Pestilence: Rise Of The Pure Undead

After turning the remains of the champion into a puppet using his acquired finesse, as well as sacrifices of his own body, with golemcraft and spirit creation, the horde of snow dwellers didn't back off, instead charging forth harder as though they were in a frenzy.

But was of little importance, Loimos used his rot to propel himself away from the converving mass, and made use of the champion in a most simple way, using its greater size and mass, the undead made it roll around on top of its former fellows, crushing them into red goo without them being able to do anything about it.

Soon afterward, the reanimated corpse ceased any actions, unfortunately, when bringing anything to some sort of undeath, the time was limited as Loimos couldn't quite stop his death force within them from leaking out as it threw itself on the closest life around.

Apart from having a great deal of damaged bones, the undead had dealt with the situation at hand rather well and moved forward, not encountering much of the other inhabitants, for those that he did notice, they all scampered away before he could do anything about their breathing situation.

Stirring up snow as he walked, night fell and the conjoined suns reappeared as he noticed what appeared to be the edge of the mountain, and indeed it was, a rather precarious slop greeted him alongside the sight of a dense forest which trees reached incredibly high, nearly half the distance separating him from the ground down there.

These trees had no leaves whatsoever, only densely packed thorns grew all over them, connecting each of the tall plants to one another, the prickles colouring the whole thing with their dark red.

Assessing and calculating the optimal way of getting down there without exploding against a rock along the way, Loimos was interrupted as the freezing winds going all over the mountains intensified, turning, he realised that, clearly, something had successfully sneaked rather close to him without being picked up by any of his senses.

Shrouded in a thick blue fog, two eyes stared right at him, only the head and neck of the being protruded from the concealing mantle of the freezing mist, a whitish, thick skinned beast with a maw full of teeth the size of the average man's arm, at the base of its neck, a mana of dark blue feathers.

Its eyes were calm, its skin covered in deep, yet natural gashes similar to wrinkles, Loimos couldn't be certain of what he was looking at until the creature moved forward a bit, a wing protruding from the fog.

Simply put, it was probably of the lengthy dragon family tree, and as such, Loimos stepped off the side of the mountain, allowing himself to get torn apart right as the mighty creature roared, creating a dome of pure frost, freezing even the snow, reaching the spot the undead had stood moments ago.

Becoming an ice statue certainly would have thrown a wrench in his objectives, the dragonoid moved with careful steps to the edge, seeing Loimos ragdolling in the distance, puffing frozen air from its nostrils, it turned back, not planning on giving chase since the undead had so courteously left on his own.

Contrary to what might have been expected, Loimos managed to keep all of his limbs thanks to utilising his rot well enough to soften the many impacts, but in the end, cascading all the way from a mountain, even if somewhat controlled, he was thrown right into a tree, hitting him in the midsection and splitting his body into two.

Sliding along the thin and soft grass, his lower and upper half ended up rather close to one another, each with variety of broken bones only held together by sheer power of primeval rot, everything was much darker here, only few strands of light could be seen finding a way past the thorns up above, everything down there was covered in dark green grass, vegetation wasn't very flourishing, only few stray bushes and smaller trees could be seen into the distance, amidst the enormous barks of the leafless trees.

They somehow seemed even taller than they were before, Loimos's senses couldn't be tricked however, they had definitely grown taller than they were when he was looking up from above.

Discover more stories at empire

Sticking himself back on, Loimos rose to his feet, swaying a bit as the rot took proper hold to stop him from dividing himself again, the forest was thriving, however, he wasn't sensing any wildlife anywhere, having monsters capable of hiding from his senses was one thing, but he wasn't even noticing a single insect in the vicinity, he stepped forward, the ground was a bit soft, he could feel himself sinking a slight bit with his every steps, making a splosh noise every time.

This place was damp, seemingly unaffected by the egregious heat coming from above despite the temperature being incredibly high, he must have been close to a large body of water, but he couldn't see any or hear any flowing even when focusing his senses, he had read much things back in Weafewand, many concerning regions ranging from the most simple and uninteresting ones to the magical wonders, somehow, nothing had mentioned this clearly suspicious forest however.

He walked for an entire day without encountering anything he hadn't already, night had fallen and everything was perfectly pitch black, a better environment for the undead, since his darkness awareness could work full time, providing him with an additional sense, yet, there was still nothing, Loimos knew very well that he couldn't have been caught in an illusion, yet, he was well aware that the forest hadn't been nearly so large to begin with.

A few hours of walking into any direction should have taken him right on out, but it hadn't.

Something was definitely off, but just as was about to try something else, he stumbled upon human remains, well, humanoid at the very least, bones in perfect conditions, still wearing their clothes and grasping on an unrusted sword, the corpse sitting against a tree and looking forward still, not curled up miserably like they had died from exposure, just sitting comfortably.

Not a speck of death emanated from the corpse, like it was actually a prop.

Following the discovery, a life signature appeared right behind Loimos, his merged undead senses, telling him everything he could possibly know about the sudden apparition, but before he could do anything about it, it had already grabbed onto him, and without much effort, threw him right through the thorns and branches up above, going through them without breaking any, crashing right back down onto the forest ground.