Pestilence: Rise Of The Pure Undead

The area was rapidly turned upside down by the battle, Alici and another girl with brown hair striked first, unleashing a torrent of flames far more powerful than it had been moments prior, and the other simply stomping the ground, which produced an horrendous, repeated thunderclap-like sound as well as shook the very stone to impossible limits.

Hound-like beasts rushed down upon the defenders of the realm despite the quake, throwing themselves to their deaths with reckless abandon as even under such circumstances, no one was left open for such an obvious attack, the flaming flow forced everyone to move, Toby and Lynn stuck together, firing arrows without stop, one with the aid of battle arts, the other instead using special projectiles that he had gotten from gods knows where.

The other three members of the quartet remained together, Tahnne and Cassi shielded from the heavy flames by Eppie's barrier, Helena floated up in the air, taking Antieeld alongside with her, whilst Milo just pushed through the fire, the situation had gone from manageable to seriously bad, so he decided that it was time to take the gloves off, although it felt wrong to pummel girls that had been brainwashed by Loimos, an enemy was an enemy nonetheless.

And although hard to admit aloud, he was definitely willing to bloody his hands with the killing of others for the sake of his children.

Augmented with mana, he charged through the soul-burning flames without as much as his clothing bearing any damage, with his sharpened senses, he felt four condensed bullets of energy looming from above.

'The four that were shot in the sky before?' the three bullets moved closer to one another, and fused, before suddenly expanding and sending a carpet of countless more bullets down upon the area, though nearly a quarter of them fell without actually dealing any damage, instead popping like balloons full of water and spreading soul energy all over the area.

It wasn't acting like a noxious gas or anything, but Milo soon understood the purpose as he narrowly struck down a bullet aimed for his neck.

'Of course, her own soul energy prevents her attacks from being detected quite as easily…' Milo's energy detection wasn't the sharpest thing he had, but his instincts and reaction speed were more than enough to make up for it, however, the main problem was that he was under attack as well.

Alici and the brown haired girl rushed him down, whispering something under their breaths, which seemed to be the reason for a sudden burst in speed, both seemed to need quite a bit of focus to actually control their direction and movements whilst under the effects of that boost, but they managed to get to him nonetheless.

He dodged a long blade of fire, and simply punched it, destroying the liquid-like flames in a single strike.

"Damnation! Even soul energy can't withstand it?" she cursed, Milo wielded so much power that he was able to ignore the fact that he had no idea how soul energy worked, his lack of familiarity with it, or the fact that like a soul itself, the energy was supposed to be harder to target via normal methods, and especially physical strikes, but the man's body and mana were simply so potent that none of it mattered.

'Just like Father said, brute force is always a variable that needs to be accounted for…' no one knew as much as Loimos did, at least, the Soror believed so, as the one wielding everything the undead empire knew, literally, his words could only be the absolute truth, no matter the rules and specificities of any given thing, one should always assume that exception exists, or that said rules could be broken at any time.

Right now, they were experiencing it first hand, as Milo, who should have no business being capable of destroying the power brought forth through a soul depth manifestation, had done just that, and without even trying, he had just punched something without questioning the interactions between different energies, to him, it had seemed obvious that the flaming blade could not withstand that strike.

He kicked at Alici, the other girl grabbing a pendant around her neck, and in a swirl of soul sparks, a massively oversized hammer, made entirely out of steel, appeared in her hands, already swinging for his side.

Cancelling his own attack, he raised one hand and stopped the weapon in its course without even budging.

"Aah… Father fought this basically without any powers and barely any strength?" she muttered to herself, awed by the display of pure strength when she hadn't even noticed any signs of the thing that had actually made Loimos place Milo so high up on the list.

Still, the girl grinned, her eyes glowing brightly, sign that she was putting her soul depth manifestation to use, and Milo instantly felt it, like ants were dancing just beneath his palm, but not due to anything hard to comprehend, the impact he had just stopped was slamming into him again, before even a second had passed, he endured the same blow a thousand times, and with every passing instant, it became faster, before long, he was actually thrown aside by the hammer as the strikes overlapped with one another, making it seem like she had hit him multiple times in the exact same moment, multiplying the strength exerted.

'I guess that's to be expected… I thought that they were just girls indoctrinated by Loimos to come die here, but it seems like he does see value in them, that's a powerful ability… I should take her out before she can actually master it' Milo felt a slight pang in his head as he carelessly thought of Life Scourge's name.

'That was stronger… Does their presence actually enhance his unseen influence in this realm?' he had underestimated their danger level, not only did they seem to each possess unique abilities linked with the soul, but the simple fact that they existed in Emerald Realm seemed to allow Loimos to strengthen the influence left upon those who had survived him back then.

Milo and the others had been marked by the Fear exerted by the pure undead, but the Soror, it seemed like they had been marked by something else.

'They are probably rigged with even worse things than the other elites, huh? If he can exert his presence through them… Then could killing them actually help him fasten what they have been trying to do to the spirit life? Right now, countless of the soldiers in white are dying, and the Emerald Heralds are fighting, so only the other sun worshippers can help refine and cleanse the ambient spirit life…' Milo felt like he was getting a grasp on what was going on.

His body seemed to brighten with gold.

"Don't think I'll allow you to set even one foot inside of this realm" he said, feeling nothing in response, but that was to be expected, even if the champion could hear him, he was not the sort to actually respond.

"Trying to use girls who call you Father to invade just a single realm, you really are a piece of shit, you undead abomination!"