Spoiler (Click to Show)
Rhyne: Given to him by a minstrel who told tales of a fantastic warrior who tore a castle apart with his bare hands.
Kurst: It is unknown if this name was a pseudonym he had took or if it was a name that his opponents gave him; regardless, he has been recorded to answer to this name.
V'ringstal G'al Kunzikron: It was suspected that this is a name his race gave him; however, recent evidence has shown that he does not answer to this name, despite finding it carved into the plain of canyons where he had abandoned his great weapon.[/spoiler]
Abilities (Click to Show)
Weaknesses (Click to Show)
personality (Click to Show)
Spoiler (Click to Show)
He is clad in skins of ancient beasts that are far beyond our time; behind his back used to hang an enormous weapon; supposedly as long as a man is tall, an inch thick, and wider than your forearm is long. However, he had abandoned it long ago to fight his opponents barehanded.[/spoiler]
Spoiler (Click to Show)
But like all silences, it could not last forever.
And it was broken by a sound of rapid, rhythmic pounding that grew steadily louder.
The old man, almost completely hidden in the dark night, began to open his eyes.
Far away, just on the edge of the horizon, a giant figure sped towards him.
In the ghostly moonlight, the figure seemed as though a god of the night given form.
A great, glowing weapon hung behind his back, large enough to be seen even through his bulk.
A mane of wild, dark hair twisted around his face, concealing all but the eyes, which were even wilder than his hair.
Every single cell that formed the giant man screamed of vitality and unspent energy.
And the figure was running in great, rapid bounds towards the old man.
By contrast, the old man was small. Every single cell of him spoke instead of a lack of energy. His eyes spoke not of the wildness that the giant's did, but spoke rather of cold calculation that revealed itself in every single movement of his.
Not one movement from the old man was excessive in strength. Every single movement, or every lack of movement, spoke of countless decades of practice at economizing his strength.
And now, the two contrasting figues faced each other.
Then the giant knelt, bowing to the smaller figure.
"You have done well... this time." Said the smaller figure. "However, when you grow as old as me, you shall know the woes of having spent your youth wasting your strength. Striding is an inefficient way to run. Despite your great reserves of strength, it would be wiser to maintain a more maintainable pace."
The large figure nodded his head respectfully, waiting for the other to continue. When the smaller figure did not, he replied immediately in a rapid-fire tone. "Master, it may be true that saving one's strength will allow one to continue longer; and yet, was my training not centered around giving me unlimited reserves of strength? Did you not tell me of this weapon that will also enhance my strength, and bid me return with it as soon as possible so as to give my body the strength it needs?"
The old man calmly stood there, stooped, unmoving, while the giant hurriedly spoke his piece. Slowly, the old man straightened the sleeves of his coarse robe before replying in a voice as slow as the mountains change. "Boy," he began. "You are mistaken if you think that strength alone shall secure you victory. Strength can do many things; but strength alone shall run out of your body far quicker than you would expect. That weapon I told you of," he said, staring disapprovingly at the weapon behind the titan's back. "Will drain your vitality and that of your enemy's to fuel your strength; but it is hardly going to fuel you forever. Someday, you shall have to abandon it or be made mad by it; for I fear that even you may be drained of life and be like myself; aged and shrunken, but unknowing of how to conserve your strength. And now, I believe you have rested far more than enough. Again. This time, I shall not see you wasting your strength in strides like that."
The giant listened, fidgeting uncomfortably the whole time. No sooner had the old man finished speaking than he had sprinted off, before forcing himself into a pace that was neither slow nor fast.
The old man watched, and wondered if he was wise to have accepted such an apprentice. Already, the boy was strong enough to battle most martial artists without any skill; were he to learn the secrets of physical combat as well, the boy might be able to be the master of all. And now, on top of all of that, the boy held the Ancient of Ancients; the Kunzikron, the weapon of the ancient ones.
The old man sighed and sat down again, closing his eyes to conserve his strength, melting into the darkness.[/spoiler]
Spoiler (Click to Show)
The many men facing him, however, seemed unperturbed. Nor should they be. For they were nearly a hundred strong, surrounding a single man. So what if the man held a large weapon? So what if he seemed stronger than any one of them?
They were the elite of the world. United at last in their struggle against the one who was undefeated, these warriors were confident in their victories. Any one of them could have offered the one who now styled himself as the Undefeated One a good fight; a hundred of them at once would tear him apart.
Or so they thought.
As if given a signal, one hundred of the world's proudest and finest warriors charged at the single man they surrounded. From above, many winged creatures also dived down, charging with the warriors at the single man at the center.
There was no way for anyone to survive a charge like this.
Or so they thought.
Even above the battle-cries of the hundreds of warriors and the war-screams of the flying creatures, a sound that could only be described as a roar was clearly heard; A roar of challenge that shook the very earth and sent some of the weak-willed clutching their ears in pain.
Without stopping the roar, the man raised his weapon high, high above his head.
The aura of blood-red seemed even more tangible now; the entire weapon was swathed in red that dripped down its length to sizzle in mid-air and disappear; blood-like lightning bolts flared out from it, and runes etched into its side flared black against the red.
The giant stood there for a moment in silence, weapon dripping blood-red onto the earth, the finest warriors of the world charging at him and preparing to cut him down where he stood.
Then, with a low roar that was surcharged with malice and hatred, he brought his weapon crashing into the ground.
The earth splintered and cracked where he stood, and a spiderweb of craters charged at his opponents, sending many of them stumbling, only to fall and be crushed by the wave of bodies behind.
And then, they were upon him.
Swords hacked at him and spears stabbed at him; but they couldn't hurt him. Bouncing off him like raindrops, the giant didn't even seem to notice the blows. Laughing maniacally, he swung his weapon around in an arc, cutting right through his enemies; real blood mixed with the strange aura about his weapon, but it was no longer noticable which was which.
But even he could not hold out forever; with main brute strength and superior numbers, the onpress of warriors gradually began to slow his movements.
They were too close for him to swing the weapon now; all he could do was bring it up high and send it crashing into the heads of them, one at a time, while they surrounded him and hacked at his eyes, ears, and the back of his skull; the places where he was not so well protected. A sudden sweep from one of the warriors brought the giant crashing to the earth to a roar of triumph from the remaining warriors.
As they moved in to bind him, the giant gave a scream of pain, writhing and spasming on the ground. Blood visibly rushed from his face, turning it into a sickly white colour. The warriors stopped mid-charge, staring as the weapon glowed and hummed ominously. Then it erupted in a flare of red light, extending outwards like an explosion to incinerate all of the warriors.
All around the giants, screams of pain and disbelief rung out as the men writhed and cooked in their armor, before falling onto the splintered earth and falling deep down into the rapidly widening cracks in the earth.
Some of the flying creatures saw the fate of their land-bound comrades; but it was too late for them too; they pulled out of their dive barely in time to meet the blood-red aura head-on.
Their fate was no less grisly than that of their friends; screaming as they fell through the air, burning like a drunken comet before crashing into the ground and disintegrating into piles of ash.
And the Undefeated One stood alone, trembling, as the earth about him continued to crack apart, as the red-tinted flare flew high into the air, covering the sky completely, while the screams of the dying echoed from the newly-made canyons, staring at the weapon that so easily won him the battle.
The battle that he had been waiting for ever since he began his training.
The battle against the world.
And he had won.
So why did he feel no triumph?
Somewhere in the back of his mind, he already knew.
He felt no triumph at all, for it was too easy. He had grown too powerful. What was meant to be a fair battle had turned into a slaughter. How were they supposed to fight against him? How could they possibly stand a chance against one such as him?
Dropping to his knees, he stared at the weapon he had so cherished merely seconds ago.
With a scream of rage and despair, he picked it up and flung it into one of the now impossibly deep canyons around him.
Stumbling, as though struck hard in the chest, he sat down, stunned.
And he wept, staring as the sky grew dark and red, and all around him, the earth gradually disintegrated beyond repair to seperate into continents.[/spoiler]
Spoiler (Click to Show)
For he was the Undefeated One.
Why would the giant chain himself?
For he was the Undefeated One.
What does that have to do with anything?
The Undefeated One seeks defeat.
Why would he do that?
For he is tired of victory. Victory cannot be enjoyed if there was no such thing as defeat.
Slowly, the great giant bound his arms together with many, many chains. He economized. He never wasted his strength. Every single action spoke of the vitality in him; but every single action spoke also of careful planning of where his strength would go, and not one ounce of it was wasted.
The three facing him saw, and they worried. They were beginning to regret this already.
The giant stopped, his arms almost concealed by a mass of chains that bound them together. The other ends of the chains were welded into the steel walls that the four stood in.
With a nod from the giant, the battle begun.
One of the three stepped forward and started to chant in a strange, melodic but wild tongue. At once, plants began to writhe from between the floorboards, extending upwards rapidly to conceal the three behind the rapidly forming wall of plants.
Another one of the three put two of her fingers onto her solar plexus, closing her eyes and focusing. Then, she leapt as though struck by a huge force, and twitched as though being shocked.
The last of the three also started chanting, and a fine mist began blowing in from cracks in the ceiling, twisting and turning along the way before turning into a thick fog around the giant.
The giant figure, however, seemed to be doing nothing. Through the fog, it was as though he was completely immobile.
Then the fog started thinning, and disappeared completely. Behind the fog, the giant was sucking in his breath.
The psychic stumbled, and then screamed out in a panicked voice, "Cover your-"
But it was too late. A primeaval roar rung out across the metal room. The plants in the middle of the room withered and died, some blown away, torn from their roots from the force of the blast.
The steel walls rippled as though struck by a huge force, and the chains strained away from the giant, barely held in place by a series of intricate knots.
The giant's wild mane of hair rippled constantly, extending outwards as though blown there by a wind. The giant's eyes were wild, bloodshot, and unseeing, as though seeing none of what was happening about