Pestilence: Rise Of The Pure Undead

Chapter 892: Back Again

“Huh… Barely turn your back on them for one second, and they’re already making a mess” upon returning to the Emerald Realm and finding out that the livings had figured out how to create a potent life mist, One instantly expressed her displeasure, whilst Loimos remained silent in the face of it all, his thoughts unfathomable.

The vampiress though, quickly got over the bad surprise and looked the rotten skeleton up and down.

“Is it me or you don’t have the same exact feel as you did before? Like… Your presence or whatnot since the last time we were in this realm is not the same as the one you have right now?” One being an expert in everything Loimos-related, quickly noticed the subtle, but still sizable difference emanating from the pure undead, although it might seem inconsequential, a small difference when dealing with a being of immense power was simply enormous.

Although One was not skilled enough in that department to tell exactly what the deal was at a glance, she immediately assumed that this was the whole point of this little venture outside of the Emerald Realm, although it hadn’t been long for the people here… About only one year from their perspective since Loimos had left, for the skeleton and vampire duo, it had been far longer, not that they would notice much of a difference between a few seconds and a decade.

“Naturally, you and I went out of our way to gather novel ways of power as well as materials and substances, so I have increased in power, and now, even when I take on all of the restraints imposed upon the undead upon me alone, it is less effective in restraining my strength” he began explaining, in truth, One was fairly aware of the purpose of this entire debacle, as much as she would have liked, it was not as excuse for them hang out together at all.

Though she was still very happy that was the one picked to follow him around and be of assistance when needed…

As he further elaborated, as per usual, Loimos was scheming by gathering every possible source of power available to him, ways of power where the most obvious manner in which he could increase his strength, as he could always abuse the loopholes to rapidly reach the penultimate height in them, but that was not all, due to his mastery of Gravelord Nosferatu’s, Gravelord Vespertillo’s, and Gravelord Atsalinopalo’s techniques, he could also rapidly increase in strength by getting his hands on new inanimate materials, as well as new types of livings.

Melding how Atsalinopalo could replace his body parts and manifest the qualities of inanimate materials, alongside Vespertillo ability to do the same thing but with tissues from creatures and the likes- Thanks to essentially being made from his primeval rot, Loimos could manifest the strength of all materials, and all beings he had ever decayed at once across every minuscule bit of rot.

Coupled with Nosferatu’s ‘stack’ that allowed to pile up every type of reinforcement with one another into what was essentially an endless feedback loop that allowed one to simulate the effects of a natural stack at all times, when Lord Nosferatu fought, it was like every single one of his blows was that special, incredibly rare occurrence, although the undead’s technique was not a true stack, and the real event could still further pile onto it, the strength of that technique was not to be proven.

But when Loimos used it alongside everything else, and focused so deeply that he applied it to every material and every being being manifested individually, before applying to his rot itself- It was safe to say that the strength boost that occurred was so high that it might simply not be calculable.

Considering how he went about it, even a single new addition like a type of rock, or a new species of living that he slayed provided a massive boost no matter how brittle or pathetic the thing or being actually was.

But as per usual, Loimos was doing something else in parallel to that, as abusing the effects of various of his techniques and abilities by bringing them together was simply not enough, or rather, because his perfect undead mind could always find out every way to cheat for greater power.

The reason he went out of his way to procure something like the ‘Stagnant Water’ which counted as a way of power that was unobstructed by the Emerald Realm, was not actually so that he could wield it, the point was that he had access to a way of power that he could freely use despite the constraints of this realm, so by willingly depriving himself of its usage through the placement of a condition, he could leverage against the restrictions of the realm and lessen the weight imposed upon him, which was a better deal as the amount of power he could use in this manner surpassed what he would have been able to do with Stagnant Water.

“I think I’ll need some time to properly make sense of all that, Loimos…” One was no stranger to getting barraged by thousands of words after committing the mistake of asking for an explanation from Loimos, but she didn’t have the thinking capacities of the pure undead, and just couldn’t digest all of those details spoken so swiftly.

In essence, he went and got more power, so now he is more powerful, so he appears less weakened in the Emerald Realm.

That was the simple way of explaining it, and that was the way One decided to see it.

“So… What are you planning to do now that you’ve done this? Their barrier is still incredibly durable, and wasn’t there something you were trying to do with the golden boy?” she asked, One wasn’t the sort to question Loimos at all, but going out of his way to acquire more personal strength was an odd move when it seemed like he was focusing on expanding the strength and experience of the vanguard.

In a fashion that was out of character, Loimos actually turned his body to face her, an absolutely unnecessary act, it didn’t seem like much, but the vampire knew very well that this meant that he aimed to grab her attention, and it worked fantastically.

“One, amongst all undeads, you are amidst those whomst I have personally known for the longest” he said, she wasn’t actually the first ever undeads he had ever met, but she was indeed the very first that was actually capable of speech and thought.

“Y-Yes?”

“For this reason, all of the vanguard views you as being only ranked below me in terms of importance, as such, I will let you in on a few things that I have not mentioned even to King Nitok so far, so that you may make decisions whilst taking that into account whilst I may not be around”

“Huh?”

‘Not around? May not be around? What does that mean?’

One perked her ears and listened attentively…