Pestilence: Rise Of The Pure Undead

Having just recovered his strength and ordered Alkayne, Loimos walked up to the kneeling iron king, Fioldron Ferrcrona was in a rather poor state, barely conscious at the moment, meanwhile, despite fighting three distinct opponents and being struck by his bane, the royal courier was back as fresh as he had started.

His weapon re-manifesting in his hand, standing next to the king of Starkefolten, making sure to grab his attention, grasping and lifting him off the ground with a mass of repulsive rot, shaking him a good bit to make sure he was listening attentively.

"Fioldron Ferrcrona, I will soon give my subordinate a new order, your champions will get a taste of the might of a minor lord, in fact, I will make sure to direct him to target that girl in white first, that is what will happen if you continue to defy King Nitok's will" it was like all sounds other that the undead's voice existed for the king, everything else was drowned out, his eyes focusing more and more on the darkness lying within the helm.

"If you submit and accept King Nitok's blessing, then all that you fight for will exist, forever more, Starkefolten will become a mighty region of our empire, you will retain your title, your honour, achieve greater strength and not have to watch your daughter be shredded under Herlbe's fist" Loimos rose one hand, a threat that would come into execution if the answer was not the one which was expected.

"Huh…" the king coughed, feeling his heart and shoulder aching beyond measure "Go and fornicate with your own sister, I'll never bow my head to monsters!"

"Maim them" Loimos spoke in death tongue, still directly facing the king, the revenant grinned, or at least, tried to, bringing his arms close to his body, erupting with a wave of force, throwing the elemental champions away.

Heeding his order with joyous barbarism, stomping one foot down, unwrapping part of the chain around his arm, with a single swing, claiming the arm of Filiusorci, the champion of earth, with another swing, destroying what was left of the disembodied limb.

Herlbe was the most resistant of the minor lords, which was why he had been made to take the champion's attention, he could endure barrages of both physical strikes, destructive spells, or a combination of the two, they could only scratch him at most, and that scratch would soon disappear anyways.

But one could not be made into a minor lord by simply being a glorified meatshield, lashing out with the claw bolted to his other arm, shattered the swords of Msir, the champion of sword and threw her a fair distance away, laying broken and unconscious.

Alosfit, champion of fire gritted his teeth, focusing his burning mana into a single point, casting a compressed bolt of fire, the undeads were supposed to be weak to flames, abandoning all reason, he had focused everything he had left into this one spell, hoping to dig into the revenant's thick skin and set him aflame.

Collapsing from expanding all of his mana, he wasn't even aware when his spell was struck down, leaving an injury larger than any he and the other champions had inflicted before, but it was still nothing to write home about, the damage was gone in just as little time as the rest.

Not allowed to get together to cast group spells, the undead making certain to make this impossible, each of Starkefolten's finest warriors had to instead try and defeat Herlbe with their mightiest personal spells, in just a few minutes, all had been struck down, within an inch of their lives.

Grasping the last one within his palm, Herlbe held up the struggling Lunate for the king to see.

And yet…

"I thought you were going to kill her first? But you killed no one… You spout nothing but lies, Loimos" Fioldron Ferrcrona was not caving in.

"General, let's just carry them as is to the king, our monarch will have the words to convince them"

"Remember Herlbe, we can not go back to the palace until then, if they refuse to become undeads by the king's will, then they shall become undeads by mine" raising his hand, Herlbe took a step back from his general, a most ominous bone spike slowly protruded from the center of Loimos's palm, bloods and forces of death condensed within, a mere twitch away from piercing the king's skull, she appeared, the bone spike falling off, cut down.

"Storm Of Blade" the royal courier greeted her, Herlbe dropped Lunate without a care, moving closer to his general in support.

But he was denied by Loimos.

"Retreat" the minor lord hesitated for a moment, but eventually relented, obeying the order and allowing himself to be dragged below ground as per the skeleton's will, a distance behind him, the champions were all out cold, except for Lunate who was trying to move around but that was rather difficult with so many broken bones, she seemed to intensely convulse under the pain.

Loimos covered the sight of the champions with the mass of rot holding Fioldron Ferrcrona, he had a hostage of rather high value.

"I take it that Ourlon failed to prove himself convincing?"

"Let's not waste time like this, you and the other corpses had been doing nothing but willfully lengthen every single thing, as well as go easy on your opponents, why don't you waste more time by actually speaking about something of substance?" Syklon's blade was already out of its sheath, Loimos was keeping the iron king close to him, the rot encasing the man moving around without a clear pattern.

Loimos did not respond to this.

"What are you guys waiting for anyways? Clearly, you weren't planning on reinforcement showing up to kill them and kill two birds with one stone, you could have walked over Ircron in just a day if you really wanted to, and you could have had a gravelord hidden around here, or you could have just flooded the area with miasma already, but you did not" Discover hidden tales at empire

"Seriously, what is the point of this nonsense?" Syklon walked a bit to the side, mirrored by Loimos.

"Indeed, it is nonsensical but so much so that the person it is destined to can not miss it" Loimos responded cryptically, not elaborating any further.

"So, it's so unfathomably ridiculous, solely to send a message? To whom? And what the hell is there to understand from this?" she eyed the movements of the skeleton, looking for a good opening to cut him down.

"It is a tribute to an old event, to lure out an old acquaintance of his majesty, let me ask a question of my own, that rabbitfolk woman, what is her link with him?" he remained cryptic even then, trying to see if Syklon would naturally understand what he was referring to.

Clearly, she did not.

Their discussion ran in circles soon enough, neither of them willing to let off more than necessary, Syklon was more so trying to find a way to piece Loimos up without giving the same treatment to Fioldron Ferrcrona, which was easier said than done.

She paid close attention to the undead, he wouldn't hesitate to use the king as a shield, and in the state he was currently in, striking him would probably be very likely to send him to the grave.

"I am aware that some of your troops snuck around to the other side, went inside and have installed an array of teleportation" Loimos suddenly dropped this.

"I also know that the same thing was done in Millipolo, you are gathering all of the forces in Tamaris, taking advantage of King Nitok's mercy, that is smart, but as you should have guessed, his majesty is not a fool"

The very day flickered for a brief instant.

"King Nitok has spoken once more, even when you bite at his kindness, he extends it once more" the rot trapping the iron king dispelled, allowing him to fall to the ground.

"I assume that you won't be gone even if I reduce every part of you here to nothing" Storm Of Blade raised an eyebrow, had the day really just gone dark for a split second there? And Loimos had understood something from it? Was he pulling another nonsensical trick up his sleeve?

He seemed rather fond of absurdism.

The two of them stared at one another in silence, and Syklon, despite knowing that it was useless, unleashed her arts, wiping Loimos off from where he had stood.