Pestilence: Rise Of The Pure Undead

Loimos was about to rush forward, but stopped himself, sensing something.

Milo's fist struck the slash launched using the Harvest Scythe- It was important to note that when wielding a single of the two scythe, its strength was further elevated, that the slash was at its core, an apocalyptic ability of the aspect of pestilence, and that Loimos had further enhanced it with the usual means, and also the usage of a battle art, so the potency of that attack was a notch greater compared to what had come before.

The living had struggled to deal with the severed leg before, so even if he countered it with a powerful golden strike, it was all but certain that he would suffer from it anyways, so the skeleton had been planning on using the opening that would then follow to continue striking with the Harvest Scythe.

That plan was thwarted however, as the moment Milo's fist made contact with the slash, an incredible shine of gold suddenly enveloped the area, spreading so far and wide that its radiance spread throughout the whole realm, every ounce of life that entered into contact with it seemed to receive a blessing, small particles of golds rising from them, but to the undeads, it felt more like they had been hit in the face, it did not do anything beyond that, but the effect on the livings was noticeable.

'It would seem that the awakening was not actually complete' Loimos was not a hundred percent certain about that, but it certainly felt like Milo truly reached the summit in that instant, the slash was broken down instantly, even he showing a look of surprise as he had no idea why that punch in particular was no powerful.

But Loimos knew why, the living had just landed natural stack whilst wielding the golden energy, many might view a natural stack as nothing more than a stroke of luck that only brought a singular powerful strike randomly and nothing else, but Loimos had learned about stack from Nosferatu, the vampire lord had invented his own stack technique by copying the natural phenomenon, ultimately, whilst a most refined and brilliant technique, Nosferatu himself admitted that it was technically inferior to the natural variant, even stating that the biggest reason he invented the 'artificial' stack, was so that if he ever landed a natural stack, the two would 'stack' with one another, creating a blow of unimaginable power, hence the name Nosferatu had picked for it.

Ever since the creation of the technique however, neither Nosferatu nor Loimos had actually landed the natural variation, so the true power that the merging of the two would bring was all theoretical.

In that instant however, Loimos felt as though the natural stack from Milo was more than met the eye, as the effect that followed it was strange, the golden particles rising from living beings were not a short-lived phenomenon, they remained.

By all means, it seemed like Milo had unconsciously casted an augmentative spell upon the entire realm, yet somehow still managed to exclude the undeads from it.

The living stumbled forward, not having expected to actually obliterate the attack like that, and furthermore, the flow of his inner energy seemed so much faster now, so much smoother, it felt like his eyes had only partially opened until now.

The battlefield further away suddenly saw the tides turn drastically, as every living became imbued with gold, their every attacks now carrying it, it only a little bit, not nearly on the same level as Milo's, but the effects showed nonetheless, especially as their wounds and exhaustion faded away swiftly and constantly under the glow of gold.

Milo did not realise that he had just caused his fellows to push back and gain a clear advantage over the undeads, and simply poised himself to continue fighting Loimos.

A small crack formed on his skull, that stunt just now had required quite a bit of strength, that had drained some of the time he had left before he wouldn't be able to sustain himself here…

From him, without even budging a single bone, two translucent versions of him suddenly emerged, gliding above the ground, arching into Milo from both the right and left, they were different from the manifestations from earlier, these were not made from energies at all, they looked more like ghost or spectre-like variations of Loimos, each wielded one weapon, the one on the right had the Graven Scythe, the one of the left had the Harvest Scythe.

Milo intercepted the one on the right as it tried to swing at his shoulder, kicked at the other with a leg overflowing gold, only for Loimos to fly up into the air, and dive down like a hawk, slamming into the living, swinging both of his scythes down upon Milo.

He went for defence, but Milo felt for the feint, the weapons disappeared into a haze of miasma, and Loimos instead went and grasped at the living's wrists, whilst his black wings twisted themselves into something new, becoming two extra arms, each equipped with jagged claws, disemboweling Milo, as indeed, unless the gold could also put back the intestines inside of him, the wound would not heal properly.

Loimos then retreated back before blasts of gold could blow his hands off, instead taking hold of the two extra arms, ripping them off before turning them into two swords.

For a while, the undead maintained the offensive, the weapons in his hands constantly shifting their form, sometimes he dual-wielded, sometimes not, going through a whole catalogue of bizarre and obscure weapons, preventing Milo from taking care of the guts hanging down from his stomach.

Rather than staying on the defensive however, Milo decided that having his insides exposed to the outside was not that big of a deal, and instead pressed on the offensive, managing to destroy the rot wielded by Loimos as weapons, catching the undead himself however was a difficult affair.

A crazed glint shone in the living's eyes.

'Let's see if you can see this coming!'

He went for a spinning kick, barely missing the undead, but whilst his back was turned to the undead for that short instant, he went grabbed his hanging intestines, pulling them out further whilst infusing them with dire amount of golden energy, and once he flipped back around, wielded his own guts like a whips, the bloody organ soaring through the air with untold precision, wrapping right around the corpse's neck.

With a jerk, he pulled the skeleton right up to him, driving a direct punch right into the undead's skull, the force of the blow against the incredible toughness of the rotten bones caused a sound akin to thunder to spread out across the realm.