Field of corpses

The war between the kingdom and the dim caster was a young one, the motive behind the caster's war declaration was unknown, just as he was until he had made it, a mage of no renown he had been.

Perhaps that was all there was to it, maybe the old caster simply wanted fame or he could simply be crazy, in the end, his motive was meaningless to most, all that mattered was today's battle, the dim caster had already been underestimated in the past and this had resulted in the trampling of a large city.

The old caster didn't hesitate to summon creatures that couldn't be controled fully by him, the previous unleashing of an abyssal creature was proof of that.

Today, twenty thousand soldiers were here to face against the caster, mage, archers et cetera had been brought to face a single old man.

The field the battle was to take place in was a large field covered in short white grass, the landscape was slightly embossed in a few places, the pure white grass shined brightly under the sun, the soldiers stood firm in the wait of their enemy, the heat from the sun madde them sweat and the cold sensation on their skin accentuated the slight feeling of fear they felt.

They were all aware of the horrors the dim caster could summon.

On a horse, a man wearing a full set of plate armor looked in the horizon, unlike the soldiers the man wasn't afraid.

His armor was of an unsual color, it ressembled iron in its aspect but had a dark green color.

Another man on a horse approached him.

"Is something the matter arch-knight?" asked the man as he looked in the same direction as the arch-knight.

"He is here" simply responded the knight with a flat tone.

In the distance, a shape peeked from a small hill, under the command of a their superiors, the archers shot at the dim caster, however the arrows crashed against a barrier, the same went for the spells thrown at him, the distance and the resilience of the barrier were too great.

"The dim caster really is a decrepit old man" spoke the man beside the arch-knight as he got a clear view of the old caster.

The old man had no hair left at all, his skin was wrinkled heavily in every location possible, his eyes seemed to have gone blind a long time ago and his teeth were either gone or completely black.

Ignoring the strikes thrown at him, the dim caster raised his arms in the air, chuckling as he did so, today was a great day for the old caster, it was the day he would summon his strongest summon to date, his action was going against the natural order of things but to him and to many other mages, if it was possible, then it was the natural order.

Sigils, magic circles of both kinds appeared as the old caster chanted an incantation, he used magic to cause ingredient for a ritual to appear, he seemingly danced like a madman but it was but a magical art, he made use of every way to use magic he knew of to cast his spell.

The other didn't stay put as they saw him do this, the soldiers charged at him to try and interrupt his summon, however, the barrier he had erected was truly top notch has nothing seemed to be able to pierce it, the dim caster had invested heavily for this day.

Sensing that this was useless, the arch-knight pulled back and advised the commanders to order the troops to do the same.

A good decision as once the summoning ended, a large wave of mana was sent out, shattering the barrier as a portal appeared high up in the sky, the portal drained the mana in the area and directly out of the people here at some extent, causing the more mana deprived to faint.

"You have a wife and kids back home, correct?" suddenly asked the arch-knight to the man next to him.

"Yes?" simply responded the man.

"Run" spoke the arch-knight in a serious tone, the pressure that accompanied it made the man do as he said without question, the arch-knight sent as many people back as he could but the creature quickly came out of the portal, dropping on to the white field with a thud.

A tall and lanky, hairless creature, its skin was grey, it had long dark claws at its fingers and had nothing on its head, it had what looked like a bunch of elongated skin that formed a cape on its back.

The dim caster laughed maniacally in the background as he was kneeling on the ground, sounding as if he was to die any moments now, however, eveyone's attention was centered on the monster that had appeared.

Before the soldiers could even take a breath in, the monster had lunged forward with unholy speed, by the time the soldiers realised it had moved, a great number of heads were already flying in the air.

In the mass of soldiers, the monster moved without issue and tore apart the soldiers, ignoring their armor or defensive skills, a swipe of a claw spelt death for them, this was quickly understood and they all started fleeing like rabbits.

The only one that was moving toward the monster was the arch-knight, he unsheated his sword, revealing a blade made out of a single dragon scale.

When he and the monster came face to face, the creature stopped its massacre and took its distance, at this point the grey monster was completely covered in blood.

Not wasting any time, the both of them launched an attack, the sword and the claws slammed against one another, none of the two seemed to have any issue resisting the strikes, the monster's skin-cape obscured some of its movement, allowing it deal multiple strike without interruption as the arch-knight needed to stay wary of the unseen strikes.

Despite using the skill associated with longswords, ranged strike as it was called, the monster seemed to be able to sense the added ranged and block it.

The two of them fought for five uniterrupted minutes in the now red stained white field, after yet another unsucessful exchange of attacks, the monster used its cape of skin to cover its hands, the knight stayed alert as he expected the same kind of attacks as before, however, instead of using its cape to attack from an unknown angle, the claws were launched from their respective fingers at the knight, piercing through the cape and digging into the knight's armor.

Somehow, the claws were focused on a single point and the last one managed to pierced the knight's skin.

The claws of the monster regrew at a visible pace but the fight between the two was interrupted by a forgotten existence, the dim caster was here, walking confidently, unafraid of the monster.

The old caster coughed a few times before managing to speak.

"Do you see that? The outsider gods listened to my plea and sent a venerer to me! With it under my control, I am will be unstoppable, I will dominate this world and then, then, mmmmh, what do I want to do? Did I forget something?" the dim caster really was a decrepit old man.

"Ah, yes! Yes! I will ascend as a god! That's it!" the old caster suddenly came to the realisation of what his own plan was.

Before the arch-knight could retort anything, the problem was solved very easily as the venerer slammed the side of its right hand into the dim caster's face, blowing his head up so fast that is body failed to realise he had died for a few seconds.

"That's one way to do it" spoke the arch-knight as he got ready to fight again, however the venerer didn't seem very interested in such a thing, it moved it head toward the still opened portal and jumped back into it, disappearing alongside it.

"..."

"What was that about?" wondered the arch-knight, the knight couldn't know why the venerer had acted in such a way after trying to kill him so hard, was this because the dim caster had died? Was it called back by these outsider gods? Was it simply not interested in fighting him?

All that mattered was that the dim caster was no more and that the venerer was gone, there had been some loss in troops but nothing too severe.

"Healer!" yelled the knight.

He was one the few able to tell the tale after fighting a venerer head-on.