Pestilence: Rise Of The Pure Undead

Like a devil crawling out of hell, the still smoking cadaver rushed forth, already on his way toward the mages, the compressed group spell was fired out, its speed easily much too great for the skeleton to evade, shredding through part of his helm and skull, opening a gap on the right side, as though it had been carefully sanded with tools.

The force of the blow forced his body to spin right around, but that barely halted his momentum, twisting his limbs backwards, falling on all four he continued on barreling forward, at last however, the close quarters combatant finally caught up.

Milo was the first to arrive, throwing himself onto Loimos, skillfully grabbing a hold of his waist, flipping around without allowing himself to fall to the ground, raising the absurdly heavy corpse and throwing him onto the ground.

'Seriously… What the hell is with this guy?' Milo could easily lift a horse on each shoulder but Loimos was just too much, he somehow was literal dead weight whilst also struggling like an eel out of the water, subduing him was nearly impossible.

In the distance, each and all livings were noticing the fights in Tamaris escalating, they could not see it, but they just felt the ripples of confrontations, the earth shook, roars reached them, the cracking of the barrier could be heard in faint whispers.

'Hey Toby, did you manage to decipher anything yet?' no responses came, Milo assumed a fighting stance as his allies gathered around the undead, Griar had been right behind him, Menhirel had recovered the usage of her arm and had gotten another shield, Msir had finished carrying the wounded to Minli.

Even if Milo didn't know all of them very well, he felt connected to them, united in common cause, to fell the vile undead, Loimos, sweat trickled down the side of his face, body soaring with golden mana, everyone was pushing their limits, simply being around death's champion was enough to warrant their bodies going into overdrive, the fear of death clung to them, gripping their hearts, clutching their lungs, each of their actions was driven by both the instinct to survive and cold calculations aimed to the same goal, and yet, so many of them had already been dispatched in just a few instants.

Nothing short of perfection was asked of them, and even then, it was likely to fall short, the instant they allowed Loimos an inch, he would turn it into a kilometer, you allowed him to graze you, you allowed him to rip the guts from your stomach.

Even with a portion of his skull missing, he was not pushed off balance, he retained his momentum.

Griar extended his battle art, Loimos would not have access to the battle arts.

'How did he even pull off that sigil? You still need mana to activate it, and you need mana to exert influence on ambient mana, even if that doesn't consume any, there were no sparks of art in use too' the blond boy was tense, the notions he had been taught were challenged.

Worried that the undead's options were not quite as limited as they had first assumed.

Loimos had planted a seed of doubt within their minds, only those that could ignore the gnawing at the back of their minds would be capable of prevailing.

The two young men stepped forth first, slashes of a sabre raining down upon Loimos from the side whilst Milo extended his fist toward the undead's helm, passing through the gaping hole in the side as his target stepped off to the left, not paying care to the slashes, Griar's blade ignited with mana, extending his reach, the next slash striking a deep gash unlike before, the strength of of actually preventing Loimos from moving further in that direction, setting him right for a kick aimed at his knee, knocking him down.

Bringing both blades together, casting a spell upon both separately and joining them, Msir stabbed at his back, managing to get through the armour somewhat, it was definitely thicker than any regular suit, it was pretty much Loimos's equivalent to skin and flesh after all, the armour he wore was closer to what a knight would wear when jousting.

Maintaining her spell even as it cried to be dispelled, doing the best she could do to keep the undead pinned down, the heavy shield of Menhirel came crashing down from one side, empowered slashes came down with delays, and Milo's golden strikes were fully empowered, bending the armour in.

Still, the skeleton beneath was not giving in to mostly physical strikes, only the pure magic spell from earlier had worked.

'That's weird… He had been taking spells without any bruises before, even if greatly empowered, it shouldn't have been so efficient, right?' the farm boy felt that sensation, like someone's cold hand had just grabbed the back of his neck.

Another circle of holy life appeared below, another pillar was coming.

"Say, conditions are not arts, right?!" in the middle of this intense moment, Milo shouted out a question at Griar.

"No! Why?"

"Can you sense or dispel them?!"

Griar stayed silent for a moment.

"Oh shit!" he cursed, shouting for everyone to pull back, not having a clue what their enemy might have planned, certainly not liking the prospect however, he maintained his battle art, meaningless as even it was dispelled, the familiar ring of blue extended in a split second, like flash of blow exploding outward, only that its source was not Griar.

With just a simple vow to lose a part of himself that had no value to him, Loimos had been able of unleashing such a powerful art for a brief instant, no, he had most certainly made it so short as a further way to enhance its strength, overpowering the very man that had created it in the first place, an art he was only able of crafting thanks to having a special affinity for the creation of an art of his own, Loimos did not care about his talent however, he had seen the capabilities of Griar's art and decided to use it for himself.

Striking behind himself, the extended blade of mana of Msir gone, he struck down on her still extended wrist, snapping them like mere twigs, taking her dual swords for himself, lashing out, Griar managed to raise his guard but was knocked back, and to the ground.

Spinning around, Loimos kicked Msir in the jaw for good measure, keeping the momentum as he raised his right foot well above his head, bringing his heel down on Menhirel's shield, bending it inward, their gazes meeting.

Slashing out with both blades, the shieldswoman managed to raise one arm up, the other still strapped to the greatshield, even then, hand and fingers were severed, the slashes reaching up to her face, pushing the crumpled shield out of the way, he quickly threw one of the blades at her stomach, the weapon shattering as it impacted with the armour she wore, but not without somehow managing to breach it.

Milo had had the right call to not wear any sort of heavy armour, there was nothing that seemed to be capable of stopping the undead's furious assaults.

Milo prepared to move back in, meanwhile, an ambushed shooter took aim.