Morgana's laughter dripped like venom as she and Mordred's blades clashed again and again, Clarent's crimson glow meeting black sorcery that rang like iron. Sparks cascaded with each blow, the throne room shaking with their fury.
Behind me, Maxime suddenly thrust out his hands, eyes glowing with psychic force. "We can help!" he shouted, his voice breaking. Yet, his efforts were for naught. These creatures had no memories or emotions to manipulate; they merely followed magical orders, and the twins had no way of changing those.
Manon gasped, sweat beading on her brow as she pushed her brother's hand down. "It isn't working, she's too strong, Maxime!"
"And you are far too weak, you worm," Morgana sneered, her voice echoing across the chamber even as she dueled Mordred. With a flick of her wrist, the phantom knight's blade whipped around and hurled toward the twins like a spear.
Yet Caliburn was already in the path, the two blades clashed midair, and the dark one shattered into shadow and vapor. "Stay alert, she is insidious and will take any advantage she can."
Fantomex raised his pistols, staggering to one knee. "Then allow me…" He fired a hail of bullets at the nearest phantom — which harmlessly passed through the smoky armor, the creature striding forward as though unbothered. "...merde."
"Makes sense," Mordred barked between blows, her grin wolfish as Clarent's edge bit into Morgana's black blade. "They're punching mist while I get the real fight!"
Morgana's eyes glittered, sharp as knives. "You mean you get the privilege of dying first, child."
Her spellwork surged, black tendrils of raw magic writhing from her hands to encircle Mordred like a nest of serpents. The twins tried again — Manon's voice rising in psychic chant, Maxime throwing everything he had into one last surge of force — but the tendrils didn't even falter.
Mordred only laughed, hacking through them with Clarent's bloody light. "Keep trying, witch! It'll take more than shadows to put me down!"
I was amazed that Morgana could stand up against Mordred so well; in particular, her sword caught my attention. Morgana was clearly not the greatest swordswoman, yet she did handle the blade as well as one could expect from the sister of King Arthur.
The sword itself, however, wasn't normal. Clarent wasn't the strongest sword in my collection, even the version stained with my blood and cursed that Mordred wielded wasn't all that strong compared to Excalibur, yet it was still a true rank A+ noble phantasm.
Not to shatter against that meant that the sword in Morgana's hands was special.
My inner dragon wanted that sword…
Caliburn cut through the air, blocking a bolt of dark magic and cutting through one of the shadow knights, causing it to fall apart into shadows, before more took its place. Even distracted, I didn't falter; my intuition EX allowed my body to move faster than my mind.
Morgana's blade rang against Clarent again, the shockwave blasting dust from the rafters. "Still standing? How quaint," she spat, black fire wreathing her free hand.
"Still talking? How boring!" Mordred lunged, Clarent roaring to life with scarlet light, her strikes a storm of rage and precision. Each blow pushed Morgana back a step, gouging the marble beneath their feet.
The witch snarled, her gown whipping about her like wings. "You dare call yourself my son? You are nothing but a bastard echo!"
Mordred's grin split wider, feral, eyes burning with battle-lust. "Keep calling me that. Every insult just makes it sweeter when I carve your guts out!"
The clash intensified — Clarent carving arcs of red lightning through the air, Morgana's black blade shuddering under the force yet never breaking.
I admit, it was smart of Morgana to use a sword for defence; her magic clearly wasn't as potent on the defence, and it allowed her to focus her magic for extra offence.
Each block of her sword was accompanied by blasts of dark magic, shadowy tendrils, explosions of blood and evil, spikes of earth and bone. Their movements blurred, red and shadow locked in a deadly rhythm, every strike heavy enough to rupture the throne room's walls.
A column cracked above, rubble crashing down toward the twins. Maxime screamed — but I was there first, Caliburn cut through the air, and a blast of golden light filled the sky, obliterating the falling stone. "Eyes on me," I barked at them, planting my weapon with finality. "Or you'll die before this ends."
Fantomex tried to flank, firing another barrage at Morgana herself — but she barely twitched, her shadows devouring the bullets like rain swallowed by the ocean. "Mortals," she sneered, "gnats buzzing at a storm."
Her hand flicked again. The phantoms surged in unison toward the others, blades descending like a scythe through wheat.
I met them with Caliburn, cutting golden arcs across the chamber. Shadows split, reformed, split again. It was like fighting smoke with fire — enough to hold them back, never enough to end them. Exactly as Morgana intended.
"You see?" she laughed, eyes flashing as she met Mordred's next strike. "Even now your father strains to keep her pets alive. She cannot touch me, cannot aid you. You stand alone!"
"Alone's how I like it!" Mordred roared, driving Clarent forward with a surge of raw fury. The blade flared, crimson light boiling the air around it, and Morgana's smirk finally faltered as the cursed sword met her black one with a deafening crack.
For the first time, her footing slipped.
Mordred's laughter rang out like a battle hymn. "Not so high and mighty now, are you, witch!?"
Yet, Mordred's pause to gloat was just the thing Morgana needed, as her form melted into shadows and disappeared through the cracks in the floor, leaving behind her cruel laughter.
The chamber darkened. Torches guttered and died, banners curling as if scorched by invisible flame. Then, from the shadows themselves, her voice echoed — vast, terrible, echoing like a curse across centuries.
"You think me cornered? Fools. Did you forget whose blood runs in my veins? I am not some hedge-witch to be felled by brute strength. I am the last and greatest of Avalon's witches, the bane of Camelot, the true heir of its throne!"
A glyph ignited beneath our feet — massive, spanning the entire hall, burning with green fire. The marble floor cracked as rivers of molten emerald light spread outward, swallowing shadow knights and twisting them into something worse. From the glyph rose an army of horrors: towering wraiths clad in bone, winged serpents of smoke, a tide of cursed familiars blotting out the ceiling.
The sheer force of it rocked the castle. Windows exploded inward, shards of glass caught in an unseen wind, whipping about like knives.
Manon screamed, clutching her brother as the psychic twins collapsed to their knees under the pressure. "It's… it's too much—!"
Even Fantomex, stubborn to the last, dropped his pistols and shielded his face. "Mon dieu…"
I knew this for what it was: not a spell, not mere sorcery, but the unleashing of Morgana's full legend — a magecraft on par with a noble phantasm, the crystallization of her hatred.
Mordred tilted her head back and roared with laughter. "Yes! This is more like it!" Clarent blazed crimson, its cursed light answering Morgana's night. "Come on, witch, show me everything you've got!"
From the glyph, Morgana rose once more, borne aloft on a storm of shadow. Her gown had become wings of smoke, her crown fused into horns of iron, her sword lengthened into a black brand that screamed with the voices of the damned.
Against such a display, even I had to take her seriously.
"Then die beneath the weight of my truth," she intoned, her voice both hers and not, as if the abyss itself spoke through her.
Her lips parted — and she spoke no human tongue.
The sound was wrong. A chorus of voices, shrill and deep, spoken backward and forward at once. Every syllable scraped across the soul like glass, shattering thought, unraveling order.
Manon shrieked and clutched her ears, blood trickling between her fingers. Maxime convulsed, his body seizing under the weight of the sound. Fantomex dropped face-first to the ground, gasping like a drowning man.
Even I felt my magic resistance strain under the words, and while I could withstand it, I knew the others behind me wouldn't last long. So given the seriousness of the situation, I brought forth a Noble Phantasm of my own out.
A soft golden light shone from my hand and expanded out, covering the area around me, including the others, and as it covered them, their screaming stopped.
Avalon: The Everdistant Utopia.
The holy sheath of Excalibur was held firmly in my hand, unleashing its sacred power and transforming the area around us into Avalon, where there was no evil, no harm, only the peace and calm that washed over us.
With the others safe, I looked towards Mordred. She took the brunt of the spell, yet she remained standing tall in defiance, her mana roaring and surrounding her in crimson lightning.
Mordred's boots cracked the floor beneath her, her laughter cutting like thunder through Morgana's eldritch storm. Clarent howled, the cursed blade thrumming in resonance with its wielder's fury, arcs of crimson lightning scorching fissures into the glyph itself.
"Is that all your madness can do, witch!?!" she roared, her voice unbroken, untamed. "You've got power, sure — but no spine to wield it!"
Morgana's shadow-wings unfurled wider, blotting out what remained of the light. "Arrogant cur! You think yourself immune to me? You are only standing because she props you up!" Her sword swept down like a guillotine, trailed by a tidal wave of screaming black fire.
Mordred met it head-on. Clarent surged, red light boiling out like a second sun, the cursed blade drinking deep of her rage. The collision shook the hall — black fire crashing against crimson lightning, floor and ceiling fracturing as though the castle itself might be torn from its foundations.
I held Avalon steady, the golden field thrumming as glass, rubble, and wailing shadows dissolved harmlessly before it. The twins whimpered in exhaustion, clinging to one another. Fantomex raised his head just enough to gape at the sight beyond Avalon's protection.
"Die screaming!" Morgana shrieked, her un-words still bleeding madness into the world. Her army surged, wraiths and serpents diving with her strike, an avalanche of sorcery meant to bury Mordred alive.
But Mordred only threw her head back and roared in delight. "You want me dead!? You'll have to do better than that!"
Given the size of what she was fighting, Clarent couldn't do much. Yet, as any decent saber class servant, Mordred possessed a secret weapon, something that allowed her to deal with big threats.
The helm on Mordred's head opened up and revealed her face, fury, and bloodlust in her eyes, her blond hair waving wildly due to the strong winds Morgana's dark magic caused. "Just because you got a big pet, doesn't mean I can't hit you!"
She held Clarent in both hands, raised over her head, and started to speak, her voice magically loud, filling the air all around us, drowning out the storm.
"By the blood I was denied!
By the throne that cast me aside!
By the father who named me bastard, yet forged me in his shadow!
I am the true heir to Camelot!
I am the knight who spits in the face of kings and gods alike!
I am rebellion given flesh, treachery crowned in steel!
The blade of red lightning, born from betrayal!
The howl of vengeance, the storm that sunders all false thrones!
Clarent! O sword of my hate,
drink deep of my wrath, of my fury, of my cursed blood!
Become the roar that shatters crowns,
the fire that sears away all lies!
Clarent… Blood Arthur!"
The cursed blade roared to life, its core igniting with a scarlet radiance so intense it drowned even Morgana's night. The air itself shuddered, vibrating with the pressure of Mordred's unleashed legend.
Morgana shrieked, her shadows swelling into titanic walls. Glyphs flared around her, a thousand layered wards of Avalon's lost sorcery. Her army of wraiths hurled themselves into the storm of light, burning away to ash in an instant. Her sword screamed louder, its edge bleeding black fire as she raised it high, every spell she had pouring into its defense.
"NO!" she howled. "I will not be undone by a mongrel child!"
Clarent's crimson torrent smashed against the wall of sorcery like a falling star. Shields cracked one by one, each rupture detonating in a thunderclap that shook the heavens. Morgana bled from her eyes and mouth as she forced her power higher, her black brand straining, shrieking, holding—
For a heartbeat.
Then Clarent shattered it.
The cursed sword blasted from her hands, ripped away by the storm of power. Her wings of shadow tore like paper in a gale, her wards splintered, and the throne room was swallowed in crimson annihilation.
Morgana's scream was drowned beneath it, her form hurled across the chamber, slammed through stone and steel. When the light dimmed, she was on her knees amidst the rubble, her gown in tatters, her crown shattered, her once-mighty sword lying broken at her side.
Mordred stood in the center of the devastation, Clarent's blade still glowing like molten iron, her chest heaving with exhilaration, her grin savage. "Told you… witch. You can throw your armies, your curses, your fucking kingdom of shadows…" She lifted Clarent, pointing it at Morgana's fallen form. "…but you can't stop me."
She swung the sword, and the witch's head rolled into the rubble of her ruined castle.
(End of chapter)
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