(AN: edited XD)
***
With many unanswered questions in the back of Ivan's mind, his hellishly brutal life continued on, since not once did the thought of giving up cruise through his mind.
The war against the massive army of monsters continued on, but since he had eaten a dragon's, Drayce's, heart, he was a lot stronger, but that didn't mean anything against the numbers that could just literally kill him with a few mere stomps.
Though the numbers in his army didn't grow, their strengths certainly did. Over the passing years, Ivan had successfully combined his abilities with the magic circles; now, whenever he wanted to make a skeleton summon of a killed monster, at least four layers of magic circles would form, an inch in front of his palm, with ancient words written in them, which, with the help of Drayce's knowledge, Ivan was able to read and understand.
[Necromancer: influence, manipulate, favourability, marionette, skeletal structure, summon] were the words written in the large, four-layered magic circle that Ivan uses to summon his skeleton soldiers.
The words written were minute, and there were also many elemental magic power signs imbedded in them. The elemental signs Ivan had seen up until now were of the undead and black magic, and since his elemental properties were just those, he didn't mind them one bit.
And out of pure curiosity, Ivan rushed to read what was written on the magic circle he had teleported on, and he wasn't able to read what it was with only Drayce's knowledge, but when he focused on it entirely, the demonic essence that he had unknowingly gotten when he ate the demonic slime got merged with his dragonic essence, which he got after eating a dragon's heart, enabling him to understand what the scribbled words were.
[The Ruler of all seven demonic sins, the first demon's sealing ground. Land. Air. Fire. Water. Space. Darkness. Shadow. Light. Moon. Sun. Stars. Cosmos.] Were the words written on it, and it didn't take long for Ivan to figure out that the elements scribbled on the ground were all the elements in existence, and all those elements were required to "seal" the so-called first demon. And after much thought and a lot of self-questioning, he said, "Don't tell me I'm something like a reincarnation or a reborn first demon or some bullshit like that." Ivan mumbled to himself, though he understood that he would be on point since he had teleported on that goddamn thing, so he didn't mind it, "so be it." He mumbled and decided to ignore that first demon bullshit and whatnot; he was Ivan, and that wasn't going to change no matter what.
And years continued to pass as he ate, fought, retreated, fed, rested, ate, fought, retreated, fought, fed, retreated, fed, and repeated this cycle for the next few years, which Ivan had made a habit of counting. It was only possible because he couldn't forget anything, and the years before he hadn't had the count of, turned out be 21 years, shockingly. Yes, it had been twenty-one years since he came to the Unknown World and before he killed Drayce, the dragon.
After a few more years passed, counting up to 53 years to be exact, he was sure that he had lowered a lot of numbers in the army of monsters, at least half of them, and he decided that he would fight against the remaining ones head-on, retreating only when required.
From then on, he began to fight against a much stronger horde of monsters as he continued to fight together with his army and retreated, sacrificing them when required. As he continued to hunt and lower the numbers of monsters in the hostile army, he began to notice that the monsters, too, were accustoming themselves to fight like a normal "army," which included tactics, traps, and many other things.
The closer he got to the end, the harder everything got, until he was back to his taunt, lure, and hunt tactics, which enraged him when he realised that, to get stronger so he wouldn't have to do the same again, he isolated himself underground with his army, taught them and himself many things, making maximum use of Drayce's knowledge, and by using all kinds of magic he was capable of, he was pushing himself to the limit every time.
After a year of complete isolation, something Ivan never expected happened. All the monsters in the hostile army went berserk. Their eyes were bloodshot as they zoomed to every nook and cranny in search of Ivan, drooling.
Their states were similar to those of the wolves, which he hunted at the beginning. Though extremely confused by the turn of events, he didn't have the luxury to think of anything, and a never-ending war began.
With all the debuffs he could cast, while keeping a limited reservoir to control his summons and strengthen himself, he fought against the army of insane monsters that got a lot stronger under berserk state, as if it were a game.
After battling for 38 years more, with the loudest roar Ivan had ever heard,
"ROOOOAAAAAAAAAARRRR!!!"
WHOOOOMMM
BHUSSSSOOOMMMMM!!!
A blackish-purple pillar of pure magic power descended upon him, his army, and the hostile army. One could say that Ivan used every last bit of luck he ever had and survived the attack of an airborne, hostile entity.
But in front of him was pure devastation; the ground had cracked apart, all of his summons together with the army of monsters had died without even knowing what had killed them; no, that was too far-fetched; they didn't even know what had just happened. And just like that, a war that Ivan thought would be never-ending ended without a clear answer.
WHOOOOOSSSHHH
As Ivan gazed up, a humongous figure dove down towards him. Shuddering, Ivan dashed back without glancing back even for a split second, and it wasn't long until a huge cloud of dust, blood, and spike-like rocks carrying ripples shot out from behind him.
FFFFTT
FFFTT
"!!!!!!" Ivan wanted to scream in pain when the shattered rocks shot out, piercing into his body, but was unable to do so due to the increasing intensity of the pain with each piece that hit and pierced through his back.
FFFTT
.....
....
Ivan was buried beneath a pile of sharp-ended debris that shot out towards him when the humongous figure landed or crashed against the ground.
CRUMBLE
Listening to the crumbling sounds, he concluded that the former thought was true. Ivan's back was riddled with holes made by both small and huge, pointy rocks; it was only thanks to his regenerative ability and his magic-enhanced physical body that he was able to survive, since those abilities protected him by stopping the machine gun-like bombardment of rocks from piercing through his body.
"Hap...." Ivan took a deep breath, puffed in a mouthful of extra air, and concentrated on "pushing out" the bullet-like pieces of rock that had pierced through his skin.
CRUMBLE
TAK
Gradually, the rocks did come out. Since the humongous being seemed strong, he didn't think that it really made any sense in trying to hide his presence, so instead, he channelled magic power throughout his body. Though it had already become an involuntary practise, he noticed that if he "concentrated" upon the already cruising magic power, the effects seemed stronger, so he would concentrate on channelling magic power whenever he needed that strong burst of power.
BOOM!
With a loud yet subtle—when compared to the crumbling sounds behind him—boom, the pile of debris on him was shot out when a strong ripple of magic power shot out from his body.
"You Dare..." Ivan chose to act intimidating against whoever his opponent was, since he believed that it could give him an upper hand if a fight broke out before he was prepared, but his words got stuck in his throat when he turned to face the humongous, majestic being in front of him, glaring at him, and a single glare from the being in front of him was enough to make his soul shudder.
Starting with the most ominously iconic part, the humongous-ly majestic being in front of him had blood red irises, with vertical black slits and some kind of purplish black colours dyeing the being's pupillary zone with a strange yet mesmerising flame-like pattern, while its sclera was bloodshot as if merging with its irises.
The being in front of Ivan was a majestic black dragon, a massive, city-covering dragon that was seemingly gazing into his soul as it stood on the glowing remains of the purplish-black coloured beam from earlier. From Ivan's point of view, he was like an ant standing in front of a 3-foot-tall kid. Even though there wasn't much light on the Unknown World, the scales on the black dragon seemed to be sucking in any light that landed on them, like a black hole. With the help of Drayce's knowledge and the black dragon's gaze in front of him, Ivan was able to figure out that the majestic dragon in front of him was a female—not that it mattered one bit.
Maybe due to Ivan being influenced by Drayce's knowledge, but Ivan understood that the dragon in front of him was dangerous, extremely dangerous, a being against whom Ivan would never win no matter what.
That thought, instead of throwing him in a pit of despair, got him excited, so excited that his lips had curled up into an ominous grin without him even being aware of it. With a subtle explosion and a strong ripple, a domineering and suffocating aura burst out of Ivan's body as a subconscious chuckle escaped his mouth.
"Heh."
To gain the upper hand in the fight in which he was sure to indulge himself in, 'Summon' he mumbled, since the dragon had already wiped out the monster army he was fighting against, he commanded, thinking that there wouldn't be a shortage of soldiers in his army.
WHOOOOMMM
And complying with his command, the magic power in his body expanded, wide in search of a "medium," only to return back into Ivan's body since nothing except for blood remained in front of him, except for the monsters that Ivan had killed previously and had left behind.
CRACK
TAK-TAK
With a very few bones clicking sounds, 14 skeleton summons stood behind Ivan, glaring at the humongous dragon that was glaring back at them as if they were a few more ants joining the other as they formed a "colony." [1]
"Fuck"
****
(AN: for those who are dumb like me, [[1]a group of ants is called a colony] or so the internet said, and no, I don't, and I cannot speak with "energy")