Pestilence: Rise Of The Pure Undead

It was early on in his journey that Loimos had come across this phenomenon, since then, things had changed, but the fact remained that atop this peak of the frozen mountains near where Tamaris once stood, one could bear witness to a most incredible sight.

Back then, Loimos had really been just a boneling, acting as a messenger, he had set out through the mountains to reach the Ashen Grounds and inform Gravelord Dracula of the reemergence of the Undead Empire, Loimos had been struggling against the living inhabitants of the mountains and the dragon that ruled over the area.

Svaltimas had become an undead since then, and so had every single living that once populated this region, the mountains had changed with the total domination of the Empire over the continent, they had grown in sizes, and various architectures, were to be found amidst them, some easy to spot, some hidden within the peaks.

This area in particular had been left untouched so as to not disturb the extraordinary phenomenon that occurred when one was standing here, that was not to say that it had remained the exact same however, the undead conquest had still caused changes to occur to the sight here.

But it had only enhanced it, making it even more suitable for One.

Here, in the past, Loimos had seen countless different sun populating the sky, seemingly all of the different suns one could encounter across the whole of Viridis, since the continent had been taken over, it seems like this place had begun to show the suns present across the entirety of Empire instead, in fact, one could even spot the Undevigintis here.

Of course, it wasn't really them, simply a recreation without minds of their own, but still, the light they cast was just the same as the real ones would project.

"Whoa…" the vampiress, not having a clue about this place, was immediately taken aback, and even Maliah was quite surprised by the strangeness of this place.

Suns were everywhere, countless of them, be they real or artificial, be they in the main world or in realms, as long as the Empire was present somewhere, the associated suns would manifest here as well.

It might appear to be an illusion, but One could feel the sunlight landing upon her body and empowering her, as bizarre as it may be, this was all legitimate.

Loimos exerted some of his power to slightly change the phenomenon however, as glorious as it may be, King Nitok's sun of darkness was counterproductive to the situation here, so Loimos made it so that dark sun would away for a little while, he also made it so that all of the suns would be properly shining upon a precise spot and then made it so that nothing would move, as the phenomenon had a day-night cycle, and would normally, eventually change to displaying all of the moons instead.

Loimos also removed any other minor suns of darkness, and there it was, perhaps the most luminous place in the entire empire, even a vampire lord might get instantly carbonised if they stepped here right now.

"Oh, Loimos… You do so much for me, I love you!"

The skeleton then manifested a coffin in the most illuminated spot, and soon enough, the vampiress laid dormant within it with so much light bearing down on her, that the blood within the vampire's body became visible to the naked eye as it shone brightly.

"Do vampire's normally lay dormant with their eyes open like that?" wondered Maliah.

"They usually close them" replied Loimos.

Afterward, the assassin and champion duo did not linger around, as Loimos estimated that One was not going to be moving for at least a month, in the meantime, they sought out and took care of a few more realms that had not been yet registered, and together, they conquered a nice line of realms, once they were properly explored and documented in their current state, it would be available to fill them with miasma, and then score a rather big strip of ocean in a single swoop for the Empire.

There was nothing too special about those realms, they mostly resembled the main world, bearing the same ways of power, the same environments and the same density of ambient energy in the air.

During that time however, the somewhat controversial caste of the vanguard, 'The Spearheads' was deployed into a realm, which was the first real operation of that unit since their creation, they invaded a world of tall grey buildings and were complex mechanisms and engineering seemed to reign supreme, the Empire had encountered a few of those in the past, but they had either been desolated already, such as the Black Fog Realm, or eerily empty.

This one was the first to be invaded that was actually thriving with livings, and considering the unique environment overall, it was the spearheads that were chosen to tackle it, this mission was how they were going to prove themselves as competent and capable.

Which was necessary as their habits were not deemed necessary or conducive to proper conquest by many, but their very living-like mindset allowed them to easily enter a realm other undeads, and even Loimos would have struggled to intrude upon.

In fact, as the pure undead, Loimos would have struggled the most out of all undeads.

As this realm did not reject the concept of undeath outright, but sort of ran a screening of anything that tried to enter, evaluating their mindset and way of thinking, only accepting those that it deemed more living-like, and as such, even undeads with rather strong personalities would be denied access because ultimately, the way they thought and viewed things was too abnormal.

The spearheads might be unsavoury characters, but they had the qualifications to enter without problem within that sort of realm, even if their methods were a far departure from the usual strategy and would inevitably render the conquest difficult as well as give rise to more negators amongst the populations than normal.

It was the price that needed to be paid to conquer the realm at all.

As the general of the vanguard, Loimos got to receive their reports ahead of most, and indeed, they were still acclimating to the energy levels of the realm, that they had already found themselves a 'plaything' as they called it.

Good thing the operations of the Empire where always tightly guarded against prying eyes, otherwise the other superpowers would have plenty of ground to accuse them of war crimes, which was indeed something that existed, they had plenty of treaties and the likes since even before the Empire rose to prominence, which regulated what they were allowed to do in warfare.

And what the spearheads were doing was a horrendous violation of at least three of those rules.

As long as they weren't caught, it wouldn't count as a crime though…

"Tighten the surveillance on what the spearheads speak of aloud, and begin construction of a base just for them in heart of the Empire, deep underground and below the ocean, the ocean with enormous pressure in particular" Loimos ordered, he needed to make sure the track record of the Empire stayed pristine.

Being viewed as honourable was a good perk to have.