Herald of death

Ethan's consciousness flickers back. His return to awareness is slow, marked by throbbing pains pulsating through his body. As his vision clears, he finds himself at the end of a dimly lit corridor. The air is thick with the metallic scent of blood and the sharp tang of ether.

He's lying on his side, every breath a torment. Around him lay massive pieces of fallen stone and the ancient bodies of slain soldiers. Their armors are dented and torn, and their expressions are frozen in their last agonies. The blood from these countless warriors flowed into a river that found its way into a large crack in the ground.

From this pool, a massive crystal has emerged, shooting upward. It pulsates softly, as if beating with a heart of its own. As Ethan's gaze follows the crystal's ascent, he sees the abyss watcher grotesquely impaled. The crystal pierced through his back and emerged from his chest. His own sword is buried deep in the watcher's abdomen.

Silence envelops the corridor, broken only by the faint drip of thick blood oozing from the watcher. Ethan pulls himself into a sitting position, pain lancing through him with each movement. He scans his own body. His flesh is slashed in multiple places, and he's bleeding. He feels his shattered rib cage with every breath.

He pulls out a healing potion and empties its contents. Soon he can rise to his feet, his pains vanishing as his flesh heals. He takes a step, and his lower back sparks with pain. 'Is that what it feels like to be old?' he jests to himself. With a few more steps and two pills of Vicodin, he makes the pain bearable.

Ethan pulls up his status. 'Level eleven?' he thinks, surprised. 'It does say that I've got a class change available, but I thought my max level would be ten. … Now that I think of it, Russ and the Paladin have a slash twenty after their level. Can I continue to level up as a Harbinger indefinitely?' Perplexed, Ethan closes his status.

A green light emerges from the abyss watcher form. A shadow in his image slowly falls to the ground. Ethan reloads and raises his rifle, but the figure is devoid of interest for him. The shadow walks to the end of the corridor, where an imposing door awaits him.

It mimics opening the doors but passes through them without moving them. Ethan follows it and pushes on the doors. He can feel them move, but they resist him. He opens his status once more and allocates his three new characteristic points to strength.

His muscles tingle and heat up, but they don't grow bigger. He pushes once more, and the doors give way, his body simultaneously reminding him of his damaged back. Wondering, he closes his eyes and realizes that Ether has found its way through his veins, settling into his muscles, tendons, and bones.

The doors open onto a balcony that overlooks a vast pit, plunging deep into the darkness below. On the side, a precarious elevator made of ropes and pulleys waits to descend into the pit.

Below, an enormous obsidian stone dominates the scene. Its surface is marred by a glowing red scar, an ominous mark that pulsates faintly. The light from the scar illuminates the pit in eerie, shifting patterns that dance across the walls.

The walls are charred and blackened, as if a blast of fire engulfed them. Scattered around the pit are remnants of imposing chains still embedded in the walls. Burnt parchments and broken lanterns hang from them.

The watcher's shadow falls to its knees, despair clear in its form despite the inexpressive armor. Ethan approaches, he guesses, "She said that souls who hold regrets have a hard time crossing to their next destination. Were you supposed to prevent what happened in this place?" The armor stays silent, ignoring Ethan.

Ethan checks the pit with predator's sight. A dozen corpses lie at the bottom, but none as imposing as the enemy he almost died to.

He approaches the elevator, testing the ropes with a pull. He finds them surprisingly sturdy for their aging appearance. He steps onto the platform and pulls an imposing lever waiting on the side. The elevator creaks downward, its descent sending echoes up the shaft like whispers from the depths.

The descent into the pit is slow, giving Ethan time to recheck his gear and weapons. The red light grows larger and more menacing as he approaches.

The elevator grinds to a halt, and Ethan steps off onto the cavernous floor. Before him stretches the immense obsidian stone, towering fifteen meters high. Its surface is sleek yet deeply scarred by the red fissure.

Around the base of the stone, Ethan finds the corpses of twelve figures. Five of the bodies are dressed in the charred remnants of what appear to be priestly robes. Each priest's hands are clasped around a symbol that survived the devastation, glinting in the red light.

The remaining seven are armored knights, each bearing markings identical to the priests' trinkets. The crimson crystal colonized their bodies. Ethan steps closer to examine one of the knights, noting the way their armors fused in some places and melted under intense heat.

'The blast emanated from a point a few meters in front of the stone,' he thinks. As he absorbs the scene, Ethan's attention is drawn back to the stone. The red scar throbs more intensely. A blast of Ether emanates from the stone, lighting up the crystals.

The corpses rise to their feet, some with more pain than others due to their melted armor. Ether gathers around the priests, and Ethan shoots each of them. The first four fall back to the ground, their heads turned to dust. The fifth priest conjures a golden shield that deflects the bullet.

The knights charge at Ethan, who drops his rifle for his Starfell sword. His blade slashes the first man's arm at the shoulder, disarming him. As he engages with the second, he sees the priest cast a spell. Tendrils of ether shoot at the wounded knight, and his arm grows back in an instant.

Ethan grabs his opponent by the armor and runs forward. His strength became inhuman, and with it, he slams the knight onto the priest's shield. The knight's chest collapses under the violence of the impact. Ethan tosses him away and slashes at the shield, to no avail.

The priest extends a hand, and golden flames form in his palm. Ethan jumps backward, dodging a stream of fire. A knight arrives at his side, and Ethan deflects his attack before decapitating his opponent. As the fire comes back to him, Ethan drops his sword and uses the knight's corpse to shield himself. The crimson crystals growing on Ethan's improvised shield turn to dust at the mere touch of those flames.

'You didn't heal the other priests. You cannot resurrect them if I destroy their heads,' Ethan thinks. He hurls the corpse at the priest, blocking the fire long enough to move away.

Reaching another knight, he locks his right arm under his left arm pit. 'Piercing shot,' Ethan thinks as he shoots his Glock between the joints of the knight's helmet.

Ethan pulls out the Abyss watcher's long sword and parries the knight whose arm is exposed. He swiftly drops a grenade into his chest plate through the shoulder's opening and kicks him to another knight. The explosion blasts away the armor and makes them both fall on their backs.

Jumping at them Ethan uses the occasion to pierce both their skulls as the priest releases a spell to heal them. His spell fails as they lay immobile on the ground.

The three remaining knights charge in formation, emitting an inhuman guttural war cry. A few seconds away from them, Ethan closes his eyes and casts debilitating hex. As the dark smoke of his spell sips into their bodies, they tumble and fall to his feet under the weight of their armor.

With three thrusts, he ends their simulacra of life. Returning his attention to the priest, he sees him restoring the knight with a crushed chest plate. That last knight takes a single step before falling back to the ground, killed by his own armor.

The priest's shield fades slightly, and Ethan aims his pistol at his head. "I am lucky I killed your four friends immediately; I don't think I would have won otherwise," Ethan praises. The shield disappears, and with a single shot, the priest's dried head scatters away.

Ethan grabs his Starfell Kingdom sword at the feet of the priest. A green light emerges from it, forming a wandering soul. "You have regrets too, don’t you?" Ethan says stashing, his swords into the haversack.

The soul turns to Ethan. To his surprise, it locks its gaze into his. The soul turns to mist, and before Ethan could react, it burrows itself into his mind.