Pestilence: Rise Of The Pure Undead-Chapter 1216: Concerns
Capítulo 1216: Concerns
For reasons unknown to the rest of the world, the Undead Empire had recently begun to expand far more aggressively and with far greater speed than it once did. Of course, the Empire was still respecting deals made with the other superpowers, not encroaching upon certain areas, instead branching out into unclaimed oceans, taking over any and all pieces of land available.
The sudden burst in speed was still greatly worrying for the other superpowers, even if the Empire was not showing any signs of aggressiveness just yet, everyone with their head screwed on right was well aware that eventually, things would go south.
The surprises did not end there. It seemed like the undeads had been waiting to launch several operations and experiments all at once, forcing the superpowers to divide their attention between several points of interest…
Naturally, the first thing was the unexpected swiftness of conquest in terms of territory in the main world, but there was something more confusing, which no one really knew what to think of.
Namely, the undeads were going into space. Literally, the nation of corpses had built ships to go into space–To explore space and conquer it as well. They were already reporting setting foot upon foreign planets and encounters with beings of the spatial void.
It was hard to fathom what space exploration could bring. No one really knew what was up there, and frankly, no one had really cared about it until today. Why would anyone bother to think about what was hidden amidst the stars? There were plenty of inexplicable, nonsensical things happening right down there already. There was no need to bring space into the equation as well.
Unfortunately, the children of Death had an unquenchable thirst for conquest and discovery. They would definitely find resources, species, or weapons in their quest throughout the empty void above the sky–More importantly, though… The undeads had actually built things capable of traversing space!
The sheer level of advancement and the delirious amount of expertise required for something like this were pretty much impossible to imagine. It implied that, in terms of transportation methods, the Empire was far more advanced than it had been letting on.
One could only shudder imagining what their simple ships, carriages, and such could be capable of at this point. The Undead Empire was very likely to be in possession of enormous weapons capable of unleashing annihilation with just the push of a button.
Of course, the other superpowers had their own means of attack and defence, but the problem here was that the Empire had just proven to be capable of a lot while allowing no leakage of information at all.
Who knew what else they might possess?
Although an information of great impact, what ended up mesmerising the leaders of the other continents was instead what they were able to discover about how the undeads were suddenly seeing a jump in the swiftness of their more ‘typical’ conquests.
It was a secret that was harder to keep as the possession was performed out in the open, when information agents could easily keep an eye on what was happening. In appearance, it was the same method that they had been using for a long time now.
The method involved the usage of realms that had been completely conquered as a sort of blast point for miasma. By using such realms that were placed in a convenient manner, the Empire would rapidly consume an area–The concept worked well, but was limited to areas of a certain size. Furthermore, this method was also beholden to the locations of several realms.
…At least, it should be. It clearly no longer was, as the burst of conquered realms being opened, spewing out streams of miasma, had become far more common. This was why the undeads were progressing at a greater pace than before, their flawed trick was no longer so flawed for reasons that were unclear at first…
The superpowers eventually figured it out through the usage of excessive divinations. The Empire had made a recent breakthrough in the area of realm invasion through the creation of a device capable of detecting realm gateways, as well as manifest portals to realms which lacked an existing one.
This alone was a masterful invention, but the undeads did not know how to stop. This creation led to several others in a short period of time, as other inventors were inspired through the study and analysis of the design of the machine, allowing them to comprehend things.
One of these inventions was the one at play in the speeding up of the expansion.
To put it simply, an undead had learned from the device mentioned just before, and from there–Somehow–Had been able to put together a machine that did something else entirely, which was to create temporary, new realms that could be moved to precise coordinates.
Naturally, it was huge for the purpose of conquest. These temporary realms could be pumped full of miasma, moved to a desired location, and then opened up to provide the same result as the previous realm method.
Only that the method could now be used everywhere, and was much faster as these realms were empty. Devoid of anything, and thus, did not require to be dominated beforehand. They could be filled up immediately.
The superpowers found out that they should worry about realms opening above their heads, or anywhere within their territories, but also learned that the Empire was casually walking toward possessing the ability to create new realms out of thin air.
This was a whole can of worms on its own…
Although the leaders of the superpowers as a whole were rather worried, there were some individuals who remained quite calm despite all of this. Namely, Ronarkatast, who still couldn’t be bothered to care.
And also Artratac Dursol, who–In the eyes of the council of Archbishops–Spent a suspicious amount of time with Gravelord Vwoldtnir. It was to the point that the archbishops were genuinely concerned that the Hierophant-Queen was in, or at least considering, a relationship with the foul-looking ghoul.
It was a bit ridiculous how much time they spent side by side. It was definitely not normal for a diplomatic envoy to be close to the leader of another nation, and it was also not normal for said leader not to say anything about the rather overt flirting coming from the other party.
Each of the archbishops had seen it with their own eyes. The ghoul lord was actively trying to seduce the Hierephant-Queen… It had once been a bit more subtle, but nowadays, he wasn’t even hiding it anymore, and Artratac Dursol clearly liked this sort of attention from him, as she did not shut him down and instead responded positively every time.
For the council, they were witnessing a soft invasion but were powerless to stop it. They couldn’t eliminate Vwoldtnir. He was an undead and would always come back, no matter what.
They couldn’t do anything against their own leader either, as much as they can restrain her executive powers, she is still above them in every way, and frankly, they have been getting in her way so often that it was best that they did not give her a reason to dissolve the council at the moment.
However, it was without question that they needed to act. They needed to find something, an excuse for the Hierophant-Queen and the Deep Crawler to split and remain apart for as long as possible.
If they could do this, they could buy time for a better, more elaborate solution. Right now, they dearly needed Vwoldtnir away from Artratac Dursol. 𝑓𝘳𝑒𝑒𝓌𝘦𝘣𝘯ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝑚
“As much as our deer Hierophant-Queen might enjoy his presence, she should still abide by the basic rules of her status–Therefore, if we can get her to have to act in the way of a military leader, she should not allow an outsider near her during that time”
“How are we meant to do that? Most of our enemies have been dealt with in this underground. We are unmatched… I do not see any threat that could be great enough to lead Lady Dursol to have to take on the role of military leader for a long period of time–If at all”
“You lack imagination. The undeads aren’t the only ones with access to realms!”
“…Are you really implying that we allow those damned, armoured worms out? I am all for doing something, but damaging our nation and leading to the death of even one of our people in the process is not an acceptable price”
“The armoured worms are forces of nature that I would argue we are capable of controlling to do our bidding, but I suppose that you have a point, they are too powerful to be reliably kept in check…”
“…The centipedes it is, then? They are awful, but they are strong and numerous, plus, they can be trained very easily without leaving any trace. It should occupy our leader for a while”
“Any objections?”
Silence was the answer.
“Very well then, we’ll use those good old centipedes to our advantage, then”
