Grey Dura8

"You are a lesser to the end," Cadell spat.

Letting loose an aetheric blast for cover, I burst across the ground before leaping at him, my blade poised.

We crashed together.

Black and purple sparks flew as aether impacted against his soulfire-sheathed weapons. I slashed and stabbed, but each furious blow was deflected. A dozen new wounds opened up across my body, but they hardly mattered.

Then I was hurtling away in the air.

The tip of the void-black weapon was embedded in my chest, and it was growing, carrying me along with it. Ten feet, twenty, fifty, a hundred, until I slammed high against one of the huge shield walls that protected the crowd of onlookers.

But the lance continued to expand, growing through me, pressing into the shield so hard that it began to quiver. My armor was peeled away as the lance grew wider, ripping a hole in my chest.

My aether blade lashed out, but the void-black material shifted, moving and reforming around my sword. I hacked at it wildly, like an untrained boy trying to split a log. My head began to pound, my pulse racing, each beat of my heart sending blood pumping out around the edges of the lance.