Gareth continued to attack Mordred.
His blade moved like water, like wind, like death itself. Each strike was faster than the last. Each angle was more impossible than the one before. He attacked and attacked and attacked a storm of steel that should have overwhelmed any opponent.
Mordred evaded.
But it was not as simple as that.
He did not fully evade. The sword marks on his armor on his arms, his shoulders, his cheek proved that. Deep gashes that had almost killed him, that had drawn blood, that had come within inches of ending his existence.
"That's very dangerous." Mordred's voice was calm despite the blood dripping down his face. "I can't even get close to you to make a single attack."
He sidestepped another strike barely.
"It's really bad." He blocked a cut that would have taken his head barely. "How do you expect me to kill you now..."
He smiled.
"...without causing you pain?"
Sir Gareth's expression did not change.
He changed his attack pattern.
His feet pushed off the ground, launching his body away from Mordred creating distance, creating space. He landed in a crouch, his knees bent, his muscles coiled, his eyes fixed on his target.
Mordred watched him.
"I really have no sympathy left for you," Gareth said. His voice was flat. Empty. "So everything..."
He reached deep inside himself past the pain, past the grief, past the humanity that still clung to his heart.
"...every single thing."
His muscles tightened.
"I will pour it in."
His voice grew harder.
"Every training I ever had. I will use it." He took a breath. "For the sake of victory... I will sacrifice my entire body."
His eyes burned.
"Even pushing it beyond the verge of destruction."
He compressed the muscles in his legs.
They coiled tighter and tighter, storing force, storing energy, storing everything he had left to give. The fabric of his trousers stretched. The sand beneath his feet shifted.
Then like a frog, like a predator, like judgment he jumped.
BOOM!
The force of his launch cracked the ground. He shot across the distance between them in an instant, his sword extended, his body twisted for the strike.
Mordred evaded.
His head snapped to the side just enough, just barely and the blade passed by his ear. He felt its wind. Heard its whisper.
He thought the attack was over.
But Gareth had already landed on the other side.
His feet touched the ground and he jumped again.
The second attack came faster than the first. Harder than the first. Deadlier than the first. His sword swung with devastating force, aimed at Mordred's chest, at his heart, at his life.
Mordred moved.
His body twisted just enough, just barely and the blade passed by him. It continued its arc, unchecked, unblocked, unstoppable.
It landed on a rock nearby.
CRAAAAAAAAASH!
The rock obliterated.
Not cracked. Not split. Obliterated. Reduced to dust, to nothing, to memory. The force of the strike had been so immense, so absolute, that the stone had simply... ceased.
Mordred stared at the dust.
"Oh my." His voice was quiet, almost admiring. "That's a really deadly strike."
He touched his cheek where a thin line of blood had appeared, cut by the wind of the blade's passage.
"If I had been any more slower..." He smiled. "I would have been cut in half."
Gareth's anger only grew.
There was no more coherent thought in his head. No strategy. No caution. No self. Everything had been burned away consumed by the flames of his rage.
Only one thought remained.
Kill.
Kill.
Kill.
Kill.
Kill.
The word echoed in his mind like a drumbeat, like a command, like the only truth that still mattered.
Kill.
Kill.
Kill.
The human mind is built mainly on the instinct of self-preservation. It is designed to avoid harm, to escape danger, to survive at all costs. One of the primary factors that enables this instinct is fear the ability to recognize danger, to respond to it, to flee from it.
For Gareth at this moment, that instinct was gone.
Hate. Anger. Pain. They had overwritten everything the natural programming of his mind, the biological imperative to survive. They had erased the fear that should have protected him, should have warned him, should have stopped him.
He had become a killing machine.
All instincts erased. Only the will to kill remained.
How far would it eat him?
What would be the end of this?
The question hung in the air like a curse.
Gareth's blade rose again. His eyes empty, burning, insane fixed on Mordred's face.
And he attacked.
Gareth swung.
Mordred waited.
And the grey sky watched