The Red-Hood

The venerer was suddenly transported in a strange place, it appeared a few meters above the ground, giving a bit of time to see the scenery around itself.

All it was was an endless sea of grey dust everywhere and the rubbles of various constructions, sometimes a dried up corpse would be sticking out of the dust, the skin of these corpse had turned the same color as the dust.

In this enormous wasteland, the venerer only felt a few presences, nearly all of them faltering away, except for one, it seemed like a beacon in this lifeless plains of dust.

The venerer cautiously approached the source of the presence, moving close to the ground and eventually moving under the dust, on its way it passed multiple of these faltering presences, each of them looked exactly like the corpses and were yelling, screaming, lamenting something.

"Damn you! Damn you! Damn you!" some of them repeated the same words over and over again.

"My soul is gone! The Red-Hood ate it, ate it!"

"Light has died, where is our sun?"

"Where is our lord? Why is our lord nowhere to be seen?"

"Someone must stop The Red-Hood!"

The venerer could hear their words and even make sense out of it but none of it was of interest to it.

Slightly rising out of the dust, the venerer was able to see the owner of that booming presence, it couldn't see much but the venerer could tell that that person smelled just like the ones it had just fought, however, that familiar smell was seemingly interwined with another, unknown smell.

The owner of the presence were on their knees, eating the corpse of one those dried up beings, a once bright red cloak with a hood covered the body of the being, only leaving one hand as well as the being's hair.

The hand was covered in a broken piece of armor, the skin was stained with blood and dust, the hair were long, they were grey but a few strands of hair revealed that that person was once blonde.

The person stopped eating and slightly turned toward the venerer, indicating that they had noticed its presence despite its stealthiness.

The person completely turned to the venerer revealing the face of a woman, her face seemed like rock and her eyes were lighted with a strange glint as she looked at the venerer.

"You, your divinity, hand it over" she spoke as she seemingly tried to grasp something with her left hand.

The venerer fully stood up and prepared to fight, not bothering with any intimidation tactic.

The Red-Hood grabbed a sword from beneath the dust, a long sword that seemed dull and rusty, the tip of it was broken.

She let out an animalistic howl and suddenly appeared in front of the venerer, not leaving it much time to block the strike with its claws, a useless attempt as the badly maintained sword broke through its claws and sliced through its chest.

The venerer was pushed back a long distance, the wounds healed immediately and it opened its maw wide, preparing to use its blood beam.

The Red-Hood didn't seem worried about it at all and dodged it with ease by jumping up in the air, as she was in the air, she moved in a most unuasual way and apparently slided in a straight line to the venener, slamming her feet into its face, pushing it to the ground as she used its face to push herself back onto her feet.

The venerer didn't stay down for long as it also pushed itself back to its feet, leaping forward and thrusting it right claws toward her chest area only for its claws to slide to the side as they struck against The Red-Hood's armor.

The two combatants fought without end, it was similar to the fight the venerer had had against the killer rabbit in a sense, however, it seemed like this would take much more time.

Each strike from The Red-Hood was devastating, as the fight progressed she started using a multi-shot crossbow, the even the bolts from the cossbow could easily pierced the venerer's defenses, there didn't seem to be any good way to counter the damage dealt by The Red-Hood.

She could use a variety of magic and despite there being elements the venerer had easily defended against just some time ago, nothing seemed to be able to block hers, as such, the venerer forsook about defense alltogether and focused on offense, ignoring its lost limbs as they would regrown immediately anyways.

As an unknown amount of time passed in this never ending plain of dust, the venerer and Red-Hood fought without stop, one because its instinct was to do so and the other to plunder her foe's divinity.

Somehow, as their fight continued, the wasteland was destroyed even further, the few ruins that remained in good enough shape to be somehwat identifiable were destroyed and the dust that covered the whole ground of this place was burned, frozen, disintegrated, et cetera.

Their fight didn't seem like it would end any time soon, The Red-Hood never ran out of bolts, mana or stamina and neither did the venerer, The Red-Hood couldn't overcome the monster's regeneration and the beast couldn't get past the woman's defenses.

The venerer mutated over time in an attempt to land in a lethal strike, additional arms, more heads, wings, toxins of all kinds, elemental attacks infused in its blood beam, larger or smaller size, nothing worked.

The both of them seemed doomed to fight onto eternity in a landscape of nothing, despite the fact that the time they had spent fighting was enormous and without any advancement, none of the two stopped, instinct and madness were stronger than reason in every way and only through the death of one of them would this end.

As their fight was in the process of happening, the painting was slowly starting to lose its power, their fight destroying the painting from the inside.

In front of the painting, the scenery had changed, a long time had passed and since then, it had been discovered by adventurers, sold and ended up on the wall of a castle were a king resided.

They would know.