Pestilence: Rise Of The Pure Undead

The expansion and routine of establishing bastions went on and on, Alkayne allowed his troops to operate without his presence to directly command them for efficiency, permitting for his knights to gain some experience in leadership, since his personal elite was a rather large force compared to that of other minor lords, he could not always command all of them as their numbers called for a proper allotment across the grid, unlike his contemporaries whose units were smaller and more geared toward acting as a single body at all times.

Everything was going well so far, too well in fact, apart from some accursed that had wandered much further than rest and a few that had mutated to high degrees, nothing stood in opposition to their advance apart from the environment and weather itself, which was hardly a problem for the soldiers.

The wildlife was as unaggressive as always, no clear threats to be tackled, no hidden, forgotten kalt civilisation or anything, no ancient creature sleeping beneath the snow, all that was new was the discovery of a great, snowy plane with ghost trees of all shapes and sizes populating it.

Upon it, the largest bastion of this realm was erected, appearing like a great dome white light from a distance, the amount and diversity of ghost trees was interesting and required a proper exploration to gather each of them all.

Until then, on the trees bearing the fruit used to make ghost cider was available to the undead, now, they had countless other ghost fruits to collect and experiment with.

Unfortunately, Alkayne's soldiers had experimented in a most peculiar direction and were attempting to brew beverages capable of making even their corpse self tipsy, a high goal for sure as alcohol would probably need to affect one's death force to be effective across the board.

The minor lord let them try for now, but was ready to swoop in if they accidentally introduced alcoholism to the empire, though, if they somehow did this, it would also be worthy of praise due to the sheer difficulty of such a task.

In any case, the zombie was overseeing great progress at an impressive pace, his conquest of this realm would certainly kickstart a deeper understanding of everything that has to do with the cold, the boons and benefits just kept on accumulating.

Still, he could not shake this impression of incongruity, something was missing, the grand challenge that had been intended for him to overcome… Had he yet to encounter it? Or was it undergoing and he had failed to notice its presence?

Nothing spoke of a tangible threat hidden within this realm, and nothing he had done had lured any mysterious creature to confront him or his forces, so Alkayne could only keep on expanding his hold over this frozen realm.

Surely, something would happen eventually, General Loimos could not have possibly made a mistake by picking this realm for Alkayne to conquer, the glorious skeleton, Champion Of The Empire, Patron Saint Of The Church, and Pure Undead- The one closest to death itself could not possibly made such a simple mistake.

"Say Jiji, you never spotted anything weird during your time by yourself, in that church?"

"Mmh? I feel like I already answered similar questions… But there was nothing that I can remember"

"I see"

Currently, the small nun was snuggling against him as though seeking warmth, despite the fact that both of them were stone cold at the moment, much to the minor lord's disappointment, but much to what he had expected, Jiji's special appetite did not change at all since her conversion to undeath, which meant that he had two, never tiring women to be preoccupied with, one was certainly more manageable than the other, but still.

'Surely… General Loimos did not mean to challenge me in this manner- Right?' that was a rather disturbing thought, he greatly admired Loimos, but wouldn't quite give him such power of prediction.

'No, that can't be it…'

Whilst Alkayne pondered, something emerged from under the snow near the dome-shaped fortress, crawling from beneath right next to a ghost tree with a straight body and bearing see-through feathers alongside what might appear to be translucent oranges.

Still covered with snow atop the head and shoulder, the figure quickly crouched again as it noticed that quite a few undeads were prowling the plains, uncovering snow to discover ghost plants of all sort that thrived in the embrace frigid snow, collection fruits, leaves and branches from the various tree, they were all very careful, but none seemed particularly well-versed in this arts of being a botanist or arborist.

It made sense, such talents were insead fostered by another minor lord…

"I wish one of Lord Yuolrt's subordinates would have come along, these plants are unlike anything we've seen before" in a rare stroke of apparent seriousness, the soldier zombie with a bloated face spoke up as he plucked what would probably be called a ghost pear.

The ghost fruits resembled common fruits a great deal, which was certainly surprising.

"Indeed, but sparing any amount of manpower is out of the question, Lord Yuolrt is taking on a mission much more dangerous than ours, exploring Verdoyante is something else entirely than conquering a realm" the skeleton with a gash responded, looking across the horizon, ready to pull and fire his heavy crossbow at anytime.

"I guess… But there are so many cute druids-"

"Do you always have to tarnish your brief moments of intellectual brightness? Your focus is a little bit too strong, I feel like"

"What do you mean, too strong? I am just enthusiastic about undeadling production"

"Sure, sure…" the skeleton kept overlooking the area, until his attention fell upon a portion of snow that was not unlike the rest, he did not actually direct his hollow sockets toward that spot, pretending to glaze over it casually.

"...But you have to realise that no one believes that lie, especially since I never saw you approaching any of our female brethren to offer participating in the production of one… What's the big deal anyways? It's just a matter of briefly holding hands" ever-so casually, the skeleton continued speaking like normal as grabbed his crossbow and presented to check something with it, when he really just pressed a portion of the already loaded bolt, making it heat up.

"That's exactly why it's so difficult to discuss such matters with you, where I see a need for a strong bond and great intimacy, you only see practicality, it's not just about touching for a second and mixing death force…" the zombie also continued on speaking normally, but had already noticed that his fellow was up to something.

"My friend, I honestly believe that no other undead bear nearly as many lascivious thoughts as you do" and like that, he fired the great bolt, ignited with great heat, toward that portion of snow that was in no way suspicious at a glance.

And the projectile hit something.