Pestilence: Rise Of The Pure Undead-Chapter 1212: Rank-And-File

Griar walked and walked for a long time. He had to return to the Peaceful Realm several times during his journey, being unwilling to just disappear for a long period of time. Thus, he never vanished for more than ten hours and would always wait multiple days before traversing back to the other realm.

A man needed to be present for his family, after all–And Griar had an especially large family, not just the one he had started with Flor…

If one only counted the time spent inside this other realm, Griar would have taken about a week to find himself out of the wasteland, stepping into what looked like the remnants of an agricultural field. The pumpkins that had seemingly been growing here had been left behind, not rotting in place.

The Black Moss did not seem to have reached this far just yet, or at least not too greatly… Though that assumption was based on the idea that if it were here, it would have infested the pumpkins.

From what Griar understood, the Black Moss could basically grow anywhere, but it seemed to do especially well when inside a living host. It seemed desperate to keep its hosts alive and was apparently incapable of operating a corpse. If Griar had to guess, it needed to take over a living brain and use it to control the body.

The moss alone was not enough to animate a thrall. It needed to take over the functions of a brain that was still operational…

At least, that's what Griar believed after facing many thralls during his travel. He did not understand why the Black Moss seemed so preoccupied with prowling the wastelands in particular. It might be seeking survivors, but many would assume that hunting for survivors would be easier by simply leaving the wasteland and finding people elsewhere.

Everyone here was hiding underground and terrified about the idea of setting even a toe outside. It made for a terrible hunting ground, so either the Black Moss was a bit silly, or there was simply a reason Griar was missing, or had no way of knowing about.

Regardless of the truth, he was now outside of the wastelands, approaching a house situated amidst the abandoned fields of pumpkins.

Griar expected to find the house empty as well, but it was actually loud–Loud with sounds he did not like one bit. Sneakily extending his mana sense into the house, he got a good feel of the layout and, more importantly, found the culprits with their victims.

It seemed like members of the Spearhead caste had decided to turn this abandoned place into a funhouse for them to bring livings to… At the moment, they seemed to have a very specific idea of what they wanted to do, and unfortunately, Griar was too late to stop it from happening altogether.

He took a deep breath, exhaling out of his nose.

'So… You said that these guys can enter the realm because they have unsavoury traits that are supposed to be found in livings or humans?'

"Yes" the snake's voice resounded inside his head.

'I am thankful that I never had to deal with anyone like this, then… My life truly is blessed. This is exactly why I need to do something. I am blessed, but these poor people were cursed instead'

Griar could feel it clearly, the undeads inside that farm weren't on the same level as the three undeads he had encountered inside this realm.

The ghoul, the vampire, and the zombie had all been way stronger than this. The first and third had seemingly been simple elites, while the second had seemed like something above that… These? They were probably rank-and-file.

Competent soldiers who would put to shame elite divisions of typical living nations–But still the lowest-ranked soldiers part of the Spearhead caste. To Griar, they should be simple to defeat… He merely needed to take them out and separate them before they could actually leverage their numbers.

He knew that if he gave them the slightest occasion to strike, they would take it.

Thus, Griar was planning on giving them no chance to do any of that. With a burst of wind magic, he launched himself upward, blasting through a wall of the higher floor. He continued his motion, arriving before two undead soldiers who were definitely way too quick to react despite supposedly being nothing more than grunts, but their movement speed could not keep up.

Griar slammed his palms into them, inflicting close-quarters spells that tore them to shreds in the blink of an eye. This action caused the other undeads nearby, or in other rooms, to immediately perk to attention, but Griar was already on the move.

He leapt through a window and used a spell to once again propel himself right through a wall. He tackled right into one of the undead soldiers with such force that their chest was blown apart, sending their limbs flying all over the place.

Griar paid no heed to this and continued madly dashing through the farm, seemingly without any regard for his surroundings as he blasted through walls, ceiling, floor, and furniture alike. The simple materials of this realm were fragile to him.

He made good use of his superior speed to take the undeads out one by one, not letting the foot soldiers any chance to gather together.

Within just a few moments, and by expanding an ample amount of mana, Griar had cleared the entire farm of its undead infestation. He rubbed his thumb against his cheek, seeing blood on it.

One of them had actually managed to slash him. It was only a shallow cut, but it was nonetheless worrying that a mere rank-and-file soldier was capable of even knowing which direction Griar was coming from.

He had been correct in not allowing them to band together. If they were able to coordinate, they could have dealt way more damage than this. Dealing with undeads truly was a pain. You could never relax around them.

By all means, Griar was way stronger than all of them individually, but undeads had advantages that could allow even a mere soldier to land a blow on an enemy far stronger than themselves.

Nonetheless, Griar had won with only a scratch. The undeads had all been torn to pieces, giving them no chance to put themselves back together.

The living soon approached the people the undeads had been busy tormenting in most abject manners. With Fallael's assistance, he spoke to them. Naturally, they were still very much terrified as Griar had moved at speeds they couldn't even perceive.

From their point of view, the farm had suddenly started to explode in places as their captors were turned into clouds of mist out of nowhere–Only to lead to a tall man showing up out of nowhere.

Their torture at the ends of the corpses may be over, but from their perspective, it did not seem like they were going to see a good ending.

"Hello. I am Griar, nice to meet you all. You can leave now, I suppose. Any idea where to find people in charge of… You know, fighting these corpses and that dark moss thing?"

He asked the captives, who only stared at him wide-eyed.

One of them raised her trembling arm, which was completely covered in deep bruises, she pointed as though she had memorised the exact direction to do if she ever managed to get out of here alive.

"This way? Alright then… I can accompany you part of the way. Are there many of those guys around the area?"

Another captive spoke up.

"I… I think they were the only ones… They… They are scouts, I think…"

These undeads of the Spearhead caste had probably come here as scouts precisely because it meant that they could get some 'fun' all to themselves without having to share, which meant that they could have more fun than when stuck amidst a larger group.

Regardless of this mindset, they had seemingly been quite effective to be able to snatch so many people and drag them here–More importantly, however, their defeat would not stay a secret for long… In fact, it might have been known to the other undeads the moment the first two soldiers were dispatched.

Thus, Griar hurried up the captives. He couldn't use healing magic on them due to their low mana resistance, but he could use spells that wouldn't inject mana into their bodies to lift them if they had been hurt too badly.

This way, Griar led the group of survivors in the direction that had been pointed, doing his best to get out of the area in case a powerful undead was on their way to check on what had happened here.

Griar had plenty of mana, but he would prefer to have his reserves full if he was going to have to fight a difficult battle.

Thankfully, it didn't seem like any higher-ranked undead decided to show up.

At least, for now.