He ran at him, paying little attention to bracing his steps. The spearman heard something from behind and began turning his head, but the action failed as in his momentary distraction, Cedric took the opportunity and thrusted the sword at his head.
The mask was removed from his face as the sword made contact with it. Arthur suddenly heard the sound of striking metal stop, and another sound that resembled Cedric's voice, but he couldn't quite discern it.
The momentum had built up, and Arthur was too close to stop now. No matter what, he had to hold him down. He pounced, arms spread wide and flexed, lifting his chin to brace from the damage that would come from collisions between bone.
But their bones would never come in contact with each other.
Fortunately, his eyelids were closed, so no particles of ash dirtied his eyes. The same could not be said for the rest of him though. He entered and exited with as much resistance as air.
His arms that were meant to restrain caught nothing but himself and the ground. With a single kick to his back, he was thrown past Cedric, where he found the wall.
What was that–I missed? Did I go through him?
He tried to wipe the dry ash away from his eyes, but the sweat built up between his palms made the ash clump and stick. When he cleared his vision, the fight had already ended with one last, pitiful reverberation of metals, followed by a muffled cough.
Arthur opened his eyes. His vision pulsated–two, three, four times before he could deny it no longer.
The Obsidian Lance was in full extension, just centimeters away from his eyes, only now, it was painted red. On the lance, two meters in front of him, Cedric's legs collapsed, and his body hung from it.
The lance went directly through his torso, and from something, he could smell a strong metallic odor, followed by another smell that his nose rejected—the warm, sick scent of bowels and death.
"Run," Cedric grunted as he clasped the pole with both hands, his shoulders and everything below shaking violently.
A golden glow appeared around him, and he tried again. The energy felt familiar. It gave him power and energy before, but now, even with it, the result would not change.
Cedric's arms tried again, but they were pale now, and shook less than his first attempt. His arms dropped and swayed for a bit until the momentum was used up. He painfully inched his neck to the right to look back at Arthur.
His back was pressed as far into the wall as he could, extending his neck to create the tiniest increase in distance. His brain could give no other instruction but to extend.
His eyes were raised and trembled so much it looked as if they would explode. His nose was flared red, open, but holding his breath. His teeth were clasped together, but his mouth made nothing resembling a smile. It was just barely open enough for the front of his teeth to be visible, but nothing more.
"Run," Cedric said once more, raising the sides of his mouth to form a smile, but a thick, opaque liquid spilled from it, covering whatever expression he tried to make.
His brows were quivering, and throughout his body, the veins began to turn black, tracing the path of his arteries. It stood out intensely from his pale, pale skin.
Arthur saw something different. Every feature was drawn to the extremities of melancholy, and he looked like some sort of dark beast, pulling his gaze onto it, and never letting go.
The Golden light left Cedric's body and took the shape of a sphere around the shaking coward. If one were to look at the two of them, side by side, they would think Arthur was the one who had a spear pierced through his stomach.
In the next moment, the head of the spear was not pointed at Arthur anymore, but at the ceiling. Arthur's breathing returned to him in the form of shallow breaths that sped up as he continued to stare at the two pieces of flesh that made up what was once known as Cedric.
It fell and created a pool of blood that expanded across the floor and pressed against the walls of his golden dome.
Behind his breaths and other displays of fear, his mind was actually clear. In fact, had never experienced such clarity.
Death and Mortality. It was a subject discussed with great detail in his most prized book. He read it one-hundred times, and was never once unattentive while reading it. He thought he understood it, and that it too was below him. But he learned a new meaning to it.
It had the same definition, word for word, as the one in the book.
"Death is the point where being itself unravels–where all thought, breath, and warmth collapse into stillness, and what was once someone becomes only what remains. It is the irreversible end of presence, the silence that nothing can wake."
Cedric is dead. Death is permanent. He will never come back to life.
Cedric is dead. Death is permanent. He will never come back to life.
Cedric is dead. Cedric is dead. Cedric is dead…
Again and again, he repeated it; he desperately clung to it as if it was to retain his own sanity–as if he knew it would be forgotten, and that this would be his last conscious wake.
He was slouched over his curled legs, his arms buckling his upper and lower body together. He tried hiding his face in this position, but his eyes were never low enough for his vision of Cedric to be obstructed. He could never look away, even if he wanted to, but in this moment, there was nothing he wanted. There was nothing he thought. He could hardly be classified as sapient.
Lightning struck the Earth somewhere far away, and rain began to fall.
"You have seen my face," the spearman sighed. "Forgive me, my child, for what I must do."
He made a slow movement, and then an audible "clink" rang out as the spear made contact with the shield, followed by a continuous cracking noise with the continued transfer of force.
Arthur noticed nothing change. To him, the world was just a dark, empty void, made up only of him and Cedric.
Just before the cracks met on the opposite side and fully enveloped the dome, a green current blasted through the room, ripping a hole through the walls from one end of the building to the other, from floor to ceiling.