Pestilence: Rise Of The Pure Undead
Chapter 878 - 878: Escalation

Whilst a furious musical duel was taking place, the sonorities from both sides gradually intensifying, those fighting on the frontline did not stop for even a second, everyone capable of holding their own in close quarters were acting to prevent the undeads from breaching their line, but it was impossible to have a perfect track record, the undeads put up a constant pressure and seemed immune to committing mistakes, the instant one was defeated, another one would already be ready to replace them.

The tide of them seemed infinite, and the livings did not have unending stamina, they were doomed to not react in time eventually, this was especially true nearly ten minutes into the battle, without any way to tell ahead of time, countless ghouls suddenly ran atop the shoulders and heads of their fellows, ghouls of an especially small size, all of them garbed in the same, greyish cloaks that covered most of their body.

They were atrociously swift, between the moment they appeared, and the moment they leapt to attack, most people barely even had the time to react, in the moment, many didn't even notice them as they were too focused fighting with not only their own, but also the life of their allies on the line, facing enemies that would exploit even the most minute of windows of opportunity, the tiny ghouls met nearly no resistance upon their first attack.

Leaping off, they latched onto the heads of the livings, wrapping their legs around their necks, feet resembling hands, they could interlock them to ensure that they remained in place whilst they brutally lashed out with their sharp claws, targeting the soft bits first.

These ghouls lacked strength and power, so their clawing was not instantaneously lethal, and they hadn't been betting on that anyways, the instant the livings were caught in their grab, they were naturally panicked, the ghouls secreted a foul venom from their palms, which they smeared over the wounds and gashes they inflicted, causing an intense, burning pain to erupt within the victim, and as they thrashed around and lost balance, the ghouls attempted to steer them right toward their stronger fellows.

The effects were immediate, those right on the forefront were nearly all exposed for a deadly counter attack, and since many of the livings behind them had also been targeted by the ghouls, only the fighting spirits summoned by Antieeld could assist them, but the commandant, even with perfect awareness and efficient orders, was unable to preserve the lives of them all, and many of those who survived the first strikes were still gravely wounded and would be slain a second later if her spirits could not replace the frontline for long enough.

Antieeld cursed under her breath, sensing that in one spot, the spirits failed to hold on and were rapidly dispelled, undeads were going to pour into the ranks of the livings, and once that happened, the death toll would shoot up sharply.

Pulling onto her reserves, she prepared to summon more spirits in hope that they would be quick enough to plug that breach in time, but something crashed right where that hole in the lines was, blocking any undead from passing through.

"You fuckers deployed one of your lieutenants last time to try and kill one of us, so I hope there is no problem if I join in for a little while?" looming over the corpses, Artazun growled out, but even when faced with a Divine Dancing Priestess, not even a single one of them seemed to care as they attacked.

The leonine priestess huffed and kicked off the ground, carving a straight line right through the corpses, moving like the beast that she was, Artazun brought her hands down on several undeads at once, splattering them onto the ground like insects, some of them would have given trouble to multiple beast followers by themselves, but they didn't amount to much before her, each swipe took out dozen of enemies, some exploding like rotten pumpkins, some bisected by the force of the attacks and others merely launched away.

The ferocity of her assault would have left many in awe if they didn't have to deal with their own battle at the moment, nonetheless, the beast worshippers fighting on the frontline felt invigorated.

"Lady Artazun is with us!" one couldn't help but shout as the priestess ran amok amongst enemy ranks.

A fairly large undead, some sort of rotten orc garbed in stone armour tackled into the priestess, but failed to budge her.

"Cute" she ripped the cadaver's arms off before picking him up, and squeezing him like a lemon before throwing what was left further into the mass of undead, a low growl escaping her maw as she got a good look thanks to her superior height.

'How many of those bastards are there?' she casually got rid of some undeads trying to attack her, but who failed to pierce her skin, just as the air above her visibly cracked and opened up, revealing pure, impenetrable darkness, followed by a large figure bursting out from it.

The priestess's expression twisted into some sort of grin-like snarl as she firmly rooted herself in place, and intercepted the attacker, a shockwave spreading through the area, but the surrounding undeads had already steered clear as though they had been expecting for it to happen.

Her attacker kicked off of her after the surprise attack failed and she was able to block it without problem.

"Lieutenant?" she asked casually, as the undead landed a distance away, this one was pretty much just as tall as Artazun when she stood upright, garbed into some sort of ancient stone armour similar to what the orc just before had bee, wearing, but this one also had a tattered cape that looked like that it been forgotten in the depth of an abandoned dungeon for years.

Most noticeably, upon his partly petrified, partly skeletal, and partly rotten face- There was only a singular, large eyes, which stared at the lioness like that of a dead fish, not bearing even an ounce of anything, it looked like it could just fall out of its socket at any time.

"Indeed" he responded in a deep voice, the cyclops had not been amongst the undeads they had gotten to see during their observations of the dark keep, for all they knew, it was the first time he ever showed himself in their realm.

He carried no weapon whatsoever, or at least, not any that Artazun could see.

"Garkap, I lead the Old Stone Knights" he slammed his fist into his palm.

The priestess flexed her claws out.

"Artazun, Divine Dancing Priestess" she replied, a second before they both moved.