Pestilence: Rise Of The Pure Undead

Since the pure undead and hero of gold had vanished into a realm of memories, a whole month had passed, both for the Emerald Realm, and for those who once again fled, nobody knew how time passed wherever the two mastodons had gone to, but so far, there were no signs of them whatsoever, and since then, the undeads in the Emerald Realm had not shown any signs of movement at all, which was simultaneously a very good thing, and rather worrying…

The two ancestors were overseeing the attempts at erecting a new life barrier, although most of those who had worked into creating the life barrier were now gone, they had left detailed instructions in how to build a new one, and this time, the two ancestors personally worked into making it, everyday that passed without an attack from the undeads, was a day the barrier would grow tougher, they also still had the buildings that emitted life mist as well, so they were at least guarded against small-scale attacks were they to occur.

Two months after the golden one and pure undead disappeared, they saw signs of some of the disaster beasts, namely The Song and Eclipse, one floated above the dark keep, whilst the other circled around it, but still, nothing came out of it, the Emerald Realm remained peaceful, for now.

As for Antieeld and the others, they had arrived into a most tranquil realm, clearly, Arzt had not picked randomly, this place was vast, rather than an island floating in an emerald void, this realm seemed to encompass a whole globe, it was smaller than the continent of Viridis had been by a long shot, but even then, it was a big realm, mostly filled with plains, hills and forests, it was overwhelmed with life, so much so that even mundane plants and animals could grow to great sizes.

One could spot deers with the necks and bodies of giraffes, schools of fish feasting on planktons the size of a person… It was a quiet realm with very little sapient life, the intelligent inhabitants lived in small communities that lived off the land and had very little interactions with each other.

They were humanoid in shape, but vastly different head shapes, allowing for their eyes to be more focused on the side that on the front, furthermore, they pupils were rectangular and horizontal, like those of goats or sheeps and also had somewhat elf-like pointy ears, but that were somewhat droopy.

Apart from these traits, they looked mostly like the typical humans the people from Tamaris were used to, and surprisingly, those people spoke the same language as the emerald folks, if anything, an indication that Arzt had scouted the realm out and taught the people here, also evidenced by the fact that the first community they encountered reacted very strongly to their presence, having supposedly been informed by the 'grey one' that they would arrive.

Indeed, the old carver had basically done all the work for them in advance, they were instantly accepted amidst the realm's sapients and could even understand one another without problem…

The realm had very little active threats to them, the locals were actually strict herbivores, and had to fear the large predators, but to them, those were just big, mundane animals that they could dispatch in an instant, even the creatures that were not quite the regular animals were strictly mundane, showing no capabilities to use energies or any innate, special trait, they only had their physiology for themselves, which had nothing incredible.

Truly, this realm had abundant resources and next to no dangers for them.

But even after a while had passed, there was still an elephant in the room, which was that little Griar had not shown himself, Helena did not easily show her distress, having to stay strong and attentive for the sake of her daughters, but one would be foolish to believe that this was not weighting on her mind heavily.

Griar was three years old, but he already capable of understanding things around him, or what people said to him to a relatively good degree, so having been explained what was going to happen with the stone tablet and such, it did not take too long for him to realise that he had ended up in the wrong place.

He also knew what he was supposed to do, one problem however, he had never actually circulated his inner energies, and had no clear idea how to that safely, he had seen and heard how his mother would explain it to some of his big sisters, but when doing that, Helena would be personally helping and watching over the process, so Griar was understandably scared of attempting the process by himself.

In any case, he had ended up in a rather bad place as well, compared to the bright hills of green everyone else got, he popped out in the middle of clearing, in a moonlit, crooked forest lacking in leaves, the clearing he was in didn't even have grass and just bare dirt as well.

Far from being as welcoming as the outside he had been used to in the Emerald Realm.

He had been told many times not to venture anywhere by himself, especially the woods or anywhere away from where people lived, as he could run into a wild beast, his trips outside were always done under the surveillance of an adult and alongside his sisters, being all alone was making his heart beat like crazy.

And he was too afraid to actually move out of the clearing he was in, trying to force himself to circulate his inner energies as had been said to release a large burst of it, but no matter how hard he tried, it did not work.

But he continue to try, until the sound of branches brushing against something neared the clearing, freezing him stiff with fear, but instead of a bear or wolf erupting out of the darkness, it was a frail, young woman dressed in a dress that looked as though it had been worn by fifty generations.

She looked rather pretty despite being so abnormally thin, when she noticed the three-year old boy just sitting by himself in the middle of the woods, she was momentarily spooked but upon meeting his gaze, her expression instantly softened.

The girl said something and approached him, crouching down.

"Heh?" Griar did not understand all the words perfectly, but he understood a fair bit, yet, he didn't get a single thing that the young woman said to him.

They tried to communicate in vain, simply not speaking the same language at all, until she managed to get her point across, and picked him off the ground.

The way she held him… It was somewhat reminiscent of how his eldest sister did the same thing.