Pestilence: Rise Of The Pure Undead
Chapter 887 - 887: Of Swamp And Stones

Whilst some did well across the board, and others struggled with the administrative side of their mission, others instead discovered themselves to be better at handling things from behind a desk than on the field of battle, this was the case for Ridfoirn, whose realm was actually a somewhat peculiar one.

Firstly, there was no day and night cycle at all, the realm was stuck in a constant state of twilight, although no sun or moon could be found anywhere, no matter how hard one looked.

Secondly, this place was pretty much one huge swamp, not quite a boggy mess as the water was rather clear and only reached to about the ankles of an average-sized person, so although there were some hidden dangers if one was not careful, the realm as a whole was rather constant in its appearance.

There were trees here and there, boulders as well, the noticeable things that diverged from the norm were rather rare, sometimes they would be caves protruding from the ground, trees larger than usual, and of course, the structures built by the sapient inhabitants of this realm.

The largest and most prominent one being an enormous academy of sorts, which also doubled as a bastion and city where people lived.

Thirdly, and what was probably the strangest thing to the minor lord at first, this realm felt very flat, everything was so flat save for the few things that stood out, that one could see things that were actually very far away, being a mage and man of great intellect and knowledge, Ridfoirn naturally attempted some calculations with whatever was available coupled with simply floating up to check things out from a higher elevation- And indeed, this realm had the peculiar aspect of being pretty much completely flat.

And yet, one could go in one direction and eventually end up back where they had started, like it was round, somehow, you could pass over a sharp angle and end up on the other side of the realm without noticing any difference.

This was all very interesting, so even when the minor lord and his personal army first arrived, they were already full of questions…

Fourthly, the livings of this realm all followed a single way of power, as all wildlife grew some crystal-like protrusions over their bodies, and further analysis of their remains revealed that it wasn't merely an external growth, as some even had entire organs completely crystallised.

Indeed, this crystal was called Volonstone, and it was the basic of this realm's unique way of power, which they simply referred to as sorceries, but that simple appellation overlapped with some other way of power used by the undeads, so they typically called it 'Volonstone Sorceries'.

In any case, everything relied upon this stone here, the people were entirely reliant upon this way of power, having seemingly not discovered any other- Or rather, it was too late for them to do that as Ridfoirn soon realised that the people had basically evolved into rejecting everything else in favour of increasing their affinity to Volonstone.

The sapients here were actually humans, not any human species that the undeads had seen before thought, the people here had a very distinct appearance, as they all had dark hair and bright blue eyes, which coincidentally, was the colour of basic Volonstone, a bright blue similar to raw mana.

Those similarities seemed to be purely accidental, Ridfoirn was unable to find any correlation between mana and Volonstone at all.

At first, Ridfoirn and his followers were uncertain how to approach and subjugate the livings, especially since their rulers, who as the one controlling the academy, was called 'The Headmaster', was actually a foe that could not be easily defeated by the minor lord, this woman, whomst body looked like it had been stretched out, was a real menace.

But soon enough, the minor lord found out how to make all of the living bend the knee, it was simple really.

Volonstone was peculiar in the sense that it was a way of power that was also the energy, technically.

Nearly every being that was born would lack the ability to wield the sorcery of this realm, for to wield Volonstone, one needed to be in close contact and to 'comprehend' Volonstone, this was the first step to learning this way of power, after that, you needed to allow Volonstone to that root within your body, let it grow upon your skin, and even underneath it.

Basically, the rocks that one would grow would become the equivalent to a pool of mana, and the more would appear upon someone, the more they could comprehend, and the better they could become, casting greater sorceries.

They greatly relied on gathering Volonstone, so Ridfoirn simply needed to monopolise it.

The only problem being that this realm truly was bizarre in how it functioned, the boulders mentioned earlier were the most common source for Volonstone, as they would usually be covered in the bright blue crystals, however, the boulders did not remain.

Eventually, they would be swallowed back by the swamp, and sometimes, a new one could emerge, nearly always bearing at least a few crystals.

And it was the same for many other things, anywhere Volonstone appeared would eventually go away, no matter how large, it would eventually fall into the swamp, leaving behind no proof that it had even been there.

So it took some time for Ridfoirn and his soldiers to manage to properly position themselves to stop the livings from gathering Volonstone, they must have had lots of stock as they held out for multiple years worth of time within this realm, but eventually, they had to act.

But since The Headmaster, leader of Volon Sormaca and greatest living sorcerer, could not defeat Ridfoirn, it seemed obvious that the casualties would be enormous if they engaged in direct combat.

This was how Ridfoirn took control of the realm initially, using trade to forge closer bonds with the academy, before eventually taking control of it entirely.

And since then, he and his troops had very rarely fought against any adversaries, the main threat after taking over the academy, and thus, lording over all of the human population of the realm- Were the creatures, they too practised the way of power, and often, they could bear far more crystals upon and within them than the humans could.

Volonstone was a dangerous way of power, as the crystallisation process was very random, most organs could handle being coated in it, but if the process began to transform the organ itself into Volonstone, it would very often lead to death.

The amount of undeads grew purely because of the dangerousness of it, but the dead of this realm allowed Ridfoirn to further secure his position at the helm, since undeads couldn't care less about such pedestrian worries, the Volonstone could grow wherever it wanted, a corpse had no use for a heart, a liver or brain.

'Mmh… Order directly from General Loimos, huh? I guess I'll have to be a bit more forceful with my expansion then'

With his repulsive, tail-like lower half of dark goo melded with countless bones coiled around the highest tower of Volon Sormaca, Ridfoirn decided that it was time to deal a heavy blow to what was perhaps the greatest living force within this realm beside the humans.

Namely, The Volonstone Dragon.