Pestilence: Rise Of The Pure Undead

The rot.

Decay, putrescence, putrefaction, corrosion, necrosis, what which is decomposed, which is spoiled, which festers with countless, unknown ailments… It was also ruins, the degeneration of what which was once great, of things that once stood tall and strong, but has now deteriorated to an unrecognisable state, utter decline, pure corruption.

Like a malignant disease, it spreads, transforming all that it touches into something new, something awful, something destructive.

Indeed, rot is–Should be– The personification of destruction itself, and yet, its greatest, primeval form, wielded by the only one qualified to even touch it, was capable of the total opposite, creation.

The stone beneath shattered and collapsed under the weight of creation, the latter kept on expanding, no matter how many times attacks of indescribable power, each imbued with an energy that was anathema to anything opposing it, it simply kept on growing to impossible proportions.

"Am I supposed to interpret this as : I am made of rot?" Sonnenträger had a confident smile on his face, his earlier cold as stone attitude had been completely washed away, he now remember the why of his continued struggle against beings what used to be a mere human like him should have no business dealing with, and alongside it, his golden radiance seemed to somehow shine even brighter, each of his strikes was several times more powerful than they were before, and evidently, his opponent was no longer willing to engage him in close quarters anymore as a result.

Currently, the pure undead had assumed the form of a sprawling, rotten chimeric abomination, and seemed capable of expanding without limit, in fact, if not for the golden one's presence, Loimos would have already spread much further than what he had currently achieved.

The point of the skeleton's manoeuvre was obvious, expanding in sheer size so as to counteract the increase in strength of his opponent's blows, even if Sonnenträger performed an attack many times more powerful than what he was currently doing, eradicating all of the rot would be impossible, which left the hero in a bit of a pickle, he was capable of far more destructive moves than the mere punches and kicks he was currently using, which were erasing kilometers worth of rot every time, but that would be playing right in the undead's game.

As all over the place, one could spot smaller rotten beings flying and crawling around, each of them was manifested from the primeval rot, so each of them could serve for Loimos to manifest if needed, each bit of rot was an extension of himself, so even if the massive mass was completely blown away, Loimos himself would not be gone, and Sonnenträger would have used much of his gold as a result.

Of course, battering Loimos with so much gold would inevitably still deal damage to him and his festering death overall, but the point was that the skeleton was attempting to force his opponent into playing into a war of attrition, which was obviously to his advantage as an undead that could never tire.

Sonnenträger was a in a bit of a conundrum, one might say, if this kept going, Loimos might actually expand over this entire memories, and who knew what he would be capable of then, the hero had caught up on some of Loimos's most prominent tricks, and indeed, it was a grim prospect.

Since Loimos and the primeval rot were actually one and the same at the end of the day, if he decided to sacrifice more than ninety percent of the rot, which would count as ninety percent of himself, he might be capable of creating an even more powerful Wormwood than before, the hero needed to find a way to force Loimos to give up that strategy and not attempt it again, he needed to counter it hard enough to demonstrate that it was not a viable option, otherwise, the undead would just keep doing this until Sonnenträger was dead.

But naturally, the golden one could not calmly think about his options, Loimos was still attacking in the meantime, as he was not just bursting with unending amounts of rot, but he was weaving and transforming it as well, with at the forefront, making use of Dracula's transformation technique, what he had learned from beast worship as well as all other powers that involved transforming oneself, alongside every physiologies he had decayed that were capable of such a feats, with all those melded together at the core of it all, aided by everything else he could do.

The purescent nightmare that he had become was well capable of overwhelming entire armies of champions.

Sonnenträger watched as in the distance, more dragon-like heads that could be counted emerged, each were the peak of what Loimos could manifest, one head for every species that were even slightly related to dragons, each sporting different elemental attributes and unique abilities, the golden hero had a bad feeling about this.

Especially as the heads all merged together as one, manifesting in the form of a skeletal, seven-headed hydra, the rotten bones with bits of rot sticking out where the trademark sign of Loimos himself, it was truly what Loimos would have resembled if he had been a hydra.

"Your abilities are honestly ridiculous" the hero could not help but comment, right as the seven heads open their maw, condensing an attack each, unleashing beam-like attacks, not quite made of energy, not quite solid, liquid, gaseous or even plasma- It was just everything fused together into a singular, offensive strike.

Those seven beams were swung around like battleaxes by the skeletal hydra heads, dealing no damage whatsoever to the rot, but absolutely decimating everything else, the two fighters were in a constant free fall now, the countless layers of stone were being destroyed far before they could even reach them, and the battering rain seemed completely gone, the sheer presence of Loimos's abominable transformation seemed to bend space, causing all rain to be flung away from him.

Sonnenträger felt himself be pulled into the corpse's natural gravitational field caused by his sheer weight.

The golden hero had to exert his radiance in full to manoeuvre around, resembling a shooting star as he soared through the air, delivering strikes of gold that decimated enormous amounts of rot, but were mere paper cuts to the chimaera-like goliath.

He was nearly caught by one of the beams as he weaved and moved past them.

One beam went away, and the head that had been responsible for it instead began to condense a sphere, preparing to soon bite down on it.

Loimos was charging another Wormwood.

Sonnenträger frowned a bit, and made a decision, beginning to condense an orb of his own.

'Let's see who has the most firepower between us two…'