Darkness had spread through the lands as the Blinded Scales tipped and corruption plagued the city streets, the countryside, and even the seas, giving rise to horrors the likes of which most fled upon first sight.  The Black Swordsman was devoid of fear.  As it became more attuned to the body it possessed, it felt more predatorial, feeding upon the darkness that permeated the very air as a dark miasma that held sway over mortals and seemingly gods alike.  Simple logic and memories stolen from Icarus gave it insight into a city that had dwelt in peace by the name of Cittapashe.  It reveled in the thought of a city so disgustingly blissful in its peace could simply be aflame with mounds of bodies stacked in the chaos likely prevaling.

For such a thing, it had to see for itself, to feel the pain, to hear the suffering, and to feast upon the dark taint that would surely corrupt even the most stout of heart with a mere touch.  The corruption was inconsequential to the Black Swordsman.  It would grant power if it could consume its darkness, alas, even then, it would be no more than a temporary catalyst to enhance its power.  The Black Swordsman would need far more than it could likely offer in minute doses such as the taint which plagued man, woman, and child alike.

In truth, it simply wanted death, craved it as though it were a substance of pure intoxication and enthralling in its very call.  The sweetest sounds were merely the death rattles of the living as they struggled to breathe their last breath, even more divine was the taste the fear, to watch the hope and light of life fade from the eyes of others.  It was… exquisite to a degree unfathomable for any but the beast that now held dominion over the mortal coil that had once guided it. Icarus was dead, a shadow hiding somewhere deep within the dream world, soul consumed by the hellfire it had struggled against for years.

To think, all it took was the Castle of Dreams to siphon away the strength of the slayer of demons and abominations as though he were no more than a head of cattle prepared for the slaughter.  And what a feast his soul had been! The Black Swordsman had consumed it all in great haste, simply appropriating his form for itself as it had before. This time, however, there was no fixing it, no filthy human like Icarus to suppress the true nature of the beast.

It entered the city that had been once regarded as the epitome of peace, a grand notion of all the races of the world could accomplish if they could put aside their differences.  The thought as a whole was sickening and no more than the ravings of lunatics that bought into such fantasy.  Peace was a lie and the only way to bring it to truth was to simply remove life from the equation.  The Black Swordsman knew this and that was why it felt nothing short of rapture as it ended life.  It was removing entropy, presenting order and providing a peace the living could not fathom.  

Beneath the mask Icarus had worn, the shell of the man that had once been a champion stepped forth, glancing around as flames licked buildings and the screams of the injured and dying could be heard all around.  It was beautiful.  A man, blackened veins pulsing along his frame, stepped out and ran at the beast with a speed likely unattainable without the taint supporting him. In the next instant, the creature drew throwing knives and pincushioned the man like a bolt of lightning, burying the blades to the hilt in the corrupted man's flesh and skull, causing black blood to drip in rivulets as the man fell head over heels and tumbled, dead before he even hit the ground.

The Black Swordsman looked inquisitively at the man.  He had not recognized it as the superior being, not cared that it had come to bear witness as the affected brought glory to the hunt for the souls of men.  It became angry, indignant at the thought they could casually show disrespect to the darkness and the being that had come to guide them like a shepherd.  It would have its vengeance upon them.

Kneeling down, the beast collected the knives still stuck in the corpse, flicking gore from them before holstering them again.  At last, the blood flowed more keenly and the creature removed its mask.  With one hand, it wiped as much of the black blood upon itself and with the other, it stabbed into the ragged wounds left by the blades with the mask, covering it.  The creature would have the darkness join it and found the blood delectable in its scent.

Rising once more as it replaced the mask over Icarus' face, it grinned cruelly.  There was so much to do and so little time! It took off quickly into the town, intending to find more of this dark ambrosia that it may consume it and become more powerful.  Screams echoed and even if it could not find more to sate its appetite, it would seek the innocent, hearing their screams and torment to drive it into frenzy and create peace for this town.

The buildings were burning.  People were dying.  This whole city trashed, or a good part of it, maybe.  It's just everywhere Hiro went, people were dead.  Who could have done this?  This was a peaceful town, but now it was covered in bloodshed.  Was this the work of a single man?  Or a whole army?  Whoever it was that did this, they had to be stopped.

Hiro ran through the streets of the burning city.  Where were the guards?  Where they overwhelmed by this foe's mighty strength, or where they merely unprepared?  He felt sick to his stomach seeing all these dead people, all these homes and businesses destroyed by whoever did this.

Finally, there was one man standing at the end of his long run.  He had merely followed the path of destruction through the city, and felt the dark aura at the end of the path.  His feet came to a stop, his sapphire eyes gazed at a masked individual in black armor.  He arrived just a tad too late to see who actually was the man behind the mask.  He merely saw the man placing the mask on his face.  But he could sense a powerful dark aura from this individual.  There was no one else around alive.  How powerful could this man be to cause all this chaos alone?

"You!  You're the man who caused all this destruction?  Why?  This was the most peaceful town in the entire land, and you've destroyed it!  How many people have you just killed?  I'm here to put a stop to you, you son of a bitch!  I'll avenge those you've killed, and make sure you won't hurt anyone else!"  The young man reached to his belt, and drew his blade, his masterwork bastard sword.  He held it firmly in both hands.  The crimson armor he wore bore the crest of a golden phoenix.  It was the crest of the Phoenix Knight, like his father wore before him.  He was not as strong as his father, but he was nowhere to be found.  He was not in this land.  He transported Hiro here to prove his worth.  He was still alive back at home in Vespora.  But he knew his father was likely watching him.

Watch over me father, I'll show you how strong I've become, how brave I've become.

He felt some fear though, this man destroyed most of a city, what chance did he have?  Was he really that powerful to take on all these people?  Maybe he was drained from the exerting himself that much against all these people?  Unlikely.  Why was Hiro hesitating?  He should have just attacked by now.  He should charge in and attack, but he was hesitating against this powerful, dark aura that the man was giving off.  An unfathomable dread, like staring into the dark of the abyss.

It gazed back.

As it stood up, it heard the loud yelps of a pup from somewhere behind it and turned to look.  It could scarcely fathom what it was the child in a man's armor was shouting at it, but as he drew his weapon and the creature's eyes locked onto his family crest, something happened it could not expect as a creature of instinct.  It thought.  It thought and recalled memories of a past life, a man somewhat older, equal parts foe and friend.  

The creature could not filter out the bizarre mix of emotions that crossed its mind.  It had become something more sentient and the forced evolution caused pain it did not like, forcing it to howl in a haunting, guttural shriek of pain.  The leather armor on its frame had turned black by the continued corruption spewing from every orifice, almost as though the taint that had encompassed it now shrouded it in undulating waves of black that pulsed like a mist that could breathe.  After the painful shriek of an amalgum of animals of unholy origin, the beast turned away, waving its hand as it ran away with full speed.

"Phoenix… no kill," it managed as it forced apparitions to rise from the shadows to assault the boy's senses.  Nothing would get in its way and for some reason, it had no inclination to kill him despite the delight it felt in killing the weak and innocent, to inflict terror upon the living.  It was as though it was conflicted, as though it could find no joy in the concept of killing it and that the weakness that had been Icarus had corrupted the perfection that had emerged from the darkness after his soul was destroyed in the Castle of Dreams.

It sprinted quickly, turning corners and finding more suitable prey now that it was angered by its own feeling of ineptitude when facing the boy.  It couldn't understand it but immediately found solace as another of the rampaging men crossed its path and the strengthening magic permeating its muscles ripped the infected limb from limb quickly.  The spray of blood soothed the fire in its heart and it absorbed all the essence it could from the thing that had been a man before the flicker of life faded.

The creature of darkness walked into another street, coming across a small group of them as they attacked a family, already well into the end of their rampage upon the corpses that they had created. Drawing a katana in one hand and a longsword in the other, the beast cackled as it felt another meal on the horizon with fresh essence at stake.  It would do more if it could to absorb them slower, get a real taste for the darkness that had corrupted them so before it would integrate it with itself.

Hiro felt a kind fear he hadn't felt much before in his short life: the fear of dying.  This man, that was barely a man, more of a monster in a man's body, it shrieked at him, a dark miasma pouring from every pore.  The shrieking or roaring didn't even sound human.  It caused Hiro to visibly recoil.  What was going on?  This man was being consumed by some kind of dark energy and a murderous presence.  Then the black swordsman turned away from him, grunting, then ran away, leaving behind some kind of shadowy illusions.  He felt an even more intense dread.  Bloodcurdling screams and shrieks filled his ears.  Hiro dropped his sword to the ground and covered his ears.

"Fight it, fight it, fight it!" he screamed to himself.  He opened his eyes, finally able to break out of the illusions.  "Why didn't he kill me, why didn't he even fight me?"  He said "Phoenix, no kill."  He wasn't actually a phoenix, but he wore the crest of a phoenix on his chest.  The crest that belonged to his father, Sabishii Kouen.  Did this monster know his father?  Was that a reason why he didn't attack him?  Was he once a friend, ally, or rival to his father?

At any rate, he had to be stopped.

Hiro steeled himself, picking himself up off the floor, and reclaimed his blade.  He had to find this monster, and put a stop to him.  If he wasn't going to do it, no one else here was left to do it.  It was not a heroic thing to do to abandon people in need.  It was not the Kouen way.  His father did not rear him that way.  He would not fail.

He leaped into action, leaping onto the roof of the nearest building.  He ran forward, from roof top to roof top.  He finally saw him, standing over a defenseless family, two blades in his hands.  He was about to slaughter them, unless he did something.  Hiro was planning on blasting him with fire from afar, but the innocents were now in range of his biggest spells.  He had to do something else.  He stepped back from the edge of the building.  Then he leaped off, aiming his blade down to strike him from behind.

It was something his father would never do.  But despite wanting to live up to his father's reputation, Hiro could appreciate the power of stealth.  His father thought it was dishonorable, but as highlander from a land faraway from here once said, "what use is honor if you're dead?"  He was going to aim a cleave right through this bastard's back.  He was wearing blackened leather, but having a muscular sixteen-year-old in full armor land a blade with all that weight behind it into someone's spine, he wouldn't get up any more.

As it stood with the mongrels of darkness closing in on the beast, it hissed in an almost unnatural sound like a pressure forcing a gasp from a thousand tortured souls.  The corpses on the ground were no sustenance as the exquisite pain that they had felt at the end of their lives had dissipated already.  These few, this meager handful that could be counted on scarcely more than a hand's digits, would have to suffice until more suitable prey could be found.  It smelled the aura of these tainted foes, an odor that those of keen sense would find incapable of stomaching.  To the creature, however, it was delectable.

In the next moment, searing pain dragged through it from behind as the fledling it had turned from earlier drove a blade clean through it and cleaved from mid-torso until it bisected it with a resounding roar of pain.  Now unable to wait any longer, it lunged forward with what little mobility it had left and plunged the katana through the first of the monsters as two of the others charged at the boy that had struck the beast from behind.  Coming apart at the seams, the creature began to channel its draining magic from the black blood that covered its blade and healed itself, darkness emanating from the wound and stitching the fatal wound back together.  

Once again fully-functional, it cleaved the head from the body of the infected man and lifted it up by the skewer it had created with the katana, drenching itself in the blackened blood and absorbing more of the essence that spilled forth from the chaos that polluted its veins.  Still, more came, those that had already been present were joined by more running from the buildings and alleys, called by the howls of the reaper come to harvest them.  The black beast teleported by sheer will, flipping through the air with three subsequent jumps through the black mist it emanated as it cleaved one after the other.  With the last, it came down with an arc that bit into its skull much like a rotten fruit and the beast pushed it down, kicking against it with its foot.

The more that came, the faster the beast was becoming, drenching itself as the black essence that permeated the beings there spilled upon it.  The animalistic howls and primal fury the creatures possessed were like a swarm of flies with none finding purchase in the beast as it became more powerful the more it killed.  When at last it felt it had gathered enough of the darkness, it summoned multiple puppets from the darkness emanating within it, creating beasts that began to hunt them faster and begin gathering them.  Even as the creature became more powerful, the pair were surrounded on all sides by the infected and it wondered for an instant of sentient thought if the child would survive the encounter when the only option he had for survival had just received what should have been a mortal blow from him.

The boy that struck it was no longer of any consequence and it cared not for the potential threat it demonstrated.  It was becoming too powerful in the corruption and pain created, the essence drained from the souls of the infected, to be concerned with the meddling of a child that had taken his father's sword.  That moment of vulnerability was lost as its darkness continued to swell.  It wished Obelisk could see it, to know that the great darkness, the father of the end, the culler of worlds, could behold the sanctity of the ground it had created in his name.

Even as the foes struggled, more shouting could be heard as bestial growls from something far more dangerous than the infected roamed in the distance.  It took its time, absorbing the essence of those it had slain thus far, gazing back at last to the boy. Somewhere in the city, a prize greater than any other existed and the creature almost felt compelled to take the child with it, so that it may witness in horror the true darkness that had come to the world and lament that no mortal could stand against it.  Nay, the momentary lapse in its judgment, in the primal nature of the creature when it saw the phoenix sigil was fading.  Perhaps it would take the child's essence as well.  Only time and opportunity would tell.

{Hope I'm getting the details of what is going on right, it's a little cryptic/hard to understand, since it's from his PoV since he is so twisted atm}

Hiro made direct contact with his sword against his opponent.  It screamed in pain and black miasma and dark blood poured from the wound as his sword carved through him a good deal.  However, the people he had cornered were not saved.  The monsterous man was not killed.

"Gods damn it!  Why won't you just die!"  Monsters were summoned from the darkness once more, as the the dark beast in a man's body ignored him and started tearing through more people.  "No!  Damn it!  Pick on someone your own size!"  It seemed he was getting nowhere, he had to remove his sword from the enemy's body in order to swing it at the shadow minions that were trying to latch onto him.

Hiro growled, realizing he could not win by holding back at all.  He recalled his father's words.  A hero is one who puts his life on the line to protect the lives of others.  The flames of courage can pierce the darkness, no matter how dark it gets, there's always a way.  This whole time, he was not really using his magic, besides augmenting his jumping power, or augmenting his physical strength.  Regular steel alone would not win this fight.  He was getting angry.  An explosion of fiery energy erupted from his body as he swung his arms to his sides.

"This is it!  You've pushed me too far.  Fear be damned!  There is no going back now!"  The powerful flames disintegrated the shadow puppets that it was creating.  He could tell every person that this monster killed made him stronger.  It was absorbing their life essence, it had already healed from the wound that Hiro had inflicted on it, despite how grievous the wound was.  Hiro focused strength into his legs, and bounded forward toward the monster as it continued its killing spree.

The boy swung his hand, channeling his might into a powerful, focused stream of flame aimed at the monster.  The flames of justice would pierce this monster's darkness.

(OOC: He's been killing rage zombies from the event this entire time lol)

As the creature plunged another blade into one of the corrupted beings, it heard the mewlings of the boy he had let live calling out in anger once more.  Did he not understand that even though the Black Swordsman was dark, it was following its master's commands and purging the corrupted from this city?  Every last "victim" the boy had lost his mind over had been ready to kill them both on sight, had already turned against their own families and killed women and children as they cowered, at least the ones that had not changed yet. Nay, this creature's actions thus far had been no more evil than stemming the tide of a great flood threatening to wash over the world, selfish needs aside.

It felt a pang of pain as it looked at him once more, feeling the effects of the influx of power and the lingering memories of Icarus.  It was forcibly undertaking an evolution that, for normal beings, would require tens of thousands of years to achieve, not simply minutes.  The result was forced reconstitution of Icarus' brain, reactivation of some of the organs that had been dead and consumed by the darkness.  The being that was now no more than a weapon of death was returning, however slowly, to life, based on the mental taxation and acquisition of essence.  The pain of returning from the dead was something only Icarus knew and this wraith in his flesh struggled to bear it.

Seeing it weakened, the villagers that had become monsters of anger and black-blooded wrath looked to the boy that was now yelling, finding him the more suitable target to swarm en masse. The creature was saved more excruciating pain as one of the infected people placed itself between the Black Swordsman and the boy, lunging at him and absorbing the wrath of his flames.  The infected villager fell to the ground, pushed back by the flames and rendered a charred husk while the Swordsman regained its composure. 

Rising once more, it teleported, driving a knee against the skull of another villager that had come behind the boy. Something in it had changed, something in its nature had shifted and the feral creature was becoming more sentient.  The memories of Icarus were altering its mind, forcing it to protect, or at least not outright kill, the boy that had come to face it.  Its chest burst open like a loosely sewn glove and an elemental creature of darkness, primal in its nature much like the Swordsman, emerged, separating and charging out to face more of the corrupt.  The essence the Black Swordsman absorbed stitched the dead flesh of Icarus back together without even the slightest marking on either flesh or armor.

"Kill all… corrupted," it said before it flickered again, teleporting and cleaving the head from the shoulders of another of the villagers with foam in his mouth and maddening rage in his eyes.  It planted its katana straight down, pointing a hand palm down to the body as black essence rose from the deceased villager, adding to its own essence.  The people would become one with it, a fitting toast to the dark master.  One more interruption from the boy, however, and even with Icarus holding it back with its memories, it would not hesitate to beat the boy until his protests could no longer be heard.  Death and absorption aside, there were other ways to quell rebellion.

These weren't villagers anymore, they were zombies.  Hiro didn't even notice it.  This creature didn't do all this.  Something else did, but his person or being WAS getting stronger from destroying the infected zombies.  If he kept attacking this creature, it would likely kill him.  The being suddenly started killing the zombies that started attacking him.  The being started to talk: "kill all corrupted."  The voice seemed familiar.  Where did he hear that voice before?

A flash.

A man and an ill-equipped boy walking through a rainforest.  The man had found him, and helped him out.  They banded together to survive in the harsh environment.  The man introduced himself as . . .

"Cain?  Is that you?  What is going on?  What happened to you?  Why is there so much darkness overflowing from you?"  Hiro couldn't even sense the aura of the man who he traveled alongside at the time.  He hadn't possessed the aura sight he now had.  He had to train hard to gain that power.  The darkness probably existed in the man when he first met him, but it was likely nowhere near as strong and obvious as it is now.  Hiro didn't know that though.  All Hiro knew was that his "Cain" was being consumed by an overwhelming darkness, though he was destroying and consuming the infected people that were running amok in this city.  An infected zombie came flying in from behind, Hiro turned and cleaved it in half with his sword.  "As if the infected weren't enough.  What is going on here?  Come to your senses, man, fight that darkness!  Don't let it control you!  You're a good man!  You helped me!  Don't get absorbed by evil!"