Pestilence: Rise Of The Pure Undead

"Mmh… Those livings, they are up to something, I can feel it… What do you think Ourlst?" addressing his brother in arm, the right hand was looking over the horizon, not even capable of perceiving the next continent on the chopping block, yet still, the knight felt rather confident in this claim. Explore stories at My Virtual Library Empire

"Yes, the life force seem to be ever-so more agitated in this direction, but Horhir, Belliste is not a matter of concern at the moment, we are to properly secure our hold over every bit of territory we spread the miasma over, it will take years to reach Bellist" the two foremost knights of Loimos were standing upon the very front of a ship, a veritable goliath of steel, soldiers carrying large weapons, firing harpoons and all manners of projectiles, dedicated knights habituated to the marine environment leaping into the water and converting the slayed creatures to undeath.

Though, they had to be careful, the ship they were using might appear outlandishly tall and larger, but that was what was required to prevent the abominations below from simply swallowing the vessel whole, and even then, it was often that this iron giant was sent wavering from side to side, that some vessel were even turned upside down, thankfully, in such cases, the ship had been constructed to release a discharge of necrotic lightning throughout the surrounding, harmless to the undead, but not so much to anything else.@@novelbin@@

As such, progress was awfully slow, the ocean was a difficult environment to tackle and contrary to what some believe, it was not spared from the oddities of this world, as without any signs ahead of time, the typically blue water could turn green, all kinds of colour, either because the sky had decided to no longer be blue, or simply because the water was of a distinct colouration.

Typically, this was naught but an aesthetic change, the more pressing environmental issues were the frozen oceans, especially those that weren't simply frigid on the surface, ranging from what one would expect, a layer of ice and icebergs perhaps, to an entire oceanic biome being just one big block of ice, these still had creatures inhabiting them, as well as being wholly inadequate to traverse, the soldiers requiring special mechanical devices or simply spiked boots to move.

Hunting down the creatures that could somehow swim through solid ice, or those adapted to scouring the slippery surface, was a difficult challenge on simple account that they were much too agile, like trying to catch a bird when chained to the ground.

Overall however, placing miasma generators upon those sorts of biomes was simple, unlike the massive oceanic swamps, boiling waters or seemingly normal waters that instantly froze whatever it touched.

Horhir and Ourlst were always on the frontline of such difficult environments, as the spearheads of the vanguard, they had to find ways to work around those problems and make sure the soldiers were not put into unnecessary danger, all the while always seeking to keep advancing.

For the two undeads, who were but mindless, naturally spawned corpses not so long ago, it was a rigorous challenge every time, but it was also a honour, they had been given high command over soldiers by the champion himself, the right and left hand were always seen together, at the front of the efforts in the conquest, but of course, many soldiers could not be led by them alone, so other Loimoisian knights were in charge there.

For now, there were little land masses to step foot upon, the islands close to Viridis had been many, but so far into the oceans, they were rarer.

A strong gust of wind went over the two knights, the shadow of a winged living passed over the ship, and then another, and then a third.

Unsheathing their blades, one spoke words in death tongue, the soldiers already on the ready, having emerged from the clouds just above, small winged drakes, red of scales and distinctively lacking discernment in their eyes.

Soldiers carrying what could only be described as big, rectangular hunks of wood got down to one knee and took aim, with a sharp boom, bolts were fired from the center of the wooden mass, which was actually an especially heavy and powerful crossbow.

Burning with black flame, they tore through the wings and scales, brutally slamming into the bodies of the drakes, one was grounded nearly immediately, falling with a splash, others managed to stay in the air, but were hit hard nonetheless, the dark fire spreading over them, prompting them to dive into the water anyways, where they harpoons and spears befell them.

The few that managed to avoid damage breathed cascades of fire upon the deck, their scorching breath flowed into the water instead, domes of dead mana erected in the nick of time, followed by mana rings slicing through the flame and into the livings.

The undeads stood around for a few moments, but this little troop of red drakes was followed by nothing else.

"Sir Irmandos had predicted that Dragonnerie should be drifting further from us, could this be a sign of nearby land?"

"Let us find out, keep this one alive, the caste of the mind peelers has seen its first member" pointing at a drake that had landed straight on the deck, badly burnt and maimed, it was dragged below deck.

And with this, the conductor headed back to the mainland, quickly moving back into the royal miasma, absolute darkness and silence greeting them once more, having to zig zag in between the mad constructions, both in progress and done, or even having to avoid massive undeads that were simply standing guard right in the middle of the sea.

Now, a particular construction stood out from the rest, for it resembled more so a string of interconnected buildings and platforms, spanning over kilometers without end, Loimos's training quarters had a slight bit of an expansion one might say, the architects feeling very creative when it came to building anything for the champion, but it had the advantage of making finding their honourable lord much easier to find, if only a bit.

Loimos was never standing idle and moved fast, so getting a hold of him was more about waiting for the champion to come to you rather than the opposite.

For Ourlst and Horhir however, in recent times, it had gotten pretty easy to report to him as they wished to, always wanting to keep their general up to date with everything, for the putrid skeleton had run into an issue that was taking up his time.

As such, they headed for a wide tower that plunged and rose as far as was possible, standing in the ocean, right on top of a certain sunken mountain.