Pestilence: Rise Of The Pure Undead

Chapter 86: Intercepted

Loimos's lone wander through the nearby woods, caves and cliffs wasn't very fruitful, despite him questioning a number of people, both with words and with actions, no matter who it was, random bandits, someone living out in the wild or caravans going through the area, they all seemed to have no real ideas of who the undead king was and where he was sealed at.

He had earned a few more cracks on his mask, and skull, acquired some new articles of clothes after getting repeatedly slashed and hacked, even having to reattach his right leg at some point after clearing the guts of someone with it.

He had not been violent with the travellers, he was aware of who he could just carve into pieces without risking getting hunted down, he had shown courtesy to the people going through the area, although they had all seemed wary of him, since he definitely didn't look amicable.

Loimos had already learned much from Faraday, after setting up many miasma generators on the outside and inside of the seal, he had gone on ahead, the path to sovereignty of the undead was obviously by unsealing their rightful ruler, Nitok, a skeletal lich that had not only gained the rights for his crown from both the system and the other gravelords thanks to his strength, he also had the respect of the vampires on a whole different level.

However, Faraday had been sealed a long time ago, Slotriig had come by his side later when the king was sealed, but it was also a very long time ago, the places they had mentioned seemed to no longer exist, even their memories erased from the history of the living by time.

Still, the battle mage was certain that the crypt, and thus royal castle, were Nitok had been sealed would still be intact and well, for it was no mere construction, not only had it been carved out of durable rocks bathed in death forces, the king had coated the entire thing and some of the surroundings with his domain, which was apparently some inborn ability that could be likened to a zone but only superficially since it acted over an area.

"Not only that, it was a dominion! The melding of both his domain and his mastered zone, allying the aspects of the two abilities, I am confident that no one could have undone it, even after sealing him, Slotriig said that The Elven Light made no move to destroy it" he had said whilst slamming his fist up and down enthusiastically.

Faraday was no gravelord, but he had been a close aide of the king nonetheless, his belief ought to be accurate.

So, Loimos had also simply been questioning people on such a construct, it had to be a coveted 'dungeon' or something of the likes.

The skeleton had gotten multiple leads on multiple crypts said to house powerful undeads that were sealed, Slotriig was only aware of Faraday and Nitok being locked down, he had seemed rather convinced that the gravelords had all safely retreated to their own dwellings, whatever activities they may have been up to since then was unknown.

Finding the gravelords was naturally another goal of Loimos, but releasing Nitok from his seal took priority for this would inevitably lead to the undead swelling up again.

With no clear leads though, Loimos was headed for the closest location he had heard of, Findpasser was a city of Tamaris, after getting direction from a passing carriage, he continued on his way.

What he was going to do was simple, even if he found Nitok first, he was still going to pay a visit to each of those locations, after all, the more the merrier, any added manpower was welcome for the righteous quest of ending all that lives.

After Findpasser, he would head for Weafewand, another city of Tamaris, then Muho Chitai, which was much further away, located in another kingdom entirely and then Bourgliotte, in yet another country.

Loimos had a lot of walking to do, and there was already an obstacle right in the way, two random men just bursted out of the nearby woods, looking rather spent and staring right at him, clearly, they had business with the lonesome undead.

The skeleton had dealt with many people ever since he had wiped the existence of this first settlement a few weeks back, he had done so with many others as well, those that had been fortunate enough to not be around for the cleansing were left rather confused since Loimos wouldn't even leave the houses, huts or such, only the soil that had been stomped over and the paths forged over time were left.

One might say that those survivors were a bit bummed out at the prospect of their homes, friends and families vanishing without a trace, those two in front of him were no exception, one was a skinny man with rather wide shoulders, the other was young fellow, with rugged face but clean hair, this second one was wearing clothing Loimos was familiar with, in fact, he didn't seem to be from Tamaris to begin with, even the way he carried himself was way different than what Loimos had gotten accustomed to.

His clothes were ample, hiding the finer details of his movements, one hand on the scabbard of his blade, the other just above its handle, he bent his knees. Discover hidden stories at M V L

'He is going to attack, he is either fast or will use a ranged attack' Loimos recognised the intention.

"Hey you, you've been lurking around for a while haven't you? Your track is all over the missing camps!" by the looks of it, the skinny man was some sort of expert tracker, a scout or hunter of some sort, after all, Loimos didn't leave obvious residuals of his presence, he must have followed the track left by his death force.

Judging by the way they looked at him however, the one speaking did not realise that he was an undead in the least, seeing that he was speaking to him like this and that the other one had not attacked immediately.

'The swordsman is powerful' he assessed before a flood of black blood came down from him, forming a circle around him, at the same time he had acted, the one that had been ready to strike vanished and then reappeared in his spot.

It was rather impressive, he had rushed forward, swiftly enough to not be glued to the ground, slashing Loimos across the chest and done the same thing backwards, just to return to his previous position in the exact same pose.

The slash certainly bypassed Loimos defences, but bleeding him wasn't the way, and he had been able to tell what the swordsman had been up to thanks to reading his life force after the fact.

The undead looked down at the wound, shrugged his shoulders and spoke up to the swordsman.

"Pitiful" he provoked him with perfect calmness, the worst way to be provoked was really by someone who seemed like they couldn't care less about your existence, it irked the man and with a slight accent, he announced his next move.

"Your head is coming off" assuming a similar, yet a much different posture, he was ready to put his threat to action immediately.