Pestilence: Rise Of The Pure Undead
Chapter 975 - 975: The Great Dark Serpent

'Something's off…' Sonnenträger thought, though, that inner dialogue could refer to many things about his opponent, what was not wrong with Loimos, after all? But no, there was one thing in particular that did not make much immediate sense right now…

Looking up, the golden one spun back in place, having been sinking into the water upside down just moments ago after being launched straight down by the undead, who was currently transformed into an apocalyptic serpent.

With a burst of gold, he shot through the surface of the ocean, floating high in the air as all moisture vanished from his body, he looked down at his mace, only to watch as it crumbled into silver dust, it had served him well, especially for a weapon that he had randomly picked up back then, he thought for a moment, trying to remember something…

'Ah… That was his name… Thank you for the mace, Gnart' the mace broke down completely, leaving Sonnenträger with only his body as a weapon, looking down upon the colossal snake Loimos had turned into.

That transformation was different from the many times he had manipulated the rot and his own body before, it was hard to tell for sure, but it seemed like rather than creating a sort of rotten cocoon around his main, humanoid body, it appeared like he had genuinely shifted into the great snake, this was not merely an extension of himself using the primeval rot, every portion of the serpent was him directly.

This might be able to partly explain what was wrong here, but it could simply be it…

The gargantuan serpent was covered in black scales that seemed capable of consuming light itself, the golden shine Sonnenträger emitted was like a sun, illuminating a vast area around him, and this allowed him to behold that aspect clearly, as sometimes, pockets of darkness would suddenly pop up for a moment near the undead, like his scales were allowing an ancient dark to seep out from time to time, which threw itself at any nearby light.

His many eyes were all the same deep, dark purple as the glow he normally emitted, his maw was filled with countless teeth of all sorts, making for a most grotesque sight, here and there throughout the long expanse that was the skeleton's current body, pale hair could be seen growing from in between scales, giving the impression that mould was growing upon him.

Twisting himself like a spring, Loimos launched himself up into the sky toward Sonnenträger, the golden hero charging back at the calamitous beast, the former's charge missed however, Loimos twisted his serpentine body around, manifested powerful wind current to fly around, opening his maw, thousands of miasmic skulls emerged from within, each of them homing in on Sonnenträger at varying speed.

With empowered strikes, he eliminated most of them whilst trying to make his way to Loimos, but the undead just kept on releasing more of those skulls, some of them beginning to blow up with powerful blasts before even actually getting to hit their target, the hero was thrown back into a skull by one of such blasts, feeling his back being corrode by the miasma.

The damage was gone in a flash, but the injury inflicted had been much more than a scratch.

Here once again laid the problem that was troubling him, with a swing of his arms, he propelled himself through the air, finding an angle that housed no miasmic skulls, some of them blew up as he flew by, but he was too quick for them to catch him.

With a sudden turn through the air, he landed a kick directly into the serpent's head, delivering a powerful Golden Glow, this very same ability was perfectly able of erasing Loimos in a single strike if not for his swift reaction speed, and this one was even more powerful than those who had come before.

Loimos was pushed back, the giant snake shedding a several black scales- And that was it, despite the devastating blow, the likes of which would have been a dire threat to the skeleton not long ago, was shrugged off with only the loss of a couple of scales and being tossed around a little bit.

Since that form had been assumed, this was not the first Golden Glow it had endured either, but time after time, nothing changed and Loimos just took the hits like they were nothing more than very powerful physical blows, and not carrying the gold that was supposed to be anathema to anything that went against it.

"FALL" from the creature's maw, a single word of death tongue rolled out, and as if both Sonnenträger and the very world were compelled by the command, the golden hero was sent straight down, in an instant, he went from flying high in the sky, to smashing into the ocean's floor.

Not only was Loimos abnormally resilient now, but each of his attacks had become incredibly potent against the golden one as well, Sonnenträger could tell that there was nothing drastic that had changed with how the blows were prepared and delivered compared to before.

One might be tempted to attribute everything the black serpent form Loimos had assumed, but that did not make sense, it was refined and in-tune with the undead, but it wasn't that much greater than anything else he had shown before, and if it really was so good, why had he not used it before now?

Sonnenträger was missing something, Loimos was doing something out of view that allowed for this to occur.

At its core, the form the pure undead had taken up was just like everything else, the sum of all that he had learned and was available to him, with at its core, the physiology of countless beings capable of transformation manifested through the primeval rot, as well as Dracula's transformation ability and beast worship alongside many others like them…

'What is the trick here?' thought the hero, as he pushed himself away from where he had been slammed, within a wide radius, all water suddenly turned to steam, causing an immense explosion as Loimos had sent a massive bolt of black lightning straight into the ocean.

Sonnenträger once again emerged from the depths, facing Loimos, who merely condensed a sphere of black flames in between in unhinged maw before biting down on it, launching a stream of fire forward, decimating a whole lot of water and causing more steam explosions as a result.

The hero was able to fly up to dodge that one, only to see as his adversary brought the end of his tail forward, revealing a rattle, which once shaken, emitted a sonorous sound similar to a death knell, even as Sonnenträger covered his ears, the sound seemed to go right through his bones and echo within his very mind, causing him to spontaneously spew blood from his mouth.

Eyes turning bloodshot as crimson tears began to flow, every pores upon him opened up, sweating blood en masse.

"Ah!" with a roar-like shout, he bursted with gold, shaking off the effects of the rattle, only to be immediately struck head-on by the undead's tail.

'This… Is definitely bad…'