Pestilence: Rise Of The Pure Undead
Chapter 882 - 882: Grin

Milo could hardly believe that it was actually over, technically, they had won this battle, mostly because that one-eyed lieutenant seemed to have ordered the other undeads to stop coming forward before engaging in the wielding of absurdly oversized weaponry, and still, it had been incredibly difficult, just moments prior, Milo had been fighting some sort of huge, mummified beastfolk that had been wielding some sort of ghostly flame that targeted something beyond his mere physical body, so it had been somewhat tricky to deal with effectively, especially with the rest of the battlefield being a mess at this point, but the corpse had turned to black smoke after he crushed its skull with a gold empowered punch.

And the living turned back to where he believed the herald and Frenand had been fighting last, and he did find the former quickly, the Emerald Herald looked like a beacon of light compared to everyone else, but there was no trace of the lieutenant anywhere, and instead, Ioleznta was standing over a circular scorch mark upon the ground.

Noticing his gaze, the herald smiled at him and casually stepped up to him with weird dance moves.

"Doing alright, big boy?"

"Huh… Yes, I still got some of that venom from the ghouls in my eyes, but overall, I am alright- Say, where did-?"

"Oh that guy? I gave him a good spanking and sent him on his way, or in other words, I disintegrated him with a good old emerald ray straight from our kind sun! I don't mean to flex my incredible strength and skill, which I am certain make many envious… But I don't think I really get what's so scary about those lieutenant guys, am I missing something?" spoke the herald with a smile.

Milo thought to what he had seen, he was fairly certain that if not his best, then Frenand had at least certainly taken Ioleznta much more seriously of an opponent than he had done for him, in fact, ever since they exchanged blows in that recreated throne room, Milo had felt like had a pretty good grasp of the undead's personality, so if anything, the living felt that Frenand had truly done his best to try and slay the herald.

"...I think you might simply be too powerful"

"Oh, you flatter me! Say, compared to their big boss, how did that one compare?" she asked.

"Compared to him? Frenand is strong, but he's like a speck of dust compared to their leader" he responded honestly, Ioleznta shrugging indifferently.

"I wonder where the notion that the commander needs to be the most powerful of the bunch comes from, what happened to having bodyguards specifically because you need to have your body guarded?" she mumbled aloud whilst walking away.

Everyone marched back to the barrier, the wounded were hastily carried back to receive healing, though most of the carrying was actually done by spirits of summoned by Antieeld, it seemed like she had also herself a bunch of healers and medics willing to lend a hand amidst the countless fighting spirits she had available.

Thanks to that, everything progress swiftly and smoothly, and within just a few minutes, the battlefield was deserted, all damage inflicted upon nature mending itself with the help of ambient spirit life, the stone that had been summoned in multiple areas by the cyclops fell apart bits by bits, crumbling into dust which simply vanished out of thin air, and soon enough, it was like nothing had happened, no remains anywhere, no scorch marks, not even a drop of blood.

It was like the two sides had battled but that no casualties had occurred, of course, it couldn't be further from the truth.

The corpses of those who had fallen simply turned into spirit life and went away, the same was true for both sides, so in the end, it was difficult to tell which side had endured the most damage, but then again, Milo was fairly certain that the undeads were not losing anything at all anyways, so this was a useless affair.

The wounded laying on the ground and receiving treatment were plentiful however, many had received wounds or been otherwise harmed during the battle, thankfully, the frontline was composed of tough folks, the beast worshippers that stepped up to fight the undeads face to face were of the thick-skinned variety, so despite some of them bearing wounds to could kill people several times over, they were actually only lightly injured.

Those that were less fortunate had not been struck by mundane, physical strikes, and instead had endured the power of a spell, of flames, or of acid, those making for injuries that were definitely several times more painful, and trickier to properly heal.

Some had even been poisoned or envenomed, quite a few had been put out of combat due to the small ghouls, their venom in particular was a nasty thing that was only geared toward inflicting an enormous amount of pain, even Milo could not quite nullify its effects despite the power of his golden mana, so it spoke to its sheer resilience.

As such, the sun worshippers, Minli and the spirits summoned by Antieeld were working overtime alongside pretty much any mage that could do even a little bit of healing.

Milo himself was of no use when it came to providing healing to someone else, so he didn't get in their way and instead walked up to someone sitting with their back against the wall of the closest habitation.

"Doing alright?"

"It was a draw" responding in an unusually raspy tone of voice, Ansonio raised his trumpet up.

"I was able to force a draw!" he repeated.

"Next time, I'll definitely win"

Milo wasn't even certain of exactly when the musical duel had come to a close, but looking in the sky, The Song seemed to have resumed its earlier movements and was once again circling the realm whilst emitting a soft melody, the idea that not only had someone fought this creature using a trumpet, but that it had somehow ended up in a draw was hard to imagine.

But at least, it seemed like they actually had a good counter against this disaster beast, if Ansonio could keep on matching the tempo, then they wouldn't have to worry about the ode to despair affecting them in the midst of battle.

Milo sat down beside the trumpeter, sighing heavily before looking back toward where he had come from, only to instantly notice the very same, weirdly pristine skeleton that had spoken to them before standing all by himself in the middle of the battlefield.

And he could swear that his skull looked like it was grinning even harder than it had seemed before.