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He felt as if he had been in the swamp for hours. The atmosphere was oppressive and his leather armor and cloak felt as if it were fused to his skin, but it was just what a hunter had to endure within the corrupted Hallowland.
Whenever his resolve dampered, he simply called the memories to mind. The screams in the middle of the night. The abductions. The messily devoured corpses left in the creature’s wake. The countless men who had been lost trying to fight this horror. No one lived long enough to get a look at it for long. It was a gangly humanoid with unnaturally slender limbs.
But the laughter of the monster often gave its location away.
He heard it closer. A rustling in the dead plant life. A brief shadow. He swiftly drew an arrow and took aim.
You will not hide anymore, monster. He thought to himself as his eyebrows furrowed.
Another shadow. It matched the description of their enemy. Tall, gangly, and with a masked face with eyes glowing a lurid venom green. Was it obscured by the darkness or could this monster manifest shadow?
He tried. He shot an arrow, clear and true before it noticed him. The shadow roared, exposing some needle-like teeth as it dissolved into dark wisps. That answered his question.
A beast of the shadows. It will be vanquished with Saradomin’s light.
However, it was at that moment that a peal of unsettling laughter echoed through the stagnant swamp. A set of footsteps followed, drawing closer and closer. In that moment, he had to decide whether to confront the beast and behold its true form, or remain in his cover.
No. He would not lurk in the same shadows as the beast. Clutching the symbol hanging around his neck, he clambered out and took a deep breath.
“MONSTER OF THE SHADOWS! I AM SILVARIUS IVANOV, HUNTER OF SARADOMIN! COME AND MEET YOUR DOOM!” He cried, seeming with the very essence of his soul. The battle was in his hands. He readied several arrows and whispered a blessing over them.
The laughter answered him again. In a moment where time seemed to slow, creaking limbs assembled into a silhouette like the shadow he had seen. It was...a tall humanoid, elaborately decorated like a harlequin and wearing a mask adorned with green gems.
“Ahehehehehehehe…..You are bolder than most, hunter.” As he opened his mouth to speak with his shrill and reedy voice, Silvarius noticed the needle-like teeth and the serpent like tongue. The mouth that had devoured his kinsmen, no doubt. His eyebrows furrowed and he gripped his bow with righteous fury. The monster looked him over, seeming to study his features while the perpetual smile of his mask curled upward.
“You are rather familiar.” Yes, the high cheekbones, the slight messy curl to his hair, the dark but determined eyes, they all were familiar. Silvarius was a lot more gaunt than he remembered himself being in a past life, but that likely owed to growing up in the Morytanian swamps.
“You spew lies, monster. I will silence your delusions.” He said, then firing some arrows. With a bending motion impossible for a human, the monster contorted its body to the side, seamlessly missing the arrows.
It began laughing more, the mania amplifying the already crazed peals. The hunter, undeterred, continued to shoot at the creature. Some landed, but it barely flinched. It responded by chucking a giant, windmill-bladed weapon his way. It grazed him, cutting a gash across his back before returning to its wielder.
It burned and made Silvarius scream. Poison.
“Purge me, Saradomin…” He cried, shooting more arrows and attempting to dodge the creature’s strange weaponry. He was quickly running out of ammo, whereas the beast’s glaives served him repeatedly.
He tried to hold out. He prayed valiantly. He cried out in despair as the weapons cut through his flesh. After what felt like an hour, he was on his knees. The mud of the swamp seeped through his armor.
The monster crept closer. It knelt down, continuing to laugh.
“You lasted longer than most. The longest, in fact. Ahehehehehehee.”
Silvarius cringed. That didn’t mean much to him. He was still defeated.
“I can smell your power….I would consume you, but I see better things for you than simply my meal.” The voice sent chills down his spine. He looked up momentarily and got a faceful of the creature’s sharklike smile.
“Silence….monster…” He panted out, looking down again….
“Ahehehehe...yes, my master would do much better with you alive than dead, my son. Or many times great grandson, to be accurate.”
Suddenly, Silvarius’s eyes shot wide in disbelief.
“You lie, monster. I do not have shadow in my blood! I am of the light, not of the darkness!” He yelled.
“I am a monster, that much I will not deny. But...I have a name, Silvarius.” He remained silent. “It is Gregorovic. Gregorovic Ivanov.”
Ivanov?!
“YOU LIE! YOU LIE!” The hunter yelled with strain in his voice.
“If it were not true, you would be in my stomach by now, hehehehehehe.” The beast...Gregorovic...he relished in it. He suggested it to feed off his pain!
“But I have a far better offer for you. You would be a worthy addition to my master’s forces.” He said. Silvarius refused to look, but still felt the monster loom over him. He felt an inhuman hand grasp his head and lift it up. He could not avoid the macabre harlequin monster’s appearance now.
“I REFUSE!” He yelled, straight into his face. “I would rather DIE than join you, or your master!”
“Ahehehe….I am afraid you don’t have a choice.”
The smile grew wider. The burning continued. He felt the presence of a foul magic. Not within the air...within him.
“S-Saradomin! Free me...from this curse…” He coughed out, weakly. He coughed up a sludge-like black substance intermingled with blood.
“Join me, Silvarius….Join the collection.” He uttered, the words seeping under his skin as he saw shadow, shadow like his claws start to manifest around his hands…
“EMBRACE THE DARKNESS!”