Yet, instead of panicking, the skeleton knight completely abandoned any attempt to block. Instead, he stood rigidly upright, deceptively acting as though he were entirely oblivious to the lethal strike approaching him until the very micro-second before the male elf's dirk could make contact.
As the knight stood there feigning ignorance, a wicked, concealed scimitar suddenly materialized from deep within his hollow ribs. With a terrifying explosion of supernatural speed, the knight thrust the hidden blade directly into the path of the oncoming assassin, completely catching the elf off guard.
The wicked steel pierced KO's chest with sickening force, narrowly missing his heart but rupturing vital organs as it dived deeper into his torso, ultimately exploding out from his back in a spray of crimson blood.
The male elf desperately tried to regain his footing, but his legs instantly buckled, sending him crashing heavily back to the dirt. After stumbling repeatedly in his agonizing attempts to escape the immediate reach of the murderous skeleton knight, he was finally forced to drag his mangled body away, crawling through the dust while clutching his deeply punctured chest to stem the flow of crimson.
The skeleton knight finally witnessed the exquisite sight he had been longing for: pure, unadulterated despair.
This crushing realization of their own mortality hung heavily in the air, suffocating the last remnants of their defiant spirits as the cold shadow of death closed in.
Despair was etched plainly across the faces of both elves. The female elf stared up at the towering monstrosity in a completely new light, as if a horrific realization had finally dawned upon her soul.
Instinctively, she scrambled backward through the dirt, desperate to put distance between herself and the undead warrior. It was glaringly evident now that the elves were utterly terrified. They were no longer fighting to win; they were not even fighting to survive. All semblance of coordination was gone—they were simply running for their lives.
Although the elves were desperately attempting to flee, their escape was agonizingly slow, severely hindered by the catastrophic toll of their combined injuries. Willow had been locked in grueling combat with the skeleton knight for hours; she was already terribly wounded before her final, failed gambit sent her crashing to the earth.
That hard impact not only inflicted fresh trauma but violently reopened her old wounds, causing a blinding surge of agony to rip through her entire body all over again.
Meanwhile, KO fared no better; the precise, devastating thrust that had ravaged his torso left him critically slowed, his fluid agility utterly shattered.
Through sheer force of will, the male elf finally managed to drag himself upright, actively fighting to suppress the white-hot pain and the suffocating pressure of internal blood clots. Every agonizing breath felt like swallowing shards of glass, yet he forced his trembling legs to hold his weight as the grim reality of their execution loomed overhead.
After silently observing the pitiful state of his prey and savoring the desperate terror driving their futile attempt to escape his presence, the skeleton knight ominously advanced, raising his blade to deliver a definitive, crushing blow guaranteed to slay them both.
As they witnessed the skeleton knight's grim approach, the elves forced themselves up, desperately trying to move as far and as fast as their broken bodies would allow. However, though terror slightly hastened their frantic pace, their sluggish speed was absolutely no match for the predatory advance of the undead warrior. Even though the knight moved with slow, deceptively light steps, he inexorably closed the distance with terrifying inevitability.
KO was the closest to the danger, while Willow lagged just a few short paces behind her companion. The realization that she would be the next to fall beneath that cold steel once the monstrosity executed her partner filled her with a suffocating, paralyzing dread, stripping away the last vestiges of her proud warrior spirit.
Willow tightly closed her eyes when she realized only a single, final stride separated the skeleton knight from the male elf. She shivered violently, her current trembling and battered appearance a tragic contrast to the fierce, graceful warrior who had been matching the monster blow-for-blow just moments prior.
As the darkness of her closed eyelids took over, she couldn't erase the horrific final image burned into her mind: the skeleton knight raising his blade, poised to mercilessly slaughter the one person who had stepped out of the shadows to save her.
The skeleton knight raised his massive blade high, locking his hollow, burning gaze into the eyes of the male elf as he brought the weapon crashing down with executioner-like finality. KO did not close his eyes in terror as Willow had done; instead, a serene calmness washed over his features, leaving him looking genuinely at peace with his impending doom, almost as if he welcomed the release of death.
This eerie tranquility completely defied the violent chaos of the battlefield, as though the dying rogue had already transitioned into the quiet afterlife while the heavy steel descended to claim the fragile life remaining in his broken body.
All of this unfolded in the span of a single heartbeat as the blade sliced cleanly toward KO's skull.
However, the weapon did not cleave the male elf in two. Though it was aimed squarely at the midpoint of his head, the downward momentum abruptly halted a mere few centimeters from his brow, severing nothing more than a few loose strands of hair without inflicting a single scratch. KO remained entirely unharmed. Instead, the deadly blade froze completely rigid in midair as something utterly bizarre and chaotic began happening to the skeleton knight.
***
KO watched the unfolding spectacle in absolute amazement, a faint smirk of dark irony playing across his bloodied face as the deadly blade ground to a halt. He had kept his eyes locked on the skeleton knight, fully accepting that his demise was imminent, but he had never expected his executioner to freeze rigidly in place at the absolute last second.
He was left entirely speechless.
This impossible display of temporal stasis shattered everything he understood about combat, forcing him to question his own senses as he stared up at the paralyzed skeleton knight towering over his helpless, broken form.
The only entity he knew capable of binding a target in such a manner was himself. Yet, even at full strength, he could never use his own dirk to hold an advanced soul being like a skeleton knight completely motionless; such a feat would demand an astronomical reserve of his own magical energy.
Attempting it would be sheer madness, as it would drain his reserves completely within a mere matter of seconds. Therefore, he knew with absolute certainty that he wasn't the one freezing the knight in time. Furthermore, he was positive his weapon wasn't acting on its own accord in some miraculous, last-ditch effort to save its master's life—because what happened next defied all logic.