Pestilence: Rise Of The Pure Undead
Chapter 907 - 907: Hollow

The putrescent dragon was nicknamed 'The Affliction', and amongst the disaster beast, it was not only the largest of them, but also the craftier, as having been raised in the ways of manipulating rot and thanks to developing its draconic aspects, it had acquired many different ways to attack and defend, but having so many different options also meant that it had to develop a high level of intelligence to make proper use of them all.

And it was well aware that slaying the Emerald Herald would be a tough job, it's size was great, and unlike Loimos, it could not manipulate the shape or form of its body to a great extent, so pinning down such a small enemy and one as fast as Ioleznta would require a fair amount of luck, especially considering that even now, the full capabilities of the heralds and priestess remained uncertain.

So instead of incessantly going for the kill, it decided that it would keep her busy for as long as possible, and to that end, there was an obvious need to make Ioleznta believe that there was a chance for her to stop the interference, and that the dragon could not easily get her off its back, all that without making it obvious that this was acting.

The Affliction roared loudly, the sort of sound waves it could produce were nothing compared what The Song was capable of, but when a big beast screamed with all of its might, the roar was simply deafening still, the herald was mostly unaffected, but it became clear that the point of the roar was not to directly attack.

It was a bestial battle art coupled with rot weaving, resulting in countless undead-like creatures to emerge from the putrescent flesh of the disaster beast, all of them bearing some sort of draconic aspect, not a single one was a true undead, all were simply summons, but their numbers would definitely be problematic.

Ioleznta looked around without any hint of panic even as rotten cadavers were emerging all over the place, some even coming equipped with weapons.

She was wondering how to make a corpse cease using an ability without using a method specifically meant to interrupt such things, she could not hurt it as the dead felt no pain, damaging it would probably not work either… The Herald thought about getting the dragon to the ground, but it wouldn't be very conducive to anything.

So either she defeated the dragon for good, or its disruptive ability was somehow linked to something in particular that she needed to find and destroy.

'I should have asked Irlitimiz to sniff some more, I would have known if there was a big crystal or core to break somewhere in that case…' the Emerald Herald sighed and shook her head, she was just so silly sometimes! Even when dealing with oversized cadavers…

"In that case, I guess I'll just have to tear you apart until you stay put like a good corpse" he pupils and irises shaped themselves into triangles, stepped aside as the first rotten summon swung down some sort of bone spear at her, its skull resembling that of a human, but soon enough, that one's draconic aspect came into display as a stream of fire emerged from its bony jaw.

Unfortunately, it barely began to move when the top half of its head was blown away by a kick, as a simple summon, that was enough to put it down, but from what Ioleznta was seeing, there was about a thousand more of these fellows, probably ten times that, actually, and more were emerging still.

"Sorry guys, I know you all want a piece of my beautiful self, but I have no time to deal with you guys" turning into a sharp flash of light, she pierced right through the dragon's flesh and dug into its body.

Despite being all putrefied, and its skin being somewhat goopy, its flesh was actually quite tough still, and much thicker than one would have expected, though, eventually, the herald arrived into an enormous open space, indeed, The Affliction was mostly hollow on the inside, there were no, no traces of rotten organs, at least, not the organs one would normally expect.

There were a whole bunch of things hanging from its spines and ribs, as well as floating in the big lake of putrescence at the bottom, serving unknown purposes, if any… Manifesting emerald light, Ioleznta looked for anything that could be the source of the disruption, it certainly felt stronger here that it did above, as maintaining a light was far more arduous than normal, but being such a simple spell, it was still nothing for her to keep up.

Naturally, as soon as she arrived into the hollow cavity, rotten summons began to sprout up from everywhere, throwing themselves from the walls and ceiling to try and catch her, whilst small dragon-like creatures tried to swarm the herald, only to be erased by emerald light as she searched around for the source.

She didn't even know if there was one, for all she knew, the strength of the disruption was only stronger here, because it was an ability that was activated from here in the first place, but in any case, even if there was no precise thing to destroy, tearing the dragon from the inside out would still be an option.

'Mmh?' a bright arrow whistled right past her ear, eyes locking on the sharpshooter, it was not a summon this time, at least, it was a proper undead riding on a summoned dragonoid creature.

Having faced a few lieutenants before, she could tell that this one was not one of them, they all had a little something more compared to other undeads, this particular corpse seemed powerful, but lacked that something.

"Hey there, you wouldn't mind telling me how to stop the whole interfering with my abilities thing, right?"

"I see no problem in telling you, but you must die first" the undead responded perfectly seriously, the fact that Ioleznta could just feel that this guy was seriously making the offer and was not just provoking her made it almost funny.

She would never get used to how weird the undeads were.

"Forget it, I'll figure it out myself" accelerating forward, the undead pulled back on his brilliant bow again, this time, several dozen arrows were released at once, the herald zigged and zagged through them as the draconic mount carried its master away.

Or rather, it took him up, as the undead himself had no intentions of going away, as he leapt off the summon, intending on using his falling momentum to skewer the herald right through, the brilliant bow vanished, leaving only a war scythe in his hands.

"...Really?" the herald just moved aside, and the undead fell right into the rotten lake below.

"Are you trying to kill me with laughter? Or is that supposed to distract me from something?" as she spoke, several more brilliant arrows emerged from the putrescence below, and also, arrows began to rain down from above her as well.

She replied back by launching several rays of light into the rot, sensing that some of them hit true, but it was not enough to stop the undead knight from firing more holy arrows.

'Why would they station an actual undead inside of here, if not to protect something? Unless they saw very far ahead, there has to be something special about the insides of that dragon…'

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