Man of darkness, according to report (6)
I believe the answer is:
knight
'man' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'darkness according to report' is the wordplay.
'darkness' becomes 'night' (night is a kind of darkness).
'according to report' indicates a 'sounds like' (homophone) clue.
'night' is a homophone of 'KNIGHT'.
'of' is the link.
(Other definitions for knight that I've seen before include "Chesspiece - person dubbed" , "Jumping chess piece" , "He's a Sir in the UK" , "Chess piece shaped like hors's head" , "Honour" .)