Excalibur kills Leviathan

Artoria Pendragon rose to meet me like she’d been expecting my call, like she’d been waiting for it.

“Set. Install.”

I shrunk. The heart of the Red Dragon beat powerfully in my chest, churning out magical energy. My costume became a battle dress and gleaming silver armor. Gauntlets formed over my hands, in which I held a gleaming golden blade.

Excalibur.

I took a deep breath, in through my nose, out through my mouth. My heart thudded anxiously as I hefted this holy sword and took hold of it with both hands, tip pointed towards the sky. Briefly, I closed my eyes and centered myself.

This was it. The culmination of my plan. With this, I would kill Leviathan.

And avenge Lisa.

Light surged. It rose towards the rainclouds above like a beacon, bright and blinding. Power rolled off of my blade in waves, so thick that even the most ignorant and insensitive of the people gathered around me must have been able to feel it.

Legend, at least, understood.

“Everyone, back away!” he bellowed over the pouring rain. “Back! Back! Keep a safe distance!”

I squared my feet, and as everyone else scrambled to get away, I lifted my sword up above my head.

Across from me, Leviathan stared me down, the muscles in his arms and legs bulging against the restraints holding him down, even as they dug deeper into his body and black ichor trickled from the wounds. But he could not break free — to do so would be to tear himself apart, to rip his own body to shreds.

So he summoned water from around him, gathering it in a wave that he threw in front of his body and in my direction, as though it would be enough to knock me off balance or ruin my aim.

And instead, it parted around me as the Lady of the Lake’s blessing prevented it impeding me.

Light gathered. Magical energy surged. The power of the greatest holy sword churned and circulated. The deepest, most heartfelt prayers of mankind shone brilliantly in the gloom of the rain.

Strike true. Not with anger or hatred, but with justice and righteousness.​

I wanted revenge for Lisa — for the friend torn from me. But this was not about that. Even if that thought lingered in my heart, from the beginning, this had never been about something so personal and selfish.

Leviathan was bigger than that. King Arthur, who had never even punished Lancelot for his treachery and never hated Mordred for his own betrayal, was bigger than that. Here and now, I had to be bigger than that.

My enemy was a monster, an evil set to destroy mankind, aptly named an “Endbringer.” Left free, he would destroy this city, and if he could, me and all of the brave fighters arrayed beside me along with it. For King Arthur, there could be no greater honor than to save this place and these people, no act more humane than to rescue them.

With this attack, I would give new life to this city and the world. Hope, to people everywhere who had none. Yes — and what cause was more pure and just than that?

Yes. Let us put an end to this.​

With Artoria’s pride singing in my chest, I shouted the name of this miracle I held in my hands.

Sword of Promised Victory
“EX —”

I swung down.

“— CALIBUR!”

The blade of light descended.

The ultimate slash, carrying the hopes of all those who had ever strode across a battlefield, cut down.

A blinding beam of golden light raced from my sword, parting the water, disintegrating everything in its way. It shot towards the silent Leviathan, burning through whatever happened to be in front of it, churning the water and turning it into steam.

There was no scream to show the moment it struck Leviathan. No thunderous boom or death cry. The rampaging beam of light swallowed him whole and continued on, consuming the boats of the Boat Graveyard behind him and flying out through the bay. In the distance, it crashed into the shimmering blue barrier of my imitation of Lord Camelot, and unlike Leviathan, who had struggled to do anything to it at all, it hit hard enough to crack.

For an instant that lasted an eternity, the beam of light shone brightly and kept going, and then, as the magical energy fueling the acceleration and convergence reactions inside Excalibur dried up, the beam itself guttered and died. The water that had been evaporated hung about, heavy and thick, so thick, in fact, that I couldn’t see through it.

In the aftermath, there was silence. Behind me, no one spoke; they all held their breath, waiting, as I was, to see if that was enough. The hot steam that rose from the bay met the cold rain falling from above, hissing and sizzling as they mixed and exchanged heat and energy in search of equilibrium.

Who knew high school physics could apply to the aftereffects of a magical laser capable of turning the entire city to slag?

The billowing steam began to clear. The great mist of all the evaporated water started to thin and dissipate, and now, I got the first real look at the destruction Excalibur had wrought. My breath caught and my heart leapt into my throat.

“No way…” I whispered, horrified. “Even that… Even the strongest sword ever made wasn’t enough to…”

It reminded me of what had happened to Behemoth, in Khepri’s world. The layers of impossibly tough skin, refracted over each other through multiple higher dimensions, had all been stripped away. The black ichor that had served as his blood had all boiled and evaporated. The fake organs, the glowing eyes — the great beast that had terrorized the world for most of my lifetime had been reduced to a blackened, charred skeleton.

Even that wasn’t totally intact. The right arm was missing from the elbow on down. A full half of his head, and three of his eyes with it, had been sheared away. His whipcord tail, so dangerous it was equally as lethal as any other part of him, was now nothing more than a stump, a nub at the base of his spine.

And there, in the center of his chest, was an orb. His core.

But, in spite of this horrendous amount of damage, in spite of being more injured than any Endbringer in this world had ever been, he was still standing.

“All of that, and still…”

The skeleton shifted. I threw myself backwards, gritting my teeth, and prepared to use Excalibur once more, regardless of what the consequences would likely be to my real body afterwards. I had just gambled with one of my aces — and lost.

I needn’t have bothered. Leviathan’s left leg snapped at the knee, and the immense skeleton listed to the side as gravity pulled it down. As the body collapsed into a heap, huge chunks of charred material flaked off and disintegrated like cheap chalk in the rain.

I watched, breath held as my heart thundered in my chest, the great bones fall, and when they hit the ground, they shattered and broke, as though the very thing holding them together was now gone.

Leviathan was dead.