The Risen surged forward as the Warden settled back against the gnarled roots of the Great Tree. “It's rare that I get visitors. Please do keep me entertained.”

  Lucia hurled a frost potion into their midst. The glass shattered against them, releasing crystalline vapors that spread in an expanding cloud. Ice crystals formed along the skeletal legs of the front ranks, seizing up their joints as the cold locked bone to bone. The frozen Risen stumbled forward on rigid limbs, colliding with those behind them.

  This bought Clive time to paint. He pulled out his brush while Nydalea stepped forward, weaving defensive patterns to keep any Risen that broke through at bay. Her spear severed connections at joints, affording Clive the time he needed.

  [Mix: Brown Granite Storm II]

  Clive's brush moved in rapid strokes. The storm of rocks descended like divine judgment, crushing the Risen beneath tons of pulverized granite and bone.

  Silence fell over the battlefield as dust settled on the scattered remains.

  Clive turned his brush toward the Warden. "You're next."

  But the Warden didn't even lift his hooded gaze. He remained slouched against the tree roots, more content to fiddle with his hook, running the curved metal along the bark in lazy scratches that left dark grooves in the trunk. His lantern continued its gentle sway, as if he were sitting in a garden rather than a battlefield.

  [Mix: Brown Granite II]

  Clive painted a massive boulder in the air. He released the spell, sending the boulder hurtling towards the Warden.

  The Warden remained unfazed. As the boulder tore through the air toward him, he spoke a single word without looking up from his idle scratching.

  "Arise."

  The pulverized remains of the Risen began to stir. Bone fragments rolled together like metal filings drawn to a magnet. Scattered ribs snapped back into place, crushed skulls reformed from splinters. One of the newly reassembled creatures lurched upward, intercepting the boulder before it could reach its target. The impact drove the Risen into the ground, but the Warden remained untouched.

  Damn it.

  “Can he keep doing that? Indefinitely?” Clive asked Nydalea, watching bone fragments crawl back together like a puzzle solving itself.

  “I don’t know,” Nydalea answered. “This is new territory for me as well.”

  Clive wiped the sweat off his forehead. No matter then. He would just have to crush them again and again, as many times as it took. This was just like his art. Sometimes, persistence was the only technique that mattered.

  He materialized another mana potion from his sketchbook and downed it in one gulp. Magical energy flooded back through his system, readying him for another round of painting.

  [Mix: Brown Granite Storm II]

  Another wave of granite boulders rained down on the battlefield, crushing the Risen into fragments once more. Bone dust and rock debris covered the corrupted ground.

  “Arise.”

  The bone fragments began their reassembly.

  The Warden turned its attention to Clive. “How tiresome. Do you truly believe brute force will suffice?”

  The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  “I’m just getting started.” Clive glared at the creature. “I could do this all day.”

  "We shall see how long you last." The Warden settled more comfortably against the twisted roots. "I have nothing but time. You, on the other hand..." His hook traced a slow circle in the air, encompassing Clive's labored breathing and the sweat beading on his forehead. "Mortality is such a limiting condition."

  The tug of war repeated. Clive painted granite storms that turned Risen into bones. The Warden spoke a single word that undid everything.

  “This is futile,” Clive said. “We need to aim for the Warden directly.”

  Clive painted a boulder and hurled it past the Risen's guard. For a moment, it looked like a clean shot, then the Warden raised his lantern almost lazily. The boulder struck the iron frame and shattered into harmless fragments that scattered across the corrupted ground. The Warden didn't even acknowledge the attack.

  A defensive line of Risen formed around their master, creating an impenetrable wall of bone. Every subsequent boulder Clive hurled found itself intercepted by lurching torsos. Lucia's potions exploded harmlessly against ribcages. And Nydalea was too busy keeping the advancing Risen from overrunning their position to launch an offensive attack.

  With direct attacks on the Warden blocked, Clive could only rely on his [Brown Granite Storm II] to deal with the endless waves of reassembling dead. This wasn't a battle of strength—it was a war of attrition, and he was losing ground with every exchange. The spell devoured nearly half his mana pool each time, and his supply of mana potions had dwindled to nothing. His sketchbook's pages ran out, forcing him to rely on Lucia’s reserves.

  "How many more mana potions do you have?" he called to her between casting sequences.

  "Three," she replied, hurling a flame vial at a Risen that had broken through Nydalea's guard. "Or maybe a few more." She glanced at her backpack again.

  Damn. The math was brutally simple. At this rate, it was only a matter of time until they fell.

  Clive gazed at the Warden. The creature wasn't even taking them seriously. It had returned to scratching its hook along the tree bark, as if all of this was nothing more than an afternoon's entertainment. When it noticed Clive's stare, it tilted its skull just enough to reveal what could only be described as a dismissive smirk beneath the shadow of its hood.

  Clive returned the smirk with one of his own. The Warden thought it had already won, but Clive had a trick of his own. He took out his Canvas of Reality.

  The canvas unfolded in Clive's hands, revealing the garden he had drew during their journey—emerald grass beneath rolling hills, viridescent trees swaying in the wind, an infinite cerulean sky stretching beyond sight. This was his imagining of what the Shadowfen had been before corruption claimed it.

  The painted landscape began to bleed into reality.

  [Background: Garden of Eden]

  [Environment Modifier: Undead Power Level x0.5]

  It started at the edges of the canvas, where paint met air. Green grass pushed through the cracked earth beneath their feet. Clean soil bubbled up through fissures in the corrupted ground, carrying with it the scent of life. Birds started chirping in the distance. The purple mist that had choked the air began to thin, retreating like smoke before a strong wind.

  The tree at the center of his painting erupted from the canvas itself. Its trunk burst upward in a rush of expanding wood and unfurling leaves. Deep brown bark textured with deep grooves rose toward a canopy that reflected sunlight until the entire grove blazed with radiance.

  "The Verdant Marsh." Nydalea spun in a slow circle, taking in every tree, every blade of grass. She dropped to her knees in the transformed earth, pressing her face into the grass. Her shoulders shook as she breathed in the scent of living soil. When she lifted her head, dirt clung to her cheek.

  "You…you brought it back…how?"

  Lucia approached one of the newly grown vines wrapped around a tree trunk. She pinched a leaf between her fingers, crushing it to release the oils. "You did it again, Clive. The land is alive."

  Without the necromantic mist to sustain them, the Risen surrounding them crumbled. Bone separated from bone as the unnatural magic binding them failed. They collapsed in heaps of clean, white calcium, no longer animated by the Warden's will.

  The Warden's hook stopped mid-scratch against the bark. It pushed itself upright in a single sharp movement, abandoning the leisurely posture it maintained throughout the battle. Its lantern swayed erratically as he examined the transformation. "What is this?"

  It turned to face Clive. The purple flames in his hood flared, radiating a purple aura across the garden. "Who are you?"

  Clive lowered the canvas, its surface now blank and ordinary once more. Around them, Eden continued its quiet work of reclamation, roots and branches reaching toward corrupted spaces not yet touched by the transformation.

  "I’m an artist."

  Every garden remembers what it was before the fall. Some simply need an artist to remind them. — The Legendary Moonlight Artist