Chapter 5
Soul Drinker
AT 1084 (AZ 1456) - Early Spring
The Ruins of Castle Euros, The Darklands
The Dark Eternal considered himself capable of stretching out with his mind to encompass all possibilities and eventualities. How else could he plot the millennia-long project of bringing the Dark Race to completion? However, some possibilities seemed too remote to even consider.
Power grows. That is its very nature. When a creature possesses power, it will always seek further power. There is no exception. Or rather, there should be no exception.
Caligo the Knight of Chaos was a curious specimen. For all their pretensions, the blood-drinkers were simple animals. They hunt, they feed, and so doing, they grow their power. It is all according to the natural order, but the Knight of Chaos seemed to reject that.
There was a time when his thirst for power could not be slaked, but he sealed himself away for centuries and after he was revived, the Dark Eternal could sense that he was holding back his full potential. And then the Monarch Lich raised his Companions. He rebelled out of some residue of feeble human sentiment and was punished for it. He was caught up in a vortex of self-destruction. It defied all nature, but so it was.
The black flame of his existence was extinguished. The Dark Eternal had to know what had caused this thing. To that end, he travelled to the place where the Knight of Chaos vanished, the ruins of the old castle.
In the throne room, his empty armor lay abandoned on the floor, his body disintegrated to ash. There was yet a trace of his power that lingered. The Dark Eternal followed that trace to a crude shelter in the ruins. There a young human warrior slept uneasily, his back propped up against the wall, Caligo's cursed blade Soul Drinker cradled on his shoulder.
Any mortal creature would surely have stirred the young warrior, but the Dark Eternal did not reveal his presence unless he chose to. The Knight of Chaos' power resided in his blade. Did he intend to escape by allowing himself to be sealed in the cursed blade?
Speaking without words, the Dark Eternal said to the spirit in the blade, "Surely you did not think you could be released so easily."
The Knight of Chaos' voice echoed in the silence, a voice only the Dark Eternal could hear.
Leave the boy and I will come quietly.
"I am not one to be bargained with," the Dark Eternal replied, "but perhaps this human is better left alive so the blade's curse can work on him. You are the feast. A single lowly human is scarcely a morsel."
It was no mercy to leave the young warrior alive, but wielding Soul Drinker, he might become something useful. It would be a worthwhile experiment. However, the Knight of Chaos would be his. Stretching out his hand, the Dark Eternal drew out the Knight of Chaos' soul from the blade and added it to the multitude. Even at a fraction of his full power, it was the same as if he had consumed an entire city. The Knight of Chaos' service to the Darkness was only just beginning.