Pestilence: Rise Of The Pure Undead

Lizi carved a bloody way forward, seemingly uncaring that the obstacles she had to cut down resembled people, she might have normally been a bit hesitant to tear through people that effectively looked the as her and the people she knew, but there was no room for hesitation right now, she needed to find Griar and Louizon, and the enemies were trying to get in her way, they chose their own fate themselves.

No room for hesitation…

'Hesitation is defeat'

She remembered the words of Antieeld, splitting a townsperson right down the middle, brain and internal organs splattered down with harrowing sounds, blood splashing against the ground in quantity, tendrils bursted out from the two separated halves, but Lizi had grown used to it by now, even if there seemed to be no way to know who would erupt with the foul malevolence of the stagnant water- Knowing was half of the battle, and thus, the many tendrils met a hurricane of steel, the broken body they used as a vessel further compromised, eventually forcing the stagnant water to return to its true state.

Cleaning her blade once more, Lizi twisted her wrist, spinning her blade whilst looking around, she had made her way to a plaza, there, the townspeople had been busy butchering and burning the remains of people wearing strange gear, clearly, these had been intruders once, seemingly from two different factions.

Griar had mentioned something similar when had come back from this realm last time, which made Lizi perplexed, for all intents and purposes, the flow of time between the Stagnant Realm and Peaceful Realm seemed to be the same, so how come these two factions were still mindlessly sending people here when they were just meeting the exact same fate every time?

Was what they were after so precious that they didn't care and just kept trying? Fearful that if they took a step back, that the other faction would get ahead of them?

Lizi could only make assumptions, but it was clearly a waste of people, he did not know what those people were about or where they came from, but if they were nations, their citizens would probably start questioning the purpose of all of this eventually…

She continued to move forward, encountering people at seemingly every corner, this town seemed big, but the amount of enemies was still absurd, there was no way that this town had been home to so many people, and also, she couldn't help but notice that the population included no children whatsoever, which she was thankful for as she might hesitate to cut down a child even if one was aggressive, but still, that did not make much sense, this was a rural area with plenty of work to do and plenty of room to expand, by all means, people should be making babies like crazy.

But the youngest people around seemed to be in their twenties.

To add to the bizarre, Lizi had since long noticed something off about these people, particularly when she felled them.

Although basically no one cared for the system, everyone knew that when something was slain, that a force called 'experience' was supposed to rush into the killer's body, Auntie Antieeld had taught Lizi to pay attention to this as although feeling the sensation was not always proof that the enemy was truly defeat, not feeling it was basically perfect confirmation that the other side was playing dead.

And yet, not a single one of those people had yielded with a sliver of experience to her, and she was fairly certain that they were dead, Lizi was not exactly giving them much chance of survival with how she dealt with them, some had been so thoroughly sliced into pieces, that putting them back together would require a team of experts.

It was like she was fighting corpses that were just being puppeteered, but that did not make any sense either, those people had life within them, and they spoke, even they didn't say much, they did speak, each in their own tones, they walked in different manners, and they used different tactics to try and kill Lizi, if they were all being controlled, shouldn't they be far more efficient and better at coordinating? They kept getting into each other's way, sometimes even hitting one another due to being so utterly focused on their target.

Something was wrong about this place.

The stagnant water was not your run-of-the-mill bizarre substance, and Griar had even said that there had been an undead in this realm.

'I better find them quickly… Where is Louizon anyways? Has there truly been nothing worth blasting apart? Or was she taken so far away that I can't hear the rumbles of her spells?' the eldest daughter continued forward, unknowingly taking the same path as Griar had during his first visit, which eventually took her to the farms and residence.

'I think Griar mentioned this place, including…' she swung her blade through the air, deflecting small projectiles fired at her.

'...A man wielding a weird crossbow'

Unlike her little brother, she did not bother with stealth or infiltration, she stepped out right into the open, blocking and deflection the projectiles from the one wielding the strange weapon, this young man seemed to have more focus in his eyes compared to other, and he was accurate, it was just a shame that his weapon was not powerful enough.

Lizi rushed forward, rampaging through the farmers with bloody grace and murderous finesse, limbs were sent flying, farm tools were grabbed out of the air and launched at unsuspecting enemy, kicks and elbow strikes sent teeth flying, shattering bones like twigs.

Even as the ones here erupted with tendrils far more often than those who had come before, Lizi remained unperturbed, her sword remaining steady no matter what horrors emerged, not showing even a moment of surprise as the farm animals turned aggressive as well.

She simply cut them all down until none was left.

Curious, she picked up the weapon that the young man had wielded, which caused loud booms with every activation and seemed to use small projectiles.

Its usage seemed relatively simple, but it seemed like all ammunition available had been exhausted considering that at one point, he had stopped firing and instead attempted to run away.

Indeed, he had had enough presence of mind to understand that there was nothing that could be done about the swordswoman, unfortunately, he could not run fast enough.

Lizi slashed him in the back and stomped down on his neck, causing his head to be separated from the rest of his body.

"That's for hurting my little brother, scum"

Then, Lizi looked up to see a man wearing a faded blue shirt, a sack on his head and wielding a double-edged axe fast-walking toward her.

She had heard about this guy as well…