Pestilence: Rise Of The Pure Undead

From then on, just like with the invaders that would sometime appear and attempt to infiltrate a tower or town, these larger, stronger soldiers in white would be seen wandering around, although wary of ambushed, the emeraldfolks always made it a point to eliminate any of these intruders on sight, even if they could not easily get through the barrier erected by the sun worshippers, it was no reason to leave them to their own devices, deeming it important to try and prevent them from establishing camps or hideouts, as much as was possible whilst groups continued to seek the fourth portal that undoubtedly responsible for this continued presence.

Although no emeraldfolks apart from the young and sickly felt threatened by the invaders, many of the refugees were non-combatant, and knowing of what the undeads had done back in their homeland, there was no doubt that these soldiers in white they employed did not know qualms about the killing of the unarmed and defenceless, so unless one was confident in themselves, people rarely ventured outside of the barrier erected to protect them.

Formed from emerald sunlight, this barrier wasn't actually a solid wall, but rather a net of detection and weakening, an intruder trying to walk through it would first find themselves feeling like they were trying to move through countless, thick spider webs, and as it happened, their invasion would be relayed to many defenders, and lastly, if they weren't killed whilst still struggling to get through, they wouldn't be capable of putting up a fight as intruders were greatly enfeebled within, bits of spirit life would be forcefully extracted from them.

It worked fantastically on the living soldiers, but the effects mentioned last had been devised with destroying an undead, as corpses, extracting spirit life from them would be trivially easy as it was the state they should naturally be in, as beings like themselves were not supposed to exist here.

Although it seemed like the undeads could not step within the Emerald Realm at all, the priestesses and heralds were prepared for all eventualities, not to mention that the way the living soldiers were used was simply bizarre, something was simply off about it all.

They might be capable of making up theories, but that was all that was, they had no ways of confirming or denying any of it, their attempts at extracted memories from the soldiers all ended in failure as their minds and memories were riddled with utter fanaticism for death, corrupting everything else, trying to read any of it in details was simply too dangerous.

Forced into passivity against an enemy that also seemed awfully passive was not to the tastes of many, the Divine Dancing Priestesses, even if in full control of their bestial natures, simply yearned for the enemy to come within grasp and to tear it all apart, whilst the sun worshippers couldn't help but frown as it feeled as though their kind sun was dissatisfied with the situation.

Looking up to the skies, they feared that if displeasure grew, that their gentle sun would come crashing down.

Similarly, the beast worshippers also realised that something was deeply off when the all-beast began showing clear signs of annoyance as well, growls reverberating from beyond the great doors at any given time these days.

There was no cutting, the air felt foul, the enemy was clearly just running some tests in preparation of a great invasion, the presence of soldiers in white within the Emerald Realm was anecdotal for now, their purposes unclear, as some seemed to be trying to infiltrate whilst some others simply prowled without any clear goal, it was often that some would be pacing back and forth, as though waiting to get killed.

Since the initial flood of soldiers one year ago, Milo had grown a bit paranoid, the home he had built with Helena was well within the safezone, but that did not ease his worries, so he would often check in a wide radius around his home and even outside the barrier for traces of soldiers, just in case.

Often, he imagined himself running into actual undeads, and he felt convinced it would eventually become reality, the vile corpses were not just content with slaughtering everyone, they shaped everything to their image, it made no doubt that they were planning on flooding this beautiful realm with their rancid miasma.

'Loimos… Will you show up?' if his memory served him well, the putrid skeleton was not just a champion, he had always been at the forefront in some way or another, he clearly enjoyed rather high responsibilities with the empire of decay.

So… Would the Butcher Of The Badlands lead the troops here as well? Milo could not be sure, he had to admit to not knowing that much about the one who had murdered David, Loimos was an enigma, wrapped in a mystery, yet, one that was known to all.

Walking through some dense woods, his eyebrow twitched as he felt air shifting, with a casual uppercut, he knocked out a hound leaping for his jugular, a low hum escaping him as he looked down upon the beast from outside.

'Weird, I don't know what breed it is at all, but… It feels familiar?' tilting his head a bit, he stroked his beard.

The hound was rather large and sporting very short fur, just a regular canine animal, not a monster or beast possessing anything beyond its own body, it always felt a bit wrong to decimate an animal that could have easily been a cute pet, but it was what it was.

This sense of familiarity he could not place was bothering him greatly.

'I am not under the effect of an illusion, am I?' circulating golden mana throughout his body, he confirmed that he was not, and soon enough, the hound dissipated into spirit life, the uppercut had been strong enough to snap its neck.

Milo was used to the beasts the undeads released to be tougher than that, so he had used too much force than was necessary.

'Well…' stepping into a small clearing, he ran into a scene that wasn't so atypical lately, there was a single soldier in white crouching in the grass, feasting on a dead jokra.

The large soldier himself seemed unhurt, but considering that invaders were prone to getting gnawed to the bones by tides of these rabbit-like beasts, it was probably that he had either gotten lucky or that his colleagues had baited the majority of them away and allowed this one to score a prey, in any case, he was all by his lonesome.

Milo often ran into these large soldiers, running into the human-looking ones was much rarer, they were clearly more careful than their stronger fellows, the branches and plants brushing up against his clothes caught the invader's attention, who quickly leapt to his feet, brandishing two maces, his white armour was stained red, mask only raised up to free his mouth, teeth decorated by bits of fur stuck in between.

Speaking in the unknown language spoken by the invaders, which did not sound like anything Milo knew, the soldier stepped forward fearlessly, although tall and well-built for a human, Milo naturally appeared small in front of this guy.

He, who was a father to five children now, sighed, even if they worked for the undead, it definitely did not feel correct to kill other sapient living beings like himself, would the situation allow for it, he would definitely try to resolve any problem without resorting to such means, he certainly didn't want his kids to grow with the notion that killing an enemy was the only way to end a fight.

"Hey man, do you really want to do this? You can still back off" he said, it was futile and he knew it, the language barrier was one issue, but more importantly, the soldiers in white were fanatical, raving lunatics blindly loyal to their undead overlords.

They had been conditioned to view death as a gift.

Even if clearly seeing that Milo wasn't in a stance indicating a want for a fight, all that the intruder saw was clear weakness, and so he struck down with one mace right atop of the enemy's head.

Stunned, he was stunned as the recoil travelled up his hand and arm, so brutal that he lost his grip on the face.

His strike just bounced back, nearly making him stumble back as he never in a million years had he expected this sort of sensation when striking someone's skull.

"You… Strong" muttering to himself in a daze, Milo sighed again, they tended to make that vocalisation when they failed to injure him, whatever it meant he had no idea, but since they always seemed weirdly overjoyed, he guessed that they weren't too displeased somehow.

"If you insist" before the soldier could even think about attacking again, his head was blown into a red haze, his body breaking apart into spirit life before his knees could even buckle.

"Rest in peace"