Pestilence: Rise Of The Pure Undead

After several minutes, Griar put his back against the wall of a nearby house, breathing heavily, his clothes covered with dark blood, the axe he had been using was in poor shape, the iron was begin to be eroded and covered by rust because of prolonged contact with the filthy blood, even the handle had grown skinnier.

In fact, as he held the axe up, it broke in half, leaving only what looked like a weathered old branch in his grasp.

"What's wrong with these people? This can't be how they normally are…" in front of him, the remains of townspeople laid all over the place, one of them had ended up sprouting tendrils after her skull was split in half by the strike of his axe, the tendril had bursted out of her chest, splitting the ribs apart and pushing out several organs, this one had borne traits that were not usually associated with tendrils or tentacles, as at the end of it, there had been six, insect-like legs, each dreadfully sharp and pointy, as Griar discovered when another town person caught in an attack and was torn to shreds.

He was able to defeat the infested woman by decapitating her in the end, which had the same effect as with the first man, eventually causing the dark growth to disappear back from where it had come from, leaving only a lifeless body behind.

Griar went ahead and picked up a machete left behind by one of the townspeople, only to quickly notice the growing sound of distant voices and footsteps, not long after, he began to flames from torches over in the distance, many more townspeople beginning to ascend a slope as they marched through the town, swiftly prompting Griar to take off before they actually saw him.

He headed for the warped, leafless woods- Disappearing amidst the twisted trees, leaving the abnormal inhabitants of the area without any 'Herejak' to hunt down and tear into pieces, Griar did not stick around to watch them, but if he did, the youth would have seen a bizarre spectacle as the arriving people did not show much reaction to the corpses laid about, only inspecting them with indifferent expressions, as well as the woman who had sprouted the tall tendril earlier, which he had not taken the time to finish off, suddenly retract the tentacle and stand back up to her feet, jaw and face still split, acting like the rest of the people.

In the meantime, the young man moved quickly, but carefully throughout the woods, treacherous roots were everywhere, visibly was not so great, and the instant he set foot inside of the forest, he began to hear spine-chilling sounds and howls, which, for some reason, had been absolutely absent any time prior to him entering the forest.

It was like the entire place was some sort of big array or enchanted land, but although something odd was happening in this realm, such magical things should be impossible still, especially since he greatly doubted that the condition of those people had anything to do with magic, they seemed to have been infected by something foul, something that took root within their very bodies.

Although the layout of the forest was confusing as everything looked the same, Griar had gotten used to treading the woods back in the Peaceful Realm, and managed to go in a straight line toward his objective, namely, the tower he had seen in the distance earlier.

And thankfully, this was not one of those forests that were somehow impossible to get out of, or that caused everyone within to get lost like he had heard from his mother, as he got over a huge root protruding from the ground, he saw the grey of the tower, but suddenly stopped as he looked down at the ground, having nearly stepped right onto a bear trap.

He slowly retracted his leg back and moved around the trap, only to catch movement from the corner of his eyes, followed by what could only be described as a vomit-plagued sigh coming from a desert-dry throat.

A large, shepherd dog, with black foam flowing out its maw poked its head out from behind a tree, staring directly at Griar with the dullest of eyes imaginable, looking at him like he was empty air, for several seconds…

Only to begin barking maniacally and launch itself at Griar, forcing the youth to move aside to evade the mad lunge, the dog crashed into a tree as result of its attack, leaving the animal wide open for a counterattack, as Griar brought down the machete on its exposed neck, nearly beheading the creature in a single strike before backing away, but thankfully, no black substance emerged from the canine.

Griar did not stay for any longer than necessary, the dog's bark might have alerted nearby people affected by the dark substance, he stayed hidden for a few moments, but not noticing anyone or hearing a thing, he eventually approached the tower's wooden door, trying to push it open quietly, only to have his efforts thwarted by the loud squeaking of the old wood, which echoed and reverberated through the inside of the tower.

Thankfully, or perhaps not so, the tower was empty, utterly so, it was just a big hollow building in the middle of nowhere, Flor was not here at all, and neither did it even seem that she had gone through here, Griar could only go back outside and try to look elsewhere.

He was certain that the tall woman had taken Flor into this direction, so he went around the back of the tower, and sure enough, there was another path there, and by following it, avoiding several more bear traps on the way, he arrived to what looked like a small village surrounded by rather big fields compared to the amount of houses and farms around, the whole place was overlooking by a mansion of sort, it was great compared to the rest, but still rather modest overall.

Most importantly, the ground through the village was somewhat muddy, revealing four sets of footprints, including one that was much larger than average.

But Griar could not rush in, the village, unlike the town, was very much occupied, people were going about, carrying tools around, tending to livestock, the villagers looked less dazed than the townspeople, but not by much, their movements were somewhat sluggish, sitting on a chair in front of one of the farms, there was a young looking man with a straw hat, some sort of long object made of iron and wood resting on his lap.

Griar had no idea what that item was, but he could tell that the man was definitely standing guard, he seemed much more attentive to the surroundings than the others, scanning the edges of the woods every so often…