Pestilence: Rise Of The Pure Undead

This wasn’t quite what was happening here however, the ground was shifting, as though it had first destroyed everything, and then begun remodelling everything to suit its needs, the landscape had nothing in common with what it was before.

There was no more lake, the ground had turned soft and mushy, a thin layer of moss growing atop the rotten soil, Tappduur laid a foot on the surface, he felt himself sink down to his ankle.

It had become an enormous swamp, the dark-coloured blood rushed out of the ground, threatening to eat right through his boots, the layer of life force shielded him however, the miasma, as though possessing its own intelligence, retracted from him, not wasting itself trying to damage an untouchable living.

"Terrific" Rummy spoke in an almost humorous tone, but a bead of sweat trickled down the side of her face.

They could feel the rough outlines of the constructs hidden within the fog, but they would have to get there to actually know what they were.

One thing they weren’t aware of, was that the area had gotten much larger, the miniature world brightened by a false sun used to be much smaller, and much more cubical in shape.

The rot and miasma had carved out a new room with it as its base, it was now shaped like a dome, and most surprisingly, it seemed to be in the process of trying to replicate the fake star, rays of dark light would sometimes shine down from high above as its construction kept going.

"Any idea what’s going on?" Échalas asked unconvincingly, he had read many outrageous things from the archives kept by the death hunters, he knew that undeads were a more than simply dangerous bunch, still, what he was bearing witness to wasn’t amongst them.

"Seed of a lord huh? I don’t want to see what this thing will bloom into" Latir-e-se stepped forward, her soft steps allowing her to avoid sinking into the putrefied filth.

Moving through the miasma, despite its special properties and apparent awareness, they didn’t encounter any problem, they could sense that there were undeads moving in the distance, but they didn’t approach.

They instead moved toward the center, to the eye of the storm, most likely preparing for a stand-off.

They passed by bone formations, somewhat resembling remains of massive creatures but clearly arranged in illogical ways, the skeletons were shaped more like places to hide, outposts and areas to set up ambushes.

There were also rot formations along the way, some resembling pillars, spewing blood into the air, creating rain in certain areas.

The ground would sometimes erupt, throwing out rough balls of rot that would soon explode, it was all bizarre and somewhat off, it seemed as though it was doing test runs, trying out stuff.

Arriving on more solid ground, they paid no mind to the more common creations of death, black flowers, trees and other vegetation were mimicked here, even mushrooms.

They cranked their necks up to stare at the looming shadow that had become visible mere moments ago, a huge figure, dwarfing them all in sizes, taking more steps forward, it slowly became clearer and clearer.

It was a gigantic, tree-like creation, its bark was comprised of some sort of segmented, bone plates, the whole thing seemed to be swirling a bit, as though something was trying to grow and break free from the side.

Its branches were mostly barren of anything except for fruit-looking things, the branches extended beyond what they could perceive, the miasma was much thicker here, in fact, it seemed to grow denser higher up into the tree.

The miasma generator, or at least, the main one, was situated somewhere on the tree.

"Is that thing an undead?" Abraham questioned aloud, it possessed death force, but the similarity with the undead was present, still, it seemed a bit too much for a single, still weak skeleton to do, surely, the tree was its own thing.

"I don’t know about the tree, but those over there most likely" Tappduur readied his warhammer as dozens of small figures emerged in the distance, slowly circling around the death hunters.

A fruit fell from the tree, bursting with miasma, another of those undeads emerged from within.

"The lunatics of the underground tower better not get their greasy hands on this" Latir-e-se reached for something inside of her ample sleeve.

The small undeads arrived within view, they seemed to be the animated remains of kobolds, lizardmen and goblins amongst other things, some of them seemed to be carrying weapons, including the one that had just emerged from the fruit.

"Let’s burn this down!" Tappduur bellowed with a wide grin as he charged right through the lesser undeads, trampling them without a care, aiming straight for the tree itself.

The three vampire hunters pulled out bizarre weapons from gods knows where, carving through the undeads with ease, even simply punching them straight in the skull, bones were shattered and feeble, decaying flesh was blown apart under the force of their strikes.

The masked hunter revealed her weapon, which turned out to be just as strange, if not more than the folding weapons of her three colleagues, it was a metallic whip, which could somehow be swung around just like an ordinary whip, but also turned into a rapier at a moment’s notice.

Although this weapon was more suited for carving up ghouls, it did its job perfectly against such weaklings.

The demon man prepared to unleash his breath of flames upon the base of the tree, but held it in as he noticed something approaching from the side.

Raising his weapon, he blocked all four strikes coming his way, kicking the newly arrived undead away.

Sizing it up, Tappduur nodded his head with a slight smile.

The undead in question had an elongated skull toward the back, four arms and was similar enough in build to the death hunter.

"We better get a hold on this guy soon" he commented aloud as the four-armed skeleton roared with intensity, throwing itself at the living in four of itself.

The demon swung his hammer nonchalantly, dispersing bones and shards in all directions.

It was no match for him.