Pestilence: Rise Of The Pure Undead
Chapter 885 - 885: Jagged Lines Across The Sand

The hot wind was blowing strongly across the endless plains and hills of sand, the light of the suns was scorching, brilliant as a tall figure stood upon a tall hill, overlooking an area that appeared no different from any other within this enormous desert.

Just like Alkayne, Ir'Houwl had also received word from Loimos, and much like her fellow, despite essentially having the realm under her thumb, she had ran into a problem, well, two problems would be more accurate…

The first was rather simple and Ir'Houwl herself couldn't actually do anything about it, but the Undevigintis could not be made into undeads or subjected to the will of the empire, the minor lord might be strong, but not to the point where she could just reach a sun and kill it, and forcing them to pass to the side of undeath through their worshippers would not work either as their wasn't a real relationship between them, the suns merely provided some vapour, the link was not strong as they were not deities at all.

So she had to just go about with her plans with the constant hazard that the Undevigintis were, at least, the problem of Watchful Undeviginti was pretty much solved as the hunters that it could call upon were no match for her legion and after plenty of them succumbed to the undeads, the pale blue sun simply stopped trying to do anything.

Now, the actual problem Ir'Houwl was bashing her head against were the solar beasts, these mysterious creatures commanded tyrannical power, and originally, her plan had been to capture one alive to tame and use as a living soldier, but the strength of a singular beast went far beyond what she had been led to believe.

The very first attempt had been an abject failure, and so had been all of the following attempts at either capturing or slaying one of them, thankfully, the solar beasts would always end up submerging themselves into the sand sooner than later, which allowed Ir'Houwl to conduct some experiments and test multiple of those beasts.

And it revealed that the solar beasts each possessed an attribute, the attribute being that their power was linked to one of the Undevigintis, their physical appearance seemed to be somewhat random, the first had looked like a dragon, the second like an alligator, and the third had been just been a geometrical shape.

Their bodies however, were coloured exactly like the sand would be when their respective Undevigintis would be in charge, though they could all control the sand around them even if another sun was in the sky when they were awoken.

One thing they all shared in common, was that they seemed to possess a cluster of vapour, which resembled a miniature sun, it was always exposed and clearly visible in some way or another…

The dragon's rib cage had been completely opened up, allowing one to see the mass of prime vapour that stood where a heard would have been, the alligator had lacked eyes and instead, the upper portion of its head and skull were seemingly torn open, sanguine vapour condensed and floating in place above it.

The shape had simply been completely hollow, its illusory vapour in the center of its body.

Ir'Houwl had seen many solar beasts now, multiple for each type of existing vapour, and so far, there was no real pattern in what they looked like apart from colour and exposed vapour, their strength also seemed to be the same as well, the only difference being that those wielding illusory vapour naturally weren't too big on direct attacks and instead tried to make their targets lose themselves in the mirages until they just died from exposure to the heat.

So obviously, Ir'Houwl had her sights set on an illusory beast, they were powerful, but they weren't that smart, even after being disturbed several times, the way they acted and reacted stayed the same, and they wielded their abilities without questioning anything.

And most importantly, they always tried to solve problems using vapour, unless an enemy got very close to them, they wouldn't resort to striking with physical force, to them, vapour seemed to be the best option they could think of.

As such, even before the order from Loimos arrived, Ir'Houwl had been trying to deal with an a solar beast, this particular one had been out of its hiding spot in the sand for several months by this point, unmoving as it constantly used its vapour to cast mirages and illusions, waiting for its targets to inevitably succumb to heat, thirst or hunger…

Unfortunately for its simple mind, it was expecting the impossible as the ones it was targeting were all undeads, and it seemed incapable of realising that something was wrong, even though all of the undeads deployed by the minor lords were also followers of illusory Undeviginti, indeed, the reserves of vapour possessed by the solar beasts was simply outrageous.

So to speed up the process, she first gathered many undeads capable of wielding illusory vapour, developed a means for them to store the pink vapour, and had them constantly draw energy from the beast to the point of bloating, then, they would just fill up the 'vapour crystal' as she had named them without much imagination, and keep going.

Coupled with the constant exertion of vapour from the beast itself upon many different targets, its stock of energy was slowly, but surely being drained away, the only hurdle was that when Illusory Undeviginti showed up, its energy would replenish faster, but overall, the minor lord was still winning.

Of course, that method was rather archaic, and only suitable for the solar beasts wielding the pink vapour, all of the others would use much more direct attacks and would actually move around, at least a bit.

So, Ir'Houwl herself had been devising a method to absolutely destroy the solar beasts, unfortunately, there was no real way for her soldiers to be of much help in this particular situation, so she had to rely on herself to do it.

But it was simple, she merely needed to be better.

Having already achieved her very own personal Ierpalam and even learned how to perform a zone with her innate ability, it was the perfect time for more advancements in strength.

So ever since she had first wielded zone, the minor lord hadn't lazed around and had been trying to push her innate ability further, to make it stronger.

This innate ability was perhaps amongst the strongest within the minor lords, and it had enormous potential, so certainly, Loimos intended for her to push it further when he gave her the mission to conquer this desertic realm.

So looking at the solar beast, this one in particular resembling an octopus of all things, she decided that it was time for it to be blessed.

"Zone"