Pestilence: Rise Of The Pure Undead-Chapter 1215: Earning One’s Name

Capítulo 1215: Earning One’s Name

Griar was backed against the wall of a farm. He swiftly ducked, avoiding a high kick that blasted through the fragile wood, but the undead’s control over his own body allowed him to nullify his strike’s momentum and immediately follow a kick that landed against Griar’s forearm.

The living was nearly pushed against the ground–But he used a wind spell to keep himself hitting the dirt, pushing himself to his feet, just in time to block another kick. He felt the bones on his forearm groan in protest as they strained to remain intact.

This confrontation was an elevating crescendo in intensity. Obviously, the vampire was purposefully playing with his food. As was typical of members of the Spearhead caste, Til’Tilim was after something he personally desired by fighting Griar.

The Nosferatu vampire was after a fulfilling confrontation, and faced with an actually powerful adversary after so long of dealing with feeble livings he would more closely refer to as ‘toys’ rather than ‘enemies’. The inhabitants of this realm had no energies within themselves. They had mundane bodies. They had no actual way of powers. They only had what they referred to as ‘technology’. They had a machine, they had weapons, they ruled and could manipulate the world around them–That was merely limited to their small, pitiful realm, however.

They were a big fish in a humorously small pond in the face of the Undead Empire. Til’Tilim would bet that even a fraction of Loimos’s presence would be enough to wipe out all life from this realm.

Alas, this realm had its own defences, and the Pure Undead was barred from entry. Only the likes of the vampire could gain entry thanks to their abhorrent, twisted personalities, or their interests in things more closely associated with livings than undeads for the most part… In general, however, the Spearhead caste was united by their abnormal levels of cruelty and enjoyment for the infliction of pain upon livings.

Most of them would go out of their way to torture, brutalise, or otherwise slaughter livings in the most violent manner possible. If anything, the Spearhead caste was made up of undeads who were like what most livings believing all undeads to be like–Corpses driven and animated by sheer hatred for anything and everything that dares to be alive in their presence.

The members of the Spearhead caste were worse than this, though… They were very deliberate and thoughtful about how they did things. There weren’t nearly as many irrational thoughts within them as one might assume at a glance…

Griar pushed aside, he replied by casting a flurry of wind blades as the undead, keeping the vampire from stepping forward for a brief second, allowing the living to reposition himself and take a step back.

It was a rough fight for him so far. He was bleeding from his nose, and one of several of his teeth had been dislodged. The cadaver kept on adding to the pressure, proving nearly impossible to harm consistently so far.

‘I need to go all out… Screw conserving mana, if I don’t use my magic to its maximum capacity, I’ll lose to this guy anyway’

Til’Tilim was simply too much of a monster. He was resistant to physical blows, as well as magical blows. He just took every hit while laughing, purposefully staying in the way of any ranged attacks, just to demonstrate how little they actually threatened him.

With the edge of his hand, he would slice right through flying sickles of wind, with his fists, he would shatter barriers and bursts of wind–The vampire knew that the attacks, even if they landed squarely, would only result in a minor flesh wound, which would disappear in the blink of an eye thanks to his natural regenerating capabilities.

If Griar actually intended to win this confrontation, then he would have to let loose and use all of the mana he wanted. Therefore, he pushed himself to his limits, activated a full-body augmentation spell, layering beneath several more spells of the same category, but which were localised instead.

They worked in unison to provide the greatest boost possible. Leveraging his high amount of mana reserves, Griar went for something he had not quite perfected just yet–On top of the spells, he augmented himself with raw wind mana, applying a Vertex to himself as well.

He was not done there, however. This time, on top of pushing the raw mana strengthening just the maximum output and the maximum limit of energy he would fit, he also condensed it all…

This turned the Vertex into an Apex.

Apex-level augmentation was not something he would qualify himself as skilled in just yet, but he could use it by supplying more mana than normal to it. Making up for his weak points by merely throwing more energy at the problem. This was a solution that often worked when it came to magic.

The instant he completed this, which only took a moment, he lunged for the undead, who did the same. Til’Tilim’s fanged rows of ferocious teeth were twisted into a grin as he sensed the dire power emanating from the living, and immediately wanted to test just how good this power increase truly was.

Like a madman, the vampire clenched his right hand into a fist and punched directly at the human’s own fist. The knuckles of the two men collided, and for a moment, it seemed like they were evenly matched.

Griar’s arm produced a worrying series of noises, cracking, running up his bones as the two combatants stayed locked into place, their strikes continuing to push against one another as the force of the impact manifested.

“Ah… Finally!”

The vampire rejoiced as Griar’s shattering arm blasted through his own, blowing the undead’s hand and forearm apart, as the two combatants moved past each other as the momentum of the blow carried them forward.

Griar healed his damaged arm with a spell, whilst Til’Tilim merely let his natural regeneration do its work.

“That was pretty good… But are you really just going to punch me? I will regenerate no matter what you do. For reference, I let myself be squashed completely once, and I was still able to regenerate within a minute by focusing”

“Don’t worry about that. I’ll just crush you until you finally realise what being a corpse is actually about”

“Brave words from someone who can tire!”

Griar and Til’Tilim lunged forth at one another again, exchanging blow after blow, fists impacting one another for the most ârt, only a few stray hits managing to find their way elsewhere.

The vampire had his lower jaw knocked off, and Griar felt his ribs splinter under a direct hit, but neither budged from where they stood. The living had completely abandoned using any spells other than the augmentative ones currently active. Thus, he made a decision.

He placed a condition upon himself, as he learned to do from the memories, restricting himself to not using any further spells than what he currently had active right now for the rest of this fight.

The strength boost this granted wasn’t big, but it was noticeable nonetheless.

As Griar was struck right across the chin, he felt his brain being tumbled around inside his skull. He maintained his posture, but the strike got him thinking…

What was so different between the act of placing conditions upon oneself and battle arts? The former was considered a sort of add-on, something many dabbled in, even if unconsciously, while the latter was said to be a full-on way of power… Deep down, however, they were clearly very alike.

Battle arts were basically conditions stitched together. Requirements that needed to be fulfilled in order to achieve a desired outcome…

‘Why am I thinking about this right now?’ he wondered.

The world felt like it was moving in slow motion… And then something clicked. Griar felt like he had grasped something. Something subconscious.

He had been seeking to manifest his own battle art, but in truth, there had been one that he had always been interested in. From an early age, he had been told stories of the past by his mother.

Most were about Milo, his father. A man he had few memories of, but whose presence remained ever-present even at his current age.

However… Griar remembered another person from these stories quite well. For the simple reason that the one featured within them was the man whose name he shared.

Griar, a friend of his parents who had sacrificed himself in a bitter fight against Loimos, a powerful swordsman with a very particular and powerful battle art…

For the briefest of instants, Griar was able to see a glaring flaw in the undead’s posture. A flow he would have never been able to exploit normally.

Right now, it was the vampire’s greatest mistake.

Griar surged with a blue glow, forming a circle around him which encompassed his opponent as well.

The vampire showed a clear expression of surprise.

In the blink of an eye, his stack faded away, and the pumping of his rotten blood stopped. He found himself suddenly weakened.

Griar grabbed the corpse’s forearm, squeezing it to the point of breaking before landing a direct hit to the corpse’s solar plexus, chaining the heavy blow into a barrage of punches that shattered bones and crushed flesh, rendering the vampire unable to fight back as his neutral regeneration was also completely ceased.

The final blow crushed the corpse’s skull against the ground.

Unable to regenerate and having suffered catastrophic damage, his remains turned to blood, seemingly seeping into the ground as the undead’s presence faded away.

Griar fell to his knees, the strain of the fight hitting him all at once.

“Fallael… Let’s… Let’s go home for now…”

“Certainly”

The serpent’s eyes focused on the spot the undead had been in moments prior.

‘Extraordinary power’