Behind him, in this strange foggy world, lay his own corpse, a corpse kneeling to the ground, with a gaping hole in its chest.
Ethan stepped back in horror, as he realized he had seen this once before. It was when his fight with the huntress had ended... He had died in that same way. He had seen this corpse of his before... Furthermore, he had been in this strange place before.
His chest had been pierced by a lance forming from the Huntress's clothes, and he had died. He had died, and then he had appeared again in the clearing.
"..."
Was this another illusion? Was she hiding somewhere around here? Was she casting another hex on his mind? Ethan's thoughts ran wild along with his Ki, desperately searching for an answer. He performed a diagnosis on his body several times but noted no abnormality.
Perhaps, he was doing it wrong... Maybe he was wrong in controlling his Ki, maybe he was performing the diagnosis wrong.
"What?"
Ethan slapped himself out of his dilemma. It couldn't be.
Not him.
He was not wrong in controlling his Ki, He wasn't performing his diagnosis wrong... He was right. Maybe another Knight would have made that kind of mistake. But not him.
Control was the one thing he had, it was the one thing he had honed his entire life, from the moment he began training. He was never wrong about matters concerning his control of Ki.
Ethan took a deep breath, and turned around, disregarding his corpse. He didn't like seeing his own mutilated body. He focused his Ki all around his body, searching for the Huntress, or anything in this dark place.
"Where are you?"
He called out, his sword ready to strike down anything that appeared. But there was no response, no answer, only the tremors of the ground. Ethan steadied himself, as a massive earthquake appeared. The ground all around him split apart, however the one beneath his feet barely cracked.
The world was tearing down, and most of the Earth fell into a bottomless abyss as twelve platforms arose, excluding his own.
Higher than his own, Ethan saw the towering rocks rise through some unimaginable power and was shaken, he was losing his calm, but he was also getting excited.
After all, weren't absurd situations like these what he had read about as a kid? Don't Knight usually deal with absurd phenomena like these and emerge as heroes?
"Come on... Come On."
Twelve platforms other than his rose into the skies, and upon each one of them slay a shadowy figure, kneeling towards the highest one. All of them possessed a weapon strapped to their bodies, and a powerful physique, despite being composed of shadows.
That was Ethan was able to ascertain from such a distance, but he didn't focus on the shadowy figures for long, instead, he focused his gaze at the highest platform as well, and the grip on his sword tightened.
"There you are."
At the highest one of the twelve, lay the Huntress, in a different attire than before.
"...?"
Wearing a black bridal dress, and holding a bouquet of wilted rose, the huntress stood at the highest platform, holding the arm of another shadowy figure, however, this one seemed more hollow than the others...
But how? Ethan was unsure. From sight alone, he couldn't tell any difference, but his gut was telling him the one at the very top, alongside the huntress, was different. Ethan narrowed his eyes, wondering what the purpose of this... situation was.
This was no illusion, rather reality formed through strange power. Not a single one of those shadows was fake, rather real.
"Am I supposed to fight all of them to reach you?"
He asked, and he could see a faint smile form on the Huntress's face, just underneath the bridal veil.
"Weird damn fetish you have, but alright."
The shadow at the twelfth platform rose up, and jumped down to his own. A shadow wielding a long sword in his right hand, and a short sword in his left hand. A peculiar and strange combination.
"..."
The shadow looked at him with its creepy manifestations of eyes, and Ethan took up a stance as well, ready for any strike. The strange combination of weapons confused him, but one other thing was disorienting.
There was no malice, no intent to kill coming from the shadow, only silent resolve and a broken will. Ethan felt strange, it was the first time he had encountered a foe like this. A summon that bore no will of its own.
In the southern lands of Vakuma, spirit users were found, and Ethan had faced off against a few of them before, however all their summons possessed unique wills and thoughts... This one, was the complete opposite.
'Well, I'm not on Vakuma anymore.'
He didn't dwell on it for too long, he was in an unfamiliar land after all. And maybe because the shadow had lunged at him, launching his attack.