Ulantus believed that the painter and the warrior were merely the same paint on the canvas. The painter, the man who would push himself to bring new life and creativity into the brush, capturing and taking parts of life's glory into a canvas or a blank city wall where it could be seen. The warrior did the same, but the paint and oils he used to paint the canvas were the blood of the enemy and his brush... the blade. In that thinking he was trying in some sort of way to believe that what he was doing was ok. "It was merely art" he would think as he strode across battlefield to battlefield, but no matter where he went the paint followed. His creativity burned the strength of passion into his art, like Paradise's light shining down on the lucky few chosen to be part of Life's supple grace. Either way, no matter how he looked at it, he could not look away from the grotesque scene of him: It was not art.
Ulantus strode before the empty battlefield, the grey and purple grass pushing against his brown-strapped combat boots before he simply just began to walk forward. The battle was over. It had been 3 hours of constant fighting before the Outlander army decided to leave. He was unsure of why, but his mind was distracted. He cared not for why they left, just that they had.
His clothes were muddy; his linked-together chain mail armor was so worn that any formidable force against it would break the rusted chains on it. He pushed away his long brown and gray hair, trying to see more of this broken place. The moon stood above the army of the dead, like trying to pry its already terrible curse onto those who did not deserve it... Why did the battle have to be at night?
He knew outlanders didn't care where or when they fought, whether that be in the Light's grace, or the horrible twin curse of the night and her luminous sister that stood on the brink of the sky's wonders, horrible reminders of a time history asked them to forget, but how could they forget the time when only the concepts couldn't guard the rest of mankind? Night meant that it was harder for them to fight, since most humans hated the night. Outlanders knew all too well what tricks they could pull, but Ulantus knew that out in the Midlands, it was only survival.
Ulantus looked down, using only the moon's light to guide his vision. The bodies of the dead intrigued him in the same way that a landscape captured the artist’s vision. He saw a man, clearly human, as part of his skin was swirled with assorted colors other than the solid jade that his skin already was. It was a clear gray so that his skin swirled with what looked like almost painted wind on his skin. Why was it that humans were so beautiful, yet died so horrifically? His skin, while colorful, was starting to drain. He was beginning to look like Dull, which was to say that his color was fading away from his skin. It happened when men bled out or died.
It was odd watching a man die in front of you; if the blood didn't scare you enough from the life of a man and all that he was worth, go straight to the dirty floor where the rest of the Grubsmak would skitter across the ground, then watching all his color, the pinnacle of Creation's design, go straight back to The Final Paradise. That man would be happier there, but the chance that a fighter like him would go down to a place of serene light was too little and too late.
The body was already turning grey, which meant that all his color was gone, and his blood, the same green and grey color as his skin, stained a big puddle around him. His mind and his spirit are already gone.
Ulantus reached down, touching his fingerless-gloved hand to the man. He did not know why he was so enthralled with a man's color; it made him sick in a way, but there was a beauty in death that he knew his mother would hate. He began a small swirling motion with some of the man's blood trailed on his finger like a brush. He swirled that color on top of the man's skin, where the armor was ripped off and it only showed his skin. He wrote in a small glyph, a symbol meant to respect the dead, though unknown to most; when you see as many dead as you do alive and have been from battlefield to battlefield, you pick up a trick or two.
The glyph was a half-circle, with about a half-inch crescent-like shape that went through that half-circle, finished with a set of three dots in a triangular position above the entire glyph. This means "retribution.". After finishing the glyph, he simply stood up and pressed the still-bloodied finger against his chest and swirled in the same motion as the glyph, meaning that he had finished the small glyph and was respecting the dead. The man was about as respected as you could be on the battlefield, with too many bodies to try and bury the ones you did not know like a brother. So Ulantus walked away, satisfied with the man’s burial.
He continued to walk across the battlefield; he could not remember where he was. He would get too focused on his work to really care about where and when you would fight. As a warrior, you just did it, no questions asked. The green and purple-tipped grass probably meant that he was near Indigonar, their grass having a particular purple and blue hue to it. He kept looking toward the area itself, watching some of the rest of the Kursoonian army pick up extra weapons that were still in decent condition and finishing off any outlanders that played dead; they liked to trick common soldiers like that. There Kursoonian Silver, Blue, and Cyan-colored uniforms shone bright enough from the colorless night, and that unity almost made him remember why he did what he did. But fighting enemies and protecting his kingdom was not the reason he had gone to battle.
Inspiration. It was the defining word of the 43 years that he was given as his position as a painter, an artist. He only lived to find and procure these moments of his life that defined his art, his expression, and the work he was born to do. Ulantus did not believe in things like choice; his fate had guided him far towards the work that he knew was good. His murals upon the barrack walls reminded him of the way he went and how far every single piece of work meant to him.... But it was never enough.
Art was an expression of the strength of men. Others could mimic art, could mimic the work of the painter and the warrior, but humans were the only ones who created. He could only think about the only time he had been in The Grand Hall.
He had never seen anything so beautiful, so alive. Every statue, every piece of art, even the food, had a life of its own within everything he could consume, whether that be with his eyes, his mouth, or his nose; it did not matter. Everything he had seen at that moment created a place in his mind, an ideal that he had been trying to reach ever since that very day. He was lucky his Embody made him become an artist, a painter more specifically, which he believed to be a blessing of Creation itself. He had pursued that life ever since that day on his 12th marking day, and ever since, he had not reached that level.
How could a student become a master, or an expert become a professional? He did not understand. Nothing he has done since that day has ever come close, even a fraction of what he had seen, and thus he has nothing to truly show. Others called him talented; many called him gifted, but nobody called him perfect; nobody would want his art displayed in The Grand Hall, which meant his art was nobody's. That was why he became a soldier of Kursoon.
A soldier's life was different from an artist's, or a cook's, or even a writer's. While a soldier and a painter had similar ideals and similar jobs, they lived different lives in place of each other. That could give him the inspiration that he needed to become the master; using the battlefield as a canvas meant that he could make human life into a work of art.
But the more time he spent lingering from battle to battle, watching men and women alike die in place of the enemies, the more he understood the battlefield, the more he yearned for them, like an artist in their own mind. Maybe he was mad, mad in the head from the constant battles and blows he took from each fight, but he was not yet dead, and that almost made him think that he was mad, but not mad enough to find himself tied to a pole and strung up until the madness stopped.
And his art... He remembered a recent piece he had done. It was only a few weeks ago; the fight was deadly, losing over a third of the forces they had. There was an eerie silence inside the barracks hall after the fight. He had been sitting inside, licking his wounds, and watching over the many soldiers that were either too busy and stubborn to die, or they took it as it was and relaxed; whether they died or not didn't matter to them. As he sat upon his Coolan's wool bed, he looked towards the other soldiers in their beds.
The room was big, as it was a bedroom. It had a rectangle-like shape, and each bed only stood about two feet from each other, which meant each soldier kept their stuff underneath. The whole room itself was a drab brown and gray, like a Dull, which he had always hated. There were small lights in the room, candles of colorful blue glow bright into the room, giving the room itself a light blue to everyone, though it was harder to tell. Humans tended to outshine candles and lights; it was simply how it was. The room was filled with the moaning and groaning of soldiers trying to spread their pain as much as they could to the ears that would listen and almost try and share the burden; at least that is what he believed.
There in the light of the blue candle, he saw her. Her skin was purple with streaks of gold that caressed her face and her arms, and her hair had a similar golden color, with the tips having the same intricate color as her skin. She was damaged, beyond a lot of others who were in the room, and had bandages and other supports helping her sit up in her bed. She had a shallow breath in her, and her body was moving despite whatever doctor or surgeon would tell her otherwise; she was clearly too stubborn to die. The bandages were mostly over her chest and her legs. She was missing her left arm, but other than that she got off better than most, which she had most likely realized.
There was a moment when she sat up to get herself in a better position, as she was leaning her head forward to give herself a slight relaxation, he assumed, and it was then that the inspiration grabbed him. She was beautiful, in such a way that the blue candlelight and her skin glistened in that position, and the bandages, which still had soaked up a lot of the blood and staunched the bleeding, almost gave her form an ephemeral form that took over the scene; others didn't notice, but he did.
He grabbed the supplies underneath his bed, and his work began. He took a small wet palette, meant to hold and keep paints wet inside so they wouldn't dry, and began his work with small, thin brushes that he had gotten from his father. Minutes and hours passed as he worked on small, intricate details, starting with the body. Streaks of purple amidst the thin shade of blue that worked its way into the room. Continuing with thin streaks of gold hair, and the streaks that only he could see within the viewpoint. He was not directly in front of her; he was to her right, and thus the entire piece came in at a 30-degree angle as the light shined onto the left side of her body, trying to contrast her vivid detail.
He was in a trance that day, not just within this art, but the entire day began as a blur, only to this very moment when he continued his work, even when she slept, when the night’s curse was only used to hearing the small, painful moans of the rest of the injured. He kept a small ordinary candle that continued the flame and kept the painting procedure up until the day began its marvelous rise.
He had finished that piece, tucking it away in a safe trunk that he kept; it was his best work yet... and still, it was still nobody. It still could not, would not capture the power and the life that was brought into each picture. It was still not enough, and that was the greatest problem in his mind.
There was a small movement he heard behind him, not the same movement a soldier made, walking and stepping into mud and the blood of their comrades, a stride. A kind of walk that you heard in the dead of night, and then when you looked behind, a Nightwalker stood behind you, taking you to the Final Paradise.
It was still too dark, too dark for human eyes to see through, but even worse, in all his backlog thinking, he could not feel the gentle press of the Storm's gentle blessing. Rain began to pour down onto the sky, giving every soldier nearby a sour mood that he could hear within the area... But there was a bigger problem. There was an eerie silence in the air, the kind that drove men and women alike crazy, but it was too much for most.
Ulantus looked around quickly, trying to piece together what that awkward and disturbing silence came from, but all that came from that looking was the misty visions that the rain had made, a true blessing to others. But that changed when a small sound was made, distinct from the soldier’s moans and groans. This sound was familiar in a way, but it was too different, like the shifting and skulking of a thief in the night... He realized now what was going on.
In an instant he heard it, their war cry. An almost terrifying animal-like scream that let everyone around them know that they were coming. Every soldier around them paused in the same way that he did, but they began to reach for their weapons; they knew exactly what Creation was waiting for them.
There was a scream in the freezing rain air that shocked Ulantus out of the stupor he was put in trying to understand where they were. He looked back over towards the battlefield; he had failed to notice the surrounding edge of the battle itself. There was a forest nearby, a forest of dense trees that swirled with an ash-like color and thin lines of blue that indicated where it would take water towards its system-like veins. Those were Hikoma trees, and they stood on the edge, which made it so each tree was spread close to each other. Too close, which meant that it would be much harder to see in between the spaces of the trees and anything and anyone that could be seen. With the sound of the rain, even if gentle, it meant that each individual person could be quiet, and no one would hear a quiet approach... They knew.
Ulantus looked towards the scream, and through the faint misty vision of the rain, he could make out an Outlander... No, there were many. An Outlander stood above a man with a wicked axe buried deep into the man's shoulder, so deep that it went down into half of his chest. Ulantus guessed the man died only a few moments after his scream echoed through the nighttime rain.
They had hides like armor, which looked like it was knit deeply into their skin. Every man and woman Outlander wore similar deep brown and deep-colored hides, whether dyed or not with paints and oils he did not know. Their skin was like many humans, colored in certain parts, but unlike most humans, their skin was still mostly Dull. They wore and carried wicked weapons, axes and swords of deep cuts and curves that would gut a man deep. Their weapons were always covered in other natural things found in the forest, mostly poisons and other things that made it much harder for anyone to get back up. They did not wear head armor; they wore their hair down or braided, and their faces were painted, not like a human at birth; it was more unnatural.
The worst part was their face. They carried these wicked expressions of both pain and exhilaration every time he saw them; both men and women alike in the battle made each fight and death on them look like they were thrilled, like taking a man's life was the best thing they could have done. Their teeth shined in a way that made it feel like everything wrong in the world stood before you. They struck quickly with poison and deadly weapons in the dead of night. They might have been human like him, but they were not human.
Ulantus ripped off the small, thin leather strap that was holding back his short sword and began to charge towards the area. There were many of them; he was not sure how many Outlanders were there, but now he didn't care. In the moment he began to run, another four people had gotten butchered from their weapons. The screams of the dead echoed through the icy rain as he took out another small knife from his belt and held it with his left hand, his stronger hand holding the short sword. There were other soldiers beginning to charge through the battle, but they were unprepared and not ready to fight another battle. That was one of the biggest problems with Outlander raids: you could never tell when they struck, and when you tried to prepare when they did, they often never attacked. It was always a constant struggle of when and where for Outlanders, and thus he preferred fighting Luong or men that deemed that they were better than others.
He came charging into an Outlander woman who wielded a two-handed double axe; it was covered in a deep obsidian, almost paint-like substance that was stained deep into both blades of the axe. The rain was not washing away the substance, as if it was stained into the blade itself.
His instincts kicked in; a simple fighter with a double-bladed axe meant he had to be quick. He always had to be quick, but for this to end quickly, he needed to be out of this fight and heading to his other comrades. With a quick glance, he took notes of every single person he could before engaging in combat.
Four Outlanders around him, each with a wicked weapon just as deadly as the last, each stained with that purple discoloration embedded deep into their weapons. A double-bladed axe, a wicked slashing scimitar, a flail that whipped around that disgusting color, and two small knives: each Outlander carried one of these weapons, knitted together in a square position meant to make sure that each of them could watch the back of the other.
He charged in, keeping both the short sword and knife drawn out to keep his momentum into his whirling attacks. With a grunt, the woman wielding the double-bladed axe shouted in a language Ulantus could not understand, but he understood the intent behind it: "Charge.".
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The woman placed the axe above her head and slammed it down with extraordinary force, but not before Ulantus quickly used his momentum to leap over. His body might have been older, but his mind was still sharp, and he has been in enough battles with Outlanders to know that the tactics do not change, just the body. That jump over the axe gave him enough momentum to bring out the short sword into a quick pierce, which hit directly into the eye of the woman. Before he knew it, she was dead, but he was carried down with her as the body instantly began falling along with his movement.
The others spent no time worrying or caring for the body; they knew that she was dead, which meant that vengeance was necessary, and they began to quickly bring up their weapons for a strong counterattack. Ulantus landed on the ground before rolling forward past one of the men wielding the flail, and he ripped his short sword out of the woman's eye socket.
"Fast steps; any attack I take is a risk to taking more from the others." Ulantus thought quickly, trying to gather the remainder of his thoughts before he took in more information. He quickly leaped back before the others could charge into him, trying to keep any distance away from the savages. Their faces and their brows were knitted in a boiling rage he had seen before; this was going to be the hardest part. An Outlander who had just seen the death of their comrades, whose blood boiled with the rage of the Storm itself, would risk the bodily harm of themselves just to end their foe. Was it simply just part of their tradition? He did not know, but it was bad either way.
They approached him together in a group of three, all approaching him as their purple-stained blade almost gleamed in the rain as much as their eyes towards him. Before he could think about what to do next, they charged. The man with the flail, his brown and green hide armor, quickly became the center of his vision as the flail went down in an arc towards his head. Ulantus sidestepped before the woman with the wicked scimitar came into side cleave towards his broken chain mail. He had to act quickly as he took a strong step back to avoid the cleave, right before the man with two knives leaped forward and struck downward before Ulantus deflected the two knives.
The rain was starting to pour harder, and any light from the torches burning was snuffed, meaning that Ulantus had to take care of these three before trying to do anything else. "I need to get rid of that man with knives and force myself through." His thoughts were rushed, trying to get any sense of organization before all three of them rushed.
The flail swung down in an arc, just barely grazing the side of his face as the spikes on the ball ripped parts of his flesh open to expose it to the open air. Blood leaked free from his cheek as he was too busy dodging around the man with knives, who was barreling at him with fast jabs and thrusts from his twin knives. Ulantus felt the formidable force of each Outlander as they inched closer and closer to him. Would anybody else notice he was in trouble? How far was anyone else?
"OUTLANDERS! IT'S AN AMBUSH!" He screamed with the remainder of breath he had taken just to dodge out of the way of these wild attacks. They were quick and wild swings from each weapon that felt like each swing could take off his torso with a single hit. Outlanders tended to work in singular groups, but when they did work in groups, they were an unstoppable force. He could barely, just barely, hear clashing metal and the screams of the wounded on this battlefield as every single soldier was most likely fighting for their lives.
Moments passed as he dodged and weaved between the strikes of the three Outlanders trying to pounce on him. Their formation was too strong. Each Outlander, even without the axe-wielding woman, had no gaps in between their strong, defensible maneuver. Had they known this? Even the other Outlanders he fought never had these sorts of tactics. Sure, they swung their weapons the same, but it was this new formation they had made.
Ulantus could not make any progress, and his body was starting to feel that tiredness that always came from long, extended battles; it did not help that he was not in his prime anymore. Even if he were, he was not even sure if that version of him could take care of these three either. He was lucky the other one barely noticed him anyway; she must have been new; otherwise, that plan and that kill would not have worked, and he would have been split down the middle. He had to be vicious and start taking some kind of initiative. But would it work? Would they just still press the offensive as he strikes, forgoing even his defense? Those questions had to be buried deep within his mind, as it was the only real option he had, and if he had tried to bring those questions to light, he would not have had the confidence to win the fight. So, he buried those thoughts away, buried away with thoughts of his life. He needed every thought; every action pushing forward to kill and wake up the next day. He had to wake up to make himself perfect. He had to find perfection.
He looked back into the group of three as the man with the flail came up into another vertical upward swing towards Ulantus' chin. Ulantus took that moment as he forced himself forward past the flail. It hit into his chain mail, but it was not a strong enough force to pierce through the armor and into the flesh, so Ulantus only felt the force of the attack, and he kept all the momentum. He thrust the blade upward into the man's skull as it pierced into the man's chin and straight towards his brain. There was truly little point in going for the other organs. The hide, while still ugly, had a toughness to it that gave Outlanders a certain defense that made short weapons like his an almost nonexistent effect. As the blood gushed through the man's head, Ulantus ripped out the blade and thrust it towards the woman with the scimitar.
She was too quick. The blade landed into the shoulder of her armor and just barely pierced the skin beneath. Ulantus did not give up the attack as he felt the rush of an attack from behind as the man with the twin knives went for a diving strike into his abdomen. Ulantus noted how the woman with the scimitar was already roiling her weapon back to make a massive vertical downward cut into his chest. Ulantus steeled himself for the attack as he let go of the short sword and ducked it down. The woman's blade did not hit the other man, but the force of her attack left her stumbling forward, same with the man with the knives. Ulantus took the knife in his hand and spun into an upward sideways swing, which hit the man in the head with the knife. The man instantly slumped back as the knife was deeply imbedded into his head.
Ulantus quickly grabbed one of the twin blades before spinning back towards the last remaining woman. She was already going into a thrust after getting her wind back from the last attack. Ulantus did not think he only pushed his instincts out as far as he could as he already pushed himself into her as he went for a pierce into her neck.
He felt a sudden sharp pain thrust into his lower abdomen, and the cold started to take over. His instincts were stronger, and as that pain exploded into his stomach, he came into a strong thrust right into her neck. He looked into her eyes as the knife was poking out on the other side of her; he could feel that she got that thrust into his stomach. He watched the life escape her eyes; her skin became Dull as her grip on the sword left, and she fell on the blood-soaked ground... dead.
He ripped the sword out from his abdomen as he breathed heavily in the rain and the frigid air. He felt the wound trying to piece together the damage and how bad it was. It was not too bad, life-threatening if not treated, but he had time. That was good. There was still a dull pain that came from his stomach, which must have been the poison. Their poison was deadly, but it could be cured with quick medical attention. He picked up the knife out of the woman's neck as the blood, a deep orange, waterfalled out of her neck.
He did not feel bad; he did not feel much of anything anymore when people died. There was little for him to feel, and that was good. Feelings bogged down his creativity; it weighed on his soul like a man lifting a boulder, and thus it made his art worse. He still was not there yet, and he had to make it...That perfection still waited for him.
"I have to keep moving... At least back to the—” There was a sudden aching pain in his left shoulder. Ulantus looked back at an arrow piercing through his left shoulder. He could feel the blood pool from the wound as he looked back. There was an archer, a woman in lighter hide-like clothing; he could barely see her. Was she waiting there that entire time just to find a perfect spot? She must have been new; she missed his head by only a few inches.
This time, the poison was getting worse; that dull, aching pain turned into a searing, throbbing pain that was beginning to set its course. That was bad; he needed medical attention now before anything got worse. He looked forward as he began to move, at first into a sprint, but the pain was starting to take its effect, and his running became slower. The rain was still coming down, making it hard to see through the misty vision and now the dulling of his senses. He was too overcome with pain, the dulling of his senses, that he barely noticed the now-approaching Outlanders.
There were many of them, too many of them. He had only moved sixty feet or so towards the barracks, and yet. There were dozens of them, too many to count but enough to know that this was not only any normal ambush. They had come to destroy. The bodies of the dead surrounded him; he had not even noticed how many dead they had lost, and now... There was nobody.
Ulantus looked, but he did not look at any of the Outlanders, the ones that began to charge him and what he assumed to be the rest of the soldiers. He looked towards the sky, the beautiful clouds that sent down the rain that blessed the rest of Fala'Mor. But not him...No. He looked past those barbarians running towards him and the rest of the humans awaiting death and reached for a small vial in the side of his pocket. He broke the small latch that housed the Elixir, the answer.
He didn't think that using it was the solution; maybe that option was so buried deep in his mind that he couldn't even think of using it as an option. He had already used it today, which meant that no matter what, he would be dead after he expended it all. He didn't see death as an option; he still held onto the idea that he could live and create something perfect. That thought was erased from his mind as he quickly spun the tap on the vial, its color changing as it moved.
"May Life guide me towards The Final Paradise, leave my sorrows to the Wind, and may the Light guide my wicked heart," Ulantus said as his voice began to crack and break due to the poison. It was a prayer. The prayer you would say when you knew your life was beginning to end.
Ulantus pushed the Elixir into his thigh as the liquid quickly went into his system. Blot had a way of easily moving through the human body. His eyes opened suddenly as the pain began to vanish away; he felt every nerve and feeling in his body begin to get more sensitive. Every fiber of pain began to wash away as he breathed in slowly. He could feel that liquid power gushing through his veins as he could almost feel everything around him.
Everything began to look more colorful; his eyes focused on the sights and sounds of everything. The sounds of Outlanders screaming in a language he could not understand, the heavy footsteps of a charging army, the gentle rain pushing down the grass. It was all so beautiful to him. He could feel his Embody surging with the power as the Blot was ready.
He thanked the storm itself that it was raining... Because there was another reason, he became a soldier. He concentrated just for a moment; the power he had once wielded surged even more than anything had done before. Was this what it meant to OD? This was one of the best feelings Ulantus had ever felt. Like a sudden surge of power wisped around his mind, like someone or some unknown force was guiding his hand.
The Outlanders stopped the powerful charge as they looked forward to seeing Ulantus' body glowing faintly for but a moment. Then, like a torch being ignited by a blue flame, the light and color of his skin ignited into a powerful light that shined all around him. Some of them were speaking in the same language he did not understand; some of them pointed out and were backing off. They feared him. In the crowd, as loud as their voice could strain, he heard one of them; they spoke in a rough and gnarled accent, but the word that came from their mouth was something that every person could understand.
"Engrave..."
Ulantus held up his hand as the rainwater began to fall. He could feel every single droplet of water land on his skin and near his armor. He concentrated, allowing the water to flow and shape itself into a spike, hard as iron but flowing like water. Then he attacked.
He commanded the water near his feet to move, and it did. It condensed together as it latched out to the nearest Outlander only about fifteen feet away. The water quickly grew to a thin spike that pierced through the Outlander's heart, and it quickly went back to liquid. The Outlander fell to the ground as the others looked at him in shock. The Outlanders began to run towards him, but he felt the surge of power return to him. The water, the rain would listen to him and would follow his commands. He felt like The Storm itself as he swiped his hand in the direction of the charging Outlanders.
The water on the floor on the grass began to change into thin spikes that rocketed upwards towards the Outlanders, piercing into their faces and bodies. The water was too thin; it pierced into their skin and unleashed out from the other side of their heads; it was too fast and too powerful. The other Outlanders began to charge towards him, some firing their arrows coated in the poison, but the water would not let that happen. The rain began to shield him; bubbles of pure water out from the sky began to move themselves towards the arrows, stopping their momentum and killing the arrows' flight.
Ulantus commanded the bubble to release the arrow, telling it to fly towards the archers. The bubble of water surged as it began to twist the arrow, a tiny whirlpool building inside the bubble. At the apex of the spinning arrow, it unleashed the bundle of arrows being held within as it surged forward and struck the archers in the back. They fell dead as the others began to rush and charge.
Despite the screams of the Outlanders, the blood and death that scattered across the battlefield, Ulantus felt peace. Nothing in the world could remove this feeling of pure euphoria that surged around his body, like everything in the world revolved around him. This sense of pure bliss felt with his body as all the pain of the poison and his wounds began to melt away, though in the back of his mind he knew that Blot could not heal. This feeling and power that surged within him was a fleeting thing and would die out as soon as he used everything within. Then he would fade away. That saddened him in a sense, but there was peace to it. If he could get the people away and save what he could, he would be content, and that would be fine. If this is what perfection was, if it was just a fraction of what it could feel like... then maybe he had already felt it, and he could die a happy man.
He surged more power into a small puddle of water that he commanded to rise. The water began to rise; it thinned out like a snake and began to flow and move in slow rise towards Ulantus. He watched it as if it were standing before him, as this snake-like water awaited his command. Never was his mastery of his power ever so refined, like it was part of him all this time and he could finally tap into it. It was like his power was...alive.
"Go," Ulantus emotionlessly stated as the water, like it could hear, surged forward in its snake-like form. While it moved through the air, its head became sharper, like a pointed edge or a sword. The Outlander tried to push past the water-like snake, but its body became rigid as its body went straight through one of their hearts. Before the others could move away from it, it rushed through the body of one, into another. It moved like an arrow, with the speed and precision of a blade. It was a thirsting weapon that sought out its own enemy, and Ulantus controlled it.
The weapon moved through Outlanders; no matter how fast they ran or how close they got, its water body moved faster than any arrow as it pierced through their heart, and they fell to the weapon. Ulantus felt the rain begin to subside, but that did not stop him. The power was draining; it would not be long before his power ran out, but as each Outlander perished before him, he felt the determination push more into his heart than ever before.
The snake passed through each individual Outlander as they fell, one by one. They were losing numbers by the second as some of them began to flee. His power was starting to seriously wane, as the numbers of the dead rose into the forties; the snake retracted back towards him, as if it were content with the carnage it had created.
The rest of the Outlanders, those that survived long enough to run away, escaped back through the forest as the rain began to let up after they started to leave. Ulantus looked ahead as the water began to subside near him, the rain stopped falling, and the moon could be seen back, another curse upon his life.
The power began to drain from his body, like a bucket with a leak in it; he would eventually fall dead; it was inevitable. He could start to feel it; the water no longer listened to his commands; it was dead as much as he was going to be. The color of his skin began to drain; that constant blue of skin began to darken even though the tips of his fingers began to turn pale gray. The colors of the sky and that energy that he felt within his body were no longer there; his vision grew dark from the poison still circulating in his system. The pain came back in a sudden burst that sent him to his knees as he stared up at the Moon.
Ulantus could not remember what the Moon's name was, and if he could, he would have cursed the thing for bringing the Outlanders to them. He would no longer create works of art; that perfection that he would strive for would be gone, his life work forever forgotten to the strands of time. In a way, which was for the best, there was never going to be something he could create that would ever come close to the things he saw. He would not even be able to see something so beautiful ever again.
It was that moment, when the pain was almost too much to bear, he arched his head up in pain as he saw that his veins were glowing with a faint shifting color; it was a sign that he only had a few moments. Soon his veins would burst with power, and he would fade away. He looked back over the battlefield. There, among the bodies of the dead soldiers, he saw a singular figure. It was the woman.
The same woman that battled in their last fight. The same woman who had gleaming purple skin highlighted with powerful gold. The same woman who was his best work yet. She was walking down close to him, using her good right arm to support another woman who was wounded. The other woman had deep apricot skin and beautiful silver eyes that gleamed as she looked at the woman who supported her. Ulantus had never seen it before, something so beautiful.
The glow of the moon glistening over their war-beaten skin made them two look magical, like the Concepts themselves chose them to be together in the same moment. They walked together, supporting each other as the battle had finished. They survived.
Ulantus felt water streaking across his cheeks. Was the rain returning? No, he felt the final tears race down his cheeks as he watched the two walk together. There was beauty to both, the kind no painting, statue, or any work of art could capture. Ulantus began to close his eyes, the tiredness taking him over as he remembered the two.
They were beautiful; they were shining... They were perfect.