Pestilence: Rise Of The Pure Undead

The strength of the blow sent shockwaves flying outward, Milo could feel some of his phalanges breaking before being swiftly repaired as he struck the undead's skull, unleashing the full brunt of the gold he wielded into that blow, momentarily giving on defence, directing everything he had to ensure that his gold would overpower and prevent any type of retaliation the skeleton might attempt.

With a grunt, he kept pushing even after the impact, lifting the corpse's feet off the ground, before slamming into the ground, shattering the earth and manifesting a whirlwind simply from the sheer force of the impact.

The living gritted his teeth, feeling that his fist had not shattered the skull, rather than backing off now, he pulled his fist back, before bringing it back down, hammering down on the pure undead with both his right and left, flashes of gold illuminating the realm as the coursed through the skeleton and coursed through the soil, newly formed cracks and ravines glowed with bright gold after every strike, the very world appearing to shake as he mindlessly struck and struck again, his own bones and flesh breaking and rupturing whilst impacting against the incredibly durable rotten skull.

But Milo did not care, his self-inflicted injuries would heal instantly, allowing him to keep going, refusing to let go of this occasion to lay waste to the pure undead, letting the rage and resentment stocked up over the years speak for him through violence, his attacks had condensed the ground beneath them to an absurd degree, to the point that his strikes no longer pushed the undead deeper into the soil.

It was then that his left fist was stopped mid-swing, Loimos's iron grip keeping it in place, in response, Milo went to attack with his right fist, but before the blow could connect, the purple glow nesting within his hollow sockets flared up, overtaking both gold and emerald, a terrific sound accompanying the purging light, like the grinding of a planet splitting in half, like the howl of a foul beast upon which one could not even lay sight…

'How the hell could he do that? Shouldn't the gold have prevented and interrupted everything?' Milo asked himself a question as he attempted to blindly attack, releasing pulses of gold without having a clue what was going on.

The glow was clearly the skeleton's version of Gravelord Vwoldtnir's special skill, where he unleashed a blinding light from his chest, but naturally, Loimos had not left it at the basic version.

Milo couldn't tell whether he was standing or lying down right now, he couldn't tell if he was on flat ground or a slope, he couldn't tell if he was falling or not, he couldn't see anything, he couldn't hear anything- He could not use any of his senses, in fact, although he willed himself to attack by blindly punching and creating blast of gold, he could not tell if he was actually doing so, right now, it was like he was nothing but his thoughts, it was as if the light released by Loimos had rendered everything about him blind.

After what felt like an eternity of trying to struggle in this state, Milo suddenly regained everything, and found out that so little time had passed in reality, that Loimos was barely even standing up, it was obvious that the undead was not just messing with him, as the great amounts of gold that had been poured into the skeleton were still right there, only just beginning to be decayed and pushed out.

It seemed like even his sense of time passing had been blinded by that light, but most importantly, it seemed like some of its more destructive aspects lagged behind the rest, as Milo felt his eyeballs melting, in fact, his skin and flesh were bubbling, feeling like a foreign influence was trying to change the very core of what he was.

This was the effects of the light wielded by the black fog voidlings, so in essence, it meant that Loimos had managed to master the abilities of those abnormal creatures to the point of adding it to one of his core skills.

Naturally, Milo surged with gold to combat the effects and heal back up, but Loimos was not going to just sit back and focus on evacuating the energy that had been imbued into him by the force of fists, although doing anything with a whole bunch of gold messing everything up was complicated, he still managed to close the distance, and land an uppercut upon Milo, which blew his lower jaw into pieces, chucking him out of the hole he had created whilst attacking the undead like a feral animal.

When Milo finally managed to fight off the combined effects of the purple glow, he saw Loimos step out of the hole too, with no longer even a single hint of gold plaguing his rotten bones, though, his skull was now marred with several more cracks compared to before, he looked like he could crumble to dust at any time.

Unfortunately, although Milo was unhurt as he had healed from everything, it was undeniable that his reserves of gold had taken a serious hit, from using the maximum output possible when attacking Loimos, and healing the various injuries, the light just now in particular, had also done ravages to his mind and soul for example, and healing those was costly.

Unlike Loimos, Milo needed them to function, so he had no choice but to heal them immediately.

Still, the living felt that he had the upper hand, the fact that in the spur of the moment, Loimos could only manage a simple uppercut was proof enough that he could no longer pull off crazy things on a whim, or at least, that his own reserves were also running low and forcing him to be more frugal with how he used what he had left.

And clearly, he could no longer mend damage too.

The living raised his fists, watching Loimos intently as his jaw full of long and pointy teeth parted slightly, a most unusual action from him, there was no need to do that unless he planned on using his teeth as a weapon…

'Or to use a battle art!' Milo surged forward instantly, but it was too late, Loimos rose his skull up toward the sky and a most terrifying howl escaped him, the combined screams, cries and roars of every singular creature his rot ever consumed, manifesting a natural battle art belonging to the kingdoms of animals, beasts and monsters alike.

His roar rolled across the Emerald Realm, causing every beast worshipper without exception to have their hair stand on their end.

To Milo, it seemed like he had manifested for no other purpose than to provide himself with an enhancement, but upon hearing that, the disaster beasts that still stood, howled back, and in particular, The Traveler opened its maw once again, but instead of troops, it unleashed a vile stream of rotten flesh and putrefied blood, the whole thing was one, and quickly demonstrated its purpose as it began to pump miasma out at a horrifying rate.

However, the golden one did not know that, and merely charged the undead again…