Pestilence: Rise Of The Pure Undead
Chapter 871 - 871: Shortcomings

A heavy, green smoke of sort gathered around his left hand as it was revealed, the undead forming his hand into a palm, immediately surging forward toward Cassi, the palm strike landing against her Kanabo as she rose it in defence, but the smoke went further than the hand did, so as the living was pushed back a few step by the attack, blood trickled from her nose.

Cassi wiped it away without even mentioning it, the undead putting his left arm away once more before channelling his blade art, blocking a strike from Eppie, who quickly followed by kneeing the corpse in his stomach, which lacked effectiveness as that area was effectively empty.

'This bastard is nothing but bones' still, she managed to push up against his spine nonetheless, and forced him to back off, Robert was about to instantly fire back at her with a strike of his sword, but was unexpectedly forced into performing a most egregious move, doing backflip to evade a swipe of Tahnee's spear.

Only to get pelted with five arrows mid-air, causing his balance to be repeatedly put into jeopardy, leading him to land upon the ground with the grace that would be expected of a sack of potatoes.

"Mmh? How did you… Oh, I still have much to perfect" he looked over to his hounds, as he had been certain that plenty of them were still operational, not having been defeated, but as it turns out, his way of doing things was flawed, he only perceived when they were destroyed and thus, dispelled, the livings had followed a hunch and it had worked out, by crippling and immobilising the hounds instead of destroying them, they successfully tricked him.

'And while still defeating some of them so as to not arouse suspicions…'

"Simply great, you four are so good! I can't help but feel like I am lacking in the presence of such talented youngsters" he exclaimed, pointing his blade at them, currently, he wanted to whistle and call for more hounds, but Lynn was ready to release the string of her bow alongside what seemed like a very potent battle art, or was it multiple of them waiting to be activated at once? He was not certain but if he did as much as the motion to whistle, which was necessary as he had made it so that activating that part of his innate ability required such a movement…

Otherwise, calling for such diverse canines, or so many of them at once would not be possible, his innate ability was rather simplistic, and training it was a process to consumed lots of time, so to be able to achieve great things with it in the meantime, he had added a condition and battle art to go with it, which allowed him to shorten the whistles whilst still summoning a good quantity of hounds in a single go, depending on the sort he was trying to call upon.

The very reason the condition and art were so effective was precisely because it could very easily lead to such a situation, now that they were all aware of this ability of his, all four of them would do their best to prevent him from doing so.

"Girls, beat the crap out of him, try breaking his arms first" said Eppie.

"Hell yeah!"

"Let's break his legs as well"

"..."

"How violent, no wonder you're all still unmarried"

'How the hell does he know that?!' Eppie did not like how well-informed the undeads were, or did he just guess that? Surely, there was no way that it would be so obvious?

In any case, Tahnne and Cassi moved forward first, the former thrusting her spear right at the center of his mass, the Yari spear only missing the breadth of a hair, using his faintly glowing blade, Robert blocked Cassi's strike, but the heavy club was difficult to truly parry and the red-head just pressed her attack like a savage, managing to crack a rib anyways.

Tahnee rose her spear, the undead bracing for impact, but it a feint and a singular, powerful arrow blasted right through his chest, reducing nearly a quarter of his ribcage to bonemeal.

The shot was so potent that it just tore right through without any resistance whatsoever, as such, Robert wasn't pushed or moved at all as a result, allowing Cassi kick him in the knee, forcefully straightening his leg, right before another arrow lodged itself in his shoulder, and Tahnne hit him with her spear, but the later's damage was mitigated as he used his sword art once more, using the same art he had used at the very very beginning to make some distance, raising his hand to whistling, only for yet another arrow slam into right hand, this one didn't even have any art put into hit, Lynn just slapped his hand away.

Robert assumed the same stance as before, deciding to use offence as a defence, landing a kick right to Tahnee's abdomen, but the tall woman didn't take the forefront for no good reason as she ate the blow and didn't budge even as the force was enough to cause internal damage.

The instant that happened Eppie took her chance, and launched a fire arrow, which she had been preparing this entire time, sensing the art-empowered spell coming his way, Robert wanted to dodge, but he could not, for Tahnee grabbed his ankle, so with a delay, he channelled his blade art instead, swinging at the fiery spell to reduce its power, but his strike made no contact as the spell was dispelled by its caster, resulting in the undead swinging at the air.

So there was nothing he could do as Cassi brought down her club onto his leg, breaking it.

Tahnee let go in that instant, poised herself and crashed her spear into his side, but did not strike with the blade of her spear, instead using the cross-shaped guard to hook, lift him off the ground and slam him into the ground, cracking and breaking countless of his bones.

Still, he almost immediately rose back up.

Revealing his left hand again, but both Tahnee and Cassi just back off, leaving ample space for Lynn and Eppie to fire at him, and as the latter had assumed, the secret to the potency of his arts was a rather simple trick.

The blade art that weakened oncoming attacks, the kicking stance and palm attack- To allow them to be so powerful, it seemed like he made them mutually exclusive from one another, meaning that he could not kick powerful and strike with his palm at once, there was a delay in between them.

So he could not defend against the attacks with his palm outstretched, especially since that one seemed to have another requirement, which was that the left arm had to remain inactive and hidden unless the art was active, and there was no time to retract his arm in time.

Robert was rendered to a flaming pincushion.

But still, the undead was not done for completely.

"Not bad… Not bad at all… I am still far from meeting the satisfactory requirements… It will be a long while before I can pretend to the rank of lieutenant"

Cassi was not interested in his ramblings, and with her Kanabo charged with a powerful art, she repeatedly pummeled the skeleton until he was finally destroyed, not feeling even an ounce of experience despite that.

"Tch… From the way he talked, they definitely don't stay down even when destroyed like this"

The remains of the prowling shadow dissolved into a black mist, leaving nothing behind.