Darlington laughed.
He held his gut with both hands invisible hands in an invisible form, but he felt them. He felt everything in this moment. The joy. The vindication. The promise of what was to come.
Tears poured down his cheeks as he laughed and laughed and laughed.
"HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"
The sound echoed across the battlefield, though no one below could hear it. It was for him alone. For the gods who watched from wherever they watched. For the Courts of Heaven who had dragged him from his world and shown him nothing but cruelty.
"They will never know what hit them!" he shouted between laughs. "They will all regret it! All of them!"
He wiped tears from his eyes tears of joy, of madness, of purpose.
"Using me as a tool in their filthy game!" His voice rose to a scream. "You gods don't understand! You don't understand the great depths that the human heart is filled with!"
He looked down at the orb at the darkness that held Lancelot.
"Malice!" He spread his arms wide. "I can feel it from here! I can taste it!"
He pointed at the grey sky above at the gods he couldn't see but knew were watching.
"YOU GODS WILL SOON SEE IT! "
His voice cracked with emotion.
"THE TRUE INDOMITABLE POWER OF THE HUMAN HEART! "
Below, Percival prepared for a second attack.
He had failed once. The orb had rejected him, ignored him, made him feel nothing where there should have been something. But he was a knight of Camelot. He did not give up.
He gripped his spear tighter. Ignored the pain in his chest, his eyes, his soul. Took a step forward.
Then he stopped.
A chill ran down his spine.
Not a normal chill not the cold of winter or the shock of surprise. This was something deeper. It spread from his spine to his entire body in an instant, freezing him in place like a statue carved from ice.
He couldn't move.
Couldn't blink. Couldn't breathe. Couldn't think.
His eyes his damaged, recovering, useless eyes suddenly cleared. The swirling colors snapped into focus. The world became sharp, defined, real. It was not healing. It was not restoration. It was something else entirely.
A blessing of fear.
But unlike any fear he had ever known.
Above, Darlington watched and understood.
"When a man faces something dangerous he can understand, he fears because he understands what can happen to him," Darlington murmured. "He understands that death will be his sentence."
He looked at Percival's frozen form.
"But how can you fear what you can't understand?"
The question hung in the air.
"Fear exists on the basis of consequence. It's why a child will be afraid to fall not because he fears falling, but because he knows that when he lands, he will break his leg and feel pain. That child is not afraid of falling. He is afraid of pain."
He thought of all the fears he had known in his short life. The fear of failure. The fear of disappointment. The fear of losing the people he loved.
"Same way some people are afraid of hanging themselves, even when they are frustrated with the life they are living. They aren't afraid of hanging itself. They are afraid of death the fear of not being able to experience everything on Earth haunts them to their core."
He looked at the orb. At the malice radiating from it.
"So what if you can't feel the consequence? What if the child were to fall and not know his fate at all?" Darlington's voice grew softer, more terrified. "He would fall with a different type of fear. Not expecting death. Not expecting pain. With an empty heart like a hollow pit of darkness."
He swallowed.
"That is what this malice gives off."
Darlington smiled, but there was no joy in it. Only acknowledgment. Only fear.
Because he felt it too. The same chill. The same paralysis. The same nothing that Percival was experiencing.
He was afraid.
And that fear was beautiful.
The orb began to pulse.
Not rhythmically not like a heartbeat or a drum. It pulsed with purpose. Waves radiated from it, visible ripples in the air itself, pushing everything away. Sand flew. Rocks tumbled. The ground beneath it cracked.
Then it pulsed on its own.
No pattern. No warning. Just pulse. Pulse. PULSE.
Darlington watched, and an image came to his mind unbidden: a balloon filled with water. The way it moved when slapped the wobble, the distortion, the life of it.
The orb moved the same way.
Once. Twice. Three times.
Then it burst.
BOOM!
The sound was not loud it was deep. A bass note that vibrated in the chest, in the bones, in the soul. The darkness exploded outward in all directions, a wave of absolute black that washed over everything and then
Stopped.
The black liquid did not lose form.
It coalesced. Swirled. Rose.
And in its center, Lancelot floated.
His body was suspended in the air, held by the darkness like a mother holding a child. He was still unconscious his eyes closed, his face peaceful, his limbs relaxed. The black liquid cradled him, supported him, loved him.
He was free.
The orb was gone. The prison was broken. And Lancelot changed, transformed, born anew floated above the battlefield like a dark god descending.
Darlington stared.
He couldn't speak. Couldn't move. Couldn't breathe.
All he could do was watch.
Across the battlefield, Arthur fought on.
His blade sang as it cut through Roman soldiers three at once, their heads separating from their bodies in perfect unison. They fell around him like wheat before the scythe.
Then Excalibur pulsed.
A golden light erupted from the holy sword, so bright that Arthur had to look away. It shone like a beacon, like a sun, like something that had been waiting for this moment since the beginning of time.
Arthur's eyes just for a flicker of a second turned golden.
The same gold as Excalibur's light. The same gold as the sword itself. He saw the world through that light, saw everything the battlefield, the Romans, his knights, the darkness where Lancelot floated, the invisible god above, the truth of it all.
Then it was gone.
His eyes returned to normal. The light faded. But Arthur stood frozen, his blade still raised, his mind reeling.
He pulled off his robe the royal cloak that marked him as king and tossed it to the ground. It landed on the bodies of the enemies he had just killed, a declaration, a statement.
"It couldn't happen in life," Arthur said quietly, his voice carrying across the sudden silence. "But now, in death..."
He looked at Excalibur. At the blade that had served him for centuries. At the weapon that had chosen him, blessed him, defined him.
"That blade has finally awakened."
He gripped the hilt tighter.
"After all these centuries... it has finally awakened."