Pestilence: Rise Of The Pure Undead
Chapter 815 - 815: Hurt The Soul, Target The Heart

Milo was thrown right back at the room's entrance, his back slamming against the durable wall, but he landed on his feet nonetheless, kneeling down for a few moments as he assessed the damage that he had just received, it indeed was not very good.

Although he did not use his energy reinforcement to its fullest capacity in every aspect, he did always keep his defences up to a much higher degree than was warranted at any given time, his body was durable and full of stamina, befitting of a farm boy such as himself, so using his energy to reinforce his defences was actually incredibly easy and barely consumed anything.

His training and the teachings he had received had also helped him improve, however, Milo had always faced threats that targeted his physical body, he knew how to protect his mind a fair bit, but when it came to something like his soul, he had no experience in such a domain at all, so the attack he had just endured, which had targeted his soul and nothing else, had landed true and hit hard.

'So that's what soul damage is… I feel sick, and my energy control his wavering…' just like with getting punched in the face, the first time was always a surreal experience, the other members of the Soror also dealt with the soul, but their soul depth manifestations weren't geared toward the soul only, most manifested physical things or gave corporeality to soul energy.

Their effect on the soul was more of a bonus effect, and was so mild that it had never actually penetrated Milo's hardy defences, but what Bellah had just done was different, firstly, her soul depth manifestation was different from her sisters, and was in fact, somewhat similar to what her Father had himself awakened, she held a connection to other soul depth manifestators, and especially her sisters.

As her ability was much more related to the soul itself, Loimos had actually been able to teach her a few tricks, like how he had been able to teach Betil how to create bullets of energy due to her affinity for it, or how he had taught Almiel how to create creatures by showing her how he did it himself.

Bellah seemed to just stand there for a second, and leaned forward, bringing a hand to her face as her nose began to bleed profusely, the glow in her eyes wavering for a few moments as the backlash was severe.

This trick that Loimos had taught her was a risky one for a living to use, he could use it without problem as he had no issues risking his soul being destroyed, he didn't even need to to operate normally and him possessing a dead soul also removed most of the potential problems.

He had used it against Thanatok Ynigós with great success during their first battle, projecting his own soul forward and basically using it to tackle his opponent's own soul, on paper, it was a rather brutish and unrefined way of casting a soul attack, but its efficiency was not to be doubted, it pitted the soul of the attacker against that of the target in their purest and most bare form.

Bellah was by far the one with the greatest soul and soul power that Loimos had ever gotten to meet, even Maliah or the other people of the soul realm didn't come close to her in that regard, so in terms of both raw power and technique, she had a clear advantage over Milo who might have a tougher soul than most, but was at the end of the day, just a human who knew next to nothing about the soul.

'This… What was this? There is no mistake in the reports… His gold… It's an element of mana, so why… Why did his soul energy turn golden at the moment of impact? It didn't seem to be conscious…' she felt like she had banged her head against a wall for hours, but refused to lose consciousness, looking at the kneeling man, and hoping that he would not be getting up, or that if he did, that he would turn around and leave.

Bellah was convinced that the golden soul energy had not been something he did on purpose, he sensed danger and instinctively knew what he was supposed to protect, but lacking in the knowledge as to how to reinforce his soul using golden mana, had instead took control of soul energy and made it into a golden variation.

'His affinity… It goes beyond just mana, the gold can probably be manifested through every means possible… He just has no idea about it…' and Bellah wished that it would remain as such, if he learned the truth, who could tell just how much more powerful he might become?

Right now, they were only managing to keep him from destroying the machine solely thanks to the hideout restrictive ability that was focused one-hundred percent on him, the fact that Basmi had restricted her soul depth manifestation to take effect to counter direct attacks against the machine, and mortal blows, limiting her ability's flexibility to just certain scenarios to ensure that she wouldn't be caught off-guard.

Furthermore, Bellah was using her own ability to empower her sisters greatly as well, and had been subtly suppressing Milo's soul since the very beginning, in essence, they were going all out to try and stop a single person from laying hands on an object, and were struggling to do so, if their objective was to kill him, they would have failed, for until now, they had been incapable of inflicting even the slightest bit of damage.

'He must have figured out that attacks with the ability to kill were useless as well… So he isn't even intending on going all out as it would be meaningless…' Bellah was helped up by Almiel, which looked a bit ridiculous, as she was only a little bit taller than Alila was, so she had to stretch her arms all the way up to actually assist her sister.

"Hey Bellah… He's standing back up"

"This has to be a joke… I definitely put at least a crack in his soul- Hold on, it's healing?" her eyes glowing brightly, Bellah scowled as she realised that golden mana was flowing through his body and soul, revitalising and healing all damage with awful ease.

At least it was just golden mana.

"Girls, all-out, all at once!" she shouted, Irtop and Ayelah were on the offensive in spite of their injuries as well.

Milo looked up, to say that he had a splitting headache would be an understatement, his vision actually actually went totally white for a few seconds there, Bellah hit him good, she hit him so freaking hard that his soul was thrown back and dragged his body alongside with him, which was a most bizarre experience that made him want to throw up.

Although all damage was being healed, the effects of having his soul damaged to such an extent as his first taste of an actual soul attack were still lingering on.

Though, for some reason, everything seems clearer about these girls for some reason, he could see the waves and sparks of them activating their soul depth manifestations, like how he could sense the same thing for spells and mana, although his senses weren't the greatest, he could still make things out.

'This… Why do they seem so amateurish now?' more aware of what the daughters of Loimos were doing actually put into perspective things, and made him feel ashamed to have not managed to get past them already, their energy control was not bad, but it was rather shaky, greatly talented and greatly taught, but lacking in actual experience, and it showed.

'Really… They really are just children, huh?' flaring up with gold, he sent a pulse throughout the room, disrupting the flow of soul energy, he merely stepped forward and with a few precise movements, threw the enemies away, destroying the created monstrosities, pushed the two wounded soldiers aside and found himself facing off against Bellah again in just a few moments.

She attempted to project her soul forward again, but the backlash was still too strong and only a wave of pain rolled right through her.

"Bellah!"

"You bastard!" Almiel summoned her weapons, two claw-like gloves and rushed at Milo with surprising speed.

But both her hands were caught.

"I would rather not resort to using violence on a child"

"You-"

Milo slammed her head into the ground.

"I know, you aren't a child… That's a technicality, for all intents and purposes, you are not an adult yet, even your soul energy is immature"

Milo walked past Bellah, who pushed herself up to her feet.

"Where do you think you are going?! Don't you dare touch the machine!" her steps were wobbly, but she still managed to summon the item her father had granted her, which turned out to be sharp disks that could fly through the air on their own.

The machine had been taken far away by the spatial distortion, and had even been enclosed within walls that had been taken away from somewhere else within the underground, these walls were of the same alloy as before, but it meant little to Milo, it might take some effort, but he could reach the machine.

"Milo!"

He did not respond, but Bellah was not done just yet, disks tore through the air at him, only to harmlessly bounce off his back, she clenched her fists.

"You filthy coward… Deserter! Are you afraid of Father?! You are afraid of Loimos, aren't you?! Do you have no shame?! Do you really…"

"...Do you really think that you can just run away?!"

"Do you hear me?! You think you can flee like this?! Run away from Loimos?! How disgraceful! You live in peace here, love your Helena and make disgusting living children- Living an idyllic existence? Are you not forgetting something?!"

'What is she talking about?' Milo did not stop moving.

"Ahahah! Your father and Griar must really be turning in their graves- Oh no, what I am saying? Why would they be in graves, in the undead empire? They are instead thanking the empire everyday for freeing them from their miserable lives!"

This gave Milo pause.

"That's right… Your dear father, David… He is now part of the army and works to slaughter livings now! And everyday, everyday- He wishes that the fools that he considered like family would come to the truth and join him!"

Milo sighed, this had to be baseless provocations, there was no way that his father would turn out like this, even if reanimated as an undead, and besides, he had already witnessed David turning into a zombie and had put him to rest, was it really possible for a single corpse to be risen twice?

"You want to put them to rest, don't you? Allow the machine to function, and you'll get to meet Griar again"

"Little girl, did he- Did Loimos tell you to say that?"

"He taught me well, Father understands what is in your head better than anyone else does, and that knowledge he passed it to me"

"Well, I don't care"

Milo burst forth in a flash of gold, and pierced right through the walls around the machine.