Pestilence: Rise Of The Pure Undead

There was no need to waste any time with anything else, with just a few strides forward, Loimos reached the living in question, reeled his fist back, and punched right through the young man's spine, heart, and ribcage all in one go, surprisingly however, the sudden strike was not instantly lethal, leaving him just enough time to crank his head to the side and realise that if the undead was here, then that his fellows had failed and had certainly all been killed.

In place of last words, Ansonio coughed up blood before dying, his life force and inner energies drained before his body began to fall apart to decay, his corpse falling down as the skeleton retrieved his arm from the musician's chest.

Casually grabbing a hold of his trumpet as the undead, still forced to only see what his sockets were directed at, glanced up at The Song, who seemed a little bit disappointed that its musical nemesis died like this when neither of them had won or lost just yet, it seemed like encountering a rival who could directly counter its abilities had caused The Song to grow further as an individual.

But it was fine, Ansonio would join the undead empire as an undead just like nearly all livings, the two musicians could have face-offs again in the future.

Loimos directed The Song to go full blasts playing its melody of despair, which for the first time, was allowing to play uninterrupted, the weakening effects slamming down onto all livings, though, it seemed like a few of them were able to resist it by sheer force of will, the majority were still negatively affected, feeling themselves lose moral, the adrenaline coursing through their veins fading away.

With how pumped up they were considering that they were winning, the effects took a little while to show on the livings, but the empowering effect on the undeads was immediate, The Song was a creature Loimos had personally raised and trained, in fact, he had basically created all of the disaster beast by using special means to ensure the creation of special, natural undeads like themselves, each had started into an undeadling-like state, and had only grown to what they were now under his care, only those nine had been successful in becoming disaster beasts, amidst the thousands of attempts made by the pure undead, all of the rest had remained as great beasts.

The Song in particular had a certainly curious ability set, spending most of its time amongst the caste of the soothing dancers and singers, its songs were more versatile that they may appear, being able to control the sort of effects those who heard it were granted, or subjected to with utmost precision.

So, Gaze was granted greatly accelerated regenerative ability and nothing else, everything being put in allowing it to resist the assault of the beast ancestor, End was instead given additional speed, so as to allow it to escape from the sun ancestor… By giving precise boosts by taking into account the respective attributes of everyone and the scenario they found themselves in, Loimos also received a nice boost from hearing the melody without it being interrupted by Ansonio.

Though, the moment the undead slayed the talent holder, basically everyone realised that he was right there, after all, what other enemy was within the barrier apart from him? That realisation caused a whole slew of different emotions to manifest within each of the livings, naturally, they realised that elemental champions and talent holders who went out to confront him had failed, and failure to stop Loimos meant with near certainty that they had been killed by him.

The non-combat adept talent holders, the death hunters, the priests and paladins, the quartet, the brotherly duo, the two remaining otherworlders and emerald folks all felt a slight chill course through their spines, Antieeld immediately rushed back into the barrier to protect Minli and the healers, from where Loimos stood, he could clearly see the little commandant with her eyepatch, but he really would rather not go up against her right now, she was too much of a wildcard with her spirit summoning ability, it was unclear if there was even a distinction between the fighting spirits of those who had passed away and those who still lived… And with some gold imbued into her and said summons, if she called upon something of great power right in his face, things could go awry awfully fast.

And anyways, Loimos was not here to slaughter them all, that was something he would do after finishing Milo off- And unfortunately, he had been put amongst the wounded, exactly the area the commandant was defending.

The skeleton stepped off the side of the house he was standing on, landing upon the ground as he calmly walked toward Antieeld, thanks to The Song being freed up, the remaining disaster beasts and undeads on the battlefield were suddenly empowered and able to to put up more of a fight, so the heavy hitters were busy trying to pin them down again, and preventing them from launching any powerful attacks.

So no one got in the way of him as he marched up to the commandant, stopping within a dozen meters or so of her, the sabre pointed at him, already imbued with drastic amounts of mana, at any moments, several spirits could suddenly emerge from thin air, and judging by the woman's expression, these spirits were not simple ones to call upon.

"Let us bargain" he said, placing both hands behind his back in a non-threatening gesture, Antieeld did not buy into it, Loimos was literally a walking weapon that could literally perform any action she could think of and beyond.

Still, Antieeld's nerves were tougher than steel.

"Bargain about what?" she asked with a wry smile, not lowering her blade in the least.

Loimos remained perfectly still.

"I want to kill Milo, hand him over, and I shall tell my warriors to retreat"

"Excuse me for not believing you, but are you not the one who is capable of breaking even vows that should be unbreakable? I will need a bit more convincing to agree to that…"

Loimos just stared at her in absolute silence for a few seconds, the ground shaking as the combat outside raged on.

"You do not have to believe me on that front, that is true, I will explain to you why giving me Milo is the best course of action" he stated.

"As you must know, the return of Sonnenträger depends on the spreading of his name, and the growth in strength of Milo, every time either of those moves forward, the world return to normal, with the golden hero's existence becoming more tangible, however, I believe that it is not all"

A bead of sweat travelled down Antieeld's face, listening to the skeleton's words whilst eyeing for any suspicious movement or action, expecting him to just lunge forward at any second.

"I believe that to achieve his disappearance from the memories of this world, Sonnenträger sealed the most important part of himself somewhere, his golden energy, and my belief is that this energy was sealed within people, that the energy was passed down from person to person through the ages, allowing the one holding it during their life to develop golden attributes"

"I have sought all of the undeads of where former livings that I could find, discovering several who possessed such golden attributes during their life, but could not longer access them now that they were in death, all seemed to hail from Viridis, which would be where the erasure of his existence occurred"

"Antieeld, Milo has fully awakened, and the name has been spread far and wide, once I killed him and attempt to seize the golden energy that was sealed, the first hero will manifest once again, and it is without the shadow of a doubt that we shall both engage in combat from that very moment"

"Give me Milo, let me kill him, that is your best chance to defeat me for good, even if my soldiers do not stop, my destruction would be a good consolation prize, would it not be?"

Antieeld lowered her blade, could she trust those words?

"And if you emerge victorious?"

"Then, all within this realm will perish without a doubt"

"Why would you take the risk of facing Sonnenträger head-on?"

"It is inevitable"

"Would the fight between you two not tear the Emerald Realm down?"

"Do not worry, someone will take care of finding an appropriate battlefield"

Antieeld remained silent, hesitant.

Loimos did not say anything further, simply standing still, awaiting the living's answer.

"I… I agree to your deal…"