Ch 58: Rider of the White Horse

His people's origins revealed, Serius the Unbound of Angelorum Lux is unshaken, and he faces off boldly against the first of the Four Horsemen, the injured yet still deadly Pestilence.

            In the face of Serius’ declaration, Pestilence simply took aim again and said, “Very well. Come, Child of Death. I, Pestilence, Rider of the White Horse, shall release you from your mortal struggles.” Letting fly four corrosive arrows at once, Pestilence found himself dodging once more as Serius blew them away with a large sonic shockwave. Leaping across the distance with his right fist charged with EDE, Serius held his left arm before him and used it to create an unfocused shockwave that deflected more corrosive arrows that Pestilence fired at him while he was airborne, and Pestilence quickly floated away as Serius reached him and brought down his right fist powerfully. Smashing a crater into the stone floor, Serius channeled powerful vibrations into the floor, and Pestilence found himself struggling to avoid as sonic shockwaves began bursting out of the floor all across the room. 

Caught by one of the shockwaves at last, Pestilence went crashing into the side of the wall with powerful force, and hanging there in the crater made by his impact, he thought, “He seems even more powerful than his predecessors. I could dissolve that armor and end this in an instant with a cloud of corrosive bacteria, but it seems I haven’t recovered enough to generate any corrosive bacteria other than my arrows…” As Serius ripped his stone fist from the ground and charged at him, Pestilence pulled himself from the wall and gathered EDE, taking aim and forming a massive arrow of corrosive mist as he pulled back the bowstring. Raising both arms at his sides and channeling EDE into his fists, Serius stopped in place right in the great arrow’s path just as Pestilence shot it at him and slammed his stone fists together with all his strength. 

A massive shockwave resulted from his armor, and using telekinesis Seris channeled all that force straight at the oncoming arrow, the shockwave blowing it away and continuing on to decimate the stone wall behind it. Dust filling the room, Serius could not yet see the fate of his opponent. Then, sensing the vibrations of movement, Serius turned to the side as Pestilence flew out of the dust and slashed at him with the blades upon his bow, blocking with one of his stone arms as he said, “You’ll not harm me with your weak arrows, nor with a simple blade! Look down on me no longer, for I am Serius the Unbound of Angelorum Lux!”

            Grabbing Pestilence by the arm with his other hand, Serius whirled him around and into the air over his head before slamming him hard into the floor, and then readied his other fist as he pulled the villain up and began to bombard him in the gut with powerful punches, almost as though he were a punching bag. Holding fast to Pestilence’s arm as he continued to pummel him, Serius at last released his grip just as he fired one last mighty punch, enhanced with a sonic shockwave that sent Pestilence across the room to crash into the wall again. Somehow managing to rise up off the floor to hover once more, Pestilence was in agony as he clutched his upper body with his free hand and glared at Serius, who gathered twin masses of EDE and formed his Glaives of the Fang. 

Raising his bow in desperation, Pestilence unleashed a storm of corrosive arrows, but rushing into his fire, Serius began deflecting them with his glaives, quickly reaching Pestilence and lashing out. Blocking with his bladed bow, as their blades met, Pestilence stared at his unscathed glaives in surprise and muttered, “The bacteria in those arrows should affect even Anima Weapons! Can I still be this weak?!” Pushing him back and striking out with another powerful swing of one of his glaives, Serius said, “These are the Glaives of the Fang, indestructible weapons that enhance their wielder’s strength!” 

Clashing again and again, Serius’ mighty strikes finally shattered Pestilence’s bow, and the blade of his glaive sliced into Pestilence’s gut. Pestilence’s diseased blood poured out, and dropping his shattered bow as he staggered back and clutched his wound with both hands, Pestilence said, “Unbelieveable… A Child of Death with such strength?!” Then releasing his wound and gathering three masses of EDE, Pestilence added, “Forgive me, but I doubt Death would bother to revive me if I were beaten again without even having summoned Niteris Vexillifer…”

            The masses of EDE gathered around Pestilence’s hands and his right shoulder, crystallizing into a pair of black metal gauntlets and a black shoulderguard that was shaped like a humanoid skull. Raising one of his gauntlets and channeling EDE into it, Pestilence ran his hand across his bleeding gut and his blood glowed, sealing over his wound in mere moments like a glowing bandage. Staring down Serius as he channeled more EDE into his hands, Pestilence said, “With my Niteris Vexillifer, the deadly Plague Bearer, my Nature and Darkness based affinity is raised to a whole different level, allowing me to command the diseases within my body on a much greater scale. As a Child of Death, you are actually extremely resistant to many of the more lethal ways in which I could use such a power, but with absolute control over the great amount of diseases that are within the very cells of my entire body, I can still repair my body, regenerate my blood faster, make weapons, enhance my physical strength and agility, essentially make my blood, bone and flesh all bend to my will.” 

As glowing blood seeped from the joints in his gauntlets and formed into sharp claws of blood, Pestilence sped across the distance and lashed out with powerful swipes of his blood claws. As Serius blocked with his stone arms, he could tell Pestilence had become far stronger than before, his speedy and relentless strikes forcing him to stagger backwards. Knocking Pestilence away by unleashing a shockwave from his arms, Serius took a moment to look at the scars his claws had carved into his armor as he thought to himself, “Not only is he stronger and more agile, he’s formed his blood into claws that can even cut into my Basilisk Armor!” 

Zig-zagging towards Serius, trying to throw him off as he charged at him, as Pestilence came into range, Serius quickly swung a glaive at him in a horizontal slash. Ducking the glaive, Pestilence slashed deep scars into the armor over Serius stomach with such strength that it sent him bouncing across the room. Rolling to a halt near the far wall, as Serius struggled up, Pestilence held his hand out before him, diseased blood dripping from his claws onto the floor. Willing the glowing blood across the floor, Pestilence used it to draw a rune circle as he said, “I shall summon you forth, my children…”

            As the eyes of his skull shaped shoulderguard began to glow red, Pestilence’s bloody rune circle shined with dark light, and an army of rats began to pour from it as though he had opened a hole in the floor, their eyes all lit up with an eerie red glow. Seeing the horde of rats pouring out of the rune circle, Serius quickly charged his glaives with EDE and hurled them at the circle in an attempt to break the lines of blood that gave it its shape, but gathering on top of one another, the rats swiftly formed a thick wall made of their own bodies to stop the glaives. Stopped as they got stuck in the wall of rodent flesh, once the glaives were thwarted, the surviving rats joined the ever growing group of new arrivals and advanced towards Serius. 

Raising his arms and generating vibrations, Serius tried to force them back with sonic shockwaves, but no matter how many times they were blown away, new rats kept coming while the survivors rejoined the group. Swarming him, the rats began to crawl up his entire body and clung to him as they gnawed away at his Basilisk Armor, their teeth surprisingly sharp and capable of chipping the armor away bit by bit if left unchecked. Shaking them off as best he could, Serius soon had no time to worry about them as Pestilence hovered across his rodent legion and came at him with his blood claws. Foregoing blocking, Serius narrowly dodged his claws and swung a stone fist at him in retaliation, but burdened with the rats, Serius found his movements somewhat slowed and Pestilence stopped the punch with his open palm, and then struck with an upward slash that struck Serius in the chin like an uppercut. 

Striking Serius with a succession of powerful slashes, Pestilence sliced through his own rats and carved into Serius’ armor again and again, finally floating back in retreat as Serius unleashed sonic shockwaves from his entire armored body, blowing the rats away from him. Crossing his arms and swinging his claws outwards through the air, Pestilence flung blood that crystallized into razor sharp blades at Serius as he said, “Accept your end!” Gathering a mass of EDE and forming Aer Dominus in his right hand, Serius deflected the blood blades with his ethereal sword and said, “This is far from over!”

            Striking the blade of Aer Dominus upon the floor, sending vibrations resonating through it, as the rats closed in around him again, Serius extended the blade of Aer Dominus to great length and brought it down on the rune circle from which the rats were spawning as he shouted, “Scream of Heaven!” Destroying the rune circle and any rats caught in his blade’s wake with vibrations so intense that they could tear matter to pieces, as a mighty sonic shockwave erupted from his sword, it ripped through everything that had been in the path of his swing. Many rats still remaining, Serius pulled his sword from the long scar his Scream of Heaven had made and swung his incredibly long blade horizontally across the battlefield, Pestilence rising into the air to evade as Serius shouted once more, “Scream of Heaven!” 

Emanating from the ethereal blade and sweeping across the room like an ocean wave, Serius’ attack annihilated almost all the remaining rats, only the few he quickly began pulling from his armor having survived his wrath. Having watched his minions get wiped away in an instant, Pestilence stared down at Serius in disbelief as he thought, “These ‘Angelorum Lux’… This one is not as powerful as the one before, but both of the enemies I have faced thus far have greatly surprised me. I can manipulate my cells despite the fact my body wasn’t completely resurrected, but I can’t repair my body entirely and finish the resurrection on my own. Pushing myself like this will slowly continue to weaken my body until it’s beyond repair, but I have little choice…” 

As Serius crushed the last of the rats with his stone gauntlet and cast it aside, he channeled EDE into his armor in an attempt to reinforce its weakened structure as Pestilence came down to hover before him and began to undo the bandages wrapped around his body. Revealing his deceivingly young, red tattoo adorned face, his not yet fully regenerated, swollen looking left eye, and bloodstained brown undershirt, Pestilence tore off his shirt to expose his wound ridden bare chest, and then quickly created glowing blood bandages across his chest to seal his injuries over. Tying the tattered, bloodstained brown material around his neck as a scarf, Pestilence gathered EDE as he said, “Whether this body holds together or not, I’m afraid I must purge all who oppose his will…”

            Suddenly pushing their way out of Pestilence’s chest, spikes of bone that seemed to be growing from his ribs shot out of Pestilence’s body at Serius, and caught off guard by the strange and disgusting attack, Serius barely managed to dodge them. Zig-zagging as he floated across the distance, Pestilence closed in with blood claws ready, but watching his movements carefully this time, Serius raised a hand and said, “Roar of the Earth!” Closing in on Serius, this time Pestilence was the one caught off guard as the ground beneath him exploded and blew him sailing into the air. Quickly leaping through the aftermath of the blast, Serius came down at Pestilence and swung his blade to unleash another Scream of Heaven, but flipping in the air and floating aside, Pestilence recovered and avoided as Serius’ attack carved yet another path of destruction through the room. 

Recovering quickly as well, Serius turned and blocked with Aer Dominus as Pestilence slashed at him, and knocking him back, Serius pressed the attack. Then as he blocked Serius blade with both claws, Pestilence’s throat started to convulse strangely, and in realization Serius raised his free arm just in time to shield himself with his bulky stone gauntlet as Pestilence vomited a ball of acidic green slime at him like a projectile. The acidic slime eating through his gauntlet, Serius quickly used a Scream of Heaven to shatter Pestilence’s claws and blow him away, and then began generating shockwaves from his arm as he tried to shake the slime off of it. After several shockwaves though, the armor around his arm broke apart and fell away, and Serius was quite sure he could not afford to waste any of his remaining strength trying to reform it. 

Despite his fingers having been severed from his hands along with his blood claws, Pestilence was not defeated just yet. Holding both his fingerless hands out at his sides, Pestilence used his blood to form not one but two rune circles as he shouted, “Injuries like these are nothing as long as I can manipulate my body’s cells with diseases! If there is a weakness in my body, I’ll turn it into strength! If I lose something, I’ll grow it back even stronger! Pain won’t even hinder me as long as I shut off the nerves that send those signals to my brain!” Bursting from his knuckles where Pestilence’s missing fingers should have been, blood covered skeletal fingers tipped with claws of razor sharp bone grew out to replace them. Then Pestilence brought forth what looked like a sword handle of bloody bone that seemed to grow out of his ribcage, and grasping it with his new skeletal fingers, he slowly pulled out a sword made of blood soaked bone that he’d grown from his own body. Serius watching in shock and disgust, Pestilence sealed his chest again with more glowing blood bandages and held his blade before him. His skull shoulderpad’s eye sockets glowing red again, Pestilence’s rune circles both glowed with dark light as a swarm of locusts began to pour from each one.

            Locusts quickly filling the air, they seemed to ignore Serius as they hovered near the ceiling, and he only briefly stared up at them before he focused on destroying the rune circles, wiping one out instantly as he raised his hand and tore the ground it was on asunder with his Roar of the Earth. Dodging blades of blood flung from Pestilence’s sword, Serius returned fire at Pestilence as he closed in, and as Pestilence swerved past his Scream of Heaven, he swung his bone sword at Serius with all his strength. Locking blades, their strength evenly matched, Serius and Pestilence began exchanging powerful blows as they clashed again and again. Not having forgotten about the second rune circle, Serius swung his blade to meet Pestilence’s once more and tried to blow him away again with another Scream of Heaven, but to his amazement, his sword’s sonic vibrations were negated upon striking his opponent’s sword of bone. 

Grappling with Serius, Pestilence saw his confusion and said, “Sorry, but I won’t make things that easy. This sword is made of hollowed bone that’s filled with uncoagulated blood, its entire structure carefully designed to quickly and safely absorb and dissipate your sword’s powerful sonic vibrations.” Narrowing his eyes in irritation, Serius mustered his strength and pushed aside the bone blade so that the side of his armored sword arm was aimed right at Pestilence, quickly unleashing a sonic shockwave from it to blow him away instead. Raising his hand and channeling the EDE for his attack, Serius neutralized the other rune circle with another Roar of the Earth, the stone floor it was drawn upon erupting in a fiery blast. However he could tell just with his ears alone he may have been a bit too late, the sound of beating insect wings filling the room, and it was not long before he confirmed this with his eyes as well. 

Swarming down around him from every direction, locusts circled around Serius, obstructing his vision and making it basically impossible for him to even sense the vibrations of Pestilence’s movements. Serius quickly smacked his sword’s blade upon the ground and renewed its vibrations, but as he raised it to use one of his devastating shockwaves, a ball of acidic slime shot through the veil of locusts and struck the ethereal blade, eating it away in only moments. As he stared at his destroyed Grand Anima Weapon in frustration, Serius heard Pestilence call out from his unknown position, “The swarm is upon you, and all they bring is despair…”