Weirdly enough, both of the bipedal silver creatures that were now about to attack Cades were clear in his vision just as clear as that liquid which they originated from, and yet, neither of them made the first move, both waiting to attack, at least for now.
The situation was dense, so dense one might be able to cut the non-existent air, as Cades now noticed, with a fork and a knife, or eat it with chopsticks if one preferred those kinds of utensils, and even for Cades who had first been looking forward to a good old battle against these new foes, just as he had been happy when fighting against the ehetrians on top of that endless wooden desert under the red sun, but then he realized the problem with the weapons they wielded.
One of them had a dagger, that was no problem for Cades, the reach a dagger provided was great, especially for smaller battles or targeting weak spots at a great speed, but it had a abysmal reach in comparison to a real sword such as his own, added on top of that it could not leverage as much power because it basically had to be held with one hand, was only slightly faster due to the same reason, and was only a real threat, in some cases, if there were two of them in the hands of a single opponent, unless the opponent really knew what they were doing or were using magic, in which case the entire thing would just become unpredictable, but well, Cades was predicting as well as he could, with the little he was able to sense, which was little, no doubt about it.
On the other side, behind him, there was the very same kind of being, this time with a ridiculously oversized great sword that Cades was certain to be at least eight feet long, a size much greater than the height of the being itself, a length that should make it incredulously difficult to wield, but the being didn't really seem to pay that any heed as it began to ready itself, putting the sword atop it's surprisingly broad shoulders that had somehow hidden itself on it's body that was practically bare naked, be it that it had nothing other than the vague form of a wingless ehetrian, so it didn't really matter even if a child saw it.
But a great sword was slow, be it incredibly powerful and with great reach, he just had to leverage that fact, and perhaps his warp, and yet, something seemed amiss inside of his being, something was torturing the back of his mind like a drill trying to enter his cranium, and soon enough he realized what was going on, he realized that he couldn't warp, no matter how hard he tried, and he did try, wishing to initiate the battle by warping behind the slow-moving great sword wielder, but now, he was missing one of his most important tools.
Just as he realized this, no, just as if they had been waiting for this, they began their attack, with the dagger-wielding mongrel attacking first, intent on ripping him apart and trying to take away the leverage he had, that being the leverage of surprise, perhaps, be it only very slight surprise, but failing as Cades had already expected this timing after he had been experiencing this ridiculously bad, or good, timing many times already, as if this place was waiting for him to always realize something, perhaps the true reason for many of the things happening around here, enlightenment.
However, enlightenment didn't really matter when one died, and as such, while the great sword wielder was still readying himself, Cades answered the attack of the swift dagger-wielding creature, intent on killing it before it had the chance to kill him, something that could perhaps be seen as the very essence of what it meant to fight for survival.
Ironically though, perhaps because the wielder had previously brought it into position with Cades not reacting, the great sword was the first to attack, something he was only made aware of due to his newly acquired skill, something he was incredibly thankful so, now more than ever.
This allowed him to step in front and barely avoid being sliced, but in return he saw himself forced to face the dagger-wielder face to face, something he'd liked to avoid as the dagger-wielder had the advantage in a closer range.
But Cades, already knowing that, also knew that these two fighters were both incompetent, after all, why had they not attacked yet, why did they both try to be the first when one could've distracted him and the other could've beheaded him, why were they so keen on ripping him apart when he was defending, when they could just wait for an opening and not pose too many risks onto themselves.
In this regard, Cades thought to himself as he stepped aside from the stupidly lounging dagger-wielder that didn't even seem to think, if this creatures were even capable of thinking, they were quite similar to his other self, the other self that had only won because of trees, the other self that had only won because of a moment of clarity cause by the ascension to the rank of a transcribe as he understood now, the other him that he had crushed so easily, and even more so, they seemed to be equally strong, but, magic also came from the mind, something they were lacking in.
However, this was good for him, especially since the stupid lunge of his opponent just now had allowed him to attack him once more, well, the first time actually, easily being able to reach the neck that was unprotected, at least until the swift opponent turned around, stopping the great sword wielder from moving forward for a moment, without even intending to do so, and trying to catch the blade with it's hands, something that might've worked if Cades was quite a bit weaker, but as he was right now, the blade just cut into the forearms of the beast, causing a kind of liquid to drip down, though Cades was uncertain whether they were just losing their form of that was an imitation of blood itself.
He, however, didn't have time to relish in this small accomplishment as the great sword wielder, both better and worse than the smaller one, was now moving to the side, trying to corner Cades in what he saw as an endless space, a weakness he knew very well, the weakness of not knowing ones terrain, perhaps one of the worst to have, the weakness of having to orient from memory.