BXBX NOVEL Chapter 53: A Taste
The monster’s feet and shoulders were covered in shallow cuts, they were accumulating as its cold body could no longer regenerate from its wounds, but it was of no importance either way.
Others of its kind would sometimes spot it, but they never took long to realise that it would be best not to approach or call out to it, it seemed as though it had been infected with a disease of some sort.
Their natural instinct told them that it was best to keep away.
Endlessly wandering the confusing maze-like caves, squeezing its body through gaps that should be much too small, contorting its body in horrific ways without any acknowledgement, it spent its days catching insects, bats and whatever made the mistake of being in its presence.
Arriving before a pile of corpses, some of them having already begun the natural process of decay, the monster reeled its way and chest back, a few guttural noises came from within, he threw up a stream of oily blood, accompanied by dozens of insects and other of its catches.
’This shall be sufficient’ Loimos thought, his remnant skull piece forcing itself against the inside of the creature’s belly, without meaning to, Loimos, by his influence, had converted the corpse he was parasitising into some sort of pseudo-undead.
Meaning that it wasn’t affected by the natural cycle of putrefaction, nor was it being slowly dissolved due to its close proximity with his death force and rot.
It seemed like Loimos’s intention to use the monster’s hollow carcasse as his ride for a while had somehow done something specific to it.
He laid with his back resting on the pile as his skin suit bursted with rot and blood, a true downpour, splurging everywhere it could reach as the corpses were engulfed, shifting to rot and converting into miasma generators, the miasma created was dense, and seemed to refuse to spread out, forming a cocoon all around what had been left of Loimos after his previous fight.
Where he had been severely beaten down without any room for counterattack, he had certainly lost that battle, but he hadn’t been destroyed, he had also learned many more things, he wouldn’t commit the same mistakes again.
Since it was definitely obvious to the living that he was an undead, he wouldn’t bother with staying covert, let them call for their troops, let they bring forth the practitioners of life arts or whatever they may call it, he would unleash a flood of miasma directly from below.
He would start from here, and allow the dark mist to fill up the underground.
The stable environment of the caves was soon to be disturbed.
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"It’s here" Abraham was the first to speak up about it, as soon as the small group of death hunters made it inside the dungeon, all of them could clearly sense the obscene amount of death miasma nesting below.
"But how do we get down here? If the report is to be trusted, the only possibility found to get deeper was through a flooded passageway, I am not too keen on going for a dip" Échalas tapped on the wall to his right, hoping to hear that it was hollow behind.
"It’s quite deep underground too" added Rummy, staring straight down at the floor with her lenses clicked on.
"Well, it was also said that there was a space above, right? So-" Latir-e-se pointed up, contributing to the collective thinking when she spotted Tappduur raising his hammer up above his head.
A wave of dust struck them all, blowing their mantles and robes back as they could only stand by and watch as their red-skinned compatriot just began doing some unprompted landscaping directly inside the dungeon.
A brick fell directly on the top of his head, he didn’t even notice and just kept on pounding
"No bother! The ground is fragile!" he yelled with a smile.
"This is fragile?" Abraham gave a light kick into a brick split in half, it might not be exceptionally durable for someone of his level and strength but digging down with nothing but a hammer and elbow grease was still a bit too much.
"Don’t bother, he’s a demon, his base physicality is much higher than us" the masked hunter waved her limp hand in the air dismissively.
One would expect that the deeper one went, the harder the soil would be, but it seemed like the dungeon was expanding far beyond what the eye could see, everything was made from that same grey rock, which Tappduur had absolutely no issue grinding into dust with his swings.
After a while, he suddenly stopped after carving a nice, natural staircase of debris.down onto the ground.
"It’s here" he called out.
The miasma was seeping through thin cracks.
"That’s pretty dense alright, not awfully powerful, but definitely more proactive and aggressive than regular miasma, it feels like anything that comes from that undead is imparted with its will or something" the demon rubbed his chin, quite surprised, it may lacked in sheer force, but it made up by simply having unusual properties.
All of them brought their two hands together, making some sort of weird hand sign, and speaking a few words:
"Life, defend from corruption" and just like that, their life force acted on its own and spread out of their bodies, onto their skins and gear.
They broke through the last layer of rock and stepped into the small world Loimos had brought to its knees.
A world devoid of life.