Pestilence: Rise Of The Pure Undead

"And here you are, you mad man, back for what you cursed me to hold in your stead?" the primordial tree hidden under the ocean was once again faced with some visitors, this time, the one that he had been expecting for all of those years, alongside with the cursed seed created from this abject betrayal.

The First Seed was silent, its face of bark looking down at the ground, the words were not directed at this lively tree, but at the humanoid figure standing at the front, arms crossed, a tall and muscular build, garbed in a simple armour, unbothered by the accusatory words of the ancient sprout.

"Cursed you say… I do admit that I did not really think of the consequences upon you, but it can all be reversed, simply divest yourself of it, and hand it back, you will be able of producing viable seeds, that are not… unsavoury, like this one" the man looked back at The First Seed, the tree shrinking under his gaze.

The great tree looked down upon the puny man, seeing only a bundle of vile selfishness and madness crumpled into the shape of a person, the gigantic roots slithered through the soil, the presence of the old being growing more intense, more focused.

The man tilted his head, the edges of his mask just barely not scraping against the shoulder, metal groaning as he tensed up.

"You absolute lunatic, are you so certain that taking your filthy essence back will solve everything? And even if it does, do you really believe that I'll forgive all those years of solitude and the corruption of my seeds?

You fool, take it back, over my dead body!" the wizened tree slammed his roots upon the ground, retracting back the crushing, life-infused presence, right as a visitor that was actually wanted appeared.

"And here I thought you were actually going to show me some fighting skills, what is an undead doing here?" the sun-masked man turned to face the newcomer.

Sun-Walker took off his mask, throwing it away, his body growing an incandescent shine, his features now more hidden than they were with a mask, appearing like a true spirit of light given human shape, the vampire's brilliance was only halted by his armour.

"And not any undead, the so-called royal courier, Loimos, how we meet again… Are you going to threaten me with a shade again? I have the regret to inform you that it is unlikely to work this time" the treacherous vampire laughed, looking at both of the trees present, shaking his head before beginning to step toward the skeleton.
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"I do wonder what is so special about you that Nitok would appoint you to such a position, leader of the undead vanguard… That is more of a job for Dracula, but you are not anywhere close to a gravelord, were you grown by Nitok like The Graveyard?"

He received no answer, Loimos was absolutely still, staring straight at the traitor of undeadkind, he had heard most of the conversation occurring beforehand, and it implied something of most dreadful significations, The First Seed was silent, The Great Tree was silent, Sun-Walker was cracking his neck, raising his fists.

Even if treacherous, Sun-Walker was a gravelord, but as Nosferatu had discovered, he had never, even for a second, devoted himself to death, never partaking in the rites of a vampire, never drinking even a drop of blood, never developing his unique blood, he had never progressed from the day he had become an undead, but of course, his power was still dreadful, to be made into a gravelord without allegiance, it meant that his might had been deemed sufficient.

Or so it was logical to assume, Loimos was suspecting that he had become a gravelord through a loophole, based on the life he had led before dying, right before Loimos, was not only standing the vampire that had betrayed King Nitok and all of the undeads, but also a living that had tricked death itself.

Now, this was an egregiously serious offence, and to prevent what was in the works here, Loimos would have to best the bright lord in combat, Nosferatu had done so easily, but taking the one of foetid blood as a metric was not sensible, of course he would easily crush Sun-Walker.

The skeleton did not bother to call forth his war scythe, he would not be able of keeping his adversary from getting much too close to properly use the weapon in its most basic form.

The deep purple glow coming from within his hollow sockets filled the inside of Loimos's helm, peering through the visor, Sun-Walker was a powerful adversary, but a weak undead, the skeleton could see this clearly.

Common abilities of the dead were unreachable to him, darkness awareness, death and life sense, his treachery made the little death force within him hostile, Sun-Walker must be draining himself of it to prevent any problems, all of this meant that he had plenty of exploitable weaknesses for Loimos to take advantage of.

Cycling all of the dead energies alongside his death force, using stack all over his body and rot armour, all of them already reinforced by condensed rot, this variation of stack was not nearly as potent as that of Nosferatu yet, and the usage of rot to manifest aspects of creatures and materials was not yet as powerful as that of the twin gravelords, none of the abilities taught by the undead lords reached the level of their original masters.

But by combining it all together, something great could be achieved, Loimos's current utilisation of reinforcement was that of vertex as well, the royal courier stood above a minor lord, but below a gravelord.

Yet, he was going to challenge a gravelord to a fight, to prevent him from getting what it was that he had given to the primordial tree.

With a burst of speed, Sun-Walker appeared before Loimos, striking the undead right in the chest, but instead of breaking through, it was like mud had been hit, this trick was unable of trapping the vampire's fist, but enough for Loimos explode with pungent, corrosive blood, taking on all aspects of the four vampire lords, it was especially acidic, carried a flame upon its back, attacked like a ferocious beast and attempting to take over the will of its target.

The traitor endured the barrage, the ground all around turning into a swamp of decay, Loimos sunk into the soft ground, allowing it to spread further and further.

Sun-Walker seemed unimpressed by this display, stomping his foot down, dispersing part of the swamp with naught but brute force, throwing him forward where he knew Loimos was hiding, his speed ungodly has he was managing to catch with the undead even when held back by the ever-expanding swamp and when the skeleton was travelling quickly himself by being submerged in the vile substance.

Loimos escaped up in the air, not planning on doing anything to the vampire just yet, instead, he formed a congealed bullet of energy, mixing all that he could, and fire it straight at the false sun embedded in the ceiling, moments before being suddenly tackled straight into a wall and then back to the ground.

Sun-Walker landing a heavy blow to the head, bending the helm inward and very audibly, breaking the skull underneath, good damage, but ineffective still, the vampire jump back as Loimos erupted with bone spikes, some straight spikes that and some more like ribs, as per the undead's will, they began to emerged from around the traitor, aiming to skewer him.

This was one of the things he had learned from Dracula, adapting the vampire lord's blood spikes to bones instead, the only requirement was that a piece of Loimos was nearby to activate their arrival, something that was easily done as the undead was always subtly leaving what looked like dust everywhere he went, with just swings on the arms, they could go very far, in little time.

The artificial sun shattered above their heads, pieces of the glass-like material came crashing down, losing their shine, and leaving Sun-Walker as the only light source around.

"You are a little fucker, huh? Why are you relying on trickery and machinations?

I have heard of your exploits, mister butcher of the badlands… You have much more direct means to fight than whatever you have been showing up until now, come and show me what Nitok's latest favourite corpse can do!" ripping his upper armour and clothes to shreds, Sun-Walker allowed the shine of his body to illuminate the surroundings.

In the darkness, it was like Loimos had disappeared.

Controlling death force was similarly to controlling any other energy, so teachings of mages such as Unacunerra, Rosemary and King Nitok had been very useful, but still, even if all energies shared most of their points, their differences capable of being so minute that many assumed that it was all just mana with a different hat- Even though they were so similar, death and life force were special, they fueled beings.

In much more quantity than any other energy, so Loimos had to learn most of it on his own.

Concealing himself, it had always been something he would use more often than not, his current proficiency owed to Maliah and the Fin-Limier assassins.

Sun-Walker could not sense the skeleton's presence for as long as he remained hidden in the dark.

So why should he bother showing himself, when he had plenty of means to attack from a distance?