Tournament - Knull vs. Vecna

[Culwych1]

Parallel Earth – Designation 10543 [New York City, 5th August 2001]

"Looks like rain," the old man mumbled, his voice a whisper against the ominous stillness that had settled over the city. He squinted through the dusty lenses of his spectacles, his rheumy eyes tracing the ominous bruising of the sky above. It was not the grey of storm clouds but an unnatural, brooding purple, streaked with veins of seething black. The cobblestone street beneath his feet felt oddly cold, as if the earth itself were holding its breath.

Leaning heavily on his gnarled cane, he shuffled forward, his steps slow and deliberate. The air was thick, almost tangible, and carried a strange metallic tang that made him cough. His gaze roamed the horizon, seeking the comforting glow of the setting sun, but there was none. The light was gone, swallowed by a creeping darkness that clawed its way across the heavens like ink spilled across water.

"What is going on?" he muttered, his voice quaking as he strained to make sense of the shifting blackness overhead. Tendrils of shadow, writhing like living things, danced on the edges of his vision, but when he turned his head, they dissolved into nothingness. His heart pounded in his chest as he turned to the young girl walking on the opposite side of the street. Her small frame was hunched under the weight of a backpack, her pace quickening as she, too, stared at the unnatural sky.

"Do you see it?" the old man called to her, his voice cracking. She turned her head slightly, her face pale, her wide eyes reflecting the dread building in his chest. But she said nothing, her lips trembling as she froze mid-step.

Above them, the swirling vortex began to form—a jagged wound in the fabric of reality. The void bled a darkness so absolute that it made the shadows of the city seem almost comforting. From the heart of the vortex, tendrils of black ichor lashed out, twisting and curling as if tasting the air. They grew and multiplied, converging into a colossal maw that pulsed and quivered with malevolent intent. It devoured the remaining light in the sky, plunging the city into a twilight gloom.

The first drop hit the street with a wet splatter, black and glistening. The old man and the girl watched in horrified silence as it twitched, convulsed, and began to spread. More drops followed, cascading from the vortex in a torrential downpour of living tar. The symbiotes oozed across the cobblestones, clinging to the walls of buildings, coiling around trees, and creeping into every crack and crevice. They hissed and growled, their whispers a cacophony of hunger and malice.

The girl’s backpack slipped from her hand and hit the ground with a hollow thud. She took a hesitant step back, her gaze fixed on the nearest puddle of black ooze as it began to rise, forming a vaguely humanoid shape with glistening, featureless eyes. Its movements were unnaturally smooth, almost hypnotic, as it reached for her with elongated tendrils.

“Run!” the old man shouted, but his voice was drowned out by the first scream; a high-pitched, agonised wail that echoed from a nearby alley. It was joined by another, and then another, until the entire city seemed to be crying out in despair.

The tendrils latched onto the girl’s leg, pulling her down even as she struggled. Her screams joined the symphony of terror that filled the streets, but the old man couldn’t move to help her. His legs were locked in place, his breath caught in his throat as he watched the symbiote engulf her. Her small frame spasmed as it writhed around her, binding her in a pulsating cocoon of black ichor. Her voice was muffled, then silenced.

The old man stumbled back, his cane clattering to the ground. Around him, the city was descending into chaos. Buildings that had stood for centuries were crumbling under the weight of the encroaching black tide. Windows shattered, releasing plumes of choking dust as the symbiotes enveloped entire structures. Trees withered and twisted, their leaves falling as their trunks were consumed. The air itself seemed to vibrate with an unholy resonance, as if the world were groaning under the strain of Knull's invasion.

Above it all, the vortex widened, belching forth more of the living horrors. In the brief flashes of lightning arcing across the sky, Knull’s silhouette loomed within the swirling abyss; a shadowy titan, his form radiating an aura of despair so potent it felt like a physical weight on the chest. His eyes, twin pinpricks of crimson light, scanned the devastation with a cold detachment.

The old man fell to his knees, tears streaming down his weathered cheeks as he whispered a prayer to gods he no longer believed in. The world around him was unravelling, consumed by the relentless, unfeeling tide. And still, the whispers grew louder, promising nothing but darkness eternal.

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Parallel Earth – Designation 85556 [Birmingham, 14th December 1923]

The fog rolled in thick and heavy, clinging to the cobblestone streets like a shroud. Gas lamps flickered weakly, their meagre light swallowed by the oppressive gloom that hung over Birmingham. The air was thick with the acrid scent of coal smoke, mingling with something else—something coppery, metallic, and wrong. The distant hum of industry had fallen silent, replaced by an eerie stillness. And then, a sound: faint at first, like the mournful wail of a distant train, but it grew, rising into a crescendo of shrieks, sobs, and spectral howls that sent shivers down the spines of even the bravest men.

From the shadows, the invasion began. A ripple of cold swept through the streets, and with it came death. Vecna, the Lord of Secrets, had arrived, his skeletal form towering above the cityscape, wrapped in a cloak of darkness that seemed to drink the light from the world. His one glowing eye burned with malevolence as his clawed hand gestured, summoning his horde. The dead stirred in their graves, clawing their way to the surface. Coffins shattered in the undertaker's yard, and long-buried skeletons erupted from the sodden earth of churchyards, their eye sockets glowing with an unholy light.

The first scream came from a Peaky Blinder as he stumbled out of the Garrison, a glass of gin still clutched in his hand. He barely had time to cry out before a ghoul tore into him, its rotting claws raking across his throat. Blood sprayed the air, a crimson mist that seemed to hang for a moment before being lapped up by a a vampire with crimson eyes and terrible jagged teeth. Others followed, streaming into the streets like rats from a sinking ship, their elegant, bloodstained faces twisted into monstrous glee.

Zombies lurched down the alleyways, their decayed bodies sloughing off flesh as they moved with relentless purpose. A ghostly woman in tattered Victorian garb floated through a brick wall, her wail so piercing it shattered the glass of nearby windows. Men and women clutched their ears, blood streaming from their eyes as the sound burrowed into their very souls. Liches, their skeletal frames draped in robes of power, moved with cruel precision, casting fire and ice that tore apart the streets. The cobblestones cracked and splintered, the buildings crumbling as curses and necrotic energy coursed through the city like a plague.

People ran, but there was no escape. A mother dragged her crying child through the narrow backstreets, only to scream as the shadow of a spectral knight loomed over her, his sword dripping with green fire. Tommy Shelby shouted orders to his men, pistols blazing, but bullets passed harmlessly through the misty forms of ghosts or buried themselves in the resilient flesh of the undead. One by one, they fell, torn apart by claw and fang, or consumed by the spreading rot that festered in every wound.

Above it all, Vecna stood on the roof of a grand manor, his hand raised as if conducting a macabre symphony. His voice echoed through the city, low and insidious, a chant that seemed to pull the very life from the air. “The living have had their time,” he intoned, his voice dripping with contempt. “Now, the dead shall inherit this world.”

The streets ran red with blood as Birmingham fell. The once-bustling heart of industry and ambition was now a graveyard, its people nothing more than fuel for Vecna’s unholy legions. And still, his hordes grew, spreading like a cancer, their numbers swelling as the dead consumed the living. The fog grew darker, thicker, until it seemed the sun itself had abandoned the world.

In the end, only silence remained. A silence broken only by the hollow laughter of the undead as they feasted on the remnants of a city that would never rise again.

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Across the Multiverse

City after city, world after world, burned and crumbled into oblivion. The multiverse became a theatre of annihilation, a grim ballet orchestrated by two inexorable forces of devastation. On one side, Knull's symbiotes smothered existence, twisting life into grotesque parodies of itself, enslaved to his will. On the other, Vecna's undead legions consumed the very essence of life, leaving only the cold void of death in their wake. Entire realities wept as they were torn apart by the gods of shadow and ruin.

On a world far from Earth where crystal spires reached into a shimmering green sky, the symbiotes descended in a living storm. Their oily forms glided across the surface, devouring the light and leaving only an endless expanse of black, pulsating ichor. The inhabitants of this once-prosperous planet fought back with technology powered by their world's unique energy, but their efforts were futile. The symbiotes adapted, absorbing the weapons and turning them against their creators.

The cities fell in silence, consumed by creeping darkness. Streets became rivers of black sludge and the symbiotes cackled as they struck at the fleeing survivors, enveloping them in writhing tendrils. As always, the sky itself seemed to bleed as Knull's form emerged, his twin crimson eyes surveying his dominion with a cold, uncaring satisfaction.

Elsewhere, Vecna's legions carved their path through a realm of lush forests and ancient temples. This was a world that had grown with magic instead of science, and embraced nature rather than the concrete jungles we know. The air grew bitter and cold as the undead arrived, heralded by the baleful wails of banshees. Ghouls tore through the underbrush, their claws raking through flesh and stone alike, while vampires stalked the shadows, their red eyes glinting as they drained their prey of life.

The living fled to the sanctuaries of their gods, seeking salvation within the holy walls of their temples. But Vecna was no mere mortal foe; his power corrupted even the sacred. The temple bells tolled in defiance before crumbling to ash, and priests who raised their voices in prayer found their souls ripped from their bodies, leaving them as hollow shells in Vecna’s undead army.

And so it went, through dimension after dimension. Knull and Vecna extinguished light, life and hope as their armies marched forth. Entire world blinked out of existence, their histories erased in bloodshed and horror.

But then….the unthinkable.

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Earth – Designation Prime [19th January 2025]

The day began with an unnatural stillness. Across Earth, the sky churned with an oppressive storm, unlike anything ever seen. To the west, a rift tore through the atmosphere, spilling a churning black void onto the planet's surface. Tendrils of living darkness slithered across the land, devouring light and twisting life into grotesque, slavering creatures. To the east, a crimson tear split the horizon, belching forth Vecna’s legions of the dead. The air reeked of decay and despair as the armies of death marched forward, their spectral wails drowning out all else.

The first strike came at Chicago. The symbiotes descended like a tidal wave, wrapping the skyline in pulsating ichor. Skyscrapers buckled under the weight, their shattered remains consumed to feed Knull’s growing dominion. On the streets, people screamed as the black tide engulfed them, their forms grotesquely reshaping into loyal servants of the symbiotic god. Across the US, from the Statue of Liberty to Times Square, nothing escaped Knull’s grasp.

Meanwhile, Vecna’s forces struck at London, their undead hordes sweeping across the Thames. Ghouls leapt from the shadows, rending flesh with claws and teeth, while banshees soared through the streets, their mournful cries turning brave men into quivering shells. The Houses of Parliament crumbled under a wave of necrotic energy as Vecna’s dracoliches rained down fire and death from the heavens. The city's lights dimmed as ghosts, vampires, skeletons and more swept through, extinguishing the last sparks of hope.

But it was in the heart of Europe that the two forces finally collided. In Berlin, the black tide of Knull met the relentless march of Vecna’s legions. The ground shuddered as symbiotes and undead tore into each other, their clashes creating a storm of black ichor and pale dust.

A symbiote-wrapped monstrosity lunged at a towering bone golem, its tendrils writhing as they struggled for dominance. Nearby, a necrophidius slipped through the battlefield, its skeletal snake-like body piercing through swarms of symbiotic soldiers.

A Death Knight, its once-pristine armour now corroded and smeared with ichor, swung its greatsword in a wide arc, cleaving through a wave of symbiotic horrors. The creatures shrieked as necrotic energy surged through their forms, but even as they fell, more emerged, their tendrils latching onto the knight’s blade, twisting and pulling. The Death Knight roared, its helm tilting back to reveal hollow sockets glowing with malevolent fire, as it plunged its blade into the earth, sending out a shockwave of dark energy that reduced the symbiotes to sludge.

A Dracolich, its skeletal wings spreading wide, rained a torrent of fire upon a swarm of symbiote-possessed beasts. The fire melted their forms into pools of black tar, but from the ooze, tendrils lashed out, snaking up the Dracolich's legs and coiling tightly around its spine. The colossal creature reared back, releasing a deafening roar that echoed through the battlefield, before crashing into the earth. It made as if to rise, but a symbiotic monstrosity the size of a cathedral grabbed its skeletal head and tore it apart.

A shadow wraith glided silently through the chaos, its ethereal form phasing in and out of visibility as it struck down symbiotes with its cold, incorporeal touch. But the symbiotes were adaptable; one mass of writhing black ichor coalesced into a spiked figure and lunged, trapping the wraith within an imprisoning cocoon of tar-like substance. The wraith’s spectral limbs clawed against the confinement, but the symbiote tightened its hold, pulling the shadow into its inky depths, snuffing out its haunting form.

A lich floated above the battlefield, its skeletal hands weaving arcs of frostfire that turned symbiotic masses into brittle statues before shattering them into shards. Yet, the symbiotes learned quickly; one formed into a massive, spider-like entity, leaping onto the lich and wrapping it in its strands. The lich retaliated, its bony fingers glowing with a spell that exploded in a pulse of freezing necrotic energy. The spider-symbiote screamed, its limbs frozen mid-strike before crumbling to the ground in shards of ice.

Knull descended from his vortex, his crimson eyes blazing with cold fury. With a wave of his clawed hand, he summoned a massive construct of writhing darkness, its form bristling with bladed tendrils that slashed through the undead ranks. Yet even this devastating force faltered as Vecna himself appeared, standing atop a crumbling cathedral, his lone glowing eye searing through the chaos.

The godlich raised his skeletal hand, his voice a cold whisper that echoed across the battlefield: “This is not your world to claim.” Shadows deepened around him, and the dead surged forward, their relentless march driving back the black tide.

The planet itself seemed to cry out as these gods of ruin unleashed their full power. Knull’s tendrils reached skyward, blotting out the sun, while Vecna’s magic drained the very essence of the earth, leaving barren wastelands in his wake. Lightning split the heavens, a violent clash of crimson and black as the two powers collided, their energies tearing through the fabric of reality. Mountains crumbled, oceans boiled, and cities fell into ruin, consumed by fire, darkness, and decay.

Humanity wept and died. Survivors fled underground, their prayers for salvation lost in the deafening roars of the dracoliches overhead and the symbiotes’ predatory howls.

The two gods faced each other at the heart of the devastation, the remnants of Berlin a charred wasteland beneath them. Knull’s voice was a deep rumble, full of contempt. “You think death is final,” he sneered. “But I am the void that comes after.”

Vecna’s glowing eye flared, his skeletal grin unwavering. “Void? Your abyss is nothing but chaos. I bring order to the end. You are a pretender.”

The air cracked as their powers clashed once more, sending shockwaves that rippled across the globe. The Earth itself seemed ready to split asunder, the final stage of annihilation at hand.

 

 

[Callisto]

Learn More About
Knull
Read more about Knull at Wikipedia
Official Site: Marvel Links: Wikipedia

Vecna
Read more about Vecna at Wikipedia
Official Site: Wizards of the Coast Links: Wikipedia Greyhawk Wiki List of Greyhawk characters

[JohnnyChany]

Awesome work. An epic confrontation. I'll have to think about this one.

[SSJRuss]

This really is epic. Not just the scope, but the gravity. The writing as well, it is captures the vibe I think you are going for.

I don't much about either, but after a bit of research into their feats, I think Knull has the edge here and gets my vote.

[Pizza Guy]

I always love a good dark lord vs dark lord battle, it’s just way more fun than a regular hero v hero fight.

I’m more familiar with Knull then Vecna so I’ll lean in favor of the Symbiote God.