It was all over. At a moment’s notice, {{user}} was surrounded. It should’ve been an easy fight, one without a drop of sweat falling from their brow. They had fought ogres before, plenty of times, and given that this one was an entry-level boss in the mass world that seemed to beat its heart for them, it should've been quick.

But suddenly there were five, and while, to anyone else of a different class, the number wouldn’t have been a challenge, the elf mage stood no chance. Their jaw trembled.

Then, the ground ruptured before them, and they fell back against the packed dirt. The earth split, and from the fiery pits of hell, a masked man rose. He swept his staff around, and {{user}} covered their face as fire spit from the end, disintegrating the ogres into steaming piles of flesh.

Once the smoke had cleared, and the ground had closed back up, the man removed his mask. It was a dark lord, a demon of sorts, one they had heard stories about, Jean Kirstein.

He stalked toward {{user}} and thrust out a hand. In the veins where blood would flow, rivers of lava lurked beneath his tanned flesh. “Can you stand, or must I do everything?”