Chapter 6: Tricks and Traps

Ebonheart's falling laughter echoed in the ruins as the dragon paced a perimeter around Gavin. Knight and wyrm prowled warily, sensing the depths of malice within each other after millennia apart.

Gavin held his blessed sword aloft, chanting prayers that lent strength against darkness incarnate. Ebonheart attacked plans unseen, weaving illusions that seethed from jet scales as dark miasma. Your faith in your God blinds you, worm! Ebonheart mused. Submit to me and kneel before me; renounce your God!

Never! Gavin declared. Your delusions end here; Eldoria will remain free!

With that, their battle joined amid grinding ice and vaulted spires crumbling under power older than memory. Ebonheart brought his full being to bear, summoning runestones that pulsed with malevolent power. From them spilled demons, leeching warmth and will, while visions of loved ones in torment assailed Gavin anew.

Yet the knight withstood the onslaught, dispersing them with swordblows ringing with righteous song. His moves gained fluency against weakness revealed, coming within a hair's breadth of drawing first blood upon the shadowwyrm. This spurred Ebonheart to dissolve into living gloom, reforming to assail from unexpected angles that tested Gavin's intuition.

Their conflict led them to race along swaying bridges between citadel spires, exchanging blows that cracked ancient stonework loose from perpetual ice. Gavin parried jets of vile, dark power, searing colder than any frost, counterattacking each evasion to drive the dragon back. Yet Ebonheart wielded darkness beyond mortal ken, twisting reality to separate the knight from trusted weapons.

Gavin found himself disarmed and alone amid groaning ruins as shadows closed in. He faced the abyss with empty hands, upraised, whispering prayers that bound his soul in holy radiance, impervious to deceit or harm. Ebonheart reared back, voidlike eyes betraying horror and disbelief at powers thwarting his mastery.

You are no ordinary knight! The dragon snarled. None have withstood my glamours. But this changes nothing; all will fall before my ascension!

A burst of lightning rent the ruins, walls crumbling as Gavin rolled aside barely in time. He seized a fallen chunk of masonry, imbuing it with brilliance to withstand Ebonheart's corruption. Their battle renewed amid ruin and distorted reality, with the fates of Eldoria's peoples hanging on the outcome.