#8 – The Taurus Demon

As I stepped out of the bonfire chamber, the Undead Burg seemed like a completely different place. There were some scattered bloodstains that weren’t there before and I saw ghosts running around fighting in the void. There were names written on the ground as well, glowing white or golden, and I did my best to avoid stepping on them. I decided to kick some information out of the merchant, since he was the only non-hollow around. He didn’t know anything about the bloodstains or ghosts, but he did know that a huge demons awaited me after the tower that I had just cleaned of hollows.

I went back to the bonfire dodging the ghosts, but something attracted me on the written names. Their glow was unworldly and supernatural. The ghosts, I concluded, were probably warriors who died in the Burg, fighting the undead hordes, reviving their last moments. At one time or another, one of them would approach the bonfire and sit there in a manner much similar to mine, then disappear completely. It frightened me and only made me want to leave the place sooner than I might otherwise. So I headed back to the tower.

Behind a locked door that I managed to open with my master keys, the stairs went down. I knew the demon awaited me on the top area, so it would do me no harm to try and see what lay in the bottom. When I approached the bottom level I saw a man wearing a huge armor, apparently made of hard stone, and holding what seemed like a giant dragon bone. Upon seeing me, he ran after me and that fight I knew I couldn’t win, so I ran and ran up the stairs. At some point, he let me go.

In the top level, before a door, I heard a noise behind some boxes. Thinking it might be another rat and that I could use the rat-killing rush once more, I smashed them and found a crystal lizard. From his back I extracted a few shards that might prove useful later on.

Now I had but one way to go, the door leading to the bridge between two towers. Behind me, stairs took me to the ceiling of the tower, where I decided to lay down and wait for the monster to arrive. i was surprised by two crossbow-yielding hollows, but they were easy to dispatch.

So I sat there for some time, staring at the battleground. There were many of those strange bloodstains on the floor, so I knew people had died there. The ghosts also showed me that intense fighting had happened in that place. I took a moment to carefully analyze their lessons from beyond, trying to figure out from their aiming the size of the demon. At some point, one of the ghosts came up from the stairs and I jumped away to avoid being on its way. The ghost looked down and jumped with his mace facing down. I remembered of my fight with the demon in the asylum and how I managed to kill him using the same trick. Since the demon was as much of a trapper as me, however, I would need to fall for his trap first.

So I went down and carefully walked forward, nervous as I had ever remembered being, my hands shaking holding the zweihander. As I reached the middle of the bridge, the demon jumped from his hiding place on the other tower. The merchant called him “Taurus Demon” and I now knew why, he was some sort of a strange, half-bull beast, holding an immense axe. As I ran back to the tower I came from, I was still deciding if I should run down the stairs back to certain death against the hollow knight or stick to my plan. I decided for the plan, since that humongous axe could tear down the whole tower above me anyway. So I went up the stairs as fast as I could and jumped at his face with the zweihander.

The beast screamed and swung his axe around, just a palm above my head. I put up my shield and reached my broadsword, which seemed like the most absurd weapon against such a huge beast. If it came down to using it, I was sure, I would certainly die. So as I was running for my life in the direction of the second tower, I saw a broken ledge I could maybe trick the demon into falling out of in the confusion. My best hopes were still in seeing the demon succumb to the zweihander’s wound, however. So I stood my ground.

The demon ran in my direction branding the axe and howling. I decided to run like a girl, but now he was too close for me to abandon my plan. So I stood my ground, less decidedly though. I dodged the first blow and the demon went tumbling past me in confusion. I saw the opportunity to escape and took it, running back to the first tower, but halfway I saw the stairs again. Maybe I could try to pull of the old trick again? So I went up the stairs, which the demon promptly destroyed beneath me. As soon as I stood up in that ceiling, my plan was laid to waste: the demon jumped up to meet me.

So there I was, nearer to death than ever before, in this small area, holding what felt like a children’s sword against a giant demon. My first instinct was to jump off to certain death, but no, I had to die fighting. So I let go of my shield and held my sword with my two hands, facing the beast. Dodged the axe once again, pushing my luck, finding myself between the beast’s feet. So I hacked and slashed as I could, barely scratching the beast’s thick skin until I could risk losing my remaining weapon with some resemblance of a mortal blow. Perhaps tired from the fighting and confused by the pain inflicted by the zweihander, the hellish animal left its guard down for a moment, which I profited from by sinking my sword into his heart.

The demon was dead. I pulled the two swords from his body and sat there amazed at my feat. If only my mother could see me now!