The battlefield sprawled endlessly outwards, a hellscape painted in shades of carnage and despair. Flashes of fire caught the dim light as steel met steel, a cacophony of death punctuated by the wet, meaty thuds of cleaved flesh in metallic armour. The air, thick with the coppery stench of blood and the acrid reek of fear, cloyed in the throat like a foul miasma. Warriors, their eyes wild with battle-lust and terror, tore at each other with a savagery that stripped away all vestiges of humanity, and the sky wept tears of anguish, as if the very heavens recoiled from the slaughter below.
Amidst the chaos, a lone figure arose amongst a ring of corpses, a dark harbinger of death. His armour, black as the void, devoured what little light dared pierce the stormy sky. A battle-worn captain, noticing a gap in the enemy lines, saw an opportunity. "To me!" he bellowed, rallying his remaining horsemen. "We'll break their ranks here!" They charged towards the dark figure, unaware of the doom that awaited them.
As they neared, the black-clad warrior dragged his twisted obsidian blade through the mud as it sang a vibrant but haunting note. In one fluid motion, he arced it skywards, cleaving through both horse and rider from afar. The captain's war cry turned to a gurgle as he slid left and right from his bisected mount.
Energised by this defining act, the dark enigma lunged forwards into the surrounding battle. Each swing of his dark song-blade was a dance of destruction, a tune of warbles and shrieks, a graceful arc that ended in a spray of crimson and a new trench across the battlefield. He twirled through the melee indiscriminately, a whirlwind of annihilation, each time carving a new scar into the battlefield, parting the sea of men and women that fought bravely around him.
Soldiers at the fringes of this massacre fled in every which way alongside friend and foe, recognising their weapons as useless against his otherworldly power. Yet one remained - a grizzled veteran who had seen too many wars to count. He stood his ground, sword raised in defiance.
"Who are you?" he growled, circling the black-armoured figure. "What manner of demon fights with such... purpose?"
For the first time, the dark warrior paused. His helm turned slightly, acknowledging the question. But instead of answering, he lunged forward with inhuman speed. The veteran, despite his experience, barely had time to parry before a gauntleted fist reverberated subtly around his neck, and crushed his windpipe.
In his wake, corpses lay strewn like discarded marionettes, their glassy eyes reflecting the horror of their final moments.
As he pressed onwards hunting down the remaining skirmishes, the earth beneath his boots squelched, a grisly mosaic of pulverised flesh and bones that splintered under his relentless advance, the crunch lost amidst the cacophony of battle.
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