Pestilence: Rise Of The Pure Undead

Taking a break was not an activity Loimos partook in, or any undead for that matter, so as soon as his business in the Emerald Realm was done, he moved to the next thing on his list.

As it stood, now that Emerald Realm was conquered and with the slow pace of progress in expanding undead territory, there was no big mission that actually required the champion's involvement in any way, the other superpowers were not yet touchable, it would simply be idiotic to start hostilities when they could still make plenty more preparations.

Verdoyante was under Yuolrt's jurisdiction to take care of, Yoreterre was not a place that they could freely conquer either, as that would provoke the other superpowers into taking action against the Empire, so currently, apart from making progress with the royal miasma that was many times slower than a snail, the best that could done in the way of expansion was conquering islands, small civilisations that were sometimes found living under the sea and realms.

The first two were rather rare these days, islands were only discovered over the horizon every once in a while, and although somewhat intelligent beings that formed large groups were a bit more common, they did not tend to form large enough groups to allow for sudden creation of enough miasma to hasten progress.

It only left the realms and the expansion technique tied to them.

Overall, the amount of still unconquered realms currently known and accessible to the Empire numbered in the thousands, most of them were small and uninteresting, so much so that they couldn't be used for the expansion technique, but they still provided the Empire with additional land.

The main attractive aspect of realms was not actually the chance to discover new species that could bolster the ranks of the Empire, or novel ways of power, unique resources and the likes, but the flat amount of additional land they provided, realms took up basically no space whatsoever, but could be as large as entire continents, if not far larger than that.

They could be used for undeads to settle in, or to create unique breeding grounds to cause the emergence of specific naturally spawned undeads, the latter was the fate of most of the small and bare realms that were basically just small plots of land without any livings beings apart from grass and a few trees.

One thing that was on the bucket list was a realm which gateway could be moved in an efficient manner, the architects and engineers had great plans to fashion a mobile fortress this way, apparently finding the creation of typical mobile bastions too easy for them now, causing theories and ideas to sprout about more complex and unique designs.

That was a good thing, the madness of the architects was what made them so effective and competent in their endeavours, some of what they constructed was definitely unnecessarily complicated or bizarre, but many considered that this was what gave the Undead Empire its charm.

Unlike the rest of the superpowers, the Empire was not a monolith in appearance and population, all of the conquered cultures and people remained in some shape or form, one could traverse a desert filled with pyramids on one day, and then visit underground cities on the next, or enter one of the many domes in the ocean, and they would still be in the Undead Empire.

Death welcomed all, and this was to be felt in every aspect of the Empire.

Currently, Loimos was standing at the top of tower, which was itself situated on an island that was floated thanks to being powered by a huge mana crystal, this was just on the edge of the miasmic border, granting a nice highground for one to observe the horizon.

He had overviewed all of the realms present in the reports, and not a single one of them required his intervention, regular groups of the vanguard headed by a lieutenant could take care of them without problem.

But since undeads knew no downtime, Loimos went to the edge of the territory in search of something to do, as obviously, anything that was in the reports was either in the process of being conquered, or already had something prepared for it, the organisation was already done.

So he needed to find something new.

With Maliah and One with him, without heavy restrictions, there was little chance of any realm being capable of resisting them, but it didn't matter if it was easy, the only point was that work was being done, and that the borders were being stretched outward.

Whilst the pure undead was scanning the horizon, probably seeing much further than anyone else, and probably causing a few fish to spontaneously die by glancing in their general direction, his two fellows were discussing.

"I heard that Queen Liameilos had finally managed to awaken her very own vampiric blood, creating a new type of vampire that can walk into direct sunlight without problem, are you going to go to her and have a switch of blood? Most of the sun walking vampires are doing that"

"No, I would like to either awaken my own vampiric blood, or take over Sunwalker's old spot, I need at least that to have a chance to be capable of handling Loimos's festering death force" replied the vampire as she leaned against the railing of the tower.

"You really think only about that, huh? I know that it sounds far more refined for undeads, but you are basically obsessed with carrying his babies and being able to handle his-"

"No need to make comparisons! I get it, but that's just what I want to do, and besides, if I can do either of those things, I will be able to do more in other areas as well… What do you think my own vampiric blood would be like?" One smiled, her two fangs showing as the assassin rubbed her chin.

"I heard that vampiric blood suits the person… Those three that Lord Nosferatu is raising have rather specific vampiric bloods… One can turn basically anything into vampires without problem, but has no specific strength and a whole slew of weaknesses, another simply gets to look exactly like a living human, perfect to fit in, and the last one can turn into a bat"

"So… I say that your vampiric blood is just a drug"

"Huh?"

"Are you not an alchemist and the one who created a whole bunch of nasty things like that?"

"I guess that could make sense… But… Feels a bit lacking, don't you think?"

"Not all vampiric blood can be equal, some have dragons, and some become allergic to garlic, it is what it is…"

Before the two of them could continue their conversation, it seemed like Loimos had spotted something in the distance…