Pestilence: Rise Of The Pure Undead

Voices speaking an unknown language resounded in quiet whispers, but despite this, the hidden figures could hear them clearly.

Not wanting to be caught off-guard by whatever abilities or strategies the soldiers in white would employ when whatever it was that they were waiting for would come, the residents of the Emerald Realm had stepped out of the security of their barrier and stealthily moved to gather intel and possibly intercept if necessary.

Antieeld was not exactly the greatest at stealth, but the living soldiers she was watching did not seem to possess senses great enough to notice her either, so she simply hid behind a tree, and overlooked two soldiers, their faces and identity obscured by their white masks, voices muffled as they spoke the same odd language all of them spoke.

Which sounded like nothing she had ever heard before, though, these two had accents she had ever heard from the invaders either, making her frown as it seemed like she had ran into new arrivals, focusing upon them, it did not take too long for Antieeld to realise that they were indeed different from the usual living soldiers encountered before.

Their internal energies looked just slightly off, the commandant could not quite tell what could be the reason for these differences, but did not linger on these details for too long, narrowing her golden eye, she stepped out from behind the tree, unsheathing her sabre.

The two soldiers standing guard in front of a recently established camp were quick to notice the movement, especially since Antieeld was dressed in white, but it did not matter, as the silhouette flashed forward.

Blood surged as one of the soldiers was swiftly decapitated, his dead body falling directly to the ground like a sack of bricks, the other tried to swing some sort of axe at the red-haired woman, but only hit air as she casually sidestepped the blow, and landed a kick right to the masked man's face, the heel of her boots smashing into chin, brain pushed against the skull by the sudden blow.

The one that was dead was already dissipating into spirit life, whilst the one that still breathed stumbled down to his knees, barely latching onto consciousness as his world was sent spinning.

Antieeld ripped his mask off to get a good look at him.

'This… I don't think I have ever seen humans that are like this…' the man had deeply tanned skin and seemed to be a burn mark etched on his face, and Antieeld could tell that his features were not a match for someone from Pezerx, he looked different enough to have come from a completely different continent than Viridis.

'Where are they sourcing their living soldiers from?' the other humans she had seen amongst their ranks before had also born distinct features that Antieeld had never gotten to see before, and that was without mentioning the large ones that sometimes had more than a single pair of arms or clubbed-tails, there was no way she would have never heard of these guys before unless they had come from outside of the continent.

'The undead must have expanded pretty far by now… It's been what? Seven years? Probably more than that even… These monstrosities have probably latched onto at least one other continent by now…' glancing to the side, Antieeld noticed that the other soldiers within the camp were approaching, so she slit the dazed one's jugular with a small stroke of her blade and turned to them, deflecting a series of bolts and arrows fired her way.

These new arrivals had greater fighting skills, but they were lacking in pure power and Antieeld was able to vastly outspeed them, cutting them all apart without any of them being able to do anything about it.

'I doubt the tension I was sensing was solely due to these guys… They are a bit better at fighting than the ones I am used to, but these guys don't seem to be very big on teamwork, and only a few were even fighting with a weapon at all…' to Antieeld, the more dangerous invaders remained the large one's, they actually had impressive striking force and managed to be even more reckless than the rest.

"What do you think of them?"

Antieeld tensed up and directed her blade at the voice, but soon sighed.

"Priestess Iliz, would you mind not sneaking up on me like that? My heart nearly stopped"

The Divine Dancing Priestess's ears twitched a bit as she formed a small smile.

"Now, I doubt your heart would cease beating for a little fright…"

"...I took notice that quite a lot of invaders arrived at once, and that a lot of them smelled different from what I was used to- So apart from their scent, was there anything different about these fellows?" she asked, the remains having already all turned into spirit life and leaving no traces behind as their equipment vanished alongside them.

"Well, Priestess Iliz… They don't look like any people from the continent that I know, and they seemed to have more advanced combat skills, their inner energies are somewhat different, and also somewhat undeveloped, like they haven't been practicing any sort of ways of power requiring energies for generations, but all in all, they aren't that different from what we've been used to" explained the commandant as the priestess walked up to her side, putting one hand against her back.

"Is that so? Then why are you so tense, Antieeld? This shouldn't be worth you stressing over it" the red-haired woman exhaled.

"To be frank, I can not help but see these new troops from the undead as a possibility to learn more about… Him, so I am hoping to run into soldiers that can actually communicate to extract even a little bit of information from them, but I can tell thanks to my talent as a leader allowed me to know that I could not communicate with those people… I guess I am just getting work because I imagined that it would be the case for every last one of them" she forced a small laugh.

"I don't really know the details of your grudge, Antieeld, but to relax, I would recommend to find someone, nothing greater than this-"

"Like you and Mamiel?"

The Priestess coughed.

"I suppose you could say that… But that tone you used there… Did Ioleznta spill the beans?"

"Herald Ioleznta? No, Mamiel told me that that you liked to have your ears petted after a long day"

Iliz looked mortified.

"I-It was nice talking to you, stay safe, alright? I… I need to go speak to Mamiel real quick…"

The Priestess rushed away at a speed that Antieeld hadn't even known was possible for the beast worshipper.

"Someone, huh? I'll think about that once I am done with Loimos…"