Pestilence: Rise Of The Pure Undead-Chapter 402 He Is Here
"At last, our true test is here" Ourlst and Horhir stood behind their general, after years of constant work, of constant fighting off marine livings, spreading miasma and turning the ocean overflowing with life into one overflowing with what was right, their great highway had reached Belliste at last, none of them even knowing the exact number of years by this point, even with their faster pace thanks to progressing in a line, it had taken an ungodly amount of time, one needed to know that the undeads worked without pause, be it physical or mental.
Such a project would have been deemed impossible and cost countless lives for the livings to accomplish, but for the followers of eternity, it was all a matter of time, and this time had come.
"Begin the spread of miasma around the continent" ordered Loimos, his right and left hands relaying the word, a wide platform of black stone had been built, and soon, it would be extended to grasp the continent into a chokehold.
The putrid undead approached the life barrier, a real prodigy of its sort, bringing up one palm against its uneven surface, pushing up against it, using all of his strength, he went right through, this was not a malfunction, it was working perfectly as intended.
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Loimos could read the functions and capabilities of this barrier, and testing it himself, it was clear that it had been refined multiple times over, without undeads to put it to the test, it should have been difficult, but he had agents to inform him of how they had proceeded, a dragon aligned death in some capacity, a necromancer of some sorts, had come to aid them in the testing, although nothing like death force, or his own festering death, it had allowed them to work in the right direction, Loimos could not breach it.
If something could be endured, the barrier would take it head-on and block its passage, if something would deal severe damage, they were let through, passing the defences to the inner effects of the barrier, if he wanted to step inside, past a certain limit, one would need to accept an oath to limit their strength and such, the functions of the barrier were clearly meant to be changed at any time.
The barrier itself was not similar at all to that of Tamaris, not only was it much stronger across the board, it's shape was not a pyramid, rather, it was formed like some sort of mountain, rugged and jagged, its surface capable of changing its overall toughness and elasticity to accommodate for different types of blows, the way it was kept together was also much less exploitable by the undeads.
Tamaris's pyramid had been maintained by livings in person, here, a particular machine, a complex tool had been constructed that could provide for the barrier without living intervention, so simply piling up damage to tire out whoever maintained and repaired the barrier was not available.
Not to mention, that they had kept a fair portion of the surrounding ocean for themselves, obviously, the south thrived partly on fishing, they would probably want to negotiate non-aggression on their fishermen.
Loimos had agreed to engage in regulated warfare against Belliste, and so had they in return, the detail of such warfare were to be decided between himself, and the four greater warlords, unlike them, he already knew quite a bit about each and every one of them, Solast had managed make Loimos take away his headhunters, and only the headhunters.
All of them were all neatly aligned a distance behind him, alongside his trusty rank and file, his knights and many others, the ones at the forefront were those he had deemed capable enough to be titled champions of the vanguard.
It was an honour unlike any other to be recognised as such by Death's Chosen Champion himself, it was like being graced by death itself through him in a sense, but the strongest of his forces may not be put to use in combat at first.
Indeed, one thing that was to be noticed, especially with himself, is that as well oiled and thought-out this barrier outer and inner parameters might have be, suppressing an undead as powerful as Loimos was not done with ease, so if him and all of his strongest combatant entered the barrier, the lower ranks, and perhaps even some elites, would be capable of entering without any drawbacks.
Loimos might just call up the minor lords to help in this regard just to be certain, it all depended on how the first negotiations went, the warlords knew that it was best for them to agree to engage in regulated combat, as if left to their own devices, the undeads would inevitably figure something out, no, it was preferable to fight on their own terms, as such, Loimos predicted that they would make certain to make him take an oath to not attempt destruction of the barrier.
Retracting his hand, the general gave an order to a small group of skeleton with feathered, white wings and garbed in ample white robes, each were holding salpinx-type trumpets, the small troop was led by seven distinct skeletons that were an additional piece of cloth, coloured in grey, none of the seven put their instrument to use, and instead command the rest to play a loud tune.
For a few seconds, they played, and once they stopped, all spoke in unison, words of death tongue, beckoning the livings to show themselves.
"People of Belliste, Champion Loimos has arrived" and with this, Loimos stepped fully through the barrier, surrounded by suffocating life, he fell downward from the platform, landing upon the plentiful waters, sending faint ripples that travelled far with each of his steps.
The warlords were not far, of course all would be present when the undead empire was right up to their doorstep, Belliste had a most peculiar sun, King Nitok's collection had yet to get a hold of one of those, even with the great amounts of different one seized from Viridis, The Prince Of Death, as well as many of Loimos's own soldiers were collectors, and Belliste was a treasure trove of valuable intel.
Combuscrus's pyromancy, Maulerd's feasting and Cribler's eye implantation, their techniques were unique and interesting, Cleavster might seem less interesting in comparison, but he had also created something interesting, even if not intentionally, his order of knights being a meld of self-imposed restrictions and battle arts that had naturally developed, even Loimos would not pretend being capable of reproducing the way this had been put in place, at least not without knowing the exact way it had come to be.
With knowledge of what they could bring to the table, of what they were like, the four warlords appeared within sight, their respective right hands behind them, all of them tensed up for a split instant, nearly imperceptible, Loimos knew exactly what muscles had tensed however.
The trusted warriors brought a few things with them, putting together a nice table, seats and such directly upon the dark yellow sand of the Southern Shores, the livings remaining close around this wide round table, whilst Loimos was opposite to them, leaning back and interlocking his hands.
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