Pestilence: Rise Of The Pure Undead

Agilulf Wanneck and his brave warriors all watched, on the edge of their seats, so far, many impressive things had happened, yet, overall, the fight had yet to move on to a truly dangerous point, neither of the two combatants seemed fatigued or injured, even after both were torn apart and struck with attacks of immense magnitude, even as the living suffered lethal wounds and the undead was hit with his greatest bane repeatedly, neither seemed afflicted.

Right now however, the champion of life had decided to kick the notch up, catching death's champion within the clutch of his devouring life, smothering the death of the undead as he simultaneously unleashed a hail of strikes, putting Loimos on the back foot as he put up as good of a defence as he could, eventually, the devouring life would just take over and extinguish him.

"He is doing it!" Milo found himself saying, hands grasping his own knees firmly, his thought was shared by everyone, if Loimos could break free of this, surely he would have done so already, right?

"He is resisting an awful lot, is he not?" Helena's face scrunched up, the previous strikes of Thanatok Ynigós's had forced the skeleton to part with the stricken areas, but right now, he seemed to be resisting it instead, forcing his death force out to shield himself.

Smiling, The First Death Hunter inexplicably knocked Loimos out of his life aura's reach, retracting it back to its original position, instead focusing life into his right arm, launching a slash across the ruined buildings of Millipolo, missing the undead as he sank into the ground, turning into a mass of phantomatic goo, reemerging a distance behind the human.

Without hesitation, he spun around and rushed Loimos down, the two engaging into another close quarters confrontation, Loimos might hold the sovereignty when it came to versatility, but all of his attacks would end up carrying his undeath, making them less efficient against Ynigós, the same might apply in reverse, but the living was more powerful in his energy manipulation.

Sliding back by turning his soles into slugs, Loimos spread miasma, assuming a more passive stance, constantly stepping back, and making distance in between the two of them, conjuring high walls of rot and swamps of blood, only the pure living understood why Loimos was taking those steps, and although he wanted a great fight, simply allowing the skeleton to do as he pleased was not proper warrior etiquette.

Tearing through the abandoned ruins of the holy city, he landed some more hits, his life force seemingly growing more potent as it slowly begun to show the same results as before, the living was getting fired up, and it was to be felt in his tumultuous life coursing through, if he couldn't end this fight soon, he might have to grow careful, was this not exciting? Was it not worth living for?

Was it not worth dying for?

"This absolute fool, if anything, I always thought it would be his stupidity that would get him killed…"

"Miss Liameilos… I thought you would not come" Pierre-Ornée spoke, eyes still fixated on the duel between the two champions, something was brewing, bubbling and boiling.

Fists clashed with one another, the living ecstatic as his strike did not go right through, exchanges followed, tendrils burst from the dead's back, wrapping around a partly destroyed pillar nearby, dragging Loimos away, slamming himself into the obstacles, purple glow intensifying, Thanatok Ynigós assumed a protective stance, still grinning as he erupted with life force, just in time as death reached outwardly from Loimos.

"So, finally gotten there?" still relaxed, the death hunter began circling around keeping a reasonable distance from his foe.

"Was that what you were aiming for?"

Loimos did not see the point in asking this question, not only because it was not like he was known for his answers, but also because the living already knew the answer, he had knocked him out of the aura of life for a reason, and that was to prevent the undead from getting as grasp of devouring life's essence.

To Loimos, surmounting the problem posed by Ynigós's mastery over life, was to simply match him in this regard, and considering the similarities between the manipulation of both opposing forces, what better way than to take this technique to the face over and over until you got it?

The pure power his death force had just underwent was enormous, but still below the refined force of the death hunter, but no matter, Loimos could utilise stack to breach that gap as he continued on improving upon it.

A spark went off within his helm, spewing a torrent of black flames through the barred visor, freely infusing death into his ranged attacks, no longer deprived of range when wielding his death force, meeting the rush of fire head on, Thanatok felt a zap of lightning coursing through him, trying to plague his muscles with necrosis, noticing a tinge of worn-out gold amidst the flames, his life pulsed, dispersing the fire, clashing with Loimos as he once again assumed his ever changing form, thin feathered arms ending with sickle-like blade lashed in quick succession, now enhanced with death's version of devouring life, and shaking intensely, like the edge of the blades yearning to slash through.

As if he had been waiting for this, Loimos added something new to a rotation the living had not expected, amidst the mana and other energies, a dull gold now joined, not simply holy, it was like death had bestowed something upon the skeleton in particular.

The way to defend against each of this was slightly different, for the holy death, it was more than that, using this momentary distraction, Loimos landed a slash across his chest, trying to inject black blood at the same time, unsuccessful.

Both of their respective forces intertwined, locked in a perpetual conflict, the life force was faster and more powerful, the death force was backed by dead energies and a hail of arts, resisting as they both attacked, the undead returning to his humanoid form.

Punching the living's lower jaw right off, his upper teeth scraping against the armour beneath the clothes, the human instead pierced right through his enemy's chest, both of their invasive life and death began consuming the other, tearing off the touched parts and regenerating, all while they struck one another again, again, and again, and again, and again.

Launching through cathedral, blasts grazing new impromptu roads across the ruins, rotten blood, decayed marshlands, putrid bones, Loimos demonstrated his entire catalogue of abilities, grasping the living from afar with spectral grasps, not for long as life decimated it, but enough to set for a follow-up attack.

Using techniques of the gravelords, of the advisors, of the minor lord, of the royal guards, of the undead king in person every time he could get a hold of Thanatok, each and every thing he had ever seen was used to gain even the slightest of edges, the smallest of edges to the overwhelming strength shown by The First Death Hunter.

His mastery made him pretty much unkillable, he could allow himself to be torn apart by Loimos's festering death, the undead knew that wasn't the case for himself, eventually, contact with the devouring life would begin to weaken him.

For once, the war of attrition was to the living's advantage.

The next step was to…

'Something is coming' as calm as usual, without urgency, Loimos took notice of an unseen and unexpected attack, when it was already right upon him, a great-sized compressed sphere of life struck him right in the back, spinning and ripping into him, he resisted, but was left vulnerable as it burst and riddled him with holes.

Giving up defences and such for this occasion, Thanatok Ynigós reeled his right fist high in the air, focusing everything onto it as he pinned Loimos right to the ground with the most powerful attack of his since the beginning, slamming into the undead who coldly realised that not only was it a focused strike, but that the randomly occurring phenomenon Nosferatu had mentioned, the one he mastered with stack, had decided to happen right there and then.

The purple glow went out for a moment, returning weaker and flickering, death and rot were momentarily without commands as connection was lost.

Thanatok Ynigós stood triumphantly, his thoughts shared.

"He won! Thanatok Ynigós won!"