Pestilence: Rise Of The Pure Undead

Hidden well away from prying eyes, far inside of steep mountains, behind treacherous paths and passages, surrounded by countless accursed in every direction, there it was, a village inhabited by kalt, and not just a small population, the amount of people here was even superior to the frozen lake, and they all seemed, oddly peaceful.

Indeed, despite the sheer denseness of accursed Alkayne and his troops had needed to cut down, there were no signs of the people here suffering from issues due to the proximity, all seemed well-fed and content, joyful even, children were seen playing like normal.

There even was a field of ghost trees, clearly, they were thriving, these people who he had been assured did not exist were living their lives with tranquillity, all the while surrounded by cannibalistic, cursed brethren of theirs who for some reason did not attack them.

Moreover, to truly hammer all the nails in the coffin proving that Janus was perfectly aware of these people was a church to the glory of Dame-Sommer placed right down the middle of this village, a few nuns, priests and paladins could even be seen, as the pope, it would be difficult to believe that he had no idea about this village's existence when his own subordinates were here.

Moving toward the village in formation, the undeads naturally looked pretty menacing, yet, one of the nuns, who seemed older than the rest, approached them without apprehension.

"Blessed one, we were told of your arrival" she said, Alkayne didn't know for certain if his attempt at concealing his blessing worked on Dame-Sommer's worshippers, so he did not question why she would know that.

"And who could have possibly beaten me to this place?" he asked, he had gone from the fort, in the opposite direction from the frozen lake and thus, the monastery, not only did he have advance on Janus and his folks, but it was even more doubtful that a living could have gone ahead without being spotted by him or his soldiers.

"Who else?" the nun responded with a non-answer.

"Very well, I will not be wasting anyone's time, what is happening here?" they should be aware that he had nothing to be doing here, he may be blessed, but he was still an outsider and encroaching upon what looked very much like a well-kept secret of the pope in person should be no good.

"Nothing, blessed one" she smiled, acting like everything was normal "This is but a village like any other"

"Oh, so it isn't a breeding ground for the accursed?"

"Please… Don't make such jokes, blessed one" she kept on smiling but Alkayne noticed that her heart was starting to beat slower and slower, her body temperature subtly falling down to dangerous levels.

In the next instant, the seemingly normal kalt opened her mouth, teeth flying out as longer, pointy fangs brutally emerged in their place, the flesh of her cheeks was partly torn apart to allow for a wider jaw, cold blood rapidly covering her face as the same thing was happening to her hands and fingers.

The pounce was fast, and the distance separating them not too great, aiming to sink the myriad fangs right into Alkayne's face, as it was the only portion of his body that wasn't tightly armoured, however, before even getting to snap her mouth shut, the nun's teeth shattered and her body fell to the ground, as everything above her lower jaw was cleanly shaved off.

The minor lord had had the time to properly adjust his grip on the halberd and strike her down before she could even get close with that surprise attack.

"I assume that you guys are the same as this nun?" his question was quickly answered as every single church member turned from most regular kalts into bloodthirsty accursed.

He expected them to try and run for it, but they instead all charged at him, naturally, they just ended up clashing with his soldiers and getting carved up, the paladins were more powerful than the rest but it didn't matter, Alkayne's troops had the numerical advantage and knew how to coordinate perfectly, the paladins were pinned down and stabbed through the gaps of their armours.

'I wasn't expecting this…' the zombie had had a few ideas as to what the purpose of creating more and more accursed might be, but never had thought that church members would turn to not only be cursed, but retain their wits and even know how to turn back and forth.

He hadn't suspected anything until it happened, in fact, had the nun not tried to be slow and steady about her transformation, she might have just gotten closer before getting cut down.

'Are all of them actually accursed?' he wondered, though, even if that was the case, he didn't quite see the point of this whole operation, it could be about reproduction, perhaps accursed could not produce offspring and they instead had to rely on their normal kalt brethren, but then, just dumping these other accursed into the mountains didn't make sense, something had to be gained from all of this, there had to be reason why the frozen lake was spared from these whole ordeal as well.

There was something that Alkayne was missing for certain, perhaps an element that could only be known by the mastermind.

In any case, the inhabitants of this village were rather shocked, initially scared of the undead soldiers, and now utterly confused as the kind people that ran the church all transformed into accursed out of nowhere before being killed.

Emitting a strong heat, Alkayne demonstrated his blessed status, and it seemed like they knew what it meant.

"I am Alkayne, I was sent by Pope Janus to investigate this village as the people of the church stopped giving signs of life" he made up on the spot, the livings absolutely gobbling his words without question, not like it could sound less believable than what they had just witnessed with their own two eyes.

"Might you explain the situation here?" he then asked, a middle-aged man stepping forward.

From the sounds of things, they were led to believe that the surrounding accurseds were held back from approaching thanks to the divine protection of Dame-Sommer conjured up by the nuns and priests, which naturally led to many to grow up with the wish to join the church themselves, and those who did would be 'sent to the Grand Monastery', which was a lie obviously, Jiji had known everyone at the monastery and would have mentioned it if people she had never heard about had suddenly showed up there.

The frozen lake was a fairly small and tight community, even in ten years, the only people she did not recognise were all children.

So obviously, Alkayne could only deduce that they were all probably turned into accursed and either dumped into the mountains or taken to the underground of the monastery.

"Did you never question that people could be sent to the monastery, but that everyone else had to remain here?"

"They said that only with the protection of the paladins could one make it there, and since the paladins always came back with good news…"

'So it was paladins that Jiji saw throwing people into the mountain'

"Very well, since they are gone, there is a risk that the accursed will enter the village, I will share my blessing with you all, close your eyes" he said, and without question they did, not realising that they wouldn't be opening them again any time soon.

Both accursed and kalt were taken back to the fort, Alkayne was fairly confident that there were more villages like this one hidden away, he would make sure to cut off all the sources of accursed whilst clearing the mountains.