Pestilence: Rise Of The Pure Undead-Chapter 728 - Operation Arid Soil Part Thirty-Nine

728: Operation Arid Soil : Part Thirty-Nine

728: Operation Arid Soil : Part Thirty-Nine

“Come on!

Come here!

Give those legs!” the arm-bearer remained oddly joyous, even now that her white robes had now been tainted red by the mounting amount of cuts that were landing upon her body, still, she was swinging her heavy blade with the same ferocity as before.

This was making Ir’Houwl wonder if the white vapour was just that good at defence and keeping one going, or if it was just that the living woman was too lost in her mad delusions to even realise that she might just crumble at any time with that sort of wounds.

And she hadn’t even shown much of the white vapour’s abilities at all, the minor lord hadn’t ended this fight already to see them in action against her, but the follower was just using it for two things, physical enhancement, and weapon enhancement to launch those blasts on impact.

That was all, certainly, both were impressively powerful considering that she herself didn’t seem all that great apart from a curious sword-handling style, she was just a bit stronger than average, and seemingly without much talent for the vapour as she could only do two things with it, so it seemed like the white vapour was just that potent no matter who wielded it.

Ir’Houwl supposed that this may be why her opponent’s repertoire was limited, Cleansing Undeviginti, was all about destruction and killing from the sound of things, so perhaps its arm-bearers could only further improve on how they would kill normally, meaning that the living could only swing her blade and use her body to manifest any power using the vapour.

Sheathing her stone scimitars, Ir’Houwl side stepped an overhead swing, the attack landing in the sand, grabbing the living right arm, she forcefully straightened it before punching at the back of the elbow, the grinding of bones resounded through the flesh, but the living swung her other arm, only for the same exact thing to occur again, the decorated executioner’s sword fell to the ground.

The undead pulled her opponent’s head up by the air, and struck the living in the throat, falling over whilst momentarily unable to breath, clutching at her throat instinctively, the minor lord surveyed the area, her two elites had already dealt with the two stronger unarmed worshippers, the difference in strength being much too vast, though her regular soldiers weren’t quite done just yet, seemed like the other cultists could hold their own, as long as her soldiers weren’t going for the kill at least, was the order to massacre them all, it would have already been done.

Not all undead were the same, most could not know at a glance what amount of strength was too much or too little, and considering that these targets had to be taken in alive to be used as a facade for them, the undeads had started with low power and were increasing their output little by little, no one wanted to be the one who failed at such a simple task.

One soldier had his guard up, blocking the repeated strikes of one of the cultists, these fellows had rather impressive martial arts skills, especially since they were somewhat the equivalent to grunts or foot soldiers in the grand scheme of things, and yet, they the sort of combat abilities that would make quite a few martial artists sweat, they might not be capable of wielding the vapour, and didn’t even wield any weapons, but Ir’Houwl felt certain that if every soldier of Tamaris had had this sort of martial knowledge, then their invasion would have been much more difficult back then.

Unfortunately for the followers of Cleansing Undeviginti, they weren’t fighting regular soldiers, but warriors of the empire, nowadays, the sort of power even a rank and file was expected to wield was rather high, such was the undead way, they were not content to only have the advantage of versatility, numbers, ressources, transport, territory… They also aimed to have the power advantage across the board, for even their weakest troops to be much stronger than their equivalent elsewhere.

Moreover, these undeads were the personal warriors of a minor lord, so the expectations were set according to Ir’Houwl herself, who was naturally a rather harsh instructor, not as much as Gunlaurgh and the actual caste of the instructors, but what she wanted from her troops was to be strong in all situations.

Mastering a weapon was certainly impressive, but if you were defenceless the moment that weapon was taken away from you, then you couldn’t truly call yourself a warrior, this was why at the higher levels, even mages could dispense some punishment with just their fists, because at the higher levels, one knew that they should expect anything and have as little weak points as possible.

This was also the very reason why she so greatly respected Loimos, beyond his status, Harbinger’s Harvest was simply what Ir’Houwl considered to be the height of warriorship, all-encompassing, and ever-changing, although she knew that it was impossible for her to achieve, she strived to reach something similar using her red sand, even if all of eternity wasn’t enough, then simply moving toward that goal would constantly pull her higher.

The soldier on the defensive suddenly weaved past one blow, and struck his opponent in the ribs, making the cultist wince long enough for the undead to grab his arm, spin around and throw the living over his shoulder before stomping down on the man’s chest, following by kicking sand right onto his face and finishing him off fully with a series of rapid punches to the head as the follower tried to stand up, slamming the back of his head against the sand repeatedly.

Without hesitation, the soldier without an opponent, went on the move and tackled another living to the ground, grabbing their leg as the other undead that had been facing the cultist threw themselves down and grabbed the cultist in a chokehold, the living soon losing consciousness.

Similar scenes were playing all over the place, and it was clear that Ir’Houwl’s men held a crushing advantage.

“Aaah… I am not done” spitting a mouthful a blood, which wasn’t due to any of the minor lord’s strike, but to the fact that the arm-bearer had bitten through her own tongue, whether it was to rouse herself out of the daze through pain, or some other reason, no one could tell.

“You like killing, right?” asked the minor lord, not at all threatened by a living with both arms out of service and stumbling around whilst just trying to stand.

“If so, do consider agreeing to this, spreading some blood on it with the intent of agreeing to the terms is enough, I’ll ensure that you’ll get yo kill more often, and in greater quantity than now”

The living looked down at the piece of paper that came flying down at her feet, and smiled at the undead, all teeth painted crimson. fɾeewebnoveℓ.co๓

“For real?”