Pestilence: Rise Of The Pure Undead

Caught into a crossfire, swords of mana rained from the sky above, whilst countless bolts were being fired his way from afar, Msir and Molc were the first to begin their attack upon the undead, but were far from the last, like they had been preparing from this exact situation during all of their years within the Emerald Realm, their spells hardly troubled one another, their mana signatures synched to incredible levels, their teamwork having reached a high enough level that their mana recognised one another as not opposing forces to struggle against, but allies.

Naturally, this was not great news from Loimos, as this meant that he couldn't really use their own spells against them…

Narrowly evading the swords and bolts, the skeleton found his feet sinking in snow, impeding his movements as Merno and Marl joined forces, casting a composite spell, fire and wind from the blind mage for explosive power, and holy energy of Phanes from the cleric, all of this imbued with a hint of gold, there was no way Loimos could allow himself to be struck head-on by this.

Considering that he had only just recovered some strength from draining Milo, and that the amount of enemies still around was substantial, for Loimos to use any powerful move was risky, he had a way to recover some strength afterward, however, it was not a certainty whether or not he would have the occasion to make use of it- Still, there wasn't much of a choice here, he could not rely on his physical body to be able to exfiltrate himself from the snow in time.

If he was going to use a powerful move, he had multiple choices as to what would work in this situation, some of them could strike at his enemies as well, but all of them were on their guards constantly, so instead, he went with the most cost-effective solution.

Waiting until the last possible moment, a single word of death tongue escaped him :

"Begone" making use of the mastery of death tongue he had learned from Multaemanus, he directed this word not at the livings, but to their spells, causing all of the currently active energy constructs to stop in their track and silently disperse like they themselves had willed for them to come apart.

The command affected their augmentative spells as well, and not only that, but the command lingered on for a little while longer afterwards, leaving the casters somewhat helpless, and in particular, Merno was left truly blind during that time span…

Those who did not so dearly relied on reinforcing themselves with energy were already on the move however, getting in the way of Loimos to prevent him from targeting the momentarily weakened spell casters, Hoffnu and Menhirel were the first to get there, but some of the elemental champions also stepped forward despite having no access to their element.

As the undead had expected, the talent holder in swordsmanship did not care much for the stone shard embedding in her shoulder, swinging the sword that was supposed to be handled with two hands using only the right, and even without a shield, Menhirel did not hesitate to step right up to the undead.

Deflecting a right hook from the shieldbearer, Loimos moved forward amidst the action, ducking underneatha swing from the swordmaster, tackling right into the champion of fire, who despite having no access to magic currently, still felt fiery, taking the tackle surprisingly well.

In the next breath, Loimos diverted one of his attack, and got him right in the jaw with an elbow strike, causing the champion to step back in daze, his allies were here to bail him out however, from the side, the champion of earth, Filiusorci came in and swung a two-handed mace at the undead's legs, making Loimos back off into strikes from Msir's two swords, the sharp edges failed to pierce through the armour beneath his torn mantle, but the gold that accompanied them definitely was not appreciable.

Before Loimos could do anything else, Menhirel bashed into him, nearly throwing the corpse to the ground, but he got himself with one knee the ground, only to get struck with a kick as the champion of fire snapped out of his daze, unfortunately for Alosfit, Loimos caught his foot as it impacted his skull, swiftly biting right through the living's ankle, blood gushing everywhere as flesh was torn into down to the bone, and even said bone was deep biting marks left into it.

The undead rolled away from the champion, leaving him to contort in pain on the ground, the other two champions were left slightly behind the other two in chasing him as they had to hop over their fallen comrade, moving to the side, Loimos weaved through an attack by Menhirel, moving behind her before kicking her back a kick, turning his attention to Hoffnu.

Everyone would recover their spell casting abilities soon enough.

The swordswoman went for a thrust, perhaps wishing to pin him down- But that was mistake, with a graceful, half-spin, Loimos stepped aside and the sword alongside her arm go right in between his ribs and left arm, before grabbing said arm into a lock, his left hand pushing the living's limb toward him, thus in the opposite direction it was supposed to bend toward, whilst his right hand came slamming down right into the elbow joint, completely dislocating in one swift move.

Continuing his movement, let his left arm slide down her arm, arriving directly behind Hoffnu, kicking at the back of her knee and grabbing the top of her head, and with a pull, perfectly exposed her neck for him to sink his teeth, his jaw wide open, piercing through the jugular, with a shake of his skull, it looked like he might actually be able to rip her head off.

In that instant, he drained the living of all her energies and life force, doing so was far easier when they were dying, and thus, she died not of blood loss, but from having her life force robbed in one fell swoop, all that she had offer going directly to Loimos to replenish his strength.

Right as he pushed her inert body away, everyone's magical capabilities returned, and so did Merno's sight, he could clearly see the skeleton maw being covered with fresh blood and bits of flesh still being struck on his fangs, everything rotting away…

"...Hoffnu…"

"Merno… Keep your cool" Marl, who had stayed by his side to help him, said.

The blind mage didn't say anything in response and merely nodded, his blindfold becoming tainted with tears of blood…