Bloodless Steel

Passing through his former home of Coorhagen, Kain saw the effects left over by the old plague. Piles of corpses littered the streets and, courtesy of Mortanius' negligence, corpses full of blackened and toxic blood rose up to trouble the vampire. Overcoming this obstacle, Kain made his way into the snowy mountains to locate the bastion of the Guardian Malek. Having been starved for blood on account of Coorhagen's plague tainting its corpses, Kain found difficulty here as the snow stung just as rain did, and Malek's fleshless armor wraiths offered no sustenance either.

The great machine which allowed Malek to bind souls to armor was located within the stronghold and destroyed, infuriating the paladin. When Kain at last reached the inner sanctum, he found a worthy opponent in Malek, an immortal forged of iron. Exhausting his own strength in futile attempts to put the warrior down, Kain was forced to flee. Flying back to the Pillars, he spoke to Ariel of his ill-fated duel with the Circle's old protector. She advised him to seek out the Oracle of Nosgoth, secretly the guardian Moebius, a man who had once been close to Malek and could offer insight into the paladin's weaknesses.