Pestilence: Rise Of The Pure Undead
Chapter 969 - 969: No Choice

Unaware that the undead empire was thinking of expanding into outer space, Sonnenträger was currently running through a memory of the royal crypt, doing his best to evade the countless ambushes and traps Loimos had placed, and placing around right down to this instant.

The golden hero was finding himself unable to see through the skeleton's stealth, and it was not only because it was so incredible, after so long of running around, he should have eventually found a way to reveal Loimos's position, but it appeared that the undead had done something with the crypt itself, probably making use of a functionality of this great architecture in some way.

Sonnenträger could barely even extend his senses through the walls, leading him to attempting to break one of them, wishing to figure out what exactly was happening, but he discovered that not only was it incredibly durable and resilient as he had expected, but much like the corpse could, the portions affected by gold would fall apart to prevent the rest from being touched as well before swiftly regrowing as it should be.

Essentially, the golden hero was forced to play by his opponent's game, especially upon realising that he could not leave the crypt, probably another of its functions, it had turned into a mess that seemed distorted by spatial means, at all times, the hero assumed that he was placed in the very heart of the crypt, all of the rooms and hallways constantly shifting position around him, ensuring that no matter what, exiting would be impossible.

The only way he could think of would be to use a powerful ability, but doing so without directing it at the undead would be a tremendous waste, and probably something the cadaver would like to happen.

This was not Sonnenträger's first rodeo with being trapped in such a manner, some of his previous foes had known well that a direct confrontation was a certain way for them to lose, and had instead employed tricks against him, but back then, their tricks had been too feeble for truly force the golden one to abide by their rules.

Really, the only other time something like this had happened to him was when he was far weaker and had delved into an enormous dungeon, but finding his way out had only been a matter of perseverance and grit, here, there were only few options, either expand a tremendous amount of gold to either escape the crypt, forcefully shatter the memory to get sent elsewhere, or find Loimos and actually engage him in direct combat.

The first two were too costly, at least, they were right now, if this went on for too long, Sonnenträger eventually would have no choice but to expand some strength…

So he moved throughout the seemingly infinite crypt, encountered series of traps laid out by Loimos, what was most problematic about them was due to the fact that Loimos exclusively used things that came directly from him to create them, so they inherited his absurd stealth, rendering them nearly impossible to detect ahead of time.

Everywhere Sonnenträger went, physical contraptions that had been melded into the environment would sprung out, magic circles and sigils would unleash pre-charged spells of all kinds, and sometimes, walls would burst out with collections of rotten creatures, which were also equipped with very specific abilities, and would also typically blow up when defeated.

The golden one's own perception of passing time was rather poor, but he was certain that the spent more than months on end just running around attempting to track down Loimos, wondering how the undead was managing to place so many traps, everywhere so quickly without ever even being noticed once, Sonnenträger had several guesses.

Either Loimos had creations of rot go around place traps on his behalf as well, or he had somehow taken such fine control over the crypt, that he was capable of placing these traps and ambushes without even needing to be there himself, but this was problematic for Sonnenträger, if the undead truly had full and complete control over the royal crypt, then finding him was basically impossible, he could actually be on the outside right now, and by controlling the layout in real time, he could ensure that his adversary would never even get anywhere close to him.

After fending off an attack in the form of a tide of putrid snakes that clogged up an entire hallway, the hero stopped moving, and simply raised one hand, beginning to gather and condense gold into a sphere.

'I guess I have no choice but to do as he wants, if I keep trying to run around, I might actually expand more energy than if I just blew the place apart right now'

He expected some sort of attempt to stop him, but nothing happened, only making him more suspicious, but as it stood, we was caught in between several traps, and staying put inside of the crypt only benefited Loimos, the undead did not care how much time passed, he had made it his mission to slay the golden hero, whomst he considered to be the greatest threat to undeath, not only was his personal power simply enormous, but the effects of gold had already proven to be shareable by Milo, if Sonnenträger was able to act freely, he could potentially bestow his own blessing of gold upon the livings, which would be catastrophic, it would challenge the military might of the empire, the other superpowers were already tremendously powerful and certainly had hidden means.

And having existed in this world for so long, Loimos was well aware that nothing was set in stone, even if unlikely, it was totally possible for impossibly powerful enemies to undeath to exist, and even if their abilities were not as outright devastating as devouring life or the gold, it did not mean that they were not powerful enough to pose a problem.

So although imagining stronger opponents than Sonnenträger sounded like a lunacy, it was something Loimos would do if it meant being prepared for such a thing, and if they existed, allowing them to be blessed by gold would simply be terrible for the empire.

As Sonnenträger detonated the sphere of gold, he watched as the crypt bent around him, fully focusing on containing the power of the attack, resulting in the royal crypt being blasted to smithereens, but everything beyond it was mostly unscathed.

The golden hero found himself floating in the air, the great city and continent he had seen when first being transported to this memory was now unseen, as everything in his sight was instead replaced by a gargantuan, black serpent.

The countless eyes lining the sides of its head were all coloured a deep, dark purple.

If he had to guess, this should be the refined version of the total transformation he had witnessed before- Apparently, Loimos's truest bestial form was a snake, a truly vile one…