Pestilence: Rise Of The Pure Undead

Claws of iron bearing into the ground as the revenant ran toward the living like a gorilla, chains rattling and vermillion cloak fluttering in the wind, he threw himself forward, his attack only parting empty air as the tsarina was already gone, many, fist-sized drops of water manifesting all around the both of them.

Barely visible, thread-like lines expanding from them in the blink of an eye each, struck by a few of them, Herlbe could feel holes being punctured into his body, it seemed like she had decided to be more offensive, now further condensing the already pressurised water of the deep into all-cutting rays.

The moment she got confirmation that this was enough to pierce through Herlbe's rotten hide, instead of just firing them at him, she had these veritable lasers, swung around like blades, trying to turn the revenant into at least a hundred separate parts, however, when using in this way, they were much less unpredictable and swift, so even with his large frame, the undead had little issues manoeuvring through them, kicking off the ground so hard that the floating menhir was momentarily tilted, he swung his chain, unrolling more and more of its length.

Even as it was being sliced apart, Herlbe managed to get the unrolled portion longer and longer still, expertly swinging it around at the living all the while getting closer himself, like a blur of red, he charged through the dreadful threads of water, bashing the tsarine with his shoulder that was basically the size of her entire body.

"How many will I have to teach you this lesson? You should have long realised that I can not be killed" she casually stated as her neck snapped itself back into black, even if he was somehow managing to always get past the added resilience she was putting onto herself, it didn't matter as no damage lingering upon her for even a second even that which was most definitely, and instantaneously lethal.

Tsarina Delelgoliol'Erstvourst Von Hartracite's image of herself was unshaking and it always was her in the best possible condition, without even a single blemish, and it didn't even budge at all after having her skull ground up or her entire body broken.

There wasn't a single thought of worry to be found anywhere within her, but there was no such thing within Herlbe either.

"Heheh, if I can break your bones and make you bleed, I can definitely kill you, cutie pie- I guess I'll just have to hit harder" but since she was constantly raising up the durability of her body, even if it was getting slower as the hardest thing she knew, the bleached stone, was already requiring to have its toughness theoretically pushed higher and higher, and the higher it went, the more difficult it was to imagine.

Still, Herlbe didn't want her to get to a point where even he would struggle to leave a mark.

"Hmph! That is nothing more than barbarian logic!"

The sky darkened as on top of the constantly swinging thin beams of pressurised water, she summoned countless spikes and needles of bleached stone, presumably of the same level of resistance as her body currently was, firing them down at excessive speed as she also imagined a powerful gust of downward wind to further enhance their speed.

Hartracite, uncontested supreme monarch of this realm, watched as the revenant weaved and evaded in spite of his imposing body, knocking spikes of hardened stone aside like they were twigs whilst still managing to not be carved into pieces.

Maintaining so many things at once wasn't too difficult for her, as she had manifested them one by one, being aware of multiple things at once was no problem to one as intellectually gifted such as her, but the issue was that she had to be constantly making up theoretical, more powerful, more efficient existences of each of those concepts, it a was easy the first time but doing so repeatedly whilst also not freeing up any of her attention to what was already in action was another story.

Most enemies would have already crumbled before the might of her imagination, but not Herlbe, the putrid mass wasn't going down easily, and even under the assault of so many things at once, he was managing to try and land some hits on her, one moment of staying still and one of her forearms was wrapped by a grey chain, torn asunder and forcing her to momentarily spare some attention to return to normal, or rather, she would naturally spare some as it was like second nature to keep herself perfect at all times.

'That is well enough…' looking to the side, she could see that the illiterate bunch that served as her people were not faring exceptionally well, those fools couldn't even bother to change strategy after noticing that their enemies weren't abiding by the same rules as them, they wouldn't be getting trounced like that if they bothered to even think for a second.

No matter how many times she tried to get them educated, they always managed to fail spectacularly, they just weren't like her, this realm favoured brute strength over everything else and thus, its inhabitants were naturally geared to be strong whilst forgetting all else, it wasn't education that they needed, it was a mass event of natural selection.

"I just got an idea, let us begin again with a clean slate" tapping the tip of her fingers together, tilting her head to the side to avoid a chain slung straight at her head.

All that was currently imagined popped out of existence, she needed to focus a bit for a moment.

Sensing danger, Herlbe didn't reach for her and instead looked up, there was nothing to be seen on the surface, but it quickly became obvious that the white shine of the gargantuan star filling the sky completely seemed to be getting closer, or rather, getting closer directly above them specifically.

"Now, is this what I think it is?"

'How does she even understand how that works?' he questioned himself as he rapidly realised that it wasn't his imagination, Hartracite had absolutely just conjuried up a miniature replica of the white star and was currently dropping it right on top of them both.

The tsarina wiped her nose, a bit of blood flowing out.

"The pale white star often sheds a bit of its body and drops it on us, that is slightly larger than a bit, however- Only I will remain after it hits the ground, but I have more people in other places, so all is well" casually shrugging off the impending losses of life, Herlbe was wondering what he could do about a literal star, because even if this was just a small piece compared to the one in the sky, it was absolutely a big one compared to stars in general.

"Welp, guess you leave me no choice… Are you sure you don't wanna submit at all? You're skills would be pretty useful"

"No"

"Fine, we'll talk about it when I come back down" and on this note, he raised up his right hand.

"Ierpalam-" he seemed to have said something else afterward, but she heard none of it, as though all sound died for a moment.

It wasn't like when he bursted with power like before, it was something else, something dark, something silent.

Inside of his raised hand, a great cleaver manifested, appearing oversized even for him, but the handle was perfectly appropriate for him to wrap his hand around, the very end of its hilt even featuring a small space for a chain to be attached.

The blade was dark, featuring undulations upon its sides, embedded into the mysterious metal.

Immediately after, he leapt into the air with enough force to completely turn the suspended menhir around, rushing straight at the falling star.