Pestilence: Rise Of The Pure Undead

Coming from all sides, a variety of projectiles were aiming to tear Sun-Walker to pieces, like a furious dance, the treacherous vampire punched and kicked any and all that intruded upon the circle of light he casted on his surroundings.

Bones needles filled with potent poison and acids, bullets of various energies, some infused with all dead forces the skeleton possessed, some only made from a single ones or falling somewhere in between, waves of blood, spikes and ribs emerging from the soil, trying to lock him in place for other projectiles to hit true.

Countless thin arms harassed him from all sides, arrows and bolts raining down like an army was upon the vampire, even then, no matter what befell him, the disloyal gravelord proved that his status was not a fluke as he deflected and evaded all.

"Ah, enough of this!" puffing his chest, the light covering his body grew stronger, flashing truth upon the darkness.

Loimos was not, in fact, running around and firing like a madman all of those attacks, he was nowhere to be seen, having been busy moulding the environment to the image of death, a large area beyond the previous ring of light was covered in pustulent and putrescent nature, a dome of rot having been erected around the bright lord.

Undeads created from Loimos's rot went on the move, charging at the gravelord, aspect of beasts and materials all over them, their creator appearing as he emerged beneath Sun-Walker's feet, grabbing his ankles and pulling him downward for a bear-like mound of decay to slash right across the chest.

Backhanding the pesky creation, the one that lived in death broke out of Loimos's grasp, pulling the skeleton's hand apart in his movement, with a spin, he threw the clutching limbs away rushing right through the various soldiers and creatures created by the royal courier, gathering momentum before raising his foot high, above his own head and stomping down on the marshland of filthy decay, sending it all flying away.

Finding his slippery opponent again, Sun-Walker quickly went to grab Loimos, the skeleton not backing off this time, manifesting bone claws from his fist, and slashing forth with all his might, the claws extending as far as they could, piercing through the dome of rot and leaving deep gashes on the edges of this underground biome, followed by countless other of those slashes as he broke them off, making explode into blasts of shrapnel, swinging his arms without stop, growing more arms, so many that Sun-Walker didn't even bother trying to count them.

Attacking from every possible directions, the traitor charged through the slashes, his body turning into a blur as he blasted through the bones, slamming Loimos into the ground with a punch directly to the face, the skeleton's body sinking into the swampy soil, still not sparing his skull from being reduced to mush simply by force of the impact.

'Mmh?' the vampire switched his attention, noticing that something was odd about Loimos, his guts were correct as the undead appeared right behind him, having abandoned this body and instead reformed from a piece of him further away.

"Impressive regeneration, but how many times can you do this?" once more, he was not given response, his opponent only continuing the assault.

Dispersing miasma at close range, it was all blown away, both of them raised their fists.

'Ooh… He just took conditions and activated arts, didn't he?' Sun-Walker was sensing something pulling within him.

'What is this?-'

He did have time to muse over all of this, it seemed like Loimos was coming at him in close-quarters, Sun-Walker attempted an upward strike, aiming to take the skeleton's head right off, his fist tore right through without an resistance, the undead directly striking the bright lord's chest.

The vampire attacked with the same ferocity and power as before, his attacks breaking through his enemies defences with ease, too much ease in fact, the power of his blows was somehow cancelled with how easy it was to destroy Loimos, it was like hitting air, punches and kicks were not budging the corpse.

Sun-Walker recognised this style, willfully taking hits and attacking in direct strikes, simply allowing one's absurd regeneration to take the toll and stand your ground, this was a prized tactic of Nosferatu, it was uncanny almost, how close the royal courier was to perfectly replicating it.

'You are not Nosferatu, you can't sustain it!' lowering himself with a split almost, Sun-Walker sweeped right through both of the undead's legs, expecting him to falter.

But it did not stop.

'Must be a trick learned from Multaemanus or Körpersucher, his spiritual body is maintaining the link of his true physical body, how the hell could he integrate the technique of a phantom?' proving this fact, Loimos's next hits also struck his own soul and mind, clearly, Loimos could interact and exist as both a physical and non-physical entity.

"I'll admit, I underestimated you!" he laughed, it was pulling harder now and he started to enjoy himself, yet, his body dimmed as he abandoned the powers granted upon him.

Grabbing Loimos's head, headbutting the skeleton with newfound strength, finally managing to force the skeleton back as he controlled his strength to not rip through like he was poking wet paper with a spear.

Moving to the side, narrowly avoiding another strike, Loimos laid his hand on the shoulder of his enemy, slashing across the face with the other, Sun-Walker only laughing harder.

'Vespertillo and Atsalinopalo together! He's doing it both at once, all the while reinforcing himself with Nosferatu's technique!'

Passing by one another, the vampire and skeleton turned right around, the latter twisting his body parts one hundred and eighty degrees, his helm opening like a dripping corpse bloom, the deep purple glow emerging outward engulfing the inside of the dome.

This light was capable of blinding even a vampire like the traitor.

'Vwoldtnir as well!'

"What else can you do, huh?!"

No answer.

The moment he recovered his vision, he noticed drops of burning blood hovering all around him, each and everyone of them turning into dark red spikes, threatening to impale him from all sides.

Dracula's technique was first made to be used with his burning blood, the creation of the spike was as swift as the flame smouldered, Sun-Walker was stabbed by multiple of them, his skin tough enough to prevent them from penetrating too deep, ejecting the burning blood from him.

Roaring, he charged through and kicked Loimos in the abdomen, a moment of slowness fell over the duel, Sun-Walker staring into the helm, he sensed a palm grasping his face, a ghost hand trying to crush his skull.

Followed by the words from Loimos, word Sun-Walker failed to understand as they were pronounced in death tongue, a language a false undead like himself had never been able of understanding, even less speaking.

Hearing this though, he did recognise what was at play, he protected his ears before more harm could arrive, feeling his will to fight being staggered as the order carried within those words was far stronger than the usual poise carried within this language.

'This little skeleton has even earned a great control over Multaemanus's mastery of the death tongue, and Nitok only made him a messenger? There is no way that he won't be made into a gravelord eventually, a gravelord that could even surpass Nosferatu!'

He crippled his own hearing, knowing that if Loimos had learned the other ways the spectre lord could use the language of the dead to attack, it could still be used against him, but he did not care, he acted on the moment, on instinct, and he only wished to exchange more blows.

Loimos demonstrated the powers and combat styles of each and every gravelord, mixing them together, and then adding onto all that he had learned from other sources, turning into a whirlwind of decrepit gore, adding limbs, exploding them, subtracting ,exploding his entire body, reforming, manifesting weapons, taking them away, modifying them, using battle arts, magical arts, casting spells, using all in conjunction, mixing it all together, switching between his humanoid form, wings, tails and entire bodies of various beasts and monsters, his fighting style ever changing.

Miasmic skulls igniting, altars of miasma appearing, stirring murderous weather inside this dome.

Injuries mounted over the treacherous vampire lord, struggling to recuperate all, and yet, he was fighting more and more ferociously, his own battle style well-honed, having given up on using the little powers of light granted upon him, he was somehow harder to predict and deal with, his heart within his chest was growing warmer, a smile stuck on his bright visage.

As they moved to clash together once again, Loimos was realising that at this rate, he was going to let him slip out of his grasp, this fight was having an adverse effect, he needed to forsake the classic undead strategy of draggin confrontations out unto eternity, and end this fight right this instant.

Turning his body into a mix of ectoplasm and mushy rot, he shot out like a drop of filth, like a crucible of putrescence where all that had lived and died, been created and destroyed, had existed and departed to oblivion, where it was melded and molten together.

This abomination slammed and stuck to the traitor, frail and pale arms emerging to grasp tighter onto the target.

Dust formed from the palms, crumbling the flesh, cold winds formed a tornado around them, red sand manifesting within, accumulating until only red could be made out all over.

The touch of the dark substance was decaying the vampire's body.

"Aren't those innate abilities of some of those minor lords? You can even replicate that?! What a thrill, I- I might actually lose!"

"But no…" Sun-Walker settled his ecstasy, and focused.
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"I can't lose like this, not this way… This is not me, this is not the greatest height I can fall from…"

"Do you hear me, Loimos?!"

From the outside, both of the trees, standing on the sidelines, saw the dome of robe implode, the force almost enough to uproot the great tree, The First Seed completely taken off the ground and sent rolling away.

The nearly broken figure of Sun-Walker was lacking all light, a dark creature stuck to his back, its long claws sinking into his shoulders.

Now, he had done it.