Pestilence: Rise Of The Pure Undead

"Can we get started immediately, or do I need to explain the obvious?"

Far below sea level, there was a grand monument to be found, crafted from dark blue material, standing taller and larger that most of the common creatures of the ocean, in the heart of this grand structure, which was filled with impossibly wide halls, there was a grand room to be found, which seemed to be meeting hall.

Naturally, when everything was submerged in water, the layout and way things worked was vastly different, the only thing that seemed truly recognisable without the assembly gathered in a circle was the brilliant throne the woman who had just spoken was laying upon.

Back against the rightmost armrest, tail slouched over the leftmost one, she was staring down upon the various people of the ocean below as though there were only insects to be found amongst their ranks.

Under her gaze, even those resembling sea creatures that land dwellers would tell horror stories about shrunk like misbehaving children.

"Your Highness, there is no need to waste your voice, we all understand the purpose of our presence here today!" the one who dared to speak up was a being resembling a white whale in all traits, only covered in barnacles, at least, that was until he actually spoke and opened his mouth, revealing that instead of the end of a tongue, there was the upper half of a humanoid figure there.

The body was still white and possessed whale-like features though.

"Always quick to suck up to me, aren't you, Mocha? If you all know why you are here, explain your shortcomings, and present solutions" everyone present couldn't help but sink lower toward the ground.

Their Queen-Empress, Moilirus Poisseon, did not need to elevate her voice and even put much tone when she spoke for them to understand that they might not come out of here intact if they failed to satisfy her orders.

The ruler of Bermude was tapping her tail against the side of her throne from time to time, it appeared like nothing more than a simple tic, but to everyone present, it was a direct threat to their well-being.

Moilirus Poisseon appeared much like a typical mermaid in overall physiology, though, her upper half was not quite that of a woman like regular mermaid, it was remained very much fish-like despite being humanoid in shape, with webbed-fingers, gills on the side of the chest and neck, and multiple rows of teeth.

Indeed, she was akin to a shark, and as the tail that was even longer than she was tall strongly demonstrated, she was greatly reminiscent of thresher shark in particular, and indeed, that tail had turned plenty of fools into red mist throughout the many years of her rule.

Although no one who had ever been within that room had ever been killed in such a way, and also that actually getting struck was rare, they all knew better than to trust their Queen-Empress's temper, especially since she had been rather displeased with their performances lately.

From the back of the room, a truly gigantic bigfin squid rose one of his tentacles, unlike the white whale, this one truly had nothing humanoid in the least, appearing as an exact replica of a regular animal species of the depth of the ocean in appearance, only many times larger.

"First of all- I think I am speaking for everyone present, we must admit to have failed at our objectives, the undead negotiators not only outsmarted us, but tricked us as well, leading to far too many of those foul corpses being allowed to move about in our continent…" he began by lowering his head, and apologising.

Thankfully, their ruler did not say anything to that, allowing him to keep going.

"...Furthermore, we were unable to gather any information on the Undead Empire through spying, the ships and undeads who go out of the borders never do anything out of the norm, and since they always speak in that incomprehensible language of theirs…"

The bigfin squid went over all sorts of failures that had been committed, indeed, Bermude was actively seeking ways to counter the Undead Empire, something they were certain all other superpowers were also doing, but unfortunately, beyond the basics that anyone could figure out, and adapting the typical methods used here, there was nothing to show.

The Undead Empire was careful in who it sent out, either, undeads that went past their borders would simply never do anything beyond the basics or say a word that was not in death tongue, as for the negotiators, diplomats and the likes, they were clearly handpicked to be the hardest ones to deal with.

They were always inflexible in trade deals, and never let out anything of interest, at best they would ramble about the most benign of things, as such, since spying directly on their territory was impossible, they knew next to nothing about the undeads besides what was readily available.

"I see that you are acutely aware of where and how you failed, Palmuda, I assume that everyone else agrees with his assessment?" as the Queen-Empress sweeped the room with her gaze, all nodded energetically.

"Good, since you all agree that you have been worthless failures lately, we can move on to the next subject of discussion, how do you intend to make up for serving no purpose in these endeavours? I would like to remind you all that peace with the undead is purely temporary, one would have to deprived of all senses to not realise that they are only engaging with us on friendly terms because they can't slaughter us all immediately"

"As ambient life force grows stronger and stronger, the advance of their miasma in turn becomes slower and slower, but they have found ways to accelerate it nonetheless" with a wave of her hands, the water above everyone turned bright, manifesting light that perfectly recreated the image of miasma suddenly bursting over an area and engulfing it.

"They are using realms as pockets of miasma to condense and stack it before letting it out into the main world, they are certainly hoping to accomplish something similar by conquering Verdoyante" with another flick, she showed the image of bizarre ship setting anchor against the coast of Verdoyante.

"And that is only what is readily visible, it makes no doubt that they were preparing far more where no prying eyes can see them… Truly, that you all failed to gather anything and force your Queen-Empress to take action herself… Absolutely pathetic, you have disappointed me like never before"

The tail struck against the ground, causing the entire architecture to tremble.

"Since you are incapable of gathering even the simplest of information, pour all of your focus and resources, into developing means of defence and attack instead, if I find out any of you is slacking on the job, you'll lose far more than your spot on the council- Meeting disbanded, out of my sight, all of you"

Moilirus Poisseon leaned back into her throne.

'Are those really the best I have?'