Pestilence: Rise Of The Pure Undead
Chapter 915 - 915: One Word

Something cracked, and instantly, Loimos seemed to know exactly what was coming, but rather than try to move away, he pressed on with his attacks, there was not enough time to get away anyways, so the best course of action as simply to commit to the assault and perhaps manage to end the living before anything could happen.

But the process of changing something about a name was nearly instantaneous, removing a single word to a name was even faster than that, especially when Arzt had been putting focus toward that particular item the entire time, it like he had had his finger ready to fire a bolt from a crossbow the entire time.

At any point, he could have unleashed it, but the living had kept it under wraps, knowing that once it was unleashed, things would most certainly take a turn for the worse, currently, Loimos was in enemy territory, weakened and surrounded by potent life from all sides, by all means, he was seeking to conserve energy as he could not easily get it back here, so in short, Loimos had been purposefully holding back, as if he exerted too much strength in combat, he might lack some to resist the environment itself, and if he was booted from the interior of the barrier, or fell apart before accomplishing his goal, it would be a most dire loss on his part.

Arzt was aware however, that if the attack he unleashed just now failed to destroy the undead, that Loimos would have no choice but to demonstrate the real extent to his capabilities here to put a swift end to it all.

Which was why the living would have preferred to last longer, but alas, it seemed his skills as a combatant had not only gotten rusty, but that they had probably never been enough to confront a monster like Loimos in the first place, carving and naming provided very little direct strength to those practising them, and Arzt was not exactly a natural at fighting, so even with the power to interact with the very essence of things, and armed with a magnificent weapon, he could not really hold up in a fight once his enemy understood the trick.

It was a shame, but it was what it was.

Inside of one of his pockets, there was a bright, somewhat greenish crystal- Crystallised life force, effort of the death hunters that had worked hard to provide him with such an item, on its own, it was already rare and precious, the creation of the solid form of energies depended on the concentration of them in the air and many other elements, death force and life force when energies that very scarcely ever underwent such a process.

But of course, such an item on its own was absolutely useless against Loimos…

Arzt knew well how naming work, as one might guess, the more a name was removed from the item it was bestowed upon, the more the name would be rejected, so to pull this trick off, Arzt needed something like this in the first place, otherwise, it would have been impossible even for him, and even with that, actually maintaining the new name was arduous, testament to the strength and nature of what he had conjured through naming the crystal something else.

And yet, he had only added a single word to it.

Turning the 'Crystallised Life Force' into 'Crystallised Devouring Life Force', there was no need for any further specifications, devouring life force was the life force of only a singular being, anyone who wielded it would simply be using a lesser variation, or be borrowing it directly from him.

Only the pure living, Thanatok Ynigós, possessed it.

To the pure undead and pure living, regular life force and death force were jokes.

But to each of them, the other's own force was the most deadly thing, no matter what sort of strength difference might separate them, if struck by festering death or devouring life, they would suffer, requiring to expand their own powerful inner force to resist it.

They were the antithesis of one another, fated to clash again, and again, and again, and again… Without stop, for all of eternity, neither could truly disappear.

And in that instant, Arzt simply removed the very first word of that name, turning it simply into 'Devouring Life Force', the crystal becoming pure energy, expanding outward, and instantly locking in on Loimos specifically, all traces of undeath were shattered as it was released, and the living was healed to perfect health, getting out of here, as the skeleton had to unleash his festering death to fend off against the devouring life.

As both energies clashed, Arzt could not see anything of what was happening, he gripped his sword tightly, watching intently, and hoping that the undead would not still be standing by the end of it…

But reality was cruel, without a master, the devouring life could not overwhelm the festering death, and once the life force dissipated, Loimos remained undefeated, though, he had definitely taken serious damage from the clash, his attire woven out of rot had been mangled, showing no signs of mending itself like before, his helm in particular had been completely shattered, revealing his skull and jaw filled with long, pointy teeth.

Arzt felt his heart beating rapidly, he had no other trump cards like this one, if Loimos managed to strike him down like that again, he would be done for, he would die for certain, if not on the spot, due to his injuries without a doubt.

Loimos, with sockets emitting a deep, dark purple glow spread out his arms, across an entire kilometer, all plant life died and withered away into dust, Arzt himself felt like his very life force wilted, bringing him to his knees as the undead called upon two items.

In the hand dextral- The Graven Scythe manifested.

In the hand sinistral- The Harvest Scythe manifested.

Both bore a banner wrapped around their handles, and instantly, the area began to erupt with four different types of locusts, somehow, these were not simply corpse-like summons, but genuine undeads being created out of thin air, or rather, taking form from the dense festering death of Loimos being melded with his summoning of his two weapons, each representing two aspects of the apocalypse.

Giving rise to locusts of war, conquest, famine and pestilence.

"Ah… So this is a portion of the strength of one of your kind? This… This is just ludicrous…" Arzt was in shock, and did not even realise when his body was split in half, crumbling into rot, as the undead did not even spare any attention to him past that singular attack.

The devouring life had inflicted too much damage, and right now, Loimos felt that the time he could remain within the barrier had drastically shortened, so he did not hesitate to call upon his strength to find and deal with Milo was quickly as was possible, the original plan after making sure that the golden boy awakened properly, was to kill him swiftly before he could get a grasp of how his powers worked, and then move on to slaughtering the livings within the barrier.

This plan had been ruined by Arzt's intervention, so now, Loimos had to find where Milo had been hidden, and murder him as quickly as possible, he could not be allowed to get an understanding of how his power truly functioned.

And if the living could not be found… Then Loimos would simply have to make sure that he was convinced to show up on his own.