Dust fell from the stone walls onto Rudolph's stumbling shoulders from on high.

He raised his head and then stepped forward, but in an instant the foe whom he faced took form from the mist behind him.

The scholar grit his teeth, blood spilled from his lips, there was a massive, bone deep, gash in his side, but he still forced himself to tumble away.

His flesh repaired itself swiftly amid the screams of the winged women, the Fay, all around him.

He turned to face the Einherjar, who even now was turning to dust and intermingling with the chamber’s accumulated supply.

The scholar surrounded his body in a frenzied vortex of Fay and Ash in turn.

“I might’ve known that I couldn’t win by treating you like a human,” He said and then he closed his eyes with a wry grin.

Cain had made it their life’s purpose to defeat the gods, and here he was, their enemy for sure, but also the first man in eons to actually challenge one of those gods they so despised.

“But it’s ok,” He said with a snicker, “I’m not quite human myself anymore either...am I?”

His eyes opened anew as his instincts screamed of danger.

He struck with his trident and punched a hole into the dust to his left side.

The Einherjar’s wail echoed out and its body began to reform nearby.

The scholar stepped back and poised himself to attack anew.

The Ash within the room tensed around his trident, creating a localised typhoon as he thrust it forward.

However the Einherjar was no fool either, he parried this attack with a wide swing.

Although his weapon was but a sheath, it was sturdy as an iron pole and heavy as a mountain, it withstood the clash firmly even as the dust around them was compelled to erupt into the air.

Rudolph stepped back again and covered his mouth from a physical shock, but his foe, the Einherjar, did not have to do anything of the sort.

This creature did not have lungs or eyes for the dust to hinder, it was free to step forward and swing its weapon unimpeded.

Rudolph tumbled away, yet more dust scattered around them, it near enough filled the entire room.

The scholar frowned, he recognised that there were not just a few factors working against him in this accursed chamber and that he had no chance of winning here.

His pitch black Ash gathered, a powerful vortex slammed forward as the Einherjar thrust his sheath like a spear to punch through Rudolph’s body.

The chamber rocked as the Fay scattered around it began to direct Rudolph’s power towards the floor.

Cracks covered everything in sight, even the Einherjar opened wide its eyes with dread as the floor collapsed out from under them.

They fell down into a chamber below amid rubble, dust and stone.

They slammed onto an unstable surface.

Rudolph grit his teeth, he was in the thick of it, but his Fay relayed what they saw straight to his mind.

The surface he had hit was a chandelier, supported by four chains, held by the hands of four gigantic statues of the very same goddess this temple was built to worship.

The Einherjar was there too, but it was recovering faster than Rudolph and was already lifting itself on the unstable surface.

The man needed time, so he ordered his Fay to buy it.

The tiny winged women swarmed the Einherjar, but all they could do was frustrate its attempts to recover, it did not even bother taking notice of them nor their efforts.

Rudolph shook off his dizziness and rose to his feat, he turned to face his foe wearily.

The scholar raised his hand and some of the scattered Fay gathered there, their bodies melted down to form for him a brand new trident.

Meanwhile the first trident that he’d lost somewhere in the chamber below broke down back into its own composite Fay, who flew back up to strike the Einherjar through the gaps in the chandelier.

Rudolph tackled forward and struck the Einherjar with his shoulder, he swept its feet with his trident and tried to kick it off the chandelier.

The Einherjar’s hand seized the metal structure’s side and it raised its head slowly with a clear display of venom.

Rudolph’s heart froze, he didn’t know what was coming next, but it was clear his foe was quickly losing its reservations.

The Einherjar swung its sheath and smashed to bits one of the chains supporting the chandelier without hesitation.

Rudolph tripped as the structure shook, and then the Einherjar smashed another chain.

The north-east and south-west chains fell to the chamber below with a massive sound.

Rudolph clung to the structure as it toppled on its side.

The Einherjar leapt forward, Ash clustered in its grip, and Rudolph could only order his Fay to match that power with their own.

The resulting explosion sent both of them flying into the faces of two of the statues.

The chandelier collapsed, it crashed into the ground scattering rusty metal and shattered jewels.

The scholar rose from the concrete to a crawl, his battered body was slow to heal.

Across from him, the Einherjar emerged from the hollowed out face of the statue at the other side of the chamber.

The Scholar rolled himself forward as the Einherjar opened fire.

The head of the statue where Rudolph once lay then turned to dust.

Rudolph smashed into the shard covered floor.

Steel and scattered gems impaled his body, but even from this he could eventually heal.

He signalled to his Fay, hoping they could buy him time again, but the response he got back was less than he could hope for.

There were simply too few of them now, he had to call in more.

He raised his head as the Einherjar nearly tripped from where it stood.

The temple shook, all the walls and doors began to crack or were just outright forced open by an army of countless tiny winged women.

The Einherjar frowned and leapt down into the chamber below as the swarm gathered over his head.

He leapt forward, with one kick he knocked Rudolph straight into the adjacent hall.

The old scholar slammed into something heavy, but in that moment he heard the sound of cracking.

He struggled to regenerate himself, then peered forward at the hallway where his Fay swarmed the Einherjar and the creature fought them off in turn.

He pushed himself up from the ground as his healing flesh pushed out shards of steel and glass.

He then looked at the cracked structure behind him and trembled.

Within that giant glass container was a silvery grey material.

He looked about the chamber to see furnaces long cooled and basins long dried.

The Scholar realised that this was a forge, and that the glass container held within it metal that had likely been placed there timeless years before.

However, by some unknown law of science or magic, that same metal had not been permitted to cool back to solid form.

The scholar peered into the hall once again as the Einherjar’s roar echoed out, it was a narrow path, and that perfectly suited the plan he now hatched in his mind.

With a wicked glint, he reached out, his limbs became as branches as they enveloped the structure before him.

He pulled it once, then twice, then thrice, each time breaking it loose from its rusty chains and their crumbling foundations.

The giant glass container slammed into the ground with a massive sound, it shattered just like that.

He leapt out of the way as a tidal wave of liquid steel flooded the hall.

His Fay scattered and exposed the Einherjar, who leaned against the wall for a brief moment to recover his spent stamina.

The creature’s eyes opened wide expressively, as though it was disbelieving the very sight it bore when it captured the vision of that wave rushing forth.