Pestilence: Rise Of The Pure Undead

Face first, Griar landed upon the floor of his room, this was where he had been when he travelled to the other realm, and so this where he reappeared, but he had actually not expected to be transported at all, fully believing that he would just get his chest hollowed out and would drop down like marionette that had its string slashed.

Somehow however, he managed to overpower the undead and wrestle his inner energy into control, saving himself at what had probably been the last possible moment.

He slowly rose to his feet, touching the spot where his neck had been cut earlier, only to find out that the wound was gone.

'Huh?' Griar checked again, certain that he had not done anything to even slightly heal the injury, and even if he had, it was highly unlikely that he would have actually been able to heal it to such an extent.

'Was it even still there when I woke up on the beach?' he wondered, having been a bit too preoccupied by his surroundings and then the island dweller to even think about the wound, but now that he thought about it, the reason he had not thought about it was probably because it was already gone and thus could not feel any discomfort from it.

Griar did not get it, but something else weighted even more heavily on his mind- He had utterly failed to accomplish what he had set out to do, not only did he fail to even meet Flor, he had been incapable of saving her, no, there was basically nothing he could do to help her avoid her fate.

If he attempted to go back to the other realm, it was on the island where the undead resided that he would reappear, and it was highly doubtful that there was anything Griar could do to overcome that problem, even if Vostes was not that powerful, he was still a foul undead, bringing anyone to fight him could have severe consequences that the young man did not want to risk.

Not to mention the creature lurking in the water, he had apparently gotten incredibly lucky when he dove into the waters and began to swim away, and it also explained why the pursuer had stopped giving chase, they had probably figured that he would be killed by the orca.

Griar slumped onto his bed, feeling the backlash from running around for a few days after getting it in the shoulder by a miniature bolt, and cut by countless shards of glass, his body felt utterly battered and tired…

Mere moments after lying down, he fell asleep.

___

"Should we start worrying about our boneboy? It's been a little while since he's been gone with that golden fellow" floating in the air as a sphere made up of hands interlocking fingers, Multaemanus wondered aloud with her oddly mesmerising voice.

"A while? Has it not only been like… Three years? Something like that?" Vespertillo replied, casually sitting at a round table, whilst looking at the absolutely useless seat placed underneath the spectre lord, why did everyone always give her a chair, when she just ended up floating about, she never showed up with her true body! Vespertillo didn't even know what it looked like.

"Three years? Brother, has your sense of time passing fallen that low? It's been seven years!" Atsalinopalo was quick to correct his twin whilst tapping his metallic claws upon the pale wood of the table.

"Huh… How long is even a year? I honestly thought it had just been a week at most…" Nosferatu chimed in whilst reading from a piece of paper.

"Alright, you're just exaggerating now, Nosferatu… Right?" the vampire lord of foetid blood just glanced up from the piece of paper and locked eyes with Vespertillo for a few seconds.

The two looked like stone statues whilst having their stare off.

"All of your are wrong, it's been about a whole decade since our boneling has gone off to fight Sonnenträger, in terms of fight to spend in a fight, that is way overblown, even his fight with Thanatok did not last much longer than a typical fight, that is an absurd amount of time" using the soft, feminine voice of his current vessel, Körpersucher informed his fellows of the actual time that had passed.

"Is that so? I must have spent more time in the forges that I initially assumed… But to answer your question, Multaemanus, I don't think we need to worry about anything, Loimos makes multi-tools look like one-trick ponies, he'll figure out a way to win eventually, he won against the pure living, some flashy golden man won't be enough to defeat him" Atsalinopalo shook his head, the pure undead was literally prepared for every possible situation, it was hard to believe that he would lose.

Silence returned amongst the gravelords, until Nosferatu placed down the piece of paper he was holding, which actually had the details of the three vampires who had awakened their own unique vampire blood, he had quite some hopes for them, but currently, they weren't anywhere close to matching up to the level required to be a minor lord, not to mention that the current minor lords were all way above that entry level now.

Since he had nothing better to do, he was mostly spending his time trying to guide them, but training vampirelings like them was not exactly his forte.

He turned his gaze to the one amongst them who had yet to utter even a single word, with Dracula currently busy in the Emerald Realm, that only left Vwoldtnir, the ghoul lord, who was just sitting there, looking the same as usual, wearing a small cloak over his shoulders, and appearing even less expressive that most of the corpses around this table due to having an inherently, far less humanoid visage.

"Say, Vwoldtnir, how are things going with Durter? You go on diplomatic ventures far more often than us" asked Nosferatu.

"Our relation to Durter is by far the strongest amongst the superpowers, whilst the others retain suspicions and incredible amounts of fright for us, Durter has gone as far as to agree and participate in the creation of an underground tunnel linking us both, despite knowing that it could easily be used by us to perform an invasion- But I should probably not say 'Durter' but rather state that it is thanks to the Hierophant-Queen alone, the archbishops are clearly unhappy with my frequent visit and the existence of the tunnel"

"If not for the Hierophant-Queen, Durter would the superpower with which we have the worst relations with, the archbishops are incredibly distrustful, no matter how many special ores and tools I offer them, they are incessant on refusing, only agreeing to be given funds, and even then, it is always a struggle"

As eloquently as usual, the ghoul lord explained the situation with the underground continent.

"You know what would really help solidify our link with Durter?" Nosferatu leaned forward against the table with his hands joined together.

Vwoldtnir tilted his head and narrowed his large eyes, clearly expressing suspicion, this was the sort of posture his fellow gravelord would typically make before saying egregious.

"If you were to put a ring on her finger-"

Vwoldtnir shook his head from side to side, indeed, Nosferatu was once again being ridiculous.