A towering, solemn figure stood before them, slightly bent down as its sword was planted firmly in the ground. It was a blend of human craftsmanship as its entire body was sculpted from solid stone, with every detail chiselled with care: the overlapping plates of armour, the chainmail etched beneath, and the intricate crest upon his chest.
Already holding onto her sword, Ki Song thrusted it forwards as it pierced the stone knights neck.
Although her mind was in constant disarray from the memory altering environment, the appearance of something foreign had triggered a new response from her. Anything that moved which wasn't her or Epsilon, was simply another enemy. And in that, she regained her concentration, although temporarily.
Her blade came to an abrupt halt as it failed to even leave a scratch.
Pointing the palm of his hand forward, Epsilon quickly fired a blast of light, aiming it right at the knights helmet. The energy directly impacted its visor, exploding and clouding its vision.
There weren't any Night Sleepers around so Epsilon showed no fear in using his Aspect here. But to his dismay, all it did was create a tiny crack barely enough to even call damage.
Finally lifting its sword back up, it slashed at the air right towards Ki Song. She quickly ducked down and avoided it, while also performing a low spinning sweep aimed right at the back of its heel.
She partly wasn't expecting that to work, but to her surprise its legs abruptly flew into the air, before collapsing on its back.
'Its light? Are they hollow on the inside?'
Taking advantage of that weakness, she raised her sword while holding tightly with both hands, and thrusted down at full force. Only to hear the sound of metal scrapping against stone while sparks of fire flickered in-between them.
She was just about to hack at it again, but then she felt a hand grab her shoulder.
Epsilon said while pointing past the door way.
"We need to get out of here!"
Emerging from the dark followed by the sounds of heavy footsteps, were 2 more of the stone knights. One wielding a large two handed axe, and another with a spear, their weapons already aimed at the two of them.
Turning around, they both bolted back down the corridor. This fight was completely unwinnable.
Oddly, they didn't hear the heavy footsteps of the knights chasing back after them. Stopping for a moment, he turned around, only to see them halted in a semi circle around the throne rooms entrance.
Underneath their visor, all three were glaring at them with stone cold indifference. Signalling Bob to enter him, he gazed beneath their surface and into their soul, only to be surprised that they didn't have one at all. There wasn't even a dark star of corruption like he'd seen from Nightmare creatures before.
'They aren't corrupted? Bob, what's going on?'
"Give me a second, I'm trying to jog my memory.."
After a while of thinking, he remembered,
"That's my security! I didn't think they'd be still protecting this place after all this time!"
Rather than being glad, he shivered. He'd seen hundreds alone on the way here, and he could not imagine how many were truly protecting this place. If all of them came down at once, they'd die without a chance of escape.
"Oh don't worry, those ones are probably broken. It's been eons after all so its expected. And not all of them were like that too, some were just decoration, others were for more rudimentary work. I'm pretty sure there should be one of me somewhere too."
Epsilon thought,
'That's a bit.. obnoxious?'
He didn't find it surprising though.
"Of course, I'm a king(formerlly)! What kind of king doesn't have a statue made in their image, who are 10 times their height running about too?"
Thinking about it again, the idea was a little bit more terrifying.
'...Please don't jinx it.'
Anyhow, they had to find someway to get past those three knights. Destroying them was an impossible task, as their skin was resistant to awakened quality weapons, and Ki Songs Aspect was completely useless too. Being able to make existing wounds worse, was pointless if she couldn't make any in the first place.
'Would it even work on stone? If only Gracia were here, her Aspect would've been effective on them.'
Epsilon's own Aspect was lacking in power. Although he was able to create a tiny crack, it could hardly account for anything. It was more like a pea shooter when used against stronger nightmare creatures.
But that was the case if he didn't use his innate ability.
'I can't afford to use it on them, these things aren't even as strong as monsters. They're just ridiculously sturdy. I've already used... 20 years so far? The difference in power just isn't worth it.'
He suddenly paused mid thought. His mind tripped at that last word.
'Power?'
His face tightened in quiet concentration, eyes narrowing in thought. The more he began to question it, the more he began to realize just how wrong he had been about himself.
And suddenly, he broke out into laughter.
"Power! That was it! I just needed power! It was something so simple that I didn't even notice it!"
Even in her confused state, Ki Song gave him a concerning look.
Constantly he'd been looking for a weakness in his Aspect that he could overcome, and for a long while he thought that maybe he just wasn't searching hard enough. But that was exactly the problem.
'I was overthinking it. All I needed was power.'
But the reason why he had failed to notice it, was because of his innate ability. It was a hindrance. An object that had halted his understanding of his Aspect, and what it could truly do.
'There is another way to increase the power of my dormant ability.'
Countless times when he encountered a wall, he overcame it with the sheer power of his innate ability, but maybe, that's when his problems started. Even by limiting his uses of it, the fact that he was around others meant that he never had the chance to truly lack anything.
It was only when he now came in contact with a powerful opponent that gave him time to reflect on himself, did he realize his shortcomings.
'I need more power.'
How would he achieve it though? It was simple. The damage dealt with his aspect always came when it detonated, so all he needed to do was compress that detonation as much as he could. Doing so, would increase its piercing power to new heights.
'I think I could do that!'
Now normally to compress light, one would need to funnel its rays into one place and increase its intensity, but Epsilons light wasn't the same. It was tangible, and had mass, and therefore it had to be compressed in the same way that a solid could too.
Sitting down he opened the palm of his hand, before activating his dormant ability. A small sphere of light barely bigger than his hand appeared, which he vigorously focused his mind on.
Straining, he tried to imagine the ball of light shrinking down, causing it to grow smaller.
'Damnit that isn't it.'
He accidently made it weaker instead. Fortunately, he had already found the answer thanks to Anvil.
'Imagery.. I need to change my imagery into something more appropriate. Something easier to imagine.'
Imagining light being compressed as is was too difficult, so instead of imagining light, he simply had to imagine something else.
'Imagery.. imagery...'
In Epsilons mind he imagined, a tin can. It was empty, and completely hollow. Raising his foot, he crushed it flat with ease.
And in reality, the white sphere of light was crushed flat too.