The ethereal wyvern struck without hesitation. Its massive body tore through the empty air like a falling storm.
The creature did not circle or test its opponent. It dove directly at Eccar with clear killing intent. Its claws stretched forward and its jaws opened wide enough to swallow a man whole.
The old man clearly had no intention of holding back.
Eccar stepped aside at the last mont.
The wyvern's claws crashed into the ground where he had stood, tearing deep trenches across the cracked earth. Stones exploded as the creature's montum carried it forward.
Eccar moved again before the dust had even settled.
The wyvern twisted violently, its wings beating with a hollow roar as it turned and lunged again.
Its speed was relentless and its movent ca without pause, one strike following another as if the creature had been ordered to destroy him as quickly as possible.
Claws slashed, fangs snapped, long tail whipped through the air like a blade.
Eccar avoided each attack with precise steps and small movents, his body moving just enough to evade the lethal blows.
But annoyance slowly crept into his expression. "This is getting annoying."
He slid backward as the wyvern's tail smashed into the ground where he had stood monts earlier, shattering another stretch of rock.
He sighed. He already understood sothing important. Talking to the old man right now would be pointless.
The guardian had already decided that Eccar was a threat. No explanation would change that while they were standing here.
"Alright then. Fine. Then we'll settle this first."
Eccar lowered his stance slightly as the wyvern turned again for another charge.
If the old man refused to listen, then the simplest solution was obvious.
He would just keep fighting until the man could no longer continue.
After that, they could talk.
The wyvern roared again and dove from above.
This ti Eccar did not dodge imdiately. Instead, he placed one foot firmly against the dark earth beneath him.
A quiet pulse spread from his foot to everywhere. The cracked ground trembled. Then the earth moved.
Black stone and hardened soil erupted upward from the ground like rising waves. Jagged pillars of rock surged into the air, colliding with the descending wyvern.
The creature smashed through the first spike. Then the second.
But the earth did not stop rising.
Dozens of massive stone pillars burst up in rapid succession, slamming into the wyvern from every direction.
The creature screeched as its wings were crushed between the rising walls of rock.
Eccar clenched his fist and the ground answered instantly.
A colossal mass of dark earth surged upward and closed around the wyvern like a giant hand.
The creature struggled violently, its ethereal body flickering as it tried to break free.
Then the stone collapsed inward.
A thunderous crack echoed across the empty domain.
When the dust settled, the wyvern's form shattered into fragnts of fading spirit-light before dissolving completely into the dark sky.
Across the battlefield, the old man frowned. Deeper lines ford across his forehead as his sharp blue eyes studied the cracked earth.
This domain was supposed to weaken anyone he trapped here. After all, he made it with various sigils binded together to create his own perfect domain. Anyone trapped here should struggle to draw out their full strength.
But what is this? What he had just witnessed was anything but weak.
The power Eccar had just unleashed had crushed the summoned wyvern with overwhelming force.
And the old man could feel it clearly that even inside his domain Eccar's strength had not diminished nearly as much as it should have.
But hesitation never reached him. He had not survived this long by backing down when sothing unexpected appeared before him.
Instead, his fingers moved faster beneath the folds of his cloak.
The air above the battlefield suddenly shimred.
Then dozens of sigils appeared one by one.
Intricate geotric patterns of glowing runes unfolded across the sky like a vast web of Magic. They rotated slowly in place, radiating different colors as layers of spells awakened at once.
The old man's voice echoed across the domain as he finished the incantation.
The sigils ignited.
Flas burst from several circles and rushed toward Eccar. From other sigils, spears of ice shot forward with razor edges.
Bolts of lightning tore across the air in jagged streaks. Black hex-symbols spun outward from darker sigils, carrying curses ant to rot flesh, weaken bones, and drain strength.
The attacks filled the entire sky. They ca from every direction at once.
Eccar watched them approach. Then he sighed again.
His shoulders lowered slightly as if the effort of dealing with this had already beco tedious.
He placed his foot firmly against the ground once more.
The earth responded imdiately. The cracked terrain trembled violently again as waves of dark stone surged upward and massive slabs of rock erupted in front of him, forming a rising wall that intercepted the first wave of attacks.
BOOM!
BOOM!
BOOM!
…
Fire exploded against the stone.
Lightning shattered rock apart.
Ice spears slamd into the barrier and burst into shards.
But the earth continued to rise.
Eccar moved his hand slightly and the terrain obeyed like a living guards for him. More pillars surged upward, twisting and folding into layers of protection while others launched outward like massive spears of their own.
More stones collided with even more fla. Earth crushed lightning.
Jagged pillars tore through the incoming ice and shattered the cursed sigils before they could reach him.
The entire domain erupted into chaos.
Explosions echoed continuously as elental forces collided with rising earth. Shockwaves rippled across the battlefield. Huge cracks spread across the ground as entire sections of terrain lifted, collapsed, and rose again under Eccar's control.
Dust and debris filled the air. Stone fragnts rained down like hail.
For the first ti since creating this domain, the old man watched sothing he had never witnessed before. Destruction on this scale inside his own territory.
The domain had always been his absolute advantage. Anyone trapped here should have struggled to maintain their strength while his spells dominated the environnt.
But now the battlefield looked as if the domain itself had beco unstable.
Rising pillars of earth blocked and broken through all his attacks.
Then several of his sigils shattered outright when massive stone spires erupted through them from below.
The old man's sharp blue eyes narrowed further.
Eccar stood calmly at the center of the storm while the earth continued to move around him like an obedient army.
The old man realized sothing deeply unsettling. This was no longer a simple intruder resisting his Magic. It looked as if Eccar was slowly overwhelming his domain. And he did it without exerting too much effort.
The old man's gaze locked onto the figure standing at the center of the violent storm tearing through the domain.
Explosions and dust churned through the air. Pillars of rock continued to rise and collapse as attacks collided with Eccar's earth manipulation.
Yet through all that chaos, Eccar remained standing calmly. And he was looking directly at him.
The old man's eyes narrowed at first, trying to asure the man he faced.
Then he noticed sothing. A faint glow appeared in Eccar's eyes.
At first it looked like a reflection of the flas and lightning exploding around them. But the glow did not flicker like ordinary light.
It burned steadily… In golden.
The old man focused harder. His breath stopped.
Eccar's pupils were not round. They were vertical.
For the first ti since the battle began, the old man's expression changed completely. The deep frown that had been carved across his face disappeared as his eyes widened slightly.
The sharp, calculating gaze he had maintained until now faltered.
Golden eyes… Vertical pupils…
"That…," the old man whispered under his breath.
His mind raced through decades of mories and research of countless scrolls, forbidden texts, and ancient records he had studied during his long life.
There had been stories. Old myths buried deep in forgotten histories. Creatures with golden eyes and slit pupils.
But those stories were never ant to be real.
"That is supposed to be… A myth… " the old man thought.
Through the storm of exploding Magic and rising earth, Eccar suddenly called out to him.
"Old man! You really not gonna stop attacking ?"
The old man heard the words.
But he did not answer.
His mind still struggled to connect what he was seeing with what he believed possible. Too stunned to speak.
Eccar watched him silently. Then he exhaled another long sigh.
"…I'll take that as a no."
He straightened slightly. The power flowing through the ground surged again. The earth around him trembled harder as he began walking forward.
He moved calmly through the raging storm of spells. Lightning bolts and fire blasts continued to crash into the protective walls of stone and earth.
The ground seed to escort him forward.
Then Eccar raised one hand. Golden sparks flickered faintly within the stone gathering around his arm.
The glow spread quickly through the mass of dark earth forming beside him.
Eccar flicked his hand forward and the earth shot.
Several massive spears of stone erupted through the storm and flew straight toward the sky where the old man's sigils hovered.
The golden sparks embedded in the rock flashed brightly as the projectiles struck their targets.
The glowing sigils burst apart one after another as the stone spears punched directly through them.
Fragnts of broken runes scattered across the sky before fading into nothing.
The storm of Magic collapses around them.
—
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