Pestilence: Rise Of The Pure Undead

Milo bashed his shoulder into the undead, the blow sent Loimos flying through air over several meters, but he landed on his feet nonetheless, meeting the living's assault just in time, evading a right hook with expert footwork.

With both of their energies nearing depletion, both of the combatants were pretty much drained of most of their means, in the skeleton's case, he deprived of nearly all of the countless means he had gathered across his existence, for Milo, it was less severe as his fighting style had always been about close-quarters combat, but right now, the amount of gold he could infuse into each individual strike was much less compared to before.

Loimos dodged a kick aimed at his waist, and deflected a quick punch targeting his chest, landing a strike of his own upon Milo's jaw, the living spat out some blood alongside a teeth, deciding not to heal that minor wound for now, instead raising his arm to block another attack, only to notice the undead suddenly lowering his body down to the ground, and swiftly sweeping with one leg at the living's ankles.

Milo barely managed to jump over that, before being forced back by a constant assault, undering blows to his forearms and thighs as although confined to his humanoid form and seemingly unable to even manifest as much as a single bone claw, Harbinger's Harvest remained a most supreme combat style, as there were plenty of unarmed martial arts for humanoids to utilise, and Loimos was melding them all seamlessly, wielding every categories of attacks on the same level as the greatest of grandmasters.

Before, Milo resisted the superior skills and masteries of the undead with a great amount golden energy, allowing him to ignore attacks, right now, although his stocks of gold were running low, Loimos was also in a rather poor state, and Milo currently held the advantage in terms of sheer, brute force and resilience.

Allowing him to endure repeated hits without having to immediately rely on healing himself, even as his thighs were battered with kicks, he did not falter, and even as his forearms were bruised, his defence did not lower.

Decisively, Milo surged forward at a seemingly random time, getting struck right in the face for it, but he ignored the blow as best as he could, spreading his arms wide open, catching Loimos into a bear hug with his skeletal arms pinned to the side of his body.

With a grunt, Milo tried to crush the undead, but Loimos was not out of means, the corpse sunk his teeth into the living's shoulder, ripping out muscle as the one trying to squeeze him cried out in pain and threw him away.

Feeling that his arm and shoulder could still work well despite the bite, Milo once again decided to let the damage as is, and burst forth with speed, raising his foot high in an attempt to step right onto Loimos's skull, but the corpse was able to evade at the last second getting uncomfortably close to Milo, and with his left fist, went for the living's liver.

Getting punched in the liver was unbelievably painful, having been taught in boxing and infighting, Milo was especially aware of that, as getting struck in such a fashion would often get you into a technical knockout as one would generally be left incapacitated in between thirty seconds to a full minute.

His face contorted into an ugly expression as the undead precisely managed to deliver the liver shot, it seemed that with far less gold, Milo was also less efficient in resisting terrible amounts of pain, but he maintained his clarity, noticing that the undead, like the foul bastard that he was, intending on not just hitting his liver once, but to keep doing it until stopped.

With a noise that sounded like it belonged to a bovine rather than a human, Milo forced his body to act according to his will and to ignore the excruciating pain coursing through its every fibres, grabbing hold of the undead in a hurry, and letting himself fall backward, threw the corpse away as far as he could, trying to buy himself time to recover.

Rather than rolling and bouncing upon the ground the whole way, Loimos grasped at the dirt with his fingers to stop himself early, immediately rushing forward on all fours, resembling a rabid nightmare beast, having way too much ease moving in this manner despite having a body clearly meant for walking upward.

Milo forced himself to stand up, feeling the pain receding, readying himself to meet the undead's charge, but unexpectedly, Loimos did not pounce like a wild animal to try and maul the living, instead, he suddenly rose up, and with both arms, making a sort of cross motion, chucked dirt right into his opponent's face.

Milo had certainly not expected the champion of the undead empire to resort to pocket sand, but whilst weakened, he could still use mana to sense his surroundings, throwing a punch at the undead as he approached head-on, but this must have been some sort of layered deception from the very beginning, as the corpse seemed to have expected that precise attack from the start- Perhaps because Milo tended to always fall back on punching with his right hand first before anything else…

The skeleton duck beneath the blow, wrapping his arms right around Milo's neck on the left side, and under his shoulder on the right side, without wasting time, Loimos placed his right leg past Milo's and sweep backward at the far leg, this action coupled with his momentum during the initial grappling caused the living to be throw to the ground, from there, the undead was in control, pressing his skull against Milo's head, tucking his left elbow below his own body, maintaining his knee against the living's hip, and then angling himself slightly further away- in this manner, he had not only successfully grappled his opponent, but also begun to strangle him, cutting off both respiration and blood circulation.

Although currently superior in brute strength, such grappling techniques were precisely meant for a weaker fighter to overcome a stronger foe, Milo could not wrench out of Loimos's hold by pulling on his arm, with his left hand, which was not unusable like his right right now due to the hold, he attempted to grasp at the back of the undead's mantle, but it was no use.

'Fuck it!' he attempted to use what little gold he had to create a pulse, intending to force Loimos away in this manner, but to his shock, it did not work, Loimos may be weakened, but his abilities were not reduced to zero, his grappling techniques were not just there for show, he didn't just have Milo pinned, but also his inner energies, which was only to be expected, normal grappling techniques would be much less effective if they could not restrict the opponent from casting spells as well.

Feeling his vision turn hazy, Milo tried to grasp at whatever he could find, to try and drag them both away.

If he could get himself and Loimos toward one of the pits that had been created previously, certainly, falling and stumbling down the slope would cause Loimos to let go, or at least create an opportunity for him to break free…