Pestilence: Rise Of The Pure Undead
Chapter 976 - 976: Blow For Blow

As Sonnenträger stopped his momentum after being flung back by a tail strike, he coughed up blood alongside some pinkish foam, the blow had hit straight in the chest, shattering several ribs and sending the shards right through his lungs, thankfully, it was not as severe as it looked, as a being of gold, the lungs were more-so vestigial organs from when he was a living human.

Still, the attack he endured just now was powerful enough and charged with death force, the simple fact that the damage remained for more than a second was proof enough that it had been effective despite being nothing more than a strike from the undead.

Loimos may be capable of targeting the physical and non-physical with his attacks, but at the end of the day, it was still just a regular attack like a punch that Sonnenträger had just taken, it should have had no business dealing so much damage.

'Well… If I can't figure out how he's become so much more powerful all of a sudden, then I guess I'll just have to use more brute force…'

The black serpent was already slithering through the air to get to him, controlling air currents to move around, before, the skeleton's wide array of attacks was only a mild inconvenience to the golden hero, as to truly inflict damage, he had needed time and preparations, now however, it had become an enormous problem since it seemed like every trick the undead could employ were now many times more powerful, as a result, Sonnenträger had no other choice but to further exert himself, gold enveloped his form as he surged forth toward the pure undead.

Picking up speed as his entire body became unseen, utterly shrouded by a golden brilliance, which soon began to spin, further increasing in speed, thanks to the sudden acceleration, he managed to crash into the snake's snout, the impact followed by a wave of gold that shattered many dark scales whilst pushing the cataclysmic beast back.

Gold rolled across the serpent, but quickly seemed to lose in strength, the scales shining with a dark luster, seamlessly, Loimos continued the movement that his head had been pushed into by the strike, and swung his head like battle axe at the hero, who narrowly avoided it, preparing to deliver another blow, only for the side of the serpent's body to rupture open, a giant bony hand bursting out and seizing hold of Sonnenträger, attempting to squeeze him into paste.

But he resisted and prepared to blast the limb apart, but the instant Loimos saw that squashing him like a bug would not work, he threw his opponent down into the waters, pulling the extra limbs back into body, and flew upward, higher in the sky as his scales seemed to shift position.

A melodious sound escaped his maw as he released miasma from his body, at the same time, clouds gathered and a downpour began, inky black drops crashing down.

The memory lacked many important details about the area that was under control of the undead empire, right now, Loimos was fixing what the memory had failed to reproduce, sending miasma everywhere and turning the ocean into a body of pure, aciding black blood.

As the golden man bursted back out once again, the rain was not potent enough to eat through him, but the sheer amount of drops would definitely stack up eventually, he was beginning to go through his reserves of gold much quicker now, facing against an undead, it was only natural not to overexert oneself as the corpses would always win contest in stamina, but he had no other choice but to ramp up the pressure to keep up.

Flashes of gold tore through the dark clouds, illuminating vast reaches of the memory as a fight of absurd scales took place, a puny, human-sized hero facing off against a giant, flying serpent, going blow for blow.

Golden Glows followed one another in quick succession, causing scales to turn to nothingness, Sonnenträger assumed that the scales were, in fact, the main reason why Loimos was so resilient against the gold right now, so he attempted to strike an area that was momentarily scaleless, but he was instantly reminded of why he had not been staying in the same area for too long.

The counterattacks of the skeleton were always devastatingly sharp and precise, the rattle was brought down on the hero, dealing what would have been an instantly lethal blow to most, but Sonnenträger's head merely healed itself with gold, reconstructing his brain and skull within moments, but those moments were plenty of time for the undead to act.

Once again, the rattle was shaken and a death knell resounded, only that this time, Loimos did not only do it once he did it three times in a row, each time, something different happened to the golden hero.

The first did the same as before, causing blood to erupt from every pore, the second caused his organs to burst, and the third seemed to make his nerves erupt in extreme agony.

Sonnenträger gritted his teeth, forcefully raising his arms to defend as the undead's tail came striking immediately after, breaking bones as he focused on undoing the effects of the death knells, which he could accomplish quickly, but anything short of not instantaneous was just giving Loimos time to prepare another attack.

Before the hero could do anything, an incredible roar rushed out of Loimos's maw, this was several times louder than the sum of every being Loimos had ever slain and decayed screaming at full strength together, the golden one's very soul, mind and spirit shook like never before, it was a though cracks were forming upon those ethereal concepts, not to mention the immediate damage done to his physical body, for one, he was instantly rendered deaf, his ears drums destroyed, and even his eyes bursted from the sheer pressure.

Loimos followed the aggressive roar with another, this time directed at the sky, and its aim was instead to further empower himself before he lowered his head and spat out acidic venom directly at the stunned Sonnenträger, his flesh melting away and revealing a skeleton of pure gold.

From the empty sockets, a strong radiance emerged, which slammed into the dark serpent blasting all of the scales on the right side of its face and pushing the creature away as Sonnenträger reconstructed his body from only his skeleton.

With a sudden burst of gold that consumed more of his energy than ever, he homed in right onto the snakes head, slamming down with Golden Glow, focusing his gold into both fists, channeling far more energy than before here too, he repeatedly pushed down upon Loimos's head, sending waves of gold that eradicated the dark clouds and dark rain.

The scales were destroyed, but Loimos did not so easily allow him to strike what lay beneath the protective layer, unable to simply regrow the scales quickly enough however, he instead replaced them using scales from his body, ensuring that each strike from the hero was met with the scales.

Sonnenträger did not wish to play this game however, joining both hands together, and channelling an even more absurd amount of gold into the next attack, landing a Golden Glow that drowned everyone in bright radiance for the several next seconds…