Pestilence: Rise Of The Pure Undead
Chapter 911 - 911: White Whale

"Where did Ioleznta go?" growled Artazun.

"Inside the big thing over there" Artazim responded.

The two Divine Dancing Priestesses were either running over, or flying around the wide body of one of the disaster beasts, which, to them, looked a whole lot like a Ahltaizth, but in reality, it was just a very big, white whale, and it's durability was no joke, amongst the priestesses and even heralds, the two of them certainly possessed the most offensive power, even their beast sorceries could cause great destruction, but the white whale, which mouth was much wider than that of the cetacean it took after.

Unlike the other beasts whose bodies were made out of the typical flesh and bones, this one seemed very fresh, in fact, if not for the fact that it was currently fighting with all its might, and thus emanating death force, one would have trouble even identifying it was an undead, which was very much on purpose.

The creature was called Grail by the other undeads, and its job was to work undercover in the seas and oceans, capable of concealing all traces of death force, and even capable of controlling its size to a great degree, it had actually been scouring the surroundings of the other continents for a while now, serving as the eyes and ears of Loimos, a whale was hard not to take notice of, but with the precautions taken, it just looked like a white whale to people.

So even if weird, no one would associate it with the undead empire.

Today however, it was its combat prowesses that were in demand, and Grail was delivering, swimming through the air without a problem, it unleashed all sorts of water and sea themed attacks at the two priestess sisters, as well as using its massive body to try and ram into them, as mighty as Artazun and Artazim may be, they definitely did not want to take a hit head-on from the whale.

The two of them had joined hands to face this disaster beast because in a similar manner to The Affliction, it was spreading something around, although, in the case of the dragon, it had grown weaker ever since Ioleznta had entered its hollows insides.

In Grail's case, what it was doing was casting a continuous blessing upon the other undeads, demonstrating a rather strong aptitude in wielding holy energy, it had yet to use that aptitude to do anything else other than bless, however, seemingly only focusing on using that energy to help others.

Having noticed this, the two great priestesses had been trying to at least force the whale away from the battlefield, but they were hard pressed to do anything meaningful to this undead, it was durable for certain, but the real problem was its regenerative abilities, slicing and cutting into the white flesh was not too difficult, but any damage did not remain for long at all, and Grail's flesh was thick, for it had no organs, only a stomach full of digestive acid, everything else was just filled with more flesh.

Artazun reached the beast's head, stood up and sunk her claws into it, despite her great effort, and the fact that she had pierced deeply enough for her forearm to be partly sunk in, she didn't even reach the skull.

The leonine growled in a low hum as she stomped and dragged her arm out, channeling her bestial energy into were claws as she did so, ripping out a large chunk of flesh as energy manifested forth, creating five claws travelled along the ground, cutting into the disaster beast's body, creating long line of red, as indeed, the undead's disguise was so thorough, that it even bled a bright red like a living whale would.

Artazun did not stop here, intent on not letting the beast recover, she continued to rip and tear into the wound as it tried to regenerate.

Water spells manifested all around the priestess, but these were intercepted by Artazim, who flew around at neck-breaking speeds, countering everything that could interrupt her sister, Grail was quick to realise that it was useless to use spells, the weaker ones that it could cast nearly instantly were intercepted, and the bigger ones that took some time to form would be interrupted as the avian priestess and inject her bestial energy into them, making the whale's very own energy grow feral and unruly.

Instead, it flipped around in the air and headed straight for the ground, intending on crushing Artazun in this manner, but out of nowhere, another creature appeared, and with a roar, tall spikes of ice rose from the ground, impaling the whale and sending frost into its body.

And it wasn't a lone, as a tide of warriors manifested out of thin air, threatening to swarm over Grail if it dared to hit the ground, the disaster beast could probably endure such an assault, but it was well aware of who was responsible for this, these were fighting spirits summoned by Antieeld.

Grail may not be the most clever, but it remembered everything its lord had said down to the most minute of details, and Antieeld was a living that they had been told to consider dangerous, and they had also been given a list of possible spirits she could summon, but the limits of her abilities were not understood, so the disaster beasts had been told to avoid her, so as to not get caught by something unexpected.

And indeed, the talent holder demonstrated some power, as the creature that had called upon pillars of ice was none other than Svaltimas, the frost dragon that had defended Tamaris and fought against Dracula.

Not seeing the commandant anywhere, Grail spun back around and rose back into the air without even slamming into the ground, and instead, tried to spin around to shake off the lioness, but her hold was firm, she simply refused to be thrown off.

At the same time, Artazim rose up and dived right back down onto the whale's back, but although it caused a wide portion of flesh to be turned to mush, the beast itself seemed unmoved.

"Artazim… How far are we from the battlefield right now?" the avian priestess already knew why her sister was asking that.

"Not very far"

"Urgh… What a pain in the ass, cover me for a moment, please…" the lioness leapt out of the bloody hole she had carved into the head of Grail and instead sunk her claws herself, channelling the bestial energy within her directly into the beast.

"This is…" Artazim wanted to say something, but held back for now, and covered her sister.

Artazun roared at the sky, the whale finally showing some reaction as the bestial energy spread throughout its body, muddling its clear undead mind with unreasonable, feral thoughts, unconsciously diverted from its course and going away from the battlefield…