[@Breo] [center][img]https://i.imgur.com/aExv3Zs.png[/img][/center] [h1][center]In The Woods, Church Outskirts - Site of the Spear[/center][/h1] The comet descended upon Persia. It was an inevitability, and so even in his madness he prepared himself for that inevitability. Even in his madness the truth of what Achilles was something apparent to him. It was a tale branded in the acknowledgement of even those who drifted from common sense or sanity. There was no human that could not understand what that comet meant. To defeat Achilles was to overcome the fastest. In terms of trickery the king was nothing like the clever Archer at the church, nor did he have the gift of the gods, or even the ability of a great hero. What he held were the stations and gifts of the empire. In the face of that strength why then did he run instead of marshaling his entire army? Why did he run when it was impossible for a mere king to escape that comet? Surely even he knew that the man’s ire was roused. That Achilles would stop at nothing and descend upon him with no mercy. Or was he so blinded by his battle against “Iskander” that he could not see the truth of his foe? It was true, an army could not simply stop Achilles. No, that was not the case. The flight of Darius was not an attempt to escape. Rather it was part of the battle. It was inevitable that the great noble phantasm of Achilles would blaze through the Athánatoi in pursuit. So the Athánatoi would have to take its original place as a obstacle that struggled against a greater legend and being. A wall met Achilles to separate him from the King. Prepared, waiting for this exact moment, able to block that speed that was practically teleportation by that virtue, along with the work of the wheels and fodder that funneled Achilles. The giant Berserker was covered by the frames of soldiers even larger than him. Seven legions had been shaped into giants, a hundred skeletons for each woven together to become titanic warriors carrying shields equally as large. Locking together to support each other they pushed against Achilles’s charge, preventing him from reaching Darius for the lariat, able to block his flight. They slammed into his form, flaring with their overflowing magical energy that came from the Lancer’s spear in a battle that resembled more the charge between two magical beasts than a battle of humans. To compete with the speed of Achilles and his charge was impossible, so it was matter of making sure that he would run straight at the wall, at Darius. The enraged Achilles funneled by the army. A rampage and self-ruinous drive was something that he know too well. Yet this time it became his weapon, rather than his defeat. They could not stop him forever, and four of them crumbled from the sheer impact from his charge. Yet it was enough. For they were intended to keep Achilles there before the king. The ground itself had become a pit of death, a macabre land of the undying presented enveloping the one who was immortal. Thousands upon Thousands of warriors had been mixed as the soil of Darius’s persia. Mired in it like mud, it would restrain even the Achilles who wore that god armor. But it was more than just an attempt to weigh him down and halt him. A king stood above their men, supported by their empire. If so to challenge a king was to challenge the weight of that empire. Achilles was one who led the fight against the legendary Troy. But he was a slayer of people, not nations. In the end Troy fell after his death, and in the end he was not one who conquered a kingdom. To snuff out a lands heroes, its warriors, was different from taking its throne. The kind of battles that Achilles fought were different from that of the one who admired him. Mixed in together as a mire, as soil, as mud. The legend of a loser king sought to grab, to stop a star for a time. Grabbing at it with the passion and desire that he could not voice. They covered the bright shine of that legend with their own desire. Persia would break the Comet. The soil did more than try to combat the light of the fastest star. Perhaps he would be called a sore loser. Perhaps he was a mad man trying to defy that which he admired himself. He was not a avenger who burned with resentment at the world, he was not a despoiler who dragged things down to his level. So he tried to rise, rise and rise. Rise and conquer, like that man, overcome the obstacles to your dream and ideal. He was simply a stubborn man. So he wouldn't admit defeat no matter what, even against this greatest of lancers. Darius raised and brought down his axes, swirling with crackling lightning and their blazing green flames as the three giants continued to push against Achilles, striking while protected by his wall and the mire. The weight of an empire crushed and pierced the exposed heel, and the feet of Achilles with strength that could confront even that armor. The power of that soil and the energy that overflowed doing more than just holding him down The felling of his immortality, the crippling of his speed, the strike of a king, the restraint of a wall. One may call it a crippling blow. For many servants the individual components of this clash would be enough to threaten or even destroy them. But to Darius who lived his life struggling against a radiance that was greater than him knew. That such a “loss” would only mark the true beginning of his struggle. To strike the heel of Achilles was simply something that lowered him to the level that made him defeatable. It was not a victory in of itself. That radience shined the brightest in one of the greatest wars in human history. He could not quell it with just the hell. He could not reach that man with just the first opening blow. Retreating after his blow, even as his forces continued to battle with Achilles, he prepared for the next encounter. For he was never a king who finished a war in one climatic fight. A most unheroic way to wage war. But that was how one defeated a great hero.