General Titus stood before them, unmarked and unharmed, and watched the shock spread across their faces.
"You're shocked, aren't you?" His voice was almost gentle. "Well, I have to say it myself the first time it happened to me, I too was shocked."
He flexed his fingers, watching the light play across his restored skin.
"But also, the regret in my heart... completely disappeared. My shackles were torn away."
He looked at them at the knights who had wounded him, who had seen him bleed, who had believed for a moment that he could be killed.
"I want to ask you." His voice took on a lecturing tone. "What do you think makes a man strong?"
He didn't wait for an answer.
"It's not the weapon he has. Not the amount of training he has gone through." He tapped his chest. "What makes a man strong is his inability to take damage. It's why in battles, defense is usually more concentrated on than attack."
He spread his arms wide, presenting himself like a gift.
"With this ability of mine to remove all damage done to me I have become something akin to an impenetrable fortress. No attack you land on me will work."
His eyes narrowed.
"And no don't try to use poison. Back when I was alive, I had already attained immunity to poison."
He smiled at their expressions.
"I didn't train for it like most do. The Senate wanted to take down all of Caesar's arms and legs. I was one of them." His voice grew distant, remembering. "They were so cruel that they went as far as traveling to Egypt to get the world's strongest poison."
He touched his stomach.
"I drank it. And then... it felt like I was dying."
His hand dropped.
"But my death would not favor Caesar. As such, I lived. I forced my body to keep moving. To keep fighting. To keep thinking. And eventually after half a year I adapted to it."
His smile returned.
"Not only that. My body became immune."
He looked at his hands at the instruments of his survival.
"I am the invincible soldier." His voice was quiet. "My only regret in the living is that I was unable to protect the one that I loved."
He pressed his two palms against his face a gesture of exhaustion, of grief.
"I failed Caesar in life." His voice was muffled behind his hands. "In death, it shall not be the same."
Lancelot's voice cut through the silence.
"Now ATTACK!"
Sir Galahad moved.
The Sword of David sang as he raised it, its edge catching the grey light. He began to cut not once, not twice, but in a pattern. Multiple cuts, each one forming a circle, each circle lapping upon the others like ripples in a pond.
Lancelot watched the attack, his mind racing.
What is he doing? He studied the circles, the overlapping cuts, the complexity of the technique. Is he opening multiple gates to launch his attacks?
Darlington's voice came, calm and analytical.
"No. He's not. But at the same time... he is."
Lancelot's brow furrowed.
"The gates or the cuts he uses connect two spaces together. Through them, he can transport objects or people. Move through them to make attacks."
Lancelot watched Galahad's sword trace another circle.
"Right now, he's using that. But not only that an ability he used previously, when he cut through air, creating something like a vacuum."
Darlington's voice grew sharper.
"In short, he's planning to shift from short-range attacks to long-range. Let's see whether the attacks will be able to deal damage."
The circles closed.
Space twisted around General Titus. Cuts appeared on his body not from Galahad's sword directly, but from the gates he had opened. The first appeared on his chest, peeling over his flesh like the skin of an orange. His ribs were exposed, white bone gleaming through the wound. The cut went past his ribs, trying to penetrate into his lungs.
Titus's body responded.
The regeneration kicked in faster than before, more aggressive. The wound closed as quickly as it had opened, flesh knitting together, ribs reforming. He forced his body to heal, to survive, to continue.
But when the last cut had sealed, when his body was whole again...
He sagged.
A sight of tiredness escaped him not pain, not weakness, but effort. The regeneration cost him. Not in blood, but in energy. In will.
He straightened, facing Galahad.
Sir Galahad lowered his sword, his eyes fixed on the general.
"An invincible soldier, you say?"
His voice was calm. Certain.
"You're still human." He raised the Sword of David, pointing it at Titus's heart. "It is human to die. All we need are really strong attacks and really fast attacks to cut your head off."
He smiled.
"And then you die."
Above them, Darlington laughed.
"HAHAHAHA!"
He slapped his knee an invisible gesture, meaningless in his formless state, but satisfying.
"Yeah!" He pointed at Galahad below. "That's the plan!"
His eyes gleamed.
"This guy gets it."
Titus had healed himself.
Galahad had wounded him again.
The battle continued.
And somewhere above them all, a false god laughed and watched and hoped.