Time had passed, but the knight couldn't pinpoint exactly how long it had been. He had woken up in the same room he had been in prior. His shoulder had regenerated in his exhaustion-fueled slumber, but nothing after that, but it was obvious as to why: his left arm was still discarded on the battlefield, which is why that was the first thing he did after getting up from where he had been previously. He spotted the arm clad in red armor with a hint of recognition. The blood around it had blackened completely, and had officially started flowing back into the shadows, yet it still remained in perfect condition underneath the armor. Glancing around the candle lit area of the room, the knight observed the various splotches of blood that remained from his death battle with Soven, the creator of rest. He paused for a moment at that thought. He fought a giant–an immortal turned mortal, and didn't just win, but did so while only losing his indestructible arm, it was astonishing. The fight was short and in some aspects easier than his fight with the necromancer, but it was far from easy.
His mind was finally starting to recover and return to normal from whatever the music performed by death was doing to him at the moment. It wasn't quite like he was a puppet being played on strings, but it also wasn't far off from what was happening. He decided not to try and comprehend things that shouldn't be comprehended by mortal minds, so he decided to focus on retrieving his arm.
Death, had taken off with the body of Soven, or rather the body of the black knight, and the blade of darkness, which was likely going to be destoryed–or maybe kept safely in limbo–If limbo was even real. Either way it was no longer his problem. With every step the heavy knight took, a little more feeling returned to him, both physical and mental feelings. The aches returned first–the fight was very taxing on him, and that was only something he discovered after the fight, as he had moved in ways he hadn't just moved in years, but also at speeds he had never moved in before. Perhaps if all his fights were this taxing his speed would catch up to his strength at some point, but that likely wouldn't happen.
The echoes of scrapping metal filled the echoey room completely, agitating the knight's currently sensitive hearing which was still trying to acclimate to all the sounds. The smallest sound was like thunder at the moment, he could hear the disgusting muscle spasms as they slowly lost their battles to death, the creaking and cracking of the marble from the ceiling as the weight of the flesh started to grow too much for the beyond ancient stone, which was by far the most alerting thing to the knight when he heard it, and–what was possibly the most clear out of all the sounds flooding him–the screams of delight from the thousands of souls that had been freed from the immortal lives as trees, and torches made to light up this room. It was strange. He could almost call the sound heartwarming, but most of these people had done it to themselves, and to the innocent that were likely used as sacrifices to Soven, but it is as Soven himself said, "I truly have never lived." They would understand in time. They wanted to escape death, but Death claimed everything, and soon enough, he too, would be claimed by Death.
It was a small walk before he finally arrived at the center of a large pool of black blood that stretched far off into the enormous shadows which grew with every drop of blood the shadows ate. The knight was staring at the arm in his right hand, thinking over how he would go about undressing the shadowed limb to place it back onto his arm before coming to a solution. He tossed the arm onto a patch of obsidian that wasn't stained in his blood and also bathed in the light and casually walked up to it. He flinched a little at the screeching of the armor created from rubbing against the glassy rock, but continued despite the ear-bleeding noise. He glanced at the obsidian around the arm for a moment. It held scuffs from the sliding limb, with small bits of the rock scattered about the immediate vicinity, but he didn't pay it any further attention, as his eyes latched onto the small leather straps that held the armor to him.
Crouching to the floor, he put his left foot over the limb and slipped his right fingers in between the well placed plated armor and roughly ripped it off. Beneath the second plate from the wrist was a piece of bloodied white leather and chains that held the gauntlet to the rest of the piece. It was a strange contraption that he didn't truly understand the mechanics, but he knew how to take it off and on at the very least. Releasing the strap on the wrist, the small chain locks quickly undid themselves in a series of clicks that eventually separated the gauntlet from the vanbrace. Sliding it off, the knight stared at the red padding beneath and sighed, he would never get over the shiver that came from seeing what the eye thought was his blood, though he knew it wasn't. It was simply a liquid shadow dipped in a paint that never washed away. He wasn't fond of seeing the 'blood' shift back into black liquid and gravitate back to where it belongs, which was partially the reason as to why he did the procedure in the light, where the shadows were the farthest away, the other reason being that his eyes were still getting used to not hyperfocusing on a single thing, so he needed the light to do it properly.
The next thing he did was detach what remained of the pauldron with a single motion, it was ripped off. There was no use trying to salvage it, as it had been destroyed and it's not like the arm could be damaged. He tossed it to the side, which he regretted instantly shown through a groan of agony from the shriek the metal created against the stone as it bounced its way away from the knight, getting quieter the farther it went. He stared at the 'blood-soaked' patting with barely withheld disgust. Small bands of metal were around the patting, meant to keep it in place, but now worked as another annoying step to retrieve his arm.
He decided to save the patting for when all pieces of the armor were actually gone, so he soon located the next piece to be torn to shreds, the rerebrace. The exhausted red plates that made up the rerebrace were quick to get out of the knight's way, which he carefully placed on the ground next to him, to avoid the flaw in his logic he had done previously. If he was being honest with himself, he could've simply torn it all off with reckless abandon, but the gauntlet was one thing he simply couldn't destroy–much like the center of his chest piece. He grabbed hold of the first band of the five finger bands which were simple to take off, the others were more likely to give the knight trouble. He placed them softly against the floor, and started shimmying the band around the wrist. In the deep silence of the room, the only thing that could be heard was the knight's mumbling aggravation towards the band that would not be simply denying the knight's request to get off his arm. It got to a point where a low growl erupted from the depths of his still settling vocal cords and with a single motion, the band was nothing more than a piece of horribly disfigured metal thrown to the opposite side of the room, which was followed swiftly by five other bands that varied in size around the arm.
Sighing contentedly, he stared at the arm which was now only covered in the reddened padding which he roomed by simply unraveling the slightly fluffy substance. His shoulder twitched a little at the sight the knight saw. It was an arm forged from the shadows of the unlimitedly large shadow realm. It was a pitch black stain on the world deeper than even the darkness that reigned supreme in this place. It had been a long time since he had seen the arm in its entirety, in fact, the only time he had seen the arm like he was currently was right after the ritual to create it was done. It was strangely nostalgic to the knight. Back then he had been traveling the abandoned capital of the old empire of his kingdom, now here he was again seeing his arm in the darkness–but this time, it was the darkness inside the chest of a dying giant. Thinking about those times was difficult–well, more so thinking about him was difficult.
Shaking his head, he turned over the non-descript appendage and from the palm to the cut off, the knight trailed his index and middle fingers across the arm. A glow of cyan erupted from the darkness for every moment he kept on the path, illuminating the arms interior slightly, though it didn't show anything, just empty space where bones, muscles, and veins should've been. This was the simple activation of the arm that he had done right after making the arm, and before he told the knight to attach it to his shoulder–though he never did mention the agony that would follow as his body fought off the insanity that was brought by the appendage, and how the arm would try to take over his body on first contact, but it had ended well and good, so It didn't really matter. Now he was unsure if the arm would try to turn him into a shadow or not, but he was ready for the pain if it tried.
With the light bathed in the interior of his soon to be reattached arm, he grabbed the thing gingerly and hesitantly brought it back up to his shoulder. As the arm got closer, the light got a little brighter until he felt it. The arm had reattached with ease. Blinking, the knight stared at his black hand with mild amounts of disbelief. Was it really that simple? No pain, and no possession threat? It almost felt anticlimactic. He fidgeted with his new hand, testing his fingers, flexing his arm, and twisting it in strange ways to see if it was working correctly, even though he knew it would work even better than his arm that was made of flesh–though that was an obvious conclusion.
Sighing, he moved to place his thumb of shadow onto the center of his plated chest, but hesitated for a moment. Would it really be necessary to put armor back on the black arm, despite nothing being able to destroy it anyway? It's not like he would run into any escapees from the shadow realm–at least for a while, but glancing around his form he made his decision. His armor was in a terrible state, with all his joints being open, and various wounds across his armor, it was clear to him that the restoration of his armor was something that needed to be done, which made him slightly disgruntled. This type of magic had been outlawed in the kingdom he was from, so he had always been forced to wear something over the arm and hand, creating a sort of conspiracy around him, but now, he was free from such things, yet he was still forced to conceal the arm–it was getting tiring to say the least.
'Maybe I can just take it off after fixing this suit?' Though the thought was ruled out as soon as it came up. He did not want to deal with that long tedious process of taking off every piece of gear while not being able to slide it off the shoulder sounded more like a headache at this moment than it was worth. Though having more mobility did sound nice. Sighing, he mindlessly summoned his sword and sheath, which had disappeared at some point in the fight, and fastened Rising Tide back to its place on his waist, while curiously glancing around the room.
There was a story inscribed in the pillars, which he could now investigate. Soven was an interesting enough character, and learning a bit about the giants was always interesting–as in his time little was known about the creatures slumbering underneath the crust of the planet. They had always been an interesting topic to the knight when he was younger, and he never really got over his curiosity. They may have been a myth in the lands for a very long time, but some couple hundred years before he came to be a slumbering giant had woken up, even if only for a few moments. That event shook the continent he sired from for a very long time. With their existence given solidity, there was only questions to ask, and not a single place to get answers from–execpt for the palace under the stars, but not a single team came back from that sunless hell, though that was only ever a theory. The only one to return from that place came back crazed, rambling of a creature born from the stars with enough power and madness to end the world. It was a terrible premonition, hence why so many were sent there in the past, but still, nothing came back. Either way, despite their obtuse size, they were scarce in history, a few myths of them here and there, but nothing of note. Now that he was thinking of it though, there were murmurs of a skeleton the size of a continent being discovered on top of the clouds, whatever that meant, that hit his ears only a couple of days before–never mind.
Glancing around the room once again, the knight found the pillar he had stopped at previously and began critically observing the ancient chiseled paintings in the white pillars the size of the greatest, healthiest, yet most elderly trees across the land.