There stood a small figure, about six foot in height, a wide hat atop him, as one would see in older Asian movies with farmers, as if to protect him from light that had no business even being down here, dressed in a thick cloak he had swung around himself, now dripping with liquid, but adorned with fur resembling Ukor's very own, something that made him snort his nose in an attempt to emulate a normal laugh, without out-right saying it.
The man was pale, long black hair tied to a pony tail behind him, the fur being tightened around his waist using a belt made of innards, as Cades had used so often before being stuck in a place where monsters tended to somehow not even having innards...
His eyes, though, were the weirdest, at least in Ukor's opinion.
They glowed in a radiant shine, though he was unsure who that shine belonged, to, he was unsure whether it belonged to the golden pigments, the amethyst-coloured pupils, whether to the silver eyeball, whether to any of the other, countless colours, all stuck in that eye, all working together in some way, though it was still unsettling to see without any warning.
He smiled as he saw Ukor, a swung blade, like a sabre, in his hands, though it quickly vanished into a scabbard that had no end after the opening, as if the person was inviting the blade so cut his leg off, though they probably wouldn't care either way.
But Ukor just looked at him, tired, annoyed that another one of the little creatures, another person, had once more intruded this place, a place he considered his own grave by now, his own little afterlife, it being a fact that he was dead and all that.
Still, the man quickly began talking.
He sounded both arrogant and calm, a bit haughty, but more so mocking than actually any of these things.
"So here lies the great warrior, the dark wolf of the ravens, the perpetrator of th Karmen massacre..."
Ukor lifted his head up, feeling angry at the memories he never wanted to experience again.
"Shut up before I do something I probably won't even regret."
The man, still unknown in relation to his identity, just smirked, and at that moment Ukor began to understand something that made him feel elated, he began to understand that the man wanted to fight, that he finally had something new in front of him, but instead, no, right before he intended to rush in, he had something to ask, the man now readying himself, though, he still seemed completely relaxed despite having to stand up to a being of the peak of the titan-rank.
"Did you also fight Lila, the woman that the little brat faced before me...?" he sounded slightly saddened at that prospect, but he assumed that to not be the case, after all, Lila was much more skilled than she believed herself to be, that was for sure.
The only reason Lila had even been beaten back then was that she had underestimated herself, and thus, had weakened herself to an almost stupid degree.. that was just how her own magic worked... sad when one thought about it really...
And indeed, the unknown man shook his head, though Ukor didn't even care anymore, he just rushed towards the enemy, intent on getting something between his hands that didn't consist of gold and maggots, of cloth and rotting stone, of dust and poisoned arrows.
His claws had been forced all the way out, each about as long as half a man's arm, each sharp enough to cut through most materials, and all now headed to slice the man into six pieces, maybe even more, all with the force of only his right hand.
As the huge being moved, so fast that it could barely be followed with human eyes, the man didn't even move, standing there like a rock amidst endless wave, as if he was the calm in the storm, he did not care, he only smiled brightly, looking at the glinting weapons in his hand, or rather, just at the weapon his hand had become.
Still, for some reason, the claws simply couldn't reach the unknown man, instead slowing down as soon as they got closer to them, the man acting as if he was yawning of boredom.
"Eight hundred years... let's see what I've gained until now..." he said absentmindedly.
The barrier went away as it had appeared, instantly, and Ukor twirled around himself at the same moment it happened, using momentum and magical expulsion to get the greatest and most powerful impact he could hope for.
When he hit the man, his claws retracted, his hand looking like a normal fist despite still a bit like the paw of a dog, or rather, of a wolf, a shockwave hurled through the endlessly big room, causing the coins, some heavy, some light, to be lifted into the air by about a foot and quickly fall down all over again.
Yet, the unknown man didn't even budge a single inch, instead just smiling as Ukor was thrown back from the shockwave that had been enhanced by the man who had now begun to move his index finger, pointing at Ukor.
Ukor was about to attack again, his claws out once more, opting for the more deadly attack, using as much mana as he could right now, but instead, he felt himself slowing down without even realizing i-
The fingered moved, pointing to the endlessly high ceiling, and within a single instant, as fast as he could comprehend, he was flung there, like a ragdoll, crashing into it and feeling his bones break, not a nice experience, that was for certain.
Yet, that was not it, the next second he was flung to a wall, hundreds, if not even thousands of feet away, cracking a few statues in the process and tearing holes through various paintings riddled with maggots, though all of them were destined to regenerate shortly after, they weren't real in the end.
He felt himself, as if he was a sack of potatoes, but still, he was exhausted, landing in the middle of the huge room, the man a few hundred feet away from him now, the coins riddling through the air, like an endless storm, his authority having begun to affect them, the outsides of the world slowly falling apart, darkness stretching out from the corners, as if every law he had known was breaking, he felt himself implied to have already chosen, he saw the man being bigger than ever before, it was madness, and yet there was some kind of order.
Gasping for hair he stood up once more, blood dripping from his wet fur, warm for the first time in many centuries, looked at the man, and began to try something new, something he hadn't tried before.
As he cracked, as his spine elongated, as his teeth became blades, as his hair became string, as his bones became clubs, he felt himself growing bigger than he had ever imagined himself before, easily standing above the entire battlefield, hundreds of feet big, easily trifling anything he was about to throw at him, his strength having grown with this size as well.
But the experiences that the world consisted of could simply not stand that power, no, they broke, and the walls of the room, though technically it had been a gigantic cylinder, fell flat, and endless nothing was revealed as the small man began to grow taller as well, somehow shrinking Ukor in the process.
Feeling his heart racing Ukor opened his maw that was now wide enough to easily swallow his former self, dozens at once if packaged correctly, and a wave of sound came out, powerful enough that had he done this in his smaller form the walls of the endless room would have cracked, but right now, barely enough to do anything, with the man in front of him suddenly devolving, as if they had never even had ears, still smiling brightly.
The power of the titan-class, also known as the tyrant-rank, was the power to manifest, it was to control that which had been promised through the pervious two ranks, the ranks of the inscribe who would translate other's intents, and the scribe who would write up their own intent, it was the power to exude themselves, a true spurt of growth based on the individual.
Ukor's spurt had sent him towards the side of himself, turned him more monstrous than before, but the man seemed to have enhanced contracts, powers he had gained through someone, or perhaps, something else, that was the only thing that he was really able to tell right now as he suddenly heard a bright sound, the world becoming weirdly sluggish.
He heard laughter coming from the walls that were now serving as just another part of the floor having been folded outwards, where he was now dancing on, though he had no idea as to why he was dancing.
Ukor was uncharacteristically powerful, even for a being of the titan-class, but this, it was pure unpredictability, and yet, he heard it all about to end, he felt that the battle was still able to be continued, and as such he would continue to fight, continue to fail, but continue to have his fun.
Just as he thought that, the man snapped once, and the world returned to before, both once more colliding for the first time, as if everything before hadn't even even real, simple throwing up the silver and gold coins as they moved, the rotten ones staying down, as if they knew their worth was not fit for such a showdown between two beings at the peak of a class that was known to be uncharacteristically powerful.
When the two rushed at each other, so fast that one could barely follow it when turning the head, crossing many hundreds and even thousands of foot in a single instant, Ukor suddenly having a big hammer in his hands, something he had always been able to summon, courtesy of the inventory his world had been bestowed with, the man now having a kind of cane with flat end in his hand, the sword gone, the world seemed to brace for impact.
They collided hundreds of times, changing tricks, interluding fakes with real attacks, but never once did they hit each other, not because the man didn't try, but because the man was only defending, each attack of the wolve being thrown away, cutting though endlessly far away statues that easily lost heads and other limbs, crushing the rare fine paintings into cinder, if they were even truly fine.
The man smirked, moving slowly backwards, but suddenly, the coins began to float up and fire themselves towards Ukor who struggled to quickly defend himself against the onslaught of coins as the man simply vanished into thin air, appearing a few hundred feet away, laughing wildly as his heart seemed to be beating fast, full of excitement and anticipation of what might happen next.
Ukor was smiling as well, though it looked and sounded more like a deep and threatening growl as he whipped huis head as well, looking as he was about to face that which seemed to be an endless tsunami made only of a silvery liquid he knew very well, the liquid that made up the dome stopping him from going outside, a liquid he resented.
He quickly put mana into his feet, replicating the same power as Cades had used with his steadfast active, not a difficult task once one knew how to really do the trick, and smashed his hammer into the ground, using it to anchor himself to the ground even further in anticipation of the silver wall hurling towards him, his cloak long since having been in tatters and fallen off, now hanging on one of the many statues, ripped apart and impaled by a rusty sword.
The front was like a hammer hat hit him, powerful enough that it would have quite literally ripped a inscribe to pieces, perhaps even a scribe at the level of Avare's power, and at that, what fascinated him was that his was an areal spell, it would have to be used to take care of hundreds if not thousands of opponents normally, of entire armies, and in this case, armies as powerful as as scribes, beings that were seen as powerful enough to destroy entire armies on their own.
What a ridiculous power, but on the other hand, the man, after using that power, finally shoed signs of exhaustion for the first time, having his hands on his knees and heaving to gasp for air, his breath rattling, audible even to Ukor who was still over a thousand foot away, at the very least.
Not that he could do anything, his entire body being in tatters right now, having been ripped apart by the countless weapons that had been lost inside the thing, as well as the numerous pieces of coin and everything that he now cursed himself even more for being stuck with, though he was also slightly thankful that they had made this experience even more fun for the two of them, his laugh, like a growl, not smashing through the whole room, causing some of the paintings in the distance to finally give up, though they would regenerate mere seconds later.
The man, after Ukor had blinked, suddenly stood atop the altar, rising his arms above his head, and saying a few words, most of which were insults and curses at the current position, as well as what seemed to be a newly-discovered great hatred for headaches, but a second later, with Ukor still laughing through the entire thing, though he did try to get there before he finished whatever he was doing, the hat of the man long since having fallen off and revealing now unkempt and wild hair.
A wave of.. nothing really ran through him, throwing him back a few hundred feet, as if he was a stone being thrown atop the water, his bones feeling broken all over, but still, he was even worse off after he saw what had just happened.
The floor began to break apart into multiple pieces, the huge structure flying away from each other, the world shaking as three undeniably huge creatures began to rise from the ground, one looking like a wyrm he had faced before, a being powerful enough to cause a natural disaster, another looking like a younger dragon, powerful, made of golden and copper coins, fire spewing out of his mouth already, the last looking like a formless blob, though that might very well be the most dangerous one out of all of them, made of the decaying paintings after all, while the wyrm was made of stone that broke out of the ground, the tail thousands of feet long at the very least, the eyes glowing with violence and a purple glow, as if made of amethysts.
The wyrm slithered towards him, it's huge tail thrown around the room, destroying everything that he had never held dear, everything he didn't care about, as he laughed, enlarging himself to be about a hundred and fifty foot tall, his hammer now as big as the beasts ridiculously small head compared to the rest of it's body, grinning violently, adrenaline coursing through his now gigantic body as the blob of decaying trash and the dragon, four legs, two wings, already began moving.
In a single attack the wyrm's head was crushed, the tail still launching forward and knocking him in the face, a tooth falling out, now as big as multiple people stacked atop each other as he had grown even taller to face both the dragon, five hundred foot tall, and the blob which was, well, a incredibly huge blob.
The main advantage of these beings had been their size, and he had simply just neutralized that, that made him laugh even more, and as he was five hundred feet tall now, easily able to stand in the large room, the small man seemingly having vanished into thin air once more, he held the maw of the dragon in a single hand.
In his life he would have struggled defeating a dragon, though he would have still been capable of doing so, but now, after centuries of boredom, while his raw strength hadn't gone up, his utilization had become better than he could've even imagined it.
The head in his claws, he opened his maw, and bit it off, tasting copper and metal, as well as his own blood, the blob instantly forming a tentacle and knocking him away, attacking from behind, where he had not expected an attack from.
Stumbling, Ukor destroyed his altar, the only thing he had used as a chair and a, relatively good, bed in the last centuries, aside from rotting cloth, rotting paintings, mud once, which had actually been quite relaxing, causing him to scream in anger, though he did still know that it would regenerate within less than a minute.
Nevertheless, a second later, his body had already been pierced by one of the tentacles, quickly being taken back, resulting in him shrinking to be much smaller, to become normal, finally sitting atop the already regenerated altar again, the decaying blob just collapsing, the materials flowing back to their place, led by what seemed to be the small man using his pirate-like sabre to orchestrate it all, as if at a concert.
His face had now returned to normal, and Ukor was sittign just a hundred feet away from where the man was sitting, a chair made of golden coins, seemingly cheap and with holes, as if made of cheap wood, something that had made him laugh once more upon seeing it.
Still, he began to talk.
"This was a great fight!" Ukor said, feeling exhilarated, and quite happy actually.
"Indeed" the man said, grinning from ear to ear with dark rings under the previously spot-free eyes that were still as entrancing and yet unsettling as before, when they hadn't yet fought, showing that even he had been exhausted by this battle.
"Who are you?" he said, not expecting a real answer.
"You don't need to know yet, but maybe we'll meet again...."he said, grinning as he took out a small piece of paper, many other papers like it hidden within the bag that had suddenly appeared, simple, fashioned out of leather, dark one, sending out a feeling as if it was utterly abnormal.
"What might that be?" he said, still breathing heavily, his whole body now starting to ache from the battle he had just fought, the many regeneration he had gone through, his specialty, having taken a toll, his endurance really having been put to the test.
"Your second chance." the man said, lifting his head upwards, the paper looking ancient.
Ukor, in return, just tilted his head to the side though, thinking about how the mood had turned into something quite different real fast, his mind still happy after fighting in the first time since what felt like forever.