Pestilence: Rise Of The Pure Undead

The crack was more akin to a gate, a gate upon a vast empty space, filled with lights mimicking the bright stars of the night, different from the vast city where the insectoids resided, the ground was like fine dust, the cavern shaped like rough, jagged cone, spanning a great distance, although false by definition, the star-filled cave was home to a temple, the usual orange material had turned pale. Continue reading on My Virtual Library Empire

An unexpected sight waiting in the center of the temple, the insectoids all lined up, bowing their already crooked bodies as closely to the ground as was physically feasible, offering their prayers and belief to this being, Loimos standing at the far back of this congregation, still standing tall, clearly sensing the control this being exerted over the insectoids, forcing them to funnel their faith into a false idol.

The idol focused its attention on Loimos, garbed in a cloak of white, a tall and thin figure, six arms covered in bleak chitin, segmented hands and fingers spreading the cloak wide open, revealing dozens upon dozens of small, baby-sized arms moving and fiddling their fingers at the air, all emerging haphazardly from the creature's chest, it's body was reminiscent of that of a termites, wholly unrelated to the ocean above, or the orange insectoids that were definitely more adapted to aquatic life, their movements wholly lacking on dry ground, even if they could survive out of water…

Spreading its main arms outwardly, as though welcoming Loimos to this temple, the idol's head brightened, being not in any way that of any insect, but a large orb of paleness, similar to the false stars all around, reaching into this sphere, pulling out a finely crafted stone staff, much like everything about the being, it seemed unusually pale, as though its true appearance had been flaked off.

Grabbing with all of its hands, slamming the end of the staff into the ground, the worshippers parting ways, the false idol marching toward the undead, undeterred by the champion's overwhelming presence, which inspired nothing but death and decay, for a good reason, this insect-humanoid was much beyond the divine beast previously encountered, it must have discovered the possibilities of becoming revered as an object of worship, and to this end, had decided to enslave the people of this old civilisation, enlisting them as its worshippers, bringing them all to this cave without violence, enacting its will upon all of those crustaceans, having them endlessly send their utmost faith for it to feast upon.

The fact that it was still physically present was a good sign that it had not achieved a proper divinity, but as far as it went, this was probably as close as anyone could get to meeting an actual god nowadays, and if a mere, lanky termite could get to here with only a few thousands of forcefully contracted followers, then this could only mean that many others had to have gotten further.

Having even replaced its own head with the manifestation of divine powers, the false idol was most definitely confident that it could take out Loimos, in a world were a profane flame had banished the gods from stepping down from their heavens however, and in one a divinity had been easily felled by Faraday, that confidence might not be entirely without fault.

Especially considering that the champion was backed by death and allowed free reign over divine death, and his own festering death.

Producing a few incomprehensible clicking noises, the idol stopped approximately twenty meters away from the putrid skeleton, fake night sky brightening, pointing its staff forward, unleashing a stream of pale starlight, an encompassing purple glow emerging and consuming it, idol staggering back, shielding itself, traces of abhorrent necrosis appearing upon body and divine sphere both.

It was a good thing that Loimos had not brought Poitirus along, the chances of him being obliterated by a stray blast of starlight was much too high, the power output was above acceptable, although, as should be expected, coercing worshippers through some sort of mind control had a consequence on the quality of the faith they granted.

Even the divine beast had more pure divine energy than this, the termite only had much more, and actually knew how to use its abilities to inflict harm, as demonstrated just now, that beam held the potential to make a hole in the undead, with some effort, at least, that was what Loimos would have said had he been trying to teach something to a fellow corpse.

Instead, without moving from his spot, he struck the wanna-be divinity with an invisible strike of his mind, then grasping it from afar using Multeamanus's mastery over hands, taking it right out of the star-filled cavern and into the bright orange city.

Another beam came, but once again, it was nullified by Loimos's more potent glow, once again striking the termite with necrosis, stomping its foot down, the idol instead used its pale starlight within its own body, rushing forward and tackling Loimos through a home and then the wall of the underground space, only to have all four of its arms grabbed by dozens of hands each, all having suddenly manifested from rot, ripping them off and clubbing the insect with its own limbs until they broke.

He grabbed the staff, and simply threw it away, its owner kicking him in the crotch, which was not ideal, unbothered, the champion simply reached into the pale orb, emitting his own glow as a finger was within, the sphere shrunk significantly in a single go, sending the false idol in a clickety rage, manifesting another orb of light in between both of them, detonating it without hesitation.

A click of joy as the undead's helm was damaged turned to abject disappointment as it was instantly mended, not to mention, that only a single scratch was inflicted from a point-blank explosion of divine power, in what world did that make sense.

The termite quickly understood however, trying to make some distance, which was impossible considering that they had gone straight through a wall, there was only one clear way out, but it did not stop trying to step away.

Like a bucket of cold water had been doused over its head, the false idol realised that Loimos was definitely trying to force it to expand all of its divine energy rather than simply batter it with strikes.

Its attempt at retreat was not going as what was wished, turning back on the undead, feeling resistance as it tried to take up pace, the corpse having casually grabbed the end of the white cloak, ever-so gently pulling the termite back, wrapping one arm around its chest and once again emitting his horrible purple glow directly inside of the orb of starlight.

And that was how it learned, that achieving godhood was not as simple as having a bunch of divine energy, far from it.