Pestilence: Rise Of The Pure Undead

"General, the ferocity with which our enemies can fight for prolonged period of time is concerning- Our readings indicated that they switched fighters at one point, but since those are definitely different from those who were casting that illusion, it would imply that they can rotate, three different groups minimum, if they can all fight for the same amount of hours… Then any group has time to rest and replenish their stamina until it is their turn to fight again" that was being generous of course, the readings indicated that the realm was vast and bountiful, their numbers were probably much greater than three mere groups. "The living soldiers are falling flies without dealing any damage to the enemy, their death is not leading to any stabilisation of the environment allowing for us undeads to step in without instantly falling apart" "As for our main goal, it seems that it has stagnated and is no longer progressing, only threatening to go back to zero if the influx of soldier stops" The undead gathering intel from the realm were running around and constantly relaying bits of information and sharing their thoughts for everyone to hear, but mostly to Loimos, who simply stood in the middle of the room without doing as much as making a sound. He was picking apart the information available. It seemed like this realm of emerald had two distinct faiths, similarly to those who seemed to worship the sun, the ones currently slaughtering the living soldiers instead held a tight connection with beasts, or rather all creatures besides themselves, they didn't seem to have a central object of worship like their fellows, judging from the plethora of manners they were killing the soldiers in white, they seemed to just be picking whatever creatures they wanted to commune with and earn some of their traits as a result. Blending the aspects of their sapient nature with bestial attributes, it was similar to beastfolks in a way, but overall completely different, what Loimos knew that most reassembled this practice was dragon communion, which he had encountered first-hand during his travel through the frigid mountain tops on his way to the Ashen Grounds to meet with Gravelord Dracula, some worshippers of the local dragon, Svaltimas, had grown do resemble humanoids of draconic heritage. But he now knew with certainty that many of the followers upon the mountains had not been even remotely related to dragon, it was their worship that transformed them, but even then, their aim had been to become dragons themselves by the end of it, and dragon communion was indeed a way of power which peak laid into transforming oneself completely. Although the practice could be declined to work with anything as long as one was determined enough, Loimos could tell that beast worship was simply different, it did not aim for a complete transformation into the guise of what was communed with, the purpose truly seemed to blend both the original nature of the worshipper with that of one or multiple beasts instead. Some sort of unification of both worlds, speaking of which, Loimos turned and walked out of the room, passing by a variety of undeads who all saluted him, only to eventually dropped down into a large chamber below all of those corridors and winding hallways, not bothering with climbing down the ladder, landing amongst a seemingly endless sea of living soldiers, who like a receding tide, all instinctively prostrating as flatly as they could muster upon noticing him. As the general of the vanguard, Loimos was indeed their boss, but that level of reverence was caused not only by the regular teachings and instructions given to them, but also because those in charge of training these soldiers never forgotten to ingrain into the minds of all of the soldiers to be thankful to Loimos for the opportunity of serving the empire. Even if it was true that it had been his idea to use livings as foot soldiers to explore realms undeads could not tread, all could understand that it was odd for them to love him so much as he had forced all of their realms into total submission and established breeding camps to produce more and more soldiers all the times, imparting these camps with high-level arrays forcing the children to grow faster. Although most here were just conscripted adults that had populated all of those realms plentiful in populations, now, livings were being taught from the crib how to serve and die for the empire. It would be natural for at least a handful to feel a little bit miffed about this whole deal, but the only one that actually harboured something other than total loyalty had been designed for it and was already dead anyways, granted freedom of thought for no other reason than to deliver an ineffective message. The subjugated people even had to abandon their former languages and learn a dialect made specifically for the living soldiers. Not lingering around, Loimos headed for the portal, there was only one way to test whether or not his plan to allow undead presence in the realm without relying on death force would work. The troops had been given a little bit of surgery, nothing much, simply an addition of Loimos's very own doing, battle arts and conditions in crystalised form that were then struck with a little bit of Oblivion. Oblivion could make one forget anything, and it could even work on what held no thoughts, to ensure that it would function properly, the champion had scrubbed the crystals of the memory of who their user was, effectively making them ownerless and thus, not linked to death in any way. The entire concept was rather iffy, but it was working well enough so far, every time a soldier was killed the crystals would unleash their content, slowly but surely building what the undead envisioned. The arts and conditions were basically all about imparting one's own terms to manifest or manipulate anything, the more precise and difficult the chosen terms for the result one wanted, the more powerful that result could be. That was the basics. And so, Loimos was planning on using that to expand a zone of sorts and force his own will within an area to allow undeads to roam this realm, it was unlikely to work perfectly, but no matter, the putrid skeleton simply needed a small instant of being capable of exerting some power on the other side to do what he wanted. Surely, the inhabitants on the other side would have thought of the possibility already, surely, other components would get in the way. But to ever hope to truly conquer this realm and make it a lifeless territory, the living soldiers would need at least a little bit of time to establish and adapt. As such, Loimos extended his right hand forward and pushed it through the portal, and as per the conditions and arts established in advance, he snapped his fingers. Then, he stepped back, regrowing the missing limb as it hadn't taken long for it to be converted to wisps, and as he did so, the emerald green portal shuddered, extending into multiple directions, like it was being elongated by the multiple different pulling forces. Finally, it split off into multiple portals. Many living soldiers would still be getting slaughtered without doubt, but that was a step in the right direction.