The Dark Knight is the threshold of a demigod, and here the Hanged Man's path for the first time becomes openly martial.
Harvest of Spiritual Flesh — the core of the stage, coming from the domain of Degeneration: it manifests as a black two-handed sword;
Black Armor — the bearer transforms into a small giant two or three meters tall, clad in cold black armor, and in the place of his eyes burn two dark-red fires;
Shadow of Depravity — he separates depraved thoughts from a person into a separate shadow, and it becomes an unruly independent creature;
Shadow Grasp — the target's own shadow comes alive and rises like rising water, binding them tightly.
As a demigod he gains an incomplete mythical form: black shadow and writhing flesh — the very union of shadow and flesh toward which the path had been heading since the sixth stage.
The stage's method of action explains its place in a foreign hierarchy: the Dark Knight carries out the divine will in the darkness and takes on sins for the will of his god.
The advancement ritual is of the kind that defines the reputation of the entire path: to bring more than ten thousand people to complete degeneration, all of it without violence.
