Pestilence: Rise Of The Pure Undead
Chapter 816 - 816: One Second

'He didn't take the bait…' Bellah barely even saw the blur that Milo left behind, one moment he was there, and the next, a hole was blasted right through the walls that had appeared to protect the machine, she could be quite certain right now, but she felt that even if he hadn't realised that his soul energy had taken on the qualities of gold just before, that the fact that it had happened had been enough to trigger something inside of his soul itself, she struggled to get a good grasp of it now, like it actively slipped out of her senses and resisted being probed.

'...Well, not that it matters' still, the raven black-haired girl smiled.

Meanwhile, Milo's expression turned for the worse, within the walls, there was indeed the machine, and so, without hesitation, he punched right through it, aiming to stop whatever it was that they were trying to do, channeling immense amounts of golden energy, wishing to cleanse the incredible mass of trapped spirit life within.

But when his strike connected, he instantly knew that he had been tricked, instead of bending and shattering a metal, he destroyed flesh and caused blood to explode everywhere, the machine rumbling with a growl, twisting itself in pain.

This was not the machine, but a decoy created by Almiel, he was fairly certain that he had knocked out the creepy girl when he plastered her head into the ground, so it had to have been created before that.

'Damned girls… His daughters are terrific actresses…' Milo tore his fist out, the false machine soon collapsing into a muddle of deflated flesh and a swamp of blood.

'Where did the real machine go? It couldn't have gone that far-'

He stepped to the side, and moved multiple steps backwards, evading the lacerating strikes of two curved daggers.

Gabriel spun the daggers in her hands, and slash an X in the air using both of them, launching forth two slashes that even with his incredible defences, Milo felt that he should not even consider trying to just block them, right now, he felt like he understood the nature of these slashes functioned, he did not know the details of the blonde's ability, but it seemed like the slash the daggers could perform somehow imbued a certain aspect of her ability into them, so despite not being that fast or seeming that powerful, it allowed them to tear through even the legendary alloy without any problem.

The two daggers crumbled into nothingness, and she reached out from the pendant around her neck, but before she could do that, Milo swatted away both of her wrists, punching Babriel right in the chest, knocking the wind right out of her lungs, or so it should be, but she was simply thrown away without any sign of enduring damage, the gold that should be infused following the strike seemed to struggle against something, and before it could win the confrontation, it was warped away and replaced by harmless, ambient energy.

'I don't have time to bother with any of them… Where is the machine?' he could always try to ask them, but at best they would just curse at him, neither of the people were could be considered sound of mind, they worked for an empire of death after all, as livings, they were most definitely insane and as such, hoping to get anything out of them, with any method, was pointless.

A pillar of flames rushed at him, but Milo simply cleaved it in half with a swing of his hand, no longer feeling like it could pose even the slightest bit of issues even if he stayed in contact with it for a long period of time.

He once again rendered Alila to a few hundred bits of flesh, evaded a swing of Aegli's hammer, and picked her up to launch her right across the room, directly into Betil, who caught her sister without hesitation.

There was no point in engaging them, so he ignored the returned Babriel, and barely even threw a glance in Bellah's direction, moving swiftly with golden energy emanating from his body, trying to expand his senses in every direction to locate the machine, he supposed that it had been moved behind a wall, under the floor, or perhaps even above the ceiling.

The underground was clearly not a fixed place, the position of every room, of objects, and even their sizes was not set in stone, the way it had been constructed allowed the space distortion to be manipulated to great extents, and unfortunately, Milo did not know where the heart of what allowed for space to be controlled was located, otherwise, he would simply destroy it and dispel the effects.

'Where is it?' he evaded an attempt at kicking by Alici, grabbing her leg and just slinging the girl away, no amount of flames able to faze Milo.

But rapidly, he just said screw it, punched a hole in one wall, and began running, tearing right through whilst pouring golden mana, he was not going to allow that thing to fulfill its purpose, whatever it may be, it was deemed to be terrible for the Emerald Realm, its people were his people now, the realm was his home, the home of his friends and allies, the home of his family, and he did not wish for his children to grow with the threat of the undead nearby.

He had gotten a taste of undeath early on in his life himself, and knew just how bad it was.

Images of Loimos flashed in his mind, nowadays, people were afraid to even think his name too loudly, he had become a being of such hateful power, that even his name could serve as a conduit for him to manifest.

They had given him titles instead.

The Scourge, or Life's Scourge…

They could also refer to him by old nicknames, Butcher Of The Badlands, Royal Courier…

But there really was only one word to sum-up how the survivors of Tamaris viewed the undead champion.

Fear.

He was The Fear.

Imagining this vile creature existing within the same realm as his children was sickening, and it made no doubt that the instant he was allowed to set foot here, that the landscape of the confrontation would turn into a true war.

Loimos carried War, Conquest, Famine, and Pestilence upon his back.

He was the embodiment of the aspects of death themselves.

The rotten one simply could not be allowed here.

So Milo channelled more and more golden mana, bringing the entire room down, leaving gaping holes everywhere, seemingly in vain as the machine did not show itself, but eventually, as he punched another hole, he noticed it, and realised what had been happening.

Whoever it was that was in charge of controlling this place, had moved the machine into an hidden room adjacent to this one, and had been moving this room around, preventing Milo from finding it, but now that every wall, and even floor and ceiling had been destroyed, it could no longer remain hidden.

Launching himself like a cannonball, flying right past the enemies still trying to stop him, he homed in right on his target, the machine was loud and evacuating enormous amounts of steam, but as he approached, it made a small 'ding' instead, all sound dying down.

And something seemed to change, everyone felt it, but contrary to what the heralds and priestesses had believed, the invaders had not poured out great amounts of corrupted spirit life, the spirit life that flowed from the machine was technically, perfectly fine, but something deep about it changed.

That change spread out to the whole of the realm's spirit life, the realm itself endured a change, it was a great one, it did not impact the livings, or even cause any disaster.

It was like a single line had been added to a set of rules.

A portal manifested in front of Milo, and something emerged.