Arc Royale [Ch. 30]

The buzzing reached his ears.

Knight's head snapped up.

The swarm descended on him like a wave of sand – pouring over his body and his armour until he was painted black. They worked their way into every crevice, between every joint and under every opening. He felt their stingers against his skin, felt them trying futilely to poison him. With a roar, he swung his arms and crushed thousands in one go, then threw himself to the ground and rolled, squashing tens of thousands more. It was as he did that he felt the first of them on his face, under his helmet, crawling into his mouth.

Realisation struck. Fear came with it. His teeth slammed shut, crunching through tiny carapaces, but more came, and it was in numbers he couldn't hold back. They crawled over his face and his shut eyes, up his nose, into his ears. Some had already lodged themselves in the back of his mouth and he choked on them, gasping for air. That proved the end. As his mouth opened, more swarmed in, filling his throat until there was no way to breathe. He could slay any Grimm, prove impervious to more, even to the ones that stung the inside of his throat, but no matter his strength and endurance there was one factor that would prove the same in this world as in his own. The need to draw breath.

Crocea Mors fell from his gauntleted fingers, which came up to drive into his mouth, crushing the tiny Grimm, but in no way removing them, not with yet more pouring their way inside. His eyes opened, seeing Grimm again, laid on the floor crying silently. Crying not for his own death, but for the horrible fate he was bestowing on his enemy. He despised the extend he had to go to in order to win.

That wasn't fair. With the last of his strength, knight dropped to his knees and took the man's hand. Their eyes met, death settling into both, and Knight tried his best to smile, the task made more than a little difficult by how blue his face was becoming.

Well played, King of the Grimm, he thought, and hoped the man would understand. Well played. To think I'd be bested like this. You have more than earned your reputation. Salem's champion indeed.

His back struck down beside the other man, another version of himself, and he closed his eyes. He knew that when he opened them again, it would be to Blake beside him, and all this would be little more than a distant dream – if he remembered that much at all.

—Arc Royale [Ch. 30]