Pestilence: Rise Of The Pure Undead

Chapter 56: Burning

A true undead’s senses are simply that much more superior to anything else, I believe that most of my readers are already familiar with the concept of the undead synesthesia, whilst similar to what we, as living, experience when we speak of synesthesia, for the dead, it is much different.

It is not a mere impression, not only does a pure undead possess the five basic senses, which can not be impaired through natural means, if at all, as well as armed with ’dark vision’ and ’darkness awareness’, they can feel everything about someone based on just one sense.

By this, I mean that if a pure undead heard me moving around, it would be able to ’see’, ’smell’, ’feel’ and even ’taste’ me, it is as though all of their senses were merged into a singular thing.

Coupled with ’darkness awareness’, which allows an undead to extend a sixth sense through the dark in every direction, I would wager that no other being could possibly be compared in that department, though, as I have to repeat, the existence of a pure undead is purely theoretical.

That is all just extrapolation based on the analysis of many undeads.

Extract of ’Undeads For Dummies: What Is A ’True’ Undead?’ by Ohith of the Underground Tower.

The tree burnt to cinders, the awful smell of cooked, rotten flesh invaded the air, despite being protected by bone plates, the gigantic imitation failed to withstand Tappduur’s flames, it soon crumbled as the miasma already began to thin.

It was rather fast, the entire place quickly began to crumble to pieces, as though the tree fastened the end of this little world of nothing but death just to try and bury them alive.

Running at top speeds, they weren’t in much danger however, the dome collapsed on itself much after they had all already made it out of there, the entire space under the earth filling up with debris as all traces of the rot and miasma vanished into thin air.

It was dubious whether one could even find evidence that such a thing had taken place here, the disappearance of it was immaculate, too perfect.

"Anyone sense anything else?" Échalas could sense nothing, he asked the others just to be certain, but it seemed like this dome underneath the earth had been the only place the undead had spread its vile corruption in.

"We just need to find the skeleton now" Latir-e-se shrugged her shoulders, not believing much in their chances of accomplishing that, it would require an exceptional amount of luck to somehow stumble upon this particular undead.

The sound of something clicking repeatedly attracted everyone’s attention.

"Actually, I got a good grasp of its death force now, we just need to follow the trail" Rummy’s odd glasses shined with a faint light.

"Girl, it doesn’t change the fact that we can’t get down and explore the caves willy-nilly" Abraham flicked her in the back of the head.

"What’s the big deal with this hole in the ground anyways? Aren’t there dozens of cave entrances leading deeper into it? We don’t have to jump down the first ravine we find like a bunch of morons…" she slapped the old man’s hand away before he could flick her again.

"True, but that doesn’t change much, the caves are unpredictable and barely any maps exist, not that it matters, the terrain probably changed a lot since the last time someone attempted something down there" Tappduur thought back a few decades back, then, a few ghoul hunters had braved the caverns again, believing that this was where Vwoldtnir was holed up.

It would later turn out that they were way off, but that wasn’t what was of importance.

The caves may seem empty and desolate, but certain areas are inhabited by treacherous and terrible creatures, not to mention, going down there wouldn’t be a short trip in the least, nor would it be easy, there were no telling what sort of narrow passages one would need to squeeze through to get anywhere.

Food and water would become an issue quickly, being underground, it was possible for tunnels to collapse as well, all in all, the caves on their own was already a nigh insurmountable problem.

The demon remembered what had happened, he snapped his fingers.

"Abraham, you were active as well when the ghoul hunters launched a hunt down there, do you remember what the survivors reported?" he addressed the old vampire hunter, who was currently holding up rummy by the back of her collar, much like a cat.

"Huh?" never heard of it, I was busy trying to track down Nosferatu back then.

"That fucker…" he narrowed his eyes and cursed under his breath as he thought about the ugly mug of that vampire lord

"Guess I’ll have to do it then, herm"

"In short, there may not be any undead lord down there, but there is definitely an undead of importance, The deeper parts of the caves, or at least a portion, is actually a dungeon I believe, filled with living armours and skeletons of a kind never seen before then" Tappduur had been active back then as well, however, much like Abraham, he had been more focused on his own activities.

Namely, trying to find a way to get past a seal, which he had since then abandoned.

"Oh wait, I heard that a dungeon was down there, supposedly, but doesn’t it have an entrance all the way to the surface?" Latir-e-se repositioned her mask.

"Which is filled with living armours" added Échalas.

"Ah, so we can just get through the dungeon and find the undead from there" Rummy offered a solution but everyone just shook their heads, knowing that it was also a dead end, this dungeon had a clear ending portion, which definitely didn’t lead that deep into the earth.

Either the dungeon had somehow been split in two, or there were just two different dungeons right next to one another.

Not that it mattered, unlike the one they were in right now, the dungeon they were speaking of was the real deal, you couldn’t just bust in and out through the walls easily, not to mention, it was far away, much too far away for them to get there and hope the undead was still around by then.

"The caves are simply too dangerous, spread the word of that undead still, we need people to be wary of skeletons until it is dealt with"

The death hunters wouldn’t go after Loimos, losing lives to snuff out the death of one of the dead was simply counter productive.