Sunday, August 17, 2025

Nightmare Knight Brings Calamity to DEATH BATTLE!

                           

Nightmare Knight, the Fated Ruler of Darkness

Cucumber Quest was created by Gigi D.G., it can be read on its own website


Welcome back to the blog! Yep, I finally checked out Cucumber Quest… and now I can't recover knowing it's likely to not continue. Despite that, I had a great time with it. It has outstanding art and worldbuilding, greatly-executed humor, and tons of lovable characters. I totally recommend checking it out, even if it's on an indefinite hiatus. It has been receiving a bit of a resurgence in views lately, and that's thanks to the subject of today's blog. Considering how important the Nightmare Knight is to CQ's plot, I gotta give a spoiler warning for this.

Background


"I have forgotten every name, every face. Like the heroes who cut them down, they never change. But in you, I see something else. The Nightmare Knight of legend is no longer. All that remains is this husk longing for another life… Foolish, perhaps, but not villainous. Much like you."

Welcome to Dreamside, a beautiful world united by seven creatively themed kingdoms. Got a sweet tooth? Why not live in Doughnut Kingdom where buildings are made out of cake? Why not take a dive in Ripple Kingdom's clear waters? Or perhaps you're drawn to Melody Kingdom and its musical culture. Each kingdom offers its own lovely and peaceful retreat. However, peace across Dreamside can't last forever…

Thousands of years ago, Dreamside was terrorized by the Nightmare Knight. Little is known about what he is or where he came from. All you need to know is that he's a monumental menace that threatened to cast the world in an age of eternal darkness. To further his reach, he created seven powerful minions called the Disaster Masters to rule over each conquered kingdom. With how powerful the Knight and the Disaster Masters were, it seemed there was no hope left for Dreanside. That is, until a legendary hero went on a perilous journey to best each Disaster Master and seal the Nightmare Knight with the legendary Dream Sword.

As foretold by the prophecy, the Nightmare Knight would be resurrected by a power-seeking villain, sending the world into disarray once more. To set things right, a descendent of the hero would be the one to repeat his ancestor's adventure and seal the Knight once again. The prophecy is set in motion when Doughnut Kingdom is seized by the evil witch Cordelia. She is trying to collect all the Disaster Stones to resurrect the Knight so they can take over the world.

The latest descendent of the hero is Cucumber, a gentle and studious rabbit boy who… doesn't want to go on this quest. There's a lot of pressure for him to be a "real man" and become a hero when he'd much rather go to the magic school he was really looking forward to starting tomorrow. His confident sister Almond has actual combat experience and seems like a way better shoe-in as the legendary hero, but everyone in the kingdom is opposed to the idea of a "little sister" being a hero.

As Cucumber is able to spot huge discrepancies in this adventure he's forced to go on, this fishy prophecy really seems like it's not all it's cracked up to be. And that's not even the worst part of it. Turns out, this is far from the first time this prophecy has been foretold. Every 5,000 years since the Knight's defeat, he would be resurrected and the quest would be repeated. Cucumber and his friends' journey would mark the 100th time the Nightmare Knight has returned! This only makes Cucumber wonder if there is a way to truly beat the Knight.

They aren't able to stop the Nightmare Knight from being unsealed. Actually, they could've stopped the Nightmare Knight from ever coming back, but Almond gave the last remaining Disaster Stone to Cordelia's top minion Peridot. It wouldn't be a truly epic adventure without a big bad Knight to fight!

When the Nightmare Knight is freed from his seal, he's every bit as imposing as he's built up to be. His very presence casts wherever he is in shadow. Every word uttered by him sends shivers down peoples' spines. He's a frightening, commanding, and chilling fiend with unmatched power… and yet there's something about him that feels off.

While appreciative of Cordelia for freeing him, she is by no means in control over him. He occasionally pops up during Cucumber and his friends' journey to intimidate them, try to stop their adventure early, or… let them through obstacles? And then there's how he acts around Princess parfait, Doughnut Kingdom's princess Cordelia had captured. He personally stopped a group of guards from harassing her, and since then she started to consider him a friend.

There's no way the Nightmare Knight is secretly nice! The Nightmare Knight doesn't do friends. His Disaster Masters have been with him for eons, yet he only views them as dispensable pawns (or so he says). In spite of that, Parfait continues to sympathize with him, wondering if he's so cold due to not having a childhood, or any friends to begin with.

Of course, the Nightmare Knight isn't anything more than an embodiment of darkness, so there's nothing to his strange behavior, right? You'd be dead wrong.

There's a reason why the Nightmare Knight and Disaster Masters have failed each and every time. It's revealed that the Knight has been secretly sabotaging the efforts of the Disaster Masters to ensure the heroes always win.

After his first defeat, the Knight grew a heart. During his first reign of terror, the Nightmare Knight was nothing more than a force of evil acting on instinct to spread fear and chaos, consume the world, and move on. Emotion was beneath him and he had an insurmountable ego. When beaten, he watched as the heroes celebrated his downfall. He couldn't understand their friendship and happiness, but when he was unsealed 5,000 years later he finally got it. Seeing the peaceful world of Dreamside he wanted to lay to ruin, he now wanted to be a part of it. He wanted friends, family, he even wanted to learn how cakes were made…

And yet no one ever gave him that chance. He tried to offer peace to the next hero, but he wouldn't have it, so the Knight kept never made a proposition like that ever again. Emotion was a distraction from his purpose, yet he couldn't bring himself to harm another innocent being ever since. But then there were the Disaster Masters, who were all dedicated to the cause far more than he ever could be. They still saw him as their heartless conquerer and leader, but he'd changed too much. Still, the Knight craved acceptance, so playing the part was his only comfort. That and baking, he's surprisingly a really talented cook.

He continues to pretend to be evil only out of fear. Not just because he's afraid what the Disaster Masters will think of him when they learn the truth, but also because fear is literally the origin of his power. His strength is directly tied to how much people are scared of him, and the same can be said for the opposite. The less he is feared, the weaker he is—and more than anything he loathes weakness. If he loses his reputation and gives up his role as the villain, that means losing his power. And since the Disaster Masters are extensions of his power, that means he'll lack the power to sustain them.

The Knight is used to this never-ending cycle of loneliness and perpetuating the prophecy, but this time, things are starting to play out differently. The Nightmare Knight is forced to directly interfere when one of his Disaster Masters Noisemaster almost succeeds in destroying an entire kingdom. This leads to his strongest and closest masters Glitchmaster and Rosemaster respectively to discover he's responsible and start conspiring against him.

He starts to be more honest about himself around Cordelia and forms a close bond with Peridot, who starts to view him as a grandparent-like figure. And he's actually a really good parental figure??? He does relate to Cordelia, as she isn't as evil as she appears to be, so he'll certainly remember her and Peridot compared to the other villains that resurrected him.

Even Cucumber is different compared to the 99 other heroes he fought, as he's the first to want to try and talk things out with him. However, his more trigger-happy friends he's surrounded with instantly shut down that possibility for the time being.

Of course his friendship with Parfait continues to blossom as well, urging him to be honest around the Disaster Masters. This advice unfortunately blows up in his face when he tells the truth to Quakemaster, a Disaster Master whose immortal body has been whittled down thanks to water. He turns against the Nightmare Knight, who's forced to beat himself and…… oh, that's where the story stops for now.

We don't get to see how his relationship with Cordelia, Peridot, and Parfait progresses. His relationships with the Disaster Masters are up in the air—particularly Mistmaster, who he previously cursed to be in an eternal sorrow. And of course, his climactic showdown with Cucumber, Almond, and friends has never been reached.

Even though it's unlikely for his story to receive a proper conclusion, there's more than enough content for me to confidently say that the Nightmare Knight is without a doubt one of my favorite villains I have encountered in any webcomic.

Experience and Skill


The Nightmare Knight has been resurrected 100 times. While the details of most of his resurrections are unknown, you can count on them being periods of fear and chaos. As an immortal being, he's had innumerable years to master a vast variety of powers. He has a commanding and dominant presence, making him quite the intimidating leader.


I'd also like to point out just how cunning he is. For nearly 100 resurrections, he has successfully tampered with his Disaster Masters' attempts at furthering his power. Most of the masters are super competent in their own right, considering how they're fully capable of laying waste to entire kingdoms. For being able to do this for countless years right under their noses really expresses how intelligent he is.


Equipment


Forsaken Master Book

He made a book that’s able to activate the Stone Seal in the Crystal Kingdom to awaken the Forsaken Master, a being so powerful, fearsome, and unpredictable that even the Nightmare Knight himself is wary of it. He gave the book to Cordelia to to free the wily master…… but this turns out to be a prank. Trapped in the Stone Seal is Thebestmaster, who is amazing, yes, but he's just trying his best okay??? He isn't even one of the Knight's creations. The Nightmare Knight tricked Cordelia with the book in order to prove she’s worthy to keep around.


Abilities


Large Size (Type 1) and Size Control

Look at this absolute unit of a man. He's so tall that he even towers over Splashmaster! That isn't to say he's able to control his size at will. He is able to shrink down to a more human height whenever he wants.


Fire Manipulation

The flames of disaster!

Life Manipulation

The Nightmare Knight created the Disaster Masters. Seeing as each one has varying levels of loyalty to the Knight, I'm hesitant to cover them as an army in the blog. HOWEVER, because the Disaster Masters are extensions of the Knight's power, it's fair to say that every power they showcase, he's able to use too.

Teleportation

The Nightmare Knight is surrounded by this starry mist nearly at all time. He's able to envelop himself in the mist and teleport to wherever he desires.

BFR

The Knight has multiple means of remove people from a fight. Some constitute as their own hax, though some are attributed to abilities he already has like forcefully teleporting people away.


Immortality (Types 1 and 2)

When folks talk about resurrecting the knight, it isn’t so much as bringing him back to life, more so just freeing him from his Dream Sword seal. The Knight has been alive for literal generations and remains unkillable. Not even the Dream Sword can permanently take him down.


Magic

Magic is practiced in Dreamside, and the Nightmare Knight is no stranger to wielding magic himself.

Barrier Generation

It's revealed that the Nightmare Knight is responsible for creating this shield that blocked an entire city from being destroyed.

Levitation

The Nightmare Knight can surround people with purple stars to levitate their bodies.


Darkness Manipulation

The Knight demonstrates multiple times of being able to alter the lighting to make everything dark in his presence.


Hole Manipulation

The Knight can open giant holes in the ground he can close at will. It appears to be a pitch black void inside.

Telepathy

At one point, the Nightmare Knight telepathically communicates with Sir Carrot while unconscious. Carrot describes it as feeling a presence in his thoughts before waking up.

Self-Sustenance (Type 3)

The dad that never sleeps

Statistics Amplification Based on Fear

The origin of his power is fear. The more people are afraid of him, the stronger he is—and pretty much everyone is terrified of him.

Creation

He can spawn whatever he wants out of thin air, usually done with a magic hand wave.

Sealing

What if he seals you before you seal him???? He sealed Besty in a massive crystal called the Stone Seal, only able to be opened with the aforementioned book.

Lightning Manipulation

Lightning bolt!

Death Manipulation

Feels like it's been ages since an in-character qna was relevant enough to include in a blog. The events themselves aren't canon, but the details in them are.

Water Manipulation

7/10, too much water.

Emotion Manipulation and Curses

The Nightmare Knight cursed Mistmaster to be in a state of endless misery. He can undo this at any point, but he's too scared to see the ramifications.

Ice Manipulation

Talk about an Ice Age.

Water Breathing

Now, it's time to get into the abilities the Disaster Masters possess. As mentioned before, the Disaster Masters are all extensions of the Nightmare Knight's power, it's reasonable to assume he has their abilities too. Further evidence is is shown by how he shares powers with other Disaster Masters with his elemental abilities. Starting off wish Splashmaster, easily the least competent of the Masters. Still, he does have the ability to breathe underwater, so that should be noted.

Lasers

Noisemaster got them lasers.

Sound Manipulation

Although Noisemaster himself doesn't express this during his time on screen, Cucumber is able to combine his Disaster Stone with his wand to weaponize sound attacks.

Muting

Mutemaster has a pretty busted ability. While Noisemaster's all about loudness, Mutemaster keeps things quiet. So quiet, that he can make anything stop in place within a vastly broad area (note that this isn't freezing time, just makes things stop moving). This power also lets him silence anything caught in the muteness. Technology is affected by it, along with magic objects like Cucumber's wand.

Glitch Manipulation

Although strongest master Glitchmaster hasn't had a proper fight yet, she already displayed numerous powers. Of course, there's her trademark glitchiness. She can make pixelated visuals with her powers, or just turn everything in her vicinity all glitchy.

Hologram Projection/Shapeshifting

Okay, it isn't clear if if this is actually a hologram or if Glitchmaster is actually digitally shapeshifted—not even the wiki is sure about that. Regardless, Glitchmaster spoke through a digital projection of the Nightmare Knight, identical in appearance and voice.


Pain Manipulation

With the wave of the fake Nightmare Knight's hand, Glitchmaster sent a sharp pain throughout the heroes' bodies as a demonstration of her power.

Plant Manipulation

Now we're onto the trans icon herself, Rosemaster, and she's got some pretty sick abilities. Of course, can't mention Rosemaster without her plant powers. They do get empowered by the Hocus Crocus later on, but that's not something the Knight has on hand. Thus, any ability used in that form won't be covered. Rosemaster normally weaponizes vines to fight, but she's got one particularly killer application for her plant manip.

Limited Memory Manipulation

Rosemaster has the power to erase or alter the memories of anyone with a flower-based name utilizing an underground plant network. Very misfortunate for Flower Kingdom, but this extends to anyone from Doughnut Kingdom too, since some characters there are named after flowers.

Weather Manipulation

Kind of Mistmaster's whole deal. He's most comfortable making chilly storms, that or lightning storms.

Earth Manipulation

Time for da Quakemastah. He's can manipulate the ground, able to trap people with it.

Lava Manipulation

Quakemaster can control lava, even regenerate limbs with it.

Heart of Stone Curse

This is pretty similar to what Nightmare Knight does to Mistmaster if you needed more evidence that he should have his extensions' powers. Quakemaster has a curse that turns peoples’ hearts to stone, making them numb to hope. Soon, the rest of them will become stone too. Then they'll become one of Quakemaster’s rocky subordinates.


Resistances


Techniques


N/A


Feats


Overall


  • For 5,000 years, he has been sabotaging his Disaster Masters
  • Completely owned and intimidated the BLT Trio from messing with Princess Parfait
  • Genuinely a great father/grandparent figure to Peridot
  • He's can make a mean batch of cookies


Strength


Speed


Durability


  • Huh, nothing?? That's not right! >:O Check the scaling section for feats he upscales from.


Scaling


Cucumber & Friends

The Disaster Masters

Miscellaneous Scaling


Weaknesses

  • By defeating every Disaster Master, one can use the Disaster Stones to seal the Knight once more. Is it possible to kill him without beating all the Disaster Masters beforehand? I imagine so. The benefit of beating all Disaster Masters is having the ability to seal him, but no one in Dreamside is strong enough to kill him outright, even with the Dream Sword.
  • The origin of his power is fear. Thus, he’d be weak if Dreamside wasn’t so horrified by the mere concept of him
  • His own fear is also detrimental to him. The more he worries, the worse his problems start to seem
  • He considers his emotions a weakness, especially empathy for those he cares about.


Matchup Potential



Based on his concept alone, a Nightmare Knight matchup would go insanely hard. While I doubt his story is ever going to be wrapped up, and he still hasn't had his final battle yet, he has enough content that could be covered in a VS show. I'd mainly want an opponent that fits the whole “what if the generic fantasy Maou was secretly losing on purpose every time" angle. Although I haven't found a solid matchup for him yet, there is a potential opponent I'll keep an eye on……


The Nightmare Knight and Cucumber Quest have had a bit of a resurgence lately thanks to Deltarune. Totally reasonable considering how the author is a promotional & concept artist for Deltarune, but it's mostly thanks to the ROARING KNIGHT. Some people wondered if Toby Fox's fanmade theme for the Nightmare Knight would be repurposed in some way to fit the Roaring Knight. That theory wound up becoming true, and now people are really starting to compare both characters.

Is this another Sans vs Vriska situation where the matchup was made thanks to their theme songs (even though Megalovania fits Aradia way more than Vriska)? Oh absolutely, but considering Deltarune is only at chapter 4 by the time of writing this, there is potential for a really cool matchup to come out of this. Of course there's already the obvious general theme of Toby Fox-adjacent aura farming dark knight antagonists, but that's too simple for Nightmare Knight. The matchup's quality really depends on what direction the Roaring Knight's character goes.

Thankfully there already is some possible groundwork to cover. A core theme in Deltarune is challenging fate and the prophecy, exactly what the Nightmare Knight does. If the Roaring Knight somehow ties into this theme in the future, I could see this matchup possibly gaining way more traction. Of course, the fight dynamic already goes pretty hard and both have insane aura, so it's not like a fight between them wouldn't be epic anyway.


NEXT TIME ON WCAB… whenever I feel like it


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Nightmare Knight Brings Calamity to DEATH BATTLE!

                              Nightmare Knight, the Fated Ruler of Darkness Cucumber Quest was created by Gigi D.G., it can be read on  its ...