Pestilence: Rise Of The Pure Undead

Once he was done reporting victory and had indeed confirmed that Maliah had become an undead, Loimos ended up in a place that he had not often been in, which was his office which had been constructed in the great platform that had once served as the main base of operation during the conquest of Belliste, in his absence, it seemed like the vanguard had decided to upgrade this place.

Now resembling a massive, dark rectangle standing upward with countless bridges extending out from it, and many floating constructs and islands all around it, some floating on their own, others linked to the main architecture with chains.

There was no point in trying to describe the sheer size of everything, as per usual when letting the famed architects go wild, they had created something that a living could take their entire lifetime trying to explore, especially since they hardly seemed capable of restraining themselves from making whatever they built into a labyrinth.

The place was crawling with all sorts of undeads from the numerous different castes of the vanguard, most bizarre however, were the statues and various art pieces depicting Loimos that were all over the places, there were mostly stone statues, which were rather true to reality, but also wood carvings, mosaics and even paintings, the latter seemed to have been made by the same person as the style was consistent, and also the fact that that they tended to depict things that Loimos certainly would not normally be doing, or events that did not happen.

Such as the one where Loimos tears open his black mantle to reveal his bare ribcage, which was ludicrous, why would he not have his usual chestplate underneath it? And why would he remove his mantle with his hands anyways? It was all rot, he just needed to think to make it disappear!

Or also the one where Loimos triumphs over an army of angels in what seems like a depictive of the divine realm, they hadn't even found a way to this realm yet, was this some sort of propaganda? That couldn't be the case propaganda was for the living colonies, not constructs deep within undead territory.

Also they managed to make his skeletal form look far more bulky than it really was…

In any case, Loimos quickly reached his office, where he received a rundown of everything that had happened during the very long time he had been absent, receiving reports from Ourlst, Horhir, Carnifex and Dimios.

As one could have expected, just because their general was absent did not mean that they spent their time doing nothing, in fact, they had made quite some progress, it was hard to see it at a glance because advancing was simply so slow for the Empire nowadays, but several realms had been conquered by the vanguard, as well as a couple of nearby islands or small tribes of beings that lived beneath the water had been subjugated as well.

"Most of the realms we have encountered lacked any restrictive means, or said means were too weak to impede us, leading to swift and efficient conquests- On the front of growing the ranks of the living soldiers however, things have been slow for us, the realms we encountered typically lacked in sapient species or beasts that could be of use in that regard, those realms were rather small and empty for the most part" said Ourlst, although swiftly conquering realms was good as it allowed to use the special manoeuvre to expand the territory in the main world swiftly, the realms the left hand mentioned provided little benefits beyond that and not all were in good positions to execute the manoeuvre too.

"As for the realms under the jurisdiction of the minor lords, things have been progressing smoothly, Lord Ridfoirn has seized full control of Volon Sormaca, effectively getting the majority of the realm in a chokehold, his study of the way of power known as 'Volonstone' is progressing smoothly, it is predicted that this realm will be fully under the Empire's control within two years at most" Horhir followed, and from there, the two knights alternated between one another as they explained the situation of the other minor lords.

"Lord Alkayne has the mainland fully under control, he is leading a campaign against the creatures dwelling beneath the seemingly endless frozen ocean that surrounds it with, albeit slow, success so far- By the way, Lord Alkayne has produced dozens of undeadlings with a nightbird called Cecili and a nun of the realm called Jiji… Would you like to inspect them to verify if they inherited capabilities from their parents, General Loimos?"

"I shall do so" simply replied the pure undead, a dozen undeadlings was a good number, surely at least one might show an innate ability that was the same, or similar to that of their father.

The knights both nodded and continued :

"Lord Prikrip, thanks to his aggressive approach, has managed to push back the voidlings of the black fog, most of the passageways they used to seep into that realm have been temporarily sealed, allowing for Lord Prikrip and his men to further explore the realm beyond that first city and to round-up the human survivors, it seems like his work will take a long while to complete, the realm is estimated to be as large as Viridis and Belliste combined, without counting the oceans, and the black fog appears to have appeared all over"

The corvid might sound like he was behind some of the other minor lords, but his mission was especially important since the black fog was a lesser variation of the True Void, which was a force that had the potential to threaten the sovereignty of death.

"Lord Prikrip does not believe that the human populations of the realm would make for good living soldiers, but he reports that they seem well-versed in the arts of mechanical constructs and other methods that do not rely on ways of power"

The Empire had already greatly explored such means through the invention of wires to spread electricity for example, taking inspiration and absorbing the knowledge of a civilisation who seems to have been doing such things for far longer could only be beneficial.

Gharl and Tiloh would certainly be very happy about getting their hands on such things.

"Lord Yuolrt, through her mission to explore Verdoyante, has made a most important discovery about the continent"

"Indeed, it was of such importance that she was unable to be present for another mission in the Emerald Realm at the time, and even now, it is not possible for her to pull out without putting the mission in jeopardy…"