It was a bumpy ride to the surface. The nameless one was currently hiding under a scale of the serpent that had been pushed outward from the raw strength of the knight pulling the proportionally small scale into a displaced position, enough so to fit underneath it to evade the constant falling rubble as well as to avoid being turned into a puddle of goo in between the snakes skin and the rock rubbing as well as parting against each other. His legs were placed against the scale, pushing it outward slightly while fighting the resistance of both the scale itself and the army of rocks, bones, and sand trying to force the small plate of armor back into place. All attempts to crush the knight were forcefully quelled, and ultimately failed greatly in their attempts as he suddenly found himself above the ground level, while still ascending. Beneath him was an odd mix of both bones and sand, as well as the seldom appearance of a prickly great plant jutting out of the ground every now and then.
Before he could ascend far too high into the sky, he quickly escaped his previous position by adding such an additional force that the scale forcefully threw itself away from the large, slithering creature of the dead. The towering shadow of the snake encompassed much of the desert of the lost, as well as eclipsing the rising sun with great ease, leaving a domain of shadows to annihilate the little remaining light. In contrast, the body of the snake continued to rise from the depths. The ground itself sunk quickly in the far off distance beyond what the knight was able to see from his current position of falling to the ground, looking to disappear which was the first in the line of dominos as the nearby areas sunk in obscurity and into the bowels of the darkness, as they were no longer supported by the snake, so how would they remain propped up in those positions.
It wasn't long before he hit the grainy surface, crushing both the sand and the various skeletons that were beginning to rise to their bony feet. Staring at the pale sand beneath his feet, the knight breathed in deeply, paused for a few moments, and released the breath before finally growing to his full height. By instinct alone, his thumb once again found its way to his hand, and the sword phased into reality once again, clutched in his hand tightly as his eyes wandered up the body of the enormous snake now stretched well into the still starry skies. The world around him trembled as hoards of the undead crawled their way to the surface to welcome their master back to the world. Not only was the world trembling uncontrollably, it was also still sinking. The once distant pit of despair looked to have grown exponentially, the living dead of various types of beings of all shapes and sizes fell into the depths, never to be seen again, and that expanse was approaching his form rapidly. He had to think on his feet, he wasn't slow to notice the growing collection of powerful-looking corpses that surrounded him. These corpses were the pinnacle of strength while alive, leaders of armies, slayers of fantastical creatures beyond comprehension, and even wielders of the demonic power that had emerged from the hell gate during his own time, but there weren't only people, there were beasts. Horned titans that had emerged from said gates in the distant past, ancient horrors of the underground ocean that went beyond death, but somehow found their way to the eternal grave of all, beings of light itself manifested in the metaphorical flesh, and even a couple of the few beasts that didn't even look to be real. Their forms faded in and out of reality, not quite at will, but not far from being out of control.
Though not a single one looked similar to another, they all held the same placid grin of suffering. None wanted to return to life, but their physical bodies were still forced to return to life, even if it was only a pale imitation of the complexity of living. The knight was only slightly on edge while staring down the army of undying, only happy by a single fact: 'Not even this abomination of a reptile can summon the god-like capabilities of the Giants of old,' Which was true; the giants' remains would never respond to the likes of this snake. They were the first creations by the true God above. Shaking his head to be rid of the stray thoughts, the knight stared down at a single skeleton.
There was nothing super interesting about it; it was once a human, likely a warrior of some kind, wearing only a rusty helmet on its skull, but what drew his attention the most was the blade in its hand. It was made out of a black metal that refused to shine in the rays of sunlight without a hint of the corroding brown licking its unassuming form. Though these things were curious in themselves, those reasons weren't that caught the knights' attention. Unlike the opponent he had faced in the temple below sea level, this sword radiated a thick layer of pure darkness thicker than even the sinkhole currently eating up the entire region; it put him on edge. There was more than a single sword that screamed power. Beings made entirely of power, surpassing the sword many times over, were just foot soldiers in this battle, but he faced them with the same fearless expression he had faced them all those years ago. No matter how beneficial it would've been, there was no time to summon his shield in this battle. He stood in the center of a large circular gap between himself and the first line of foes. Both sides remained motionless for a few seconds, then in fractions of seconds after the third, both sides charged towards each other, one aiming for the snake, the other primed to eliminate the knight that dared challenge an army of infinite numbers without a hint of doubt in his movements.
Attacks precipitated the battle, leading to a rather one-sided looking battle. Elements of all kinds were cascading down towards the swift knight, who dodged the deadly attacks with a grace that shouldn't have been present with the thick armor that he wore. Not only were ranged attacks launched, but many of the front linesmen charged towards the single fighter, swinging their withered weapons with skill forged from the countless combined battle fields they all collectively fought on, either against each other or beside each other. Taking a step back to dodge a strike from a spear, he thereafter pivoted to the right. He watched as a decrepit hatchet flew by his visor from behind his previous position and into the skull of the spear master that had been pressuring him from the front. Not given a second to recollect himself, he ducked underneath a long swipe from the sword of darkness that he had been staring at previously, only to see a large wave of tangible darkness emerge from that black wakizashi. Getting up quickly, he grabbed hold of the blade, snatched it from the skeleton's rather weak grip, and held the handed abyssal weapon in a single hand alongside his sword. His hearing picked up the quick sound of pattering feet against the sand and swerved in place before slashing the new weapon that found its way into his hand, allowing a new wave of black to stain reality that grew bigger the farther it got from its original form.
He gaped openly as the crescent of shadow tore through everything it touched, even beings far beyond its power looked to be wounded by the blade. Though he yearned to continue using the blade of enormous power, the faint whisperings of power that it promised that grew much louder after–akin to that of yelling– weren't all that appealing to want to keep around, so just like the hatchet that had been launched at him, he threw the blade and watched off handedly as it connected and crushed the skull of a creature whose body looked to be entirely made out of bony tentacles as it hovered despondently in the air, only to come crashing down to the army of the dead, its skull shattered into millions of shards. The large wave of sand that emerged from the creature's second demise helped greatly in the destruction of the army, as it swallowed much of the horde in its greedy maw.
The knight was already making a run for it when he saw the eldritch horror hit the floor. He tried to make quick work of the army he was currently running into, but he found it tricky. Many of these enemies he found himself facing now were the beings that looked to phase in and out of reality, which made for quite the tiresome battle. Their hazy frames were quite difficult to make out, through the desert's quickly growing heat, and their constant phasing made it even more difficult. In life, these creatures were likely the most fearsome of their time. Sadly, he was not aiming for a fight with the elites of the snake army. He aimed for the snake itself, so he quickly evaded the crowd. Once again, he pivoted to the right to dodge a lightning-fast strike from a creature holding a single horn on the crown of its head, with eight strong legs supporting its massive body. Allowing the beast to run well past him, he didn't hesitate to continue his charge towards the still ascending snake with even greater speed than shown previously. He ducked, side-stepped, and pivoted out of the way of various skeletons' enormously powerful strikes, but he wasn't fast enough.
A single mistake is all it took for the knight to find himself in the middle of a whirlwind of excruciating pain. His usually dull red armor was painted in a new layer of paint, made directly from his blood, which escaped from a single gash, lapsing from his shoulder to his hip on the opposite side, but he had no time to give up. The world is getting even more dizzying than it already was. Even though his brain had finished healing, his feeling of intense nausea and double vision was quickly growing worse. He staggered, allowing various attacks to pierce his damaged armor. A claw found its way into his shoulder, a sickle into his gut, and a sword–that same black wakizashi from earlier in the battle–found its way into his windpipe. All these and more found their way into the knight's armor. Blood poured not unlike a waterfall into the sand, which somehow remained scorching hot despite the sun being completely blocked above. The serpent's body was but a hop-skip-and-a-jump away, but he could no longer force his body to move. Instead, he found his way to a knee as he gazed at the moving bodies around him with a glazed-over expression in his eye. His body slumped over slightly, then completely. He shut down and died at that very moment. The knight refused to give in to the grasp of death, because that is what it meant to be 'The Resilient', the cursed title that had given him strength at one point, but now it had been spat on and tainted. His resistance to the force that had taken nearly every living creature at one point in their lifetimes led to a confrontation long overdue.
Time itself looked to come screeching to a halt. The forms of every single being around the knight froze instantly. The sun stopped rising, the snake stopped ascending, and even the wind itself had paused. Only two figures were in this plane of existence: the knight and a single figure standing opposed to him. A black cloak billowed lazily in a wind that only seemed to exist for this figure. Alabaster, gaunt hands hung limply at each side of the lengthy creature, resembling the visage of a human. A veil of the purest white silk blocked its face while a hood bathed the rest of its head. The knight stared at it through the visor, while the figure moved its head lower to study the pitiful-looking knight, who was on the brink of death, but both knew it would never come.
The knight broke what he assumed to be eye contact with a single blink, and after finding himself in a place far removed from where he was at the snake's base. His body had been fixed in that blink, as he sat next to the figure on a bench overlooking The Boneyard from the vantage point of the plateau that surrounded the desert. He was unsure how he could see the entire biome, but didn't voice his question. Instead, he remained silent and sat there in silence for an eternity in a single moment, gazing at the snake that had pierced the clouds with its enormous size. Chunks of said cloud it speared were foaming outward like an exit wound. Its serpentine body was much larger than the knight had assumed. From their vantage point, he could easily make out that this thing was as big, if not a little bigger, than the entire area of this desert, likely layering itself over itself many times to fit inside the tiny area in comparison to itself.
With that, a single question stuck out like a sore thumb in his mind: 'How was this thing imprisoned in the confines of a place as small as this desert?' They continued to sit in the still silence of the eternal moments, and then it hit him. Many beings of enormous power could not withhold their power within their bodies, leaking much like a hole in a water hose, and the stronger that being is, the more water escapes the water hose, but the one sitting on the bench next to him held no leakage. There was no feeling of dread, no screaming in his mind to run, and no helpless feeling of depressing anguish in this being's presence. The individual was nobody, there was nothing. The disturbing realization made the man stiffen behind the armor, but he remained silent. The tension between the pair only grew sharper in that moment. Embers of a tightening in the warrior's chest made themselves known and quickly grew into a wild, uncontrollable surge of fire, yet still, not a word or even a glance had been spared between either of them. They only continued to stare at the snake, no longer interested in the sight. Many hours passed in the few moments after they found themselves on the wooden bench before a voice that echoed from all around the pair, with a cold melancholy prevalent in its tone, made itself present: "I am known as The Guidance, the forger of death."