Pestilence: Rise Of The Pure Undead

With a gasp, Milo rose to his feet, only to find himself in a wide flatland of green grass.

"Here again?" he spoke aloud.

"Not quite, the plains from last time got torn apart after Loimos forced his way in and fought Thanatok, again… That fight didn't really have a winner though, this assemblage of memories broke down first" Milo heard a voice that was familiar, but also distantly so, he turned around to see who it was.

"Quideos Audit?"

"Glad to see that people still remember me… How is Joala?"

"The archbishop of Phanes? She's fine, I guess… But hold on, what am I doing here? I don't have time to waste, Loimos is out there, I need to be fighting him, otherwise-"

"Relax, Milo… You'll wake up when your body decides to wake up… I am afraid that I am powerless to help you in that regard" the prophet sighed, compared to the beautiful scenery of the plains, the man looked completely haggard, his white hair were a mess, his eyes were wide open, barely even blinking and bloodshot, it looked as though he had been awake for months.

"Why don't you take a seat in the meantime?" just as he spoke, a small table and two chairs popped into existence right next to them, and Milo reluctantly sat down, feeling like he was wasting time here, even with Audit's explanation, that sensation did not change… Helena, Toby, his children and everyone else was out there! Loimos would not spare them out of the kindness of his heart.

Quideos Audit rubbed his nape wearily.

"You know… To you guys it's been a few years, right? But to me, it has been what feels like hundreds, if not thousands of years since the undead empire conquered Viridis… Not only is the difference in the flow and time different between every realm, but I have been scouring through countless memories of the present, of the past, and even of the future, watching through all of them… Including the distorted memories of other creatures and undeads… It has been so long"

The seer sighed.

"I know so much, but what use is all of this knowledge if it is useless to stop the advance of the dead? Before, I thought that I would need to reach and plead to a higher being… But the gods are silent and scared, our world has no will of its own, and the beings beyond the gods… They… They do not care in the slightest, to them, we are just a single world amidst countless others, they could care less about what happens to life here, on the contrary, they are curious instead, excited to see if a world could truly be completely overtaken by death…" as Quideos spoke, he didn't even look at Milo, in fact, his gaze was unfocused, so it was dubious if he was even paying attention to anything in front of his eyes.

"We live in a peculiar world, wouldn't you agree?"

"I guess…"

"Well, it seems like we are not that special, diverse worlds full of wonders and mystery are the norm, there is no escaping by begging the creator or any of his daughters and other offsprings… If anything, he would be more likely to side with Loimos… The purple… That colour… It makes him closer to the creator than any of us"

The prophet sighed again, looking up at the bright blue sky, there was nothing there for him to discover, this place was built using memories, he had made it himself, such artificial realms was the main way in which he had been escaping detection by the undead, he didn't even know how many he had created by now, countless times they had been destroyed as swarms of locusts would invade them and eat away at the memories.

His eyes moved down to look at Milo.

"Sonnenträger is the greatest hero to have ever lived, the greatest man, the greatest living, I would dare say… I have a hard time to fathom things from his perspective, I mean, you probably understand why your golden energy is so powerful, right? Well, he wields the true version of that, down to perfection… He has transcended life itself, he wasn't the first to do so, and far from the last to perfect the manipulation of an energy, or a way of power so greatly, that one's very essence changes… You don't know about him, but the Dragonlord of Dragonnerie is one of such beings, having mastered the innate way of power of dragons so much that he is no longer a living, his core essence is that of dragon's breath now…"

"...All that to say, how could we possibly have a grasp on what such exalted beings think about? It is not just about their transcendence, but how they achieved it… To be frank, I too have partly moved away from life, the more I travel through memories and desperately try to find a way to stop Loimos, the more I become a being of memories as well, but even then, I do not have a clue what Sonnenträger truly thinks"

He closed his eyes, appearing like he was going to fall asleep on the spot.

"I am betting everything on Sonnenträger returning and defeating Loimos, I am sorry, but I do not believe that you can do it, Milo… Even in the current state of affairs, he'll defeat and kill you… Memories relating to him are impossible to reach, so maybe I am wrong though"

"In any case, I wanted to tell you a bit of what I know, since you are here…"

Milo was simply listening in silence, not feeling like asking any questions right now.

"Loimos… Is an apostle, he holds a certain colour, that deep, dark purple that glows from his sockets… The Defiler Of The Holy was also an apostle, and through memories that I reached from other worlds, I discovered many others, most of them were despicable to absurd degrees, and even those of noble intentions were far removed from the concept of goodness… I somehow ended up finding myself thinking that Loimos was actually quite the good guy, he really is just an undead at the end of the day, it is hard to actually dislike him… It would be like disliking a spider for weaving a web… It is simply how things are supposed to be"

Quideos seemed to lose himself in his thoughts, or perhaps his memories were hard to gather after experiencing so many years and so many perspectives, having to dig through the countless memories to find which were actually his.

"Ah… Yes… The Pale Lady and The Bright Lady… Death and Life, if you will…"

"It's thanks to memories about them that I was able to understand more about Loimos…"