Pestilence: Rise Of The Pure Undead
Chapter 980 - 980: Slip-Up

With a stumble, Zilania moved back, narrowly avoiding getting her arm chopped off, breathing heavily after several hours of fighting, glancing down, she had not been doing too great, missing a few fingers on her right hand, covered in blood from several dozens of slashes she had endured, none of them were very deep, but the stone scimitars inflicted most horrible injuries against anything their edge landed upon.

So although not too severe, her wounds still bled greatly, though, as an Emerald Herald, her ability to heal and alleviate wounds was incredible, so despite appearances, she was not doing too bad, she had merely chosen to only heal the bare minimum required to converse as much of her emerald light as was possible in case Ir'Houwl pulled something dangerous, especially with that red sand of hers.

The minor lord's innate ability was frightening, each grain of sand that she manifested could absorb dire amounts of the herald's light, and seemingly, light in general as well, not to mention that Ir'Houwl was an incredible warrior with her blades, many times, when Zilania would escape for blasts of sand, she would nearly end up in several pieces from being caught by the undead.

That slight stumble for the herald was not calculated at all, and Ir'Houwl seized the opportunity instantly, manifesting sand beneath her feet, she slides forward swiftly, surging forth like a cannonball, the herald raised up a defence, but the undead must have expected it from the beginning, and was never aiming for a lethal strike, bending her knees whilst sliding, Ir'Houwl took a slight deviation to the side at the last moment, and with with a single swing, sliced right through Zilania's thigh and femur whilst sliding right past the living.

Leaving some red sand manifest from the side of the blade right up against the wound, draining her of the emerald light within her in quick bursts followed by pauses, a little new trick Ir'Houwl had picked up, often times, even though her mastery of the red sands had increased dramatically, powerful enemies were very adept at preventing things from being drained from them unless they were completely submerged in the sand, or already greatly weakened.

Not to mention that more powerful foes typically had so much inner energy that absorbing it all would take several continuous minutes even if they didn't resist, rather than bash her skull against this problem by constantly trying to improve the rate of absorption, the minor lord had come up with this simple, yet effective method, basically, since the red sand was an innate ability, it was very much like a muscle to her, so controlling by having it only drain at certain intervals, she could sort of 'prepare' it to drain a whole lot in a single go for a short burst.

Using this little technique, Ir'Houwl had learned to disrupt the inner energy flow of those targeted, so whilst the actual rate of absorption was pitifully low this way, the target was still rendered unable to use their energy-based capabilities, at least for a few moments as they had to adjust with the tempo of the red sands.

With a leg freshly chopped off, and the grains moving like little vermins in the wound, Zilania was indeed in a poor state to quickly adapt, and within moments, tendrils of red sand wrapped around her body.

Moving up to her immobilised foe, Ir'Houwl was actually feeling a bit embarrassed right now, Lord Dracula had explicitly stated that the minor lords were supposed to do their best to get the emerald folks to have a better image of the undead empire, which naturally implied avoiding going all out and destroying things, as well as avoid slaughtering the pillars of their civilisations, so the minor lords were supposed to fight casually, and in turn, the heralds and priestesses would not go all out either, so regardless of who should have the upperhand, the fight would not go very far unless one of the sides decided that they had to go all-out.

Naturally, the undeads were resilient, so they could allow themselves to be hit by powerful attacks if necessary, but the livings had their lives on the line, so they were more likely to go all-out to protect themselves, before, when Alkayne fought Irlitimiz, the priestess had not used her full power despite the situation looking rather dire, so clearly, the livings were also unwilling to use everything they, presumably not wishing for the undeads to do the same.

It was a sort of mutual understanding.

As long as one side decided to not show their cards, the other would do the same, that was how fights between powerful beings typically went.

And by bringing less experienced soldiers with her, Ir'Houwl ensured that the warriors of the Emerald Realm would be able to hold on too.

Unfortunately, as much as she would like to be, she was not a perfect undead like General Loimos, and she had gotten a bit too excited about the fight for a moment, using a combination of moves that she had not shown to the herald before to swiftly take the living down before she could even do anything about it.

Normally, that would be deserving of a pat on the back, defeating a powerful enemy without even letting them demonstrate their power was usually a good thing, but not here, the plan had been to just fight casually until the sun was gone, show power, but not inflict too much damage so as to not enfeeble the morale of the emerald folks, show some honour and mercy to let their esteem of the empire go up bit by bit until they were ultimately defeated by a force that they had grown to at least begrudgingly respect.

In short, it was a bit too early to kill an Emerald Herald, but Ir'Houwl couldn't exactly spare her now without making it obvious that the undeads were deliberately holding back, that would put the risk of the livings figuring out that these fights were actually a wooing campaign.

'The sun should set soon, shouldn't it? Maybe I can just drag it down just long enough…' Ir'Houwl was in a tough spot, she had been chosen to go after Alkayne because he and she were meant to be amongst the ones supposed to have the most restraint amidst the minor lords, so it was quite the blunder on her part to get a bit too invested in the fighting…

Ir'Houwl slowly rose up, doing her best acting job to not make it look like she was dragging her feet… Then, she pushed her two scimitars against one another, fusing them into one large, two-handed scimitar like she had done a few times in the past, really trying to give the impression of an executioner about to finish off her prey.

And then, she slowly raised her blade aloft, secretly hoping that the end of the battle was coming.