Spiritual Knight

Nathan had just woken up from a long nap, his essence was almost half replenished, and he was about to spend it again on the bracelet when he suddenly heard the voice scream inside his head.

"Hey!"

Nathan frowned at the scream inside his brain.

'What's wrong, did you remember something?'

The voice groaned in delight.

"Yes! I remembered my name!"

Nathan's eyes widened in surprise. So far, he had called the voice as... the voice, he hadn't even bothered to name it knowing that this one would sooner or later remember it on its own.

It was the fourth day since the dinner, since then Nathan had fed the bracelet almost twenty times with his essence, though not all of it, mainly because his essence did not recover quickly enough to fill it so many times.

Still, that the voice remembered his name was a good sign as it meant she was closer to remembering other things.

'So, what's your name?'

The voice chuckled softly in amusement and said proudly:

"Amelia Dyr Rysha"

It was a somewhat odd name, mainly because a connector between the first and last name was unusual. Anyway, Nathan could stop calling the voice 'the voice'.

"Well, congratulations, Amelia... I guess" 

Amelia nodded confidently.

"Fufufu, if you keep giving me essence, I'll eventually tell you more amazing things"

Nathan just sighed and suddenly jumped up grabbing the knife that was on a table next to him.

Lynn had also gotten up from the chair she was sitting in and was holding her two pistols tightly.

"Something's coming"

Nathan nodded and quickly they both left the room so they wouldn't be caught inside. 

Once outside, they both heard a metallic sound like someone scratching a plate with a fork, but in reality, it was something much worse.

At the end of the corridor where the room where they were staying was located, a person covered in large black armor was dragging his sword across the floor, creating that horrible sound.

Nathan frowned at the creature, but quickly judged it to be a calamity instead of a human. 

A day ago, Herfir and Seinor had returned, bringing them some information from the surroundings. Among that information they were told of several calamities, one in particular was quite similar to the one that was approaching them.

"An enchanted armor... without a physical body, carrying a long sword almost as big as its own size, a spiritual knight" Nathan whispered, remembering the description Herfir had given him.

Lynn lightly squeezed the trigger of her pistols preparing to fire at any moment.

"...Whenever you want"

Nathan looked at the knife in his hand and sighed depressively.

He wasn't sure if he could even get a scratch on the knight. As much as the knife was a relic, it was just as bad as the sword that had been destroyed in the battle against the ghoul.

Either way, it wasn't as if they had any other choice, so Nathan began to flow his essence into the knife until he felt that it would accept no more. 

Almost ten meters away from them, the armor stopped and watched them through the grids of its helmet. Behind it, all that could be seen was pure darkness... because there was nothing inside.

How do you kill something that doesn't have a body?

Nathan had asked Herfir that question, who answered with two simple words.

Physical strength.

The armor was a second rank first category... something that Nathan and Lynn could cope with. The problem was its high resistance to physical attacks... plus this was the only way to defeat it.

'I'm thankful I didn't get to feed you...' Nathan whispered to Amelia in his head.

Suddenly, the armor lifted his sword upwards and then placed it on his shoulder, only then did he begin to charge towards them.

"Get ready like we talked about!" shouted Nathan as he lowered his center of gravity and raised his knife in front of his face in a defensive stance.

"Yes!" replied Syril before pulling both triggers.

Two brown bullets shot out of Lynn's pistols, slamming into the armor, and exploding a moment later, leaving two hand-sized brown stains on the armor's surface.

Nathan instead reinforced his legs with essence.

The calamity's movements were fast but a bit clumsy because of how heavy the armor and sword were. So, he used his speed to dodge the heavy attacks.

A couple of meters away from Nathan, the armor stopped and, taking advantage of the inertia, his sword swung downwards with the full weight of gravity.

Nathan could not block an attack of such caliber, if he did, he would be completely crushed, so he slid over the side of the armor as it slowly rotated its helmet and, releasing his grip on his sword with one hand, tried to catch Nathan.

He was quicker and dodged the amour's death grip, then two more bullets struck the armor's bare chest leaving two more brown stains.

The bullets didn't hurt him, so the armor directly ignored Lynn and turned his body towards Nathan, again raising his sword over his shoulder.

A little more confident after the first exchange, Nathan tightened his grip on the knife and waited for the armor to run back towards him.

In a way, the narrow corridors were an advantage for Nathan since the armor did not have enough room to swing its sword horizontally.

So, the calamity only had to try to crush Nathan, cut him in half, or trap him with his metal gloves.

Then, while Nathan nimbly dodged the armor's attacks, two more bullets hit its back, creating two new stains.

Gradually, the armor's body began to fill with brown spots, mainly in areas such as its chest, legs, and shoulders.

Somehow, the armor began to sense that Lynn's attacks were not simple and were somehow affecting him. It was at that moment that it ignored Nathan, who had so far only dodged her attacks and concentrated on finishing her off first.

The calamity repeated the same process as before, raised his sword to his shoulder and charged at Lynn.

"Now!" shouted Nathan.

Lynn didn't delay as she saw the calamity coming dangerously close to her and fired two red bullets into the armor's chest.

The bullets hit the brown spots on the armor's body, which connected with the other spots, then the armor stopped abruptly and froze in place. However, as he was already running, his sword did not stop and fell to the ground between him and Lynn.

The brown bullets were like glue, while the red bullets were the activator. That was Lynn's technique, she could create different effects with her bullets and then activate them.

Nathan was quick to run as soon as he noticed that the armor had dropped the sword. Then he stepped forward and stood in front of Lynn.

It was at that moment that he felt gravity begin to rotate, then a small smile appeared on his face behind his mask.

"Perfect timing!"

Taking advantage of the change in gravity and the fact that the armor was still trapped thanks to Lynn's technique, Nathan used his body as a lever and with the help of gravity he lifted the heavy sword, putting all the essence he needed in his arms to do so.

The armor left the ground at the same time as Nathan finished lifting the sword with the help of gravity, then he took advantage of the time it was still in the air and swung it towards the armor.

The armor was falling headfirst into the ceiling, while his own sword was coming dangerously close to his helmet. However, while the sword had come within reach of him... so had Nathan's arm with which he still held the hilt of the sword.

They had underestimated how long the armor would remain still thanks to the glue from Lynn's bullets. It was enough time for Nathan to attack it, but they didn't think that the glue would lose its effect so quickly, so the armor extended its arm with some effort while Nathan was unable to react because of the unexpectedness of it.

The armor grabbed Nathan's arm, squeezing it until it broke his bones.

"AGHHH!" Nathan screamed in pain as he felt his wrist and forearm being forcibly destroyed.

But that was nothing as the calamity retracted his arm, pulling it towards him. Then it raised its other arm and opened its metal gauntlet, where Nathan's neck fell perfectly.

Then the calamity tightened its grip on his hand and a slight crack was heard as Nathan's neck was completely destroyed, killing him a few moments later.