Book 1, Chapter 19

Looking up as he fell, Immanuel saw nothing but pitch-black darkness. There was no hint of the floor he fell off from, and neither was there any hint of the Hierophant and his assistant clerics.

What's happening?! Where am I?!

He waved his hands and kicked around. He acted out of instinct, trying to reach for something to hang on to and land on.

But there was nothing that could save him from the fall. He positioned his arms in front of his face out of instinct—or rather, desperation. At any point in time from now, he could hit the ground and—

The surface Immanuel landed on felt like a cushion. But rather than bounce his body back up for a moment, the surface took in the impact of the fall and sunk for a moment before it rose, as though correcting itself.

Instinctual curiosity compelled Immanuel to run his hands along the surface. The rough and sandy texture indicated this surface to be earth. Cold earth, as cold as the air around him.

"Your Beatitude?" Immanuel called out. But no one answered from deep within the darkness.

"Has the priest not already told you about this place?" said a distant male voice. "This is a world outside yours. You desire to be like one of us, yes?"

Immanuel's shoulders jumped in astonishment. "I-I do." I'm fighting them in complete darkness?

"I see. Very well." The male voice had an air of leadership to it.

A faint silver light shone from the distance, given off by a rising round moon. It revealed the outline of where Immanuel landed—a clearing among trees.

The heavily bearded man looked half a wolf under the dim light of the moon; he was clad in a wolf's pelt. He held a hunting axe in one hand, and daggers were strapped to his body by means of leather. Immanuel thought some of them could be thrown.

The muscle memory of combat triggered Immanuel to bring his hands to his side to take his sword. He felt the wood of the scabbard and the knots of the grip. His sword was with him, hanging on his side.

His heart jumped at the realization. Wait, I know I left my sword in my room. How is it with me now?

"I'm just as surprised as you are." Immanuel's eyes had widened. "This battle was supposed to be unarmed combat, but new orders came from above, telling me to up the intensity in this fight. Beyond the use of weapons, even."

"From above? From who exactly? Mistrerion Himself?" Immanuel, sword drawn, dropped the scabbard to the ground and kicked it away.

"Yes, from none other than the god you call Mistrerion, whose true name is—"

What?! There was nothing that cut off the man who looked part-wolf. Rather, a loud rustling of a ton of leaves came out of the man's mouth as he spoke the Golden-Eyed Crow's true name. Immanuel tried to read the man's lips, even if he was not proficient with the skill, but he read nothing but syllables that seemed to sound like an I-yah somewhere around the middle of Mistrerion's true name.

The man laughed at Immanuel. "Right, that is not a name you will know until your death."

Immanuel had heard of such a rumor about what Mistrerion's true name really was, but with everyone in the clerical hierarchy's lips being sealed about the matter, a confirmation was impossible. Either what the wolf-man said was true, that nobody would know of it until death, or the Matriarch and her three Hierophants knew of it but would rather keep it a secret for one reason or another.

"Why would Mistrerion order such a thing?"

The wolf-man's first answer was a shrug. Then he added, "All I can tell you is that he wants to give you a greater challenge. I can tell you nothing else beyond that."

He's not lying from what I can tell. But I've got to find out why.

"I'm not lying. Also, he told me nothing else but that," came the answer to a question in Immanuel's mind. "Let us begin, shall we?"

The wolf-man assumed a fighting stance. "That you are here means you have been deemed an honorable man, about to engage in honorable combat with an ancestor of your people. State your name if you are as honorable as they say you are!"

Immanuel responded in kind, gripping his greatsword with both hands. "I am Immanuel Maier. And you are?"

The wolf-man took one step forward. "How your people invoke my name in prayer is my name. I am The Hunter. My name in life is irrelevant.

"Listen well, Immanuel Maier." His voice boomed, and Immanuel's eyes widened. He was caught off-guard. "Following the instructions of the god you address as Mistrerion, our duel will go differently.

"Both of us are armed, that is true. But these are not my only weapons. I have laid traps all around you as well, and the odds are stacked against you. Despite these, defeat me."

And all I have is this sword. Nothing in the surroundings hinted to traps laid out.

"Anytime you are ready, Immanuel Maier."

"Wait, can I use my sigil during the duel?"

"I suggest you do."

A hint freely given. Thank you for that.

"If I get injured, what happens?"

"Like death, it becomes reality!"

TANG! Both combatants sped forward into a clash of weapons.

The Hunter blocked with the wood of his axe. What? Impossible! Immanuel's eyes widened as he remarked in his mind.

But before he could do anything else, The Hunter slid the wooden handle of the axe and hooked Immanuel's greatsword with the underside of the axe blade, intending to remove the sword out of the fight.

Feeling the downward push against his sword, Immanuel took one hand off his weapon and punched The Hunter's face, rocking his head to one side.

Not enough. Immanuel punched his face with the same hand again, and this time, he forced The Hunter back a few steps.

Immanuel also backed away to give himself more space to swing. Can't go too far lest I trigger something. This is enough distanceto fight someone like him.

With The Hunter still reeling from the punch, Immanuel chargedwith a wild right-to-left swing of his greatsword. The Hunter shot backwards as it was about to hit him. He countered with a bounce forward and an attempted downward swing of his axe, thinking that Immanuel would resist the momentum of the swing. But Immanuel spun out of the way while the wolf-man's axe was still high. He let the momentum of the last attack guide him, and he slashed as he spun. The length of his blade proved to be an advantage in the fight—it sliced The Hunter's midsection and drew first blood, stopping his attack.

Immanuel intended to capitalize on his advantage, but was met with a smirk and a side-eye from the wolf-man. Shit, did I step on a trap? came a thought.

Having triggered nothing after all, Immanuel dashed forward, his resolve true.

But still the smirk of the wolf-man remained. His gaze moved down. Something caught Immanuel's foot—rope with a knot tied on one end. It pulled Immanuel's ankle and the rest of him in a swift upward motion—slamming his head to the ground as it did—and hoisted him to the air and towards the waiting jaws and massive teeth of a silvery-black creature. What Immanuel thought was rope turned out to be the long tongue of the monster.

Acting out of instinct, he struck the monster’s tongue, intending to cut it off, but, at the moment he was about to land a hit, the tongue thickened in proportion to the size of the monster’s head, and the blade bounced off of it. The tongue’s grip on Immanuel’s ankle tightened, snapping something, and he grunted in pain.

Immanuel thrust his blade onto what turned out to be what he believed was the roof of the creature’s mouth, thus wounding it, but not quite enough. Some blood gushed out of the creature’s mouth and rained on Immanuel when he pulled his sword out. It shook its head, annoyed.

Again, Immanuel thrust his blade at roughly the same spot within the creature’s mouth, this time also planting one foot inside in an attempt to avoid being consumed. He kept pushing his sword upwards with the full force of both arms. At the same time, he pushed downwards with one leg. The combined effort of Immanuel’s limbs was enough to prevent the creature’s mouth from crushing him.

But it didn't need to chew down on Immanuel, as it turned out. The creature opened its mouth wider and jerked its head back. Immanuel gripped his sword tighter, but its hold on the roof of the creature's mouth loosened, sending Immanuel falling towards the depths of the creature's mouth.

Three daggers glinted under moonlight as they darted past Immanuel. These made their mark on the creature's throat, eliciting another reaction from it. Immanuel felt his chest to activate his sigil, fearing the worst, but two more daggers struck true at his back and thigh, distracting him.

Fuck! The monster's jaws slammed shut.

The Hunter hit the ground on both feet, supported by one hand.

He looked up to the creature—a serpentine monstrosity whose scales are a mix of black and silver, assembled in a menacing pattern—and cackled at it. "I never thought he'd trigger you, of all the traps laid out here."

The serpentine monstrosity nodded, eyes locked onto The Hunter's. Disappointed. The creature's mouth moved in a slow chewing motion. "And sorry about the daggers. If he had heard me, he might have reacted, and you might not be chewing him right now."

The Hunter waved a hand, dismissive of the inconvenience he had caused the serpent. "Your body can heal, right? So just grin and bear it until it goes away."

The serpent's head bobbed, hinting to a struggle. It bit down harder a few more times, hoping to crush Immanuel. But something pierced through the bottom jaw of the monster—a long and pitch-black blade with a pointed end—and stunned it.

"It can't be!" came The Hunter's disbelief. But there was no fear in his eyes. He rushed towards the unsteady serpent and sped up its body, axe ready to attack. "You're not getting away that easily, Immanuel!"

Thick, black sludge dripped and blood flowed down from the black blade and the fresh wound it created on the creature. At first, the two substances were identifiable. But in no time, they fused into one substance. The black blade looked to be dissolving as more of the sickly black liquid sludge flowed down and scattered along the ground. This unsealed the wound, and significant amounts of blood gushed out of it that very instant.

On the ground, the black sludge fused into one larger mass. Then it transformed, taking an almost human-like shadowy form.

"Fuck! Oh fuck! Not again!" The Hunter's eyes widened and his lips shivered at the sight of the black human-like shadow entity. He ran up the serpent as Immanuel launched himself. The human-like shadow crawled along the serpent's scales as the creature swayed left and right—it struggled to recover from Immanuel's cunning maneuver but somehow refused to crawl on the ground, likely owing to the pain and the blood that continued gushing out of its lower jaw.

Immanuel caught up to The Hunter, who was still running up the serpent's body. He managed to almost reach the creature's head by just running up despite the creature's swaying. Immanuel grabbed The Hunter's leg, tripping him. The wolf-man let out a blood-curdling scream as he fell.

A scale saved him, but it cost him his axe. Immanuel's shadow form crawled on The Hunter, who screamed again as he tried to shake him off. Reaching his neck, Immanuel enveloped it with a shadowy arm and choked him. Then he jerked up the wolf-man's neck and planted his shadowy head at the back of it to tighten his hold.

"Yield!" came the distorted, otherworldly command from Immanuel. With the unsteadiness of the serpent's body, and perhaps driven by desperation, The Hunter let go of the scale he clung on to, and both men fell.

The fall had no effect on Immanuel's shadow form, which allowed him to maintain his chokehold on The Hunter, even with the awkward way in which they crashed. Neither gasp nor pained cry was heard from The Hunter upon impact—Immanuel's shadowy arm constricted the wolf-man's neck.

"Yield!" Immanuel gave the eldritch-sounding command once again. But with no way to communicate, the wolf-man tapped Immanuel's shadowy arm a few times, a signal understood everywhere to mean that he gave up.

Distant trumpets blared a victory fanfare. Immanuel chuckled upon hearing the trumpets and as he reverted to human form. He then released the wolf-man's neck and rolled along the ground, panting.

"You were lucky," mouthed the wolf-man, his voice hoarse from having been choked.

Immanuel chuckled. "I outsmarted and spooked you."

"You don't understand."

"Care to explain?"

"The Mouse," said the wolf-man, referring to Immanuel's sigil. "His defiance… the sigil you bear now… brought me to my death."

You have got to be fucking with me right now.