*Screech!*
One, two, three... six, ten – the count of creatures facing Lord Van increased with each passing second.
"Die!"
*Screech!*
"Ha!"
*Screech!*
As the sole mage in the village, Lord Van bore the weighty responsibility of leading the charge in battle. Unlike the stereotypical mage, Lord Van couldn't rely on casting spells from a safe distance; he had to confront his foes in close quarters. If Ethan were here to witness the ongoing battle, he would gain a profound appreciation for the lessons taught by Professor Eveline. This particular situation served as a prime example of a mage's necessity to combine agility and multitasking mastery in order to defend one self by casting devastating spells, a crucial skill when handling such adversaries."
Time crawled at an agonizing pace for Lord Van, an eternity passing with each fleeting moment. No matter how many foes he vanquished, their ranks swelled ceaselessly. As he cleared one space, two more surged forth to take its place. It appeared to him that this relentless conflict would persist until every last ounce of his mana had been expended, leaving no marks on the ever-expanding canvas of darkness Infront of him.
In this dire moment, Lord Van's sole glimmer of hope lay in the fact that the canvas had not yet succumbed entirely to darkness. A fleeting glance backward revealed that some patches remained untouched leaving behind patches of white, adorned with scattered crimson red marks. As long as this canvas wasn't completely shrouded in pitch-black hues, there remained a sliver of opportunity to reclaim it in the fine colors of the heavens.
As Lord Van scrutinized the ever changing canvas of darkness, something had caught his attention. He realized he wasn't alone in his quest to alter its composition. While he sought to imbue it with the vibrant colors of hope and victory, a mysterious figure in the distance engaged himself to deepen the darkest of hues, imbuing it further with the colors of death, pushing him back against his attempts to intervene in this enigmatic artistical work.
In a fleeting moment, Lord Van wielded his wand as the brush, infusing the canvas with the holiest of hues by dispelling a dark creature. However, the mark he applied could only endure for a brief moment, for the figure opposing him swiftly painted over his effort, restoring the patch to its former, shadowy state.
"This horde... it's under the control of that entity!"
Discerning that the painter lurking at the rear of the advancing horde was the mastermind behind this chaotic artistry, he came to a profound realization. All his struggles and efforts would have been in vain if he continued to engage in this ceaseless battle to paint over the canvas. The key was not to paint, but to remove the painter. As long as this opposing artist remained, he would perpetually contend for spots on the canvas that were destined to be his contender's.
However, this realization stirred not hope, but turmoil within Lord Van. Confronting the artist head-on could prove to be a dangerous gamble, one where he would dip his brush into the inking colors of risk. Advancing toward the artist might enable him to paint a straight, vertical line across the expansive canvas. However, this approach risked reaching the very edge of the canvas that he had to protect, leaving the untouched portion exposed to the dripping of the yet dried painting of dark hues. The path ahead was fraught with perilous choices.
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"..." Lord Van's expression remained silent and contemplative, akin to a painter envisioning the essence of their art before ever touching the brush. He questioned himself, wondering if the endeavor was truly worth it. Would this painting become his best work yet, or would it descend into his worst creation? Could it propel him to unparalleled success, or would it lead him down an irreversible path of no return?
In that decisive moment, Lord Van's expression changed once again. His eyes, once darting around his surroundings in a frantic attempt to cover as many spots as possible, now fixated solemnly on a specific area of the canvas. With his brush pressed firmly against the canvas, leaving a trail of paint residue in its wake, he acted swiftly. In one fluid motion, he drew the quickest and straightest line he could muster, pushing it to the very bottom of the canvas.
"Soil's Ambit!"
Beneath his feet, the earth rose, entwining itself around his boots, as if he were mounting a saddle. Riding this carriage of soil, he ventured forth along the path of darkness that lay before him, using the sturdy, expansive soil to push it aside, crafting a protective ambit.
His sole focus fixated on the figure positioned at the farthest reaches of the horde. Lord Van's unwavering gaze refused to waver from the figure's location, and as he made the daring choice to wager it all on fate, his concerns for his soldiers and his people faded into the background. In that crucial moment, his mind harbored only one unyielding thought: to forcibly displace the painter from the canvas.
Finally, Lord Van arrived at what he believed to be the origin of the painting, the place where the brush had first made contact with the canvas. However, as he came face to face with what he had presumed was the painter, he was confronted with something entirely unexpected, something he had never taken into account.
"No..."
The creature before him transcended the malevolence of the seemingly harmless creatures he had battled earlier. It sat amidst the roots of a chopped tree, appearing as if it had never been painting on a canvas atop an easel to begin with, but rather, it sinisterly wielded a pen on a sheet of paper. This being possessed imposing red eyes, as if it could discern the very course of this falsity of an artistic battle. Its body featured mandibles akin to an ant, while its head bore grotesque deformities, as though the mind within harbored a brood of other minds, pregnant with unthinkable thoughts. Its limbs bore an eerie fusion of human-like and otherworldly features, with fingers and toes three times the length of a human's. The skin exhibited a grotesque shade of brown, adorned with small, menacing scales that added to its unsettling appearance.
"It can't be..."
This being, neither fully human nor entirely other, stood as a testament to the surreal and nightmarish depths of what humanity knew as the 'dark creature's'
Instead of a painter, the being Lord Van faced wasn't engaged in drawing but rather playing a game of tic-tac-toe. What Lord Van had perceived as a straightforward black and white drawing on the canvas held an entirely different significance for the entity before him.
"This isn't something I can beat..."
"Why!?"
Unbeknownst to him, with his act of drawing that line, he unintentionally paved the way for his own defeat. While he had sought to apply the hues of victory, the being skillfully marked the O's in the canvas's correct paths.
"Why is a being of your rank doing in this place! Shouldn't you be within the confines of the Dark Continent!?"
The moment Lord Van stood before him was precisely when the three O's were triumphantly placed, sealing his fate.
"Why is an A-Rank Threat here!?"
O O O
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https://i.imgur.com/edjjChf.png [https://i.imgur.com/edjjChf.png]