Pestilence: Rise Of The Pure Undead

"That undeadling has a bright future ahead of himself, even for us undeads, such strength and skill after having only existed for a little while is impressive" Nitok sat back down onto his throne.

"Indeed, it was a simple trick, but his opponent was caught off guard and confused simply because of the nature of Traquik's weapon, focusing on one side of the twinblade over the other, it is rather impressive that Traquik even noticed this mistake so swiftly and acted upon it without hesitation" added Faraday.

"And this was merely his martial skills, I sensed a certain aptitude for energy manipulation within him as well, if he ever finds those escapees, they better be prepared…" the two skeletons discussed whilst the next two challengers prepared themselves.

Faraday leaned forward in his seat.

"Excuse my lack of tact, but how is it going without your luminous lady? Is our Empire going to have an heir soon? Since she had awakened her very own vampiric blood, it seems like the perfect time to do this" asked Faraday with unconcealed curiosity.

In response, Nitok mimicked a sigh, which only sent dust through the air.

"Our respective attributes, darkness and light, are deeply integrated into our very beings, that include our death force, attempts at melding them together have not worked out so far, we need to find a good balance" replied the king "But I am confident that we'll succeed soon, we were pretty close last time, the only issue is that we can't immediately try again when we fail"

Faraday tilted his head to the side.

"How come? Even if unsuccessful, failure in melding death force should not result in any kind of backlash" spoke the advisor, his skull reflecting that of the Prince Of Death.

"Let's just say… That Maiele doesn't just want to meld death force when we try to make an undeadling, it takes a little while to finish- I mean, we can't just stop halfway through? She would punch me if I pulled that sort of stunt"

"Oh… So even our glorious King partakes in such activities, huh?"

"Just because I am the supreme ruler of this Empire, it does not mean that I can easily negotiate with my wife, you would understand if you picked a partner to stay with… Even undead, women are quite something!"

"Is that so?"

"Well… Frankly, I have it easy with Maiele- Whatever Loimos has to deal with is on another level" spoke the undead king, causing Faraday to erupt with laughter that sounded like steel spikes being smashed against one another.

"Ah… I wasn't expecting to hear that, but you are right! I would rather fight another lightning god than have to deal with those two girls- You must have heard though, One has awakened her own vampiric blood as well, so we might have to expect some undeadlings spawned by Loimos soon enough"

The King interlocked his fingers together.

"I am not too worried about whatever Loimos and One could spawn, although she has awakened her vampiric blood, her death force should not be too far out of the norm, what I worry about is what could arise if Maliah got into the picture as well… I hear that she acts like she doesn't care much about Loimos, but we both know the truth, and due to her special traits, her death force is abnormal, coupled with Loimos's festering death force… That would make some real little monsters for certain"

"Indeed, we already got-" just as Faraday was speaking, the two next contestants entered the arena, and once again, the chrome skeleton recognised one of them immediately.

"Another member of the Sons Of Loimos, they must have coordinated, they hate the escapees with a passion, seems like they are serious about tracking them down" he said.

The Son Of Loimos were adamant on extinguishing the remnants of the old living resistance, it was unclear how those survivors had changed over the years since different realms could have vastly different time flows.

They could have remained mostly the same, or they could have all died of old age already, it was impossible to know for sure without finding them.

Whether the livings were still alive, or if their descendants had taken their place did not matter to the Sons Of Loimos, they would kill them all regardless.

"Her name is Athala, she's at a bit of disadvantage here, from what I remember, she's an expert of poison magic and related affinities, not only are such things far less effective against other undeads in general, but in the arena in specific, even more so"

"She seems rather comfortable wielding that swordstaff, though" added King Nitok.

Athala was garbed in flowing clothing, almost making it look like she was wearing robes, her raven black hair was so long, that they completely obstructed her face, and with her hands wrapped in gloves, it was a bit hard to determine what type of undead she actually was, but King Nitok did not need visual confirmation to know the identity of one of his subjects.

And as it turns out, she was a putrid zombie, which would probably give any livings quite a fright as at a glance, one might assume that they were fighting a relatively fresh corpse, but under that mass of hair, one would only find advanced putrefaction, the kind that could haunt your dreams for several years.

But of course, undeads would not be frightened by such a mundane thing.

"She's pretty good looking, isn't she?"

"Are you trying to get a sun dropped on my head? No comment"

The fight began, Athala's opponent was a less rotten zombie wearing a big hood, who wielded his own intestines as a weapon, swinging them like chains at his opponent, his rotten muscles would also come undone, and the threads of flesh making them up would stretch, allowing him to pull himself away and move around the arena unimpeded.

And this was purely body manipulation, no magic was involved, only the art of rot manipulation pushed to turn himself into a weapon.

"Take note of him, that is an unusual application of rot manipulation"

Despite having the king's interest, the hooded zombie was not fairing so well, against Faraday's expectations, Athala was actually far more skilled with a weapon that he had given her credit for, wielding the swordstaff with murderous elegance.

Even with the opponent having greater mobility, he found himself unable to approach, his rotten body slowly being trimmed until he found himself weaponless, and with so few muscle threads that moving about became far more difficult…

"I forfeit" the fight lasted for nearly twenty minutes, but in the end, Athala won without much problem, having barely gotten hit at all.

Nitok asked her the same question as he did to the previous winner.

"Your Majesty, my wish is to be able to join the vanguard and serve under General Loimos, as well as have an occasion to track down and slay the repugnant escapees!"

"You may join the vanguard, as for tracking down those livings, you will have to discuss this with your new superiors"

"Thank you, Your Majesty"

Nitok turned to Faraday.

"I feel like we are going to see more of the Sons Of Loimos today"

"That is a feeling that I share"