive decrease in the arrow's rotational and piercing power by the time it reached the third and final barrier. This one it failed to pierce, eventually losing its spinning momentum after spreading the last of its Light into the barrier.

The attack had failed to kill Icarus, but the same couldn't be said for his army. Being close to a powerful source of light energy was more than enough to destroy beings of darkness, and that was exactly what had happened. The kingdom which was once threatened by an army, now faced one threat, Adamine Icarus.

"Do you think you've won simply because you managed to destroy my army? Don't get cocky Adynaeus, the legions of hell are mine to command!!"

The earth trembled and shook violently as flames shot up from the earth into the sky. A massive gate decorated with scorched skulls and bones rose out of the ground like a monument, its presence radiating an infernal energy that corrupted the land around it. Icarus waved his hand and the gates creaked open, revealing a horde of misshapen unearthly creatures that had been blackened by the eternally burning flames of Hell.

"You've made your choice, despite my offer for peace. It's finally come down to this, I'll have what I want even if I have to walk over your corpse to get it!"