Pestilence: Rise Of The Pure Undead

Chapter 888: Shrouded In Fog

Whilst some had been delighting in the affairs of arduous management, and other technical aspects of leadership that purely combat-driven individuals might find tough to take on, there were simply realms that were tricky as a whole and could not really be brought under full control.

Prikrip had been assigned a realm that was indeed arduous to tackle, amongst the minor lords, aided by his innate ability, skills and personal martial skills- The decaying bird-like corpse ranked amongst the upper echelon in terms of combat power, capable of taking on enemies above his weight and also having the capabilities to take down enemies whose properties made them tricky to deal with.

This was reflected in his soldiers, who were also all armed with strange capabilities and did not fight like typical warriors or soldiers, the environment of this realm actually really suited that aspect of them, the narrow streets and countless sharp corners leading into dark alleyways allowed was perfectly conductive to ambushes as well as hit-and-run tactics.

The only problem that they had faced in the early days of invading this realm was that this place was much different from anything they had ever seen before, which was difficult considering how the architects of the empire would build anything they wanted and constantly brought over architectures from other civilisations, no matter how obscure.

But the buildings here were all grey, seemingly made out of stone, and inside that stone, there was plenty of steel rods of some kind that could be found, moreover, those grey constructions often extended very high up, focusing on expanding horizontally, there was also a rather high prevalence of glass, which was curious as it was typically a rather rare material.

In any case, Prikrip had worked hard to understand this realm and subjugate it, but when he received the order from Loimos, he was still rather unconfident in his achievements, this realm was sorely low on ambient energies, and had actually already been in the midst of being conquered when the minor lord got there, the human population, which was beyond unremarkable, nothing like the humans he knew, none of them had any strength and they were incapable of fighting back against the first invaders, who were the real problem here.

Prikrip, although he saw little value in them, created a sort of sanctuary underground for the humans here, they were basically on house arrest, if not outright prison, but they were safe at least and they had to be content with that- He wished to preserve them as although the minor lord definitely, personally believed that they were rubbish, the ones with lots of smarts might figure something out about those livings.

In any case, the first invaders were far from being simple beings, first of all, they were not livings, closer to pure spirits in that their energy source of sorts also doubled as their equivalent for life or death force, so actually killing them was not straightforward for everyone, thankfully, the dust he created and wielded through his innate ability was still able to destroy such beings, making them crumble to dust.

However, this alone was not enough to deal with them all.

The black fog that permeated the realm and seemed to prevent light from going far, it was coming from portals of sorts, which greatly resembled those used by the empire to intrude upon certain realms, only that those were less sophisticated, more primitive, as though they had been opened using brute force.

These portals allowed a steady stream of those creatures to pour in at all times, so although said stream was slow and only included a handful of creatures every time, the sheer amount of portals meant that a lot would show up when you weren’t looking.

Their bodies were always completely pitch black, often somewhat resembling creatures people were familiar with in a warped and bizarre fashion.

None of them had real heads to speak of, instead carrying some sort of light that went through a translucent surface similar to glass, a white light that caused incredible harm upon those who dared to be within it, but often, when they caught a human, they would not kill them using the light, only immobilise them before abducting the victim and drag them into a portal.

And if one judged by the humanoid, human-sized dark creatures that were roaming the streets, it seemed like the price of being caught alive was to be corrupted and made into the kin of these creatures.

Even the undeads could not stay in the light for much longer, but at least, they could ignore the dreadful pain that it caused and other mind-numbing effects, allowing them to simply retreat if they were caught.

The creatures typically wouldn’t give chase.

Prikrip was naturally concerned about the origin of those creatures, in essence, to conquer this realm for realm, he would either have to conquer the place from which these beings came from, or seal all of their portals, or at least, the majority of them.

However, his initial wariness would only grow stronger after he managed to capture some of the creatures and send them back to the main world, learning that these beings were related to the True Void.

The True Void was much like the Abyss, incredible forces that were seemingly unstoppable, corruptive and that even the empire would rather not have to deal with.

In essence, the black fog was like the deep sludge which had been discovered in Belliste, a sort of weak offshoot that whilst far less threatening than the real deal, was still worthy of being treated as a huge problem.

The deep sludge was confined to the depths of the Western Cliffs, and had since long been properly confined by the empire, but the black fog was running rampant in this realm, and the creatures it spawned were free to roam around as they pleased.

Indeed, not only did the minor lord learn that the opposition was not to be trifled with, but it also greatly increased the stakes, the deep sludge had brought many benefits to the empire, and possessing it and being able to manipulate and control it was a gateway to dealing with the Abyss if it showed up.

The black fog could be the same thing for the True Void.

Since then, he had been gathering all of the humans and capturing as many of the creatures as was possible, trying to find a way to harvest their strength in a manner that did not involve simply using the beings directly, but when slain, they would always dissipate completely, at least, Prikrip and his soldiers did not have the way to preserve them.

‘With this order… I need to make a big advancement soon…’ perched atop a tall building, dark blue cloak softly fluttering in the winds as he stared directly at one of the portals, the largest of them all, and the one which the humans of this realm said had been the first to manifest.

‘…Let’s see if they have a leader’