“The Verdant Marsh stands again. Your time is up, Warden.” Nydalea said.
The Warden's hook swept toward her in a dismissive gesture. "Silence, whelp." It stepped closer to Clive, staring at him menacingly. “An Artist? What manner of deception is this? You wield reality itself.”
Clive raised his brush and pointed it at the Warden. “Call it whatever you want. The result’s the same.” He gestured at the transformed landscape around them. “Your corruption ends here.”
“You meddle with forces beyond your comprehension,” the Warden snarled. “The Demon King will not suffer such interference. You must be destroyed.”
The air around the Warden shimmered with malevolent energy
[Warden of the Dead]
Power level: 100
- Nearly identical to Huntmaster Kell's measurements, and almost double his own 60. He tightened his grip on his brush. This was going to be a difficult battle.
The Warden's hook swept through the air in a wide arc, trailing purple mist that hissed in its shadow. Nydalea parried with her spear, but the hook latched onto the shaft with a metallic scrape. The Warden yanked backward, jerking Nydalea off balance and pulling her towards it. Its lantern swung towards her head like a mace.
Nydalea released her spear and dropped into her transformation. She used the Warden's own pull to launch herself at its throat, claws extended.
[Warden used Death Binding]
The hook reversed direction mid-swing. Chain links shrieked against each other as the weapon whipped around Nydalea's cougar form. The metal coils tightened, binding her hind legs together and pinning her front paws against her chest.
She twisted desperately, claws grinding against the links, but each struggle only drew the chains tighter. The metal bit into her fur. She hit the ground with a heavy thud, the impact driving the air from her lungs.
[Warden used Soul Drain]
The Warden knelt beside Nydalea's bound form, bringing his lantern close to her struggling body. Purple energy arced between the glass and the metal chains, crackling like electricity. Where the malevolent light touched her golden fur, the color leached away in spreading patches, leaving behind a sickly gray that looked more like ash than living coat.
Lucia pulled a vial from her belt, then froze. The cougar thrashed against the metal coils, too close to the Warden for a clean throw.
"I can't get a clear shot," she called to Clive. "The potion will hit her too."
Clive pulled out his mace, breaking into a sprint toward the Warden.
The Warden raised its lantern to block as Clive brought the weapon down in a crushing overhead strike. Metal rang against metal, causing both of them to recoil backward.
Clive pressed his advantage, weaving paint magic between his strikes. His mace swept right, followed by a burst of crimson energy that scorched the air. [Red Burst 0] The Warden staggered backward, raising the lantern desperately. Clive's backhand swing came from the left, with a splash of white radiance that blazed against the creature's hood. [White Burst 0]
The relentless assault forced the Warden to unwrap his hook from Nydalea's struggling form. The chain whipped toward Clive, driving him back three steps.
Lucia used this opportunity to throw an Alchemical Fire potion at the Warden, setting it on fire.
Clive stepped back and raised his brush.
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[Mix: Brown Granite II]
The granite boulder launched itself at the burning Warden. The rock ignited as it made impact, driving him backward in a shower of sparks and molten fragments. He stumbled but kept his footing, brushing burning debris from his scorched robes.
"Amusing." The Warden raised his lantern above his head. "My turn."
Darkness poured from the glass like liquid night, spreading across the restored ground.
[Warden used Army of Shadows]
The pooled darkness began to rise. Humanoid shapes pulled themselves from the liquid night, their forms wavering like heat mirages. Dozens of them. Their weapons gleamed with the same purple energy that flickered in the Warden's hood.
"Before there was the mist, there were the shadows. It is crude, inelegant but sufficient to deal with you lot."
The shadow warriors surged forward, their forms rippling like smoke. The first one reached Clive with inhuman speed, its blade slicing through the air.
Clive rolled sideways and came up swinging. His mace passed through the creature's torso without resistance, but the shadow reformed instantly around the weapon. Cold fingers wrapped around his wrist.
"They're not solid!" he called out, jerking free as the shadow's grip turned to mist.
Nydalea had shifted back to human form and retrieved her spear. She thrust at a shadow warrior, but the blade passed harmlessly through. The creature's counter-attack forced her to duck as a spectral sword whistled overhead.
"Then how do we—" Lucia's question was cut short as three shadows surrounded her. She hurled a holy water vial at the advancing shadow. Steam rose where the blessed liquid met darkness, carving bright gaps in the creeping corruption. "The light disrupts it!"
Behind the wall of shadow warriors, the Warden stood motionless in deep concentration. His lantern pulsed with growing intensity, drawing wisps of energy from the air around him. The glass grew brighter with each pulse.
"The Warden!" Clive ducked under a shadow blade and pointed toward the tree. "He's channeling something. We have to reach him."
A dozen shadow warriors blocked their path, reforming as quickly as the white light could disperse them.
"Nydalea, your spear!" Clive raised his brush while she thrust the weapon toward him. [Paint: White Spear] Holy radiance flowed along the steel shaft, transforming the entire weapon into blazing light.
Nydalea spun the illuminated spear in a wide arc. Shadows dissolved instantly wherever the blessed steel passed, clearing a corridor through their ranks. But even as they advanced, more darkness pooled behind them, cutting off their retreat.
"Lucia!" Clive called out while dodging another shadow blade. "Holy water—now!"
Lucia understood immediately. She pulled a vial of blessed water from her belt and hurled it high into the air above the shadow army. The glass shattered at the apex of its arc, releasing a shower of sanctified droplets that fell like rain across the battlefield.
[Double Tech: Holy Nova II]
Clive raised his brush toward the falling water. Holy radiance erupted from his brush, but instead of dissipating, the light caught each droplet and amplified. The blessed water became thousands of tiny mirrors, reflecting and multiplying the divine energy until the entire grove blazed with purifying light.
The shadow army evaporated instantly, their forms unable to exist in the overwhelming radiance. Even the pooled darkness at their feet boiled away like mist before the dawn.
But the Warden was ready.
[Warden used Shadow Wall]
Even as his minions dissolved, a barrier of compressed darkness erupted from the ground in front of him. The holy nova struck the barrier and spread across its face like water against stone, unable to penetrate the concentrated night.
Behind his shield, the Warden continued drawing power into his lantern. The corrupted energy he was gathering made the nearby grass wither at the roots.
Clive watched the Warden's lantern pulse faster. He had a bad feeling about it. This was the kind of power buildup that preceded devastation.
"Whatever he's casting, it's almost ready!" He turned to Nydalea. "We need to end this now!"
[Double Tech: Holy Drill II]
Clive painted a single point of concentrated white light against the shadow wall. Nydalea hurled her blessed spear directly into the point.
The moment her weapon touched the holy energy, she leaped after it. Her body compressed into cougar form mid-air, forepaws catching the spear's shaft as the spinning light carried both her and the weapon forward. Together, they punched through the shadow barrier in an explosion of dispersing darkness.
“This is for everyone!” she cried.
The Warden's eyes widened as the holy spear, still trailing radiant energy and guided by Nydalea's transformed weight, drove straight toward his chest.
White light exploded outward from the point of impact, bleaching color from the world. The radiance seared across Clive's vision, forcing him to shield his eyes with his forearm.
Nydalea's spear protruded from his chest, but only by inches. The blessed steel had begun to warp and bubble where the holy energy had coursed through it. Even as Clive watched, the metal sagged like heated wax, the weapon's integrity failing under the strain of channeling divine power. Yet again, steel proved insufficient in channeling magic. If only it had been mithril.
The Warden's fingers wrapped around the deformed spear shaft and pulled it free. Dark ichor dripped from the shallow wound, already beginning to seal.
He tilted his skull upward, revealing a grin.
"Even in utopia," he wheezed, "there will always be sin."
[Warden used Original Sin]
"Every masterpiece begins with a single brushstroke. Every corruption begins with a single compromise." — The Legendary Moonlight Artist