Date: ???
Location: ???
Situation: A medieval civilization covered in Shade-Essential in the lowest set of The Stray Empire.
Mayoeru and Noah walk through the town cautiously, the shadow entities not as mindless as the ones outside.
"Stay close, and be careful." Mayoeru says.
"Roger that." Noah responds, slightly nervous.
Mayoeru and Noah then walk through the civilization and all seems normal, nothings wrong. They then walk over passed the city to the woods in the mountains, also covered in Shade-Essential. They get a good look at the civilization.
"They really have a nice thing going on here, huh?" Noah says.
Mayoeru is just silent and goes back to walking he turns his back for a second and turns around and Noah and the civilization is gone... No where to be found. Mayoeru then feels an Earthquake as the entire realm collapses and Mayoeru wakes up in a cell, he stands and looks around, confused.
"Where am I? What the hell is this place?" Mayoeru asks himself.
He hears someone walking towards his cell and it's a Penumbral Knight, it stands in front of him, staring... then it pulls a large sword out of no where and stabs Mayoeru with it right through the bars of the cell, Mayoeru screams, grabbing the blade and shattering it. He proceeds to get up and try to punch through the cell bars but the damage is reflected back to him as the Penumbral Knight fixes its sword with Shade-Essential. It then tries to stab him again but at Mach 1. Mayoeru dodges the attack as he then looks for a way out.
Mayoeru thinks for a moment, "I've got it!" he says. Mayoeru then sits down with his legs crossed and he makes a hand sign where one hand is face up with his palm showing, like he's raising his hand slightly, and the other is in the same position. He then uses his sharpened senses to feel a breath of life. A feel of one living in a 1 light year radius at minimum.
"Now..." Mayoeru says as he then moves and turns his hands west and just as the Penumbral Knight is about to stab him again but faster and deeper this time, "Ugoku!" Mayoeru yells as he disappears just in time.
Mayoeru opens his eyes to see a hallway. It resembles the internal of a castle but covered in Shade-Essential. Mayoeru looks to his side and sees four Penumbral Knights surrounding him and he takes out his sword proceeding to slice them into pieces faster than the eye of a god can perceive.
"I can feel the breath of death whenever there is an intent to kill." Mayoeru says, "You guys stood no chance."
Mayoeru runs with his hands freely behind his back at the speed of sound but the castle is large and hard to navigate. He makes a mental note of the areas so he knows where he's going.
After a bit of time in this infinite maze of a castle, he finds grand doors. It seems to be—
"A throne room, huh?" Mayoeru says as he stands there in silence for about thirty seconds until,
"AAAHHH!!!" screaming is heard from the room. It's—
"NOAH!" Mayoeru says as he rushes in and is immediately stabbed through the heart by a giant sword!
Mayoeru screeches in pain! They seem to have mimicked his voice as Noah was no where to be seen! Even with his eyes covered by the bandage blindfold, he can still see beyond superhumanly well so how did they trick him!
The one holding the sword was a Penumbral Knight and it swung him around on the sword like a toy. Then it flicked him off like a bug. Mayoeru falls as he then looks up and there are two Penumbral Knights and in the middle of them. Is the King of The Umbrae! It's grand stature akin to a giant. It stands and raises its sword. Mayoeru gets up as well and makes another hand sign where both of his index fingers are in a plus position, resembling a medical symbol.
"Now..." Mayoeru says, "Naoru!" Mayoeru wounds start to heal fast.
Why Mayoeru does these hand signs you ask? Well when he was dethroned he kept all of his physical power but his powers and abilities like teleportation were lost. But he had a trick up his sleeve as he uses techniques to mold his physical body in a way to do something like teleportation or another ability. He does them so fast, that one can't even see it.
But no time for further explanation as the King of The Umbrae swings its blade at Mayoeru but he dodges it by leaning back. Mayoeru then jumps up to the ceiling and propels himself off it to use his katana sword and slice through the king. But it does nothing as the king starts moving faster and swinging its blade at Mayoeru making him move faster. Eventually they move so fast they disappear. But suddenly, they snap back into reality as the king is trying stabbing Mayoeru in the chest and through the castle ceiling. Luckily Mayoeru tenses his muscles to harden his body so he would not be pierced. The sword with drawls once he is out the castle. Out side the castle is a void, complete darkness.
"The structure of this place is weird." Mayoeru says as he then leans back and falls head first into the other side of the castle with no injuries. He does a backflip once he's in and lands on his feet. But he looks up and immediately sees four Penumbral Knights with the king behind them.
"Damn, these things are fast." Mayoeru mutters as he dodges their sword slashes and then kills the Penumbral Knights with and air pump by putting his hand on the surface of the air violently, "It'll take more than that to defeat me." He says.
But then, the king raises his right hand slightly and the knights form again and—
"Ahh!" Noah wakes up in a cell on the other side of the castle.
"Where am I?" He stands, "What is this place?" He looks through the cell bars for a moment until a rumble is made through the castle.
"I don't know how..." Noah says in his head as there's another rumble, "But that must be Mayoeru."
Noah decides to yell as loud as he can to be heard by Mayoeru.
Back up in the castle, Mayoeru hears Noah's screaming and he thinks to himself, "I need to finish this quickly."
Mayoeru readies his sword and uses a different sword style, "Now..." A style that'll be sure to at least stun the king and at most completely vaporize it, "Sword Art:" and this sacred art is called, "Pierce!"
Mayoeru rushes towards the king with speed akin to the time it takes the universe to expand a centimeter. He then starts cutting his armor, and then jumps up through the roof and far into the sky, about space level, and then propels himself off the air and with one stab and... The King of the Umbrae is slain... And as the king falls, Mayoeru slices the other Penumbral Knights at the speed of light.
"Ugoku!" He says as he then teleports to Noah's location.
"Mayoeru, you came!" Noah says.
"Yeah, now let's bust you out of he—" Just then A giant hand breaks through the back of the cell and grabs Noah and Mayoeru runs to see who it is.
The king appears again. Larger, and stronger. It's armor is darker, oozing with Shade-Essential. It stands tall as the void burns with black fire.
Now they will have to continue the battle in...
The Stray Empire!
Chapter End!