Pestilence: Rise Of The Pure Undead

"Hum, I don't want to spell doubt or anything, but why have all the light in the past few areas all been unlit? They are supposed to never go out unless they had deliberately snuffed out…" one of the guards, with red skin and a thin tail shivered as he looked over his shoulder, holding onto a lantern just like the others.

"Listen man, shut your feminine mouth for a second, there is absolutely nothing wrong, Alberg didn't continue the fight, so it means that the fight was over, that he won! Alright? The lights must have been blown away by the flying body…"

"Yeah that makes sense, no it does not! Do you hear yourself?! Those rooms span hundreds of meter at minimum! And this is the fifth one that has been completely dark, red boy is right, something is wrong, what if that guy was an assassin or something?" another joined the side of pessimism.

"How does- Hold on, I did hear that they could fake their deaths by replicating the sensation of XP!"

The group of guards all stopped and turned to one another, forming a circle, by then, even the one that had been loudly trying to convince the others not to worry was rubbing his chin, deep in thought.

"Uh oh, do you guys think the royals could have hired a Fin-Limier to kill us?" he joined the side of wild theories with extraordinary speed, the men didn't even bother to continue searching at this point.

"No way, those stupid stuck-ups wouldn't have tried anything like that with Lady Syklon around, they wouldn't throw money away, and they certainly wouldn't expect her to leave to go and murder their asses! They live in their own worlds, but there are limits…"

"Could it be… The Death Dealer? I hear she and Lady Syklon once clashed, the very fact that the assassin is still around is worrying…"

All fell silent, looking around and illuminating the area around themselves, everything was oddly quiet and empty.

"Weren't there customers in other areas? Why has everything gone so calm?" one of them finally brought up the biggest discrepancy of all, it was only natural that none of them had noticed what was wrong until now, the buzzing of shouts and voices had disappeared before they went for their searches, during the battle between Alberg and the intruder.

They moved a few steps forward, their light shining on the feet of multiple people, their dismembered feet.

Stepping back, the guard breathed heavily, but kept their mouths shut, either their intruder had just shrugged off the lethal blow he had received and gone on to somehow extinguish every light and then mutilate the customers, or, more likely, one of their monsters had gone haywire.

Both assumptions were somehow both right and wrong at the same time.

The guards wanted to verify what was truly happening in the darkness, discovering that not one, not two or three, but every single one of the monsters that were being kept in cages were gone, whether or not they were under the effects of a crest didn't seem to matter.

Meanwhile, the few guards that had remained with Alberg, trying to get him back to his cage were fully allowed to see the skeletal hand skittering along the ground, tapping on the stone floor without a care of their presence.

There were only two of them escorting the docile oni, not nearly enough.

"Fight" said the hand, and the lethargic ogre didn't miss the opportunity, crushing both of his captors before they could give the opposite order.

Speaking in the death tongue, the hand informed Alberg that the ailment he was suffering from would kill him for certain, unless he could combat it by slaughtering as many livings as possible, it was not a lie.

By growing subtly stronger and exciting his life force through combat, Alberg could theoretically overcome the death infesting him. Continue your saga on empire

The difference between theory and practice wasn't knowledge the oni was particularly interested in, he understood the brunt of what was being conveyed to him, and without hesitation, he leapt away and rushed for the upper areas, which were still bustling with life.

With this out of the way, the sound of something clapping with thick gloves pierced through the darkness, twice in a row, the sound was low, but the guards were travelling through an utterly silent expanse, currently tense to the limit, one reacted quickly, blocking an unseen projectile.

The other, wasn't so lucky, he attempted the same but missed, the compressed blood bullet striking into the side of his jaw, coming straight out of the other side, fragments of teeth and bits of soft flesh accompanied by gum splattered over the face of the red-skinned guard, making him cry out in disgust.

Following the first two claps, many more followed, amidst them all, some were much weaker than the rest, simply hitting the guards with the same ferocity as a stray discharge of spit, whilst others sent their brain matter to adorn the floor and walls.

Some of the guards decided to rush into the opposite direction from where the projectiles were coming from, not a problem, they ran into the released monsters, no longer susceptible to the order imprinted upon them, as they stood amongst the rows of freshly awakened corpses.

The released monsters had first devoured one another, the weaker ones, those that didn't even require a crest to control, had been poisoned by Loimos's skeletal hand, allowing him to quickly slay the monsters from within, and then raise them as allies.

The underground was filled to the brim with walking carcasses, whilst the floor above was being ravaged by Alberg, no one could stand in between him and his slumbering ally, Loimos walked slowly, his legs barely able to holding him up after receiving the full force of an oni, he had managed to preserve his arms, but the rest were in a rather poor state, the red mask on his face had been destroyed, and the pure white upper portion of his outfit was stained black.

He would be able to recuperate quickly, especially with the incredible amount of deaths occuring nearby.

But first, he had someone to meet.n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om