As Rae'liel charged towards him with all her righteous hatred for what he was, Sherpa remained unphased by the aggression before him, merely standing there with his hands folded together.

As she brought her blade up to strike the mortal blow against the passive High Elf however, another blade suddenly intersected from the side; and blocked her sword mid air!

Now next to them stood a new figure who had just blocked the blow from Rae'liel. Initially it looked like a chevalier of some sorts, wearing the same polished plate and lamellar armor with white cloak as the rest of the mercenaries, except for a deep cut currently residing in the abdoment of his chestplate that he did not seem to care much about.

But what set him apart was the sword he had used to parry Rae'liel's attack.

It was a runeblade that had just intercepted the path of Rae'liel's sword, the stainless steel of the cursed sword littered along the blade with blood red runes that glowed in an eerie red light with unholy magic. The mere presence of the unholy weapon seemed to drop the temperature around Rae'liel by multiple degrees, inspiring a sense of emptiness, and dread. The runes glowed ever more brightly, seemingly being empowered by the death and carnage that was all around them. 

The suffering wrought throughout the castle seemed to feed directly into the twisted and perversed magics that coursed through the blade, as the peculiar chevalier who wielded it stared back at Rae'liel from the emptiness of his blackened visors. There were no eyes to see behind his steel mask, merely a bottomless darkness that peered back at Rae'liel.

"I am no slave and no servant, I am a master of my own." Sherpa replied with a smirk, before his gaze turned to face the peculiar chevalier and apparent who was protecting him Rae'liel.
"That, is my servant however. And he has been waiting to draw the blood of a Paladin such as yourself."

Unlocking his blade from that of Rae'liel's, the peculiar chevalier swung his Runeblade at her in a vicious strike, again and again and again. The death knight's attacks seemed both overpowering and inexhaustible, as his blows rained down against Rae'liel from all sides without any pause or delay. Every time she blocked the Runeblade and it came close to her, it felt as if the mere proximity of the cursed blade caused her old wounds and scars to slowly begin to open once more across her body, seeping blood. The ravenous hunger of the Runeblade seemed to be what fueled the attack, an attack that was reminiscent to that of a starving beast in the wild!

Some of the White Hand knights in the back who had seen the new contender in the fight, actually began to back away from both Rae'liel and her Blood Knights, as well as the frenzied death knight whose attacks seemed to care little for friend or foe!

The ravenous attacks of the death knight forced Rae'liel backwards and kept her on the defensive. As one of her Blood Knights rushed forward to alleviate her from the constant barrage of attacks by attacking the death knight, it spun around with its blade to parry that of its new opponent! In a surprise change of fighting style however, the death knight instead channeled a dark kinetic spell, suddenly pulling the Blood Knight's weapon straight out of his hand! The Blood Knight barely had time to respond to the sudden loss of his armament before the death knight sweeped his blade around, and buried its Runeblade into his abdomen!

As the runeblade pierced through bone and flesh, submerging itself in the rivers of blood in the body of its victim, the blood red runes adorning the blade lit up even more!

An unnatural howl suddenly emanated from behind the mask of the death knight, as if the death knight was in as much pain as its victim. Violently twisting his runeblade around, he was about to pull it out from the Blood Knight, before Blood Knight suddenly exploded from the inside in a shower of blood and gore that flew in every direction! As blood rained down on him, the death knight let out yet another fiendish roar, partly of pain, part of maddening glee! 

Turning back to Rae'liel and her last remaining Blood Knight, the death knight was now literally twitching sporadically rather than moving normally. The darkness that once had occupied his visors now played host to two burning globes of red light where his eyes were supposed to be, his haunted eyes focused solely on the remaining Blood Knights. Whatever power the runeblade bestowed upon its wielder, it seemed to make the unholy creature even more frantic and hysteric as well, its last kill having made him move even faster and erratically!

From further away, Sherpa followed the fight with a big smile on his lips as he paced around. It was quite clear that he found much entertainment in seeing his servant fight against the paladins.

"Impressive, is he not? Master swordsman in life, and now, an unbridled killing machine fueled by dark magic." Sherpa smirked as he looked at Rae'liel.
"But, I think that in death, you could make an even finer candidate than he."