67th of Frost, 120
The temperate night air was pleasant against his fur-wrapped scales. The weight of his feathered cloak was comfortable on his shoulders and the air he breathed left him no strain. Even so, his heart raced. His target, an Argent Knight on patrol, had assumed two hollows for field testing. Though a hollow was relatively easy to break for someone as practiced as Arkash, he couldn't face them.
Trauma after trauma had left him ragged and broken at the thought of them. They were the creatures that beat him down, took his mother, his eye, his arm. They were the shrieks in the night that herald the death of a nameless that had stepped out of line. For that, the sounds they made terrified him, the sight of them put him on Edge. He seldom spoke of them, even after escaping their clutches... But he still had to work around them somehow.
Argent Knights, however, since he'd been afflicted with the Dranoch curse, were so appealing to him. The thought of their strength was intoxicating, and he knew their meat to be succulent and filling. It was because the curse had a thirst for strength, that it promised to leave him satisfied if he consumed one of the battle-hardened warriors. The pull of his hunger, he hoped, was enough to help him ignore the hollows in the way.
Even so, such an idea was only theory. Did he focus less; allow his hunger to carry him through the golems to his mark? Or did he focus more and force his attention to remain on the knight despite the presence of hollows? Imagining either was difficult, as the thought of being within arm's reach of one of the automatons made him quake with fear. His heart raced and the venom glands in his mouth worked hard to fill his palette with the taste of his debilitating fluids.
Arkash looked to his bandage-wrapped wrist, where the slit of red seeped through the fabric. The black-blood sword he held was born of his own veins and would be plenty enough to destroy a few hollows given his skill. He knew he could beat them, he knew he was strong enough, but that didn't change that they left him breathless.
He followed the knight on the city's rooftops under the starry night sky. Every step brought him dread and slowed his movements, as though he couldn't bring himself to do more than orbit the golems. As long as he didn't engage his target, he didn't have to face the hollows. So, he bound himself to avoid them and tried in vain to work up the nerve. Other thoughts clouded his judgment, such as what could happen if he stalled. Would the knight eventually pass off their hollows to another? Would they break down? Deep down, he knew no such luck would ever find him, but he hoped all the same.
Despite being undetected, he still shook tremors in their general vicinity. Though he tried to steady his breath and willed himself to push through, it took all his force of will just to remain near them. All the fibers of his being urged him to leave, to give up on the contract and return to Sir Elric empty-handed, but Arkash fought those desires. He knew what he had to do.
He set his eyes on the hollows, both of the hulking monsters. They were the demons of his nightmares, the beasts that left him scarred through his whole life. He steeled his heart and breathed through his nose while he watched them, but forced himself to maintain his gaze. He'd done naught but avoid them since they'd tried to kill him, and for good reason. Looking down at his past executioners didn't help. Images of being bludgeoned, stabbed, and slashed returned, and he peered through his own eyes as he relived the memories of being struck down and maimed by the monsters.
Tears welled in his eyes and his jaws dripped venom through the gaps in his lips. He finally broke his gaze, defeated. The knight continued their long patrol around the bend of the street, and the hollows followed with him out of sight. Arkash stayed there, trembling in the cool night air while he tried to compose himself. Ultimately, he was still handicapped. He looked to the arm Taelian had given him through both of his eyes. His physical scars were gone, but those on his mind didn't fade. They only deepened with time, he was still ruined.
Anger overcame him and flooded the darkness of his heart with burning fire. The thought of being so powerless still, despite all his development, all his effort to become strong and to climb away from victimhood, infuriated him. His tears of self-pity paved the road for his hate, which bled into the air around him with a hiss. Again, he looked to his shortsword and serrated the blade with blood shaping. His lips parted to bare the frame of venomous strings in his mouth, and he trailed a coating of his venom along the edge while taking care not to touch himself with the unnaturally sharp blood. Both his maw and his blade dripped venom on the snowless rooftop, and he set his sight on his mark's path. With a low hiss, he pushed himself onward and leaped from rooftop to rooftop to catch up to the target. His free claws stayed his balance on the more sloped, tiled rooves, but he seldom slowed as he skidded and slid before he arrived at the corner of the street.
He focused squarely on the knight with the golems in his peripheral, then promptly threw his sword to land upright in the stone and swung the length of his blade into his claws in the same motion. At the clatter, the knight turned on a dime to spy the roof-bound rathor, all too late. A squeeze of the trigger knocked the weapon from Arkash's grip with a thundering boom and struck the knight's helm square on the forehead with an echo akin to a hammer beating an anvil.
His sling caught the gun as he broke into a sprint. A swipe of his claws dropped the length of his feathered cloak as he leaped up on the edge of the roofing with his bare feet, and the knight's staggering came to a halt as they fell flat on their back, concussed. Arkash didn't slow. Even at the shriek of the hollows, he continued his run. The golems were without orders, but they still recognized the imminent danger of their master. Promptly, they broke into a charge and searched for a way onto the building Arkash ran across.
He paid them no mind as he threw himself from the second story with a kick, and curled his form to roll across the ground and break off with a kick to the floor. As the knight began to stand, Arkash ripped his thrown sword from the cobbled road by the handle and flicked the loose, broken sone from the tip as he made a mad dash for the Argent's heart.
The knight was on their feet again, but their helm was buckled on one side at a degree that blocked their visor. Arkash had the advantage of depth perception and sobriety. Still, as he swung his blade overhead at the dazed, half-blind Argent, they lifted their arm to guard against the blow. Arkash hissed and carried through with the blow, despite knowing that his strike would ping off their armor.
To his surprise, however, the strength of Arkash's bloodshaped sword bit into the plate armor, and the slits of his eyes narrowed as the smell of fresh blood filled his senses. The knight cried out in pain, and Arkash let go of the lodged sword to dive back with a roll as the knight swung their heavy fist at him. The rath fell into a crouch, then broke from the floor like a tensed coil to rush the argent down at full speed. Almost unnatural in his movement, he dove beneath another swipe of the knight's fist and forced a bloodshaped spike to burst from the wound in his own wrist, and suffused it with his improved sharpness before he drove the blade straight into the knight's stomach above half-way with a punch. The blade broke from the gash in his scales, and Arkash continued through with his momentum to roll across the street with his weeping wrist.
He could break argent armor, set the realization. He'd only managed such thing with Asmodei's enkindled sword before, but a mixture of his hardened blood and the extreme, magical sharpness allowed him to pierce something he'd once thought unbreakable as long as he put all his botchling strength into it.
The knight, still dazed and disoriented, looked down at the jagged black blade that protruded from their gut, and gripped the blunt-looking end, only to find the plate of his gauntlet cut, along with their fingers when they applied the pressure of an Argent's grip. The Chevalier looked up then and stumbled as the effects of Arkash's venom set in through the wound on their arm. Arkash spied the handle of his sword, then broke into another mad dash for the piece. The knight also drew their sword with bloodied fingers and swung the enormous two-handed weapon in an effort to strike down the rath, but Arkash leaped and threw his body over the arch of the blade, twirled, took his sword by the handle, and barreled directly into the wavering knight's breastplate with enough force to stagger them. Arkash too fell back but caught himself in time to evade the now-sluggish swing of the knight's blade. They were confused, disoriented. Arkash continued to debilitate them with venom, blood loss, and rampant concussion.
The knight paused to breathe as weakness set in, and Arkash rushed them again at the fullest speed he could muster. Though the knight tried to lift their sword to defend against the strike, it was too late. The edge of Arkash's sword met their neck but failed to cut all the way through. Arkash shivered at the smell, the radiating warmth of the fountain that poured in and outside the metal suit.
Even though he'd cut the jugular, the knight swung at him. Arkash let go of the sword's hilt again and threw his body to evade the strike, and the knight's momentum carried on; they failed to stop themself after missing their mark. Arkash landed squarely on all fours and turned to watch the knight as their stance faltered, and they fell to one knee. The sound of gurgling and popping fluid rumbled behind the knight's visor, and Arkash began to walk closer as the Argent drowned in their own blood. The knight fell to their hands with the blade still lodged in their throat and sputtered even more as Arkash ripped the serrated blade from their airway. Droplets of red met the stone of the cobbled road while they held themselves on all fours. Arkash watched for a moment, then smiled as he lifted his shortsword overhead, and drove it into the center of their back to sever their spine and crush their heart.
The knight fell with a thud. He was victorious. Though he wanted to stay and feast on the body, he couldn't. The gunshot was sure to stir the hornet's nest and send other Argent running their way. What was more? The hollows were likely on their way back down from the rooftop. He had to move.
Sir Elric had requested the knight's eyes, so Arkash hastily ripped the helm from the knight, ripped his sword out, and sawed through the neck with the serrated edge. Once the oversized head was severed, he cast sway on the blood spike to reduce it to liquid, and did the same with his sword, then broke into a sprint for the nearest alley, and disappeared from Astoria's roads. His dagger was used to gouge out the eyes, which he set in a corked bottle before he fed on what remained the head, brains, bones, and all.
Hollows were already all over the street by the time the sun rose, Chevalier too. Quietly, he collected his feathered cloak from the rooftop and proceeded to Sir Elric's estate, where he traded the eyes for his payment. His wrath didn't bring back the Savant's wife and daughter, but it did offer some closure. That alone was more than he'd ever had.
