Pestilence: Rise Of The Pure Undead-Chapter 641: Curse Of Youth

The two of them made for quite the pair, having taken over a living from here, Loimos naturally brimmed with soul energy like the locals, but the fact that his eyes were of a shade of purple that was not be found anywhere else and that his teeth were all pointy fangs, was certain to be rather striking.

On the other hand, Maliah, who looked so average that it was suspicious and did not possess the typical amount of soul energy people here were supposed to possess, made her rather striking as well.

The fact that they were together only heightened it all, moreover, only Loimos knew how to speak the language here, the blessing of comprehension that he had hijacked was showing its capabilities.

"What you need to know is that the livings of this realm have adopted a sort of class system depending on which of the five main ways of power you are proficient with, in simple terms, those that are proficient in the three that require 'manifestation' are considered more valuable than those who are proficient in the two that require 'binding', of course, even amongst the upper echelon, there are differing values put upon each of the three ways"

"Sound like pretty standard stuff to me, now you just need to tell me that there is no inherent disadvantage to any of the five and that they are basically the same for it to really be realistic"

Loimos and Maliah were just walking through large fields of green, their puffy, and stolen, clothes fluttering in the soft winds, even the air was infused with soul energy here, every blade of grass had nearly ten times the amount of soul energy coursing through them than people did in the main world.

The way people built here was a bit odd, not the architecture itself, but rather how dispersed they were from one another for no apparent reason, they had seen hundreds of different houses by now but not a single one had been near another.

It was like the people here were allergic to closeness, and it wasn't like there was an obvious cause to this phenomenon either, they hadn't spotted any large fields of agriculture, people only had small gardens, it was wonder how they reproduced if such a high level of separation was put between them all.

"The two ways of power considered lesser, are 'soul object binding' and 'soul beast binding', they are considered lesser due to requiring the one using them to bind their soul to something that already exists, as such, their talent is oftentimes considered to be about the same as that of the object or creature they chose to bind themselves to, and taking into account that most seem only capable of binding one thing, for their entire life, that choice is paramount to their potential success"

They both stopped as they reached the top of a small hill, the terrain going into a steep slope right before them, but that wasn't why they had halted their walk, in the distance, they could spot a true city, appearing circular in shape and with many buildings in the same style as the houses in the fields but only several times taller.

The central area was occupied by a place that dwarfed all the others in size however, not that tall in the grand scheme of things, but impressively wide coloured a bright red, with hints of dark green upon the wooden pillar and gold upon the rooftop.

The concentration of soul energy was even denser in the city, they didn't even need to get close to notice it.

"That would be the equivalent of a capital city, it bears no distinct name, merely serving as the base for all of this realm's living warriors, this is where they train, where they receive orders and where they travel to the other sub-realm from"

"What do they gain by going to the sub-realm governed by undeads?" asked the assassin, bringing her hand above her eyes to get a better look at the so-called capital.

"You see, the livings of this realm extend their lifespan and retain their youth by grinding the ambient soul energy into a liquid essence that they drink and bathe themselves in, this process consumes the soul energy completely, as such, if they kept going at it, the energy would eventually run dry" explained Loimos.

"However, this realm's undead seem to somehow release soul energy upon being destroyed, by defeating undeads, they restore the energy that they consume back, thus, it is strongly hammered that there is nothing more valuable than becoming strong enough to do just that"

The inhabitants of this realm barely needed to eat after all, they only ever ate either once in a while or to recover from injuries and physical strain as the food available here was naturally overflowing with soul energy as well.

Despite being long-lived and young for a long time anyways, they weren't able to stop themselves from constantly seeking out that essence to keep themselves into their prime, who knew when or how this entire thing came to be, but it should allow the two of them to gain entry into the sub-realm ruled by the undead.

Loimos could not access it himself, when one stepped through the realm's portal, they would always arrive in the living sub-realm, and there was no way to just move to the undead side without the knowledge or material necessary, both of which he lacked.

"By the way, you didn't speak of the three superior ways of power or that sixth one that is accessory or whatever" spoke Maliah, the subject had shifted at one point.

"Indeed" acknowledged the undead that was not currently very undead-looking.

"The three ways considered superior are 'soul object manifestation', 'soul beast manifestation' and 'soul depth manifestation', as you can probably guess by the names, the latter is considered the most powerful, followed by object manifestation and then beast manifestation"

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"They consider that creating an item or creature from your very own soul is greater than just binding it to something already existing, it is true that in this manner, what is created would suit the user in some way or another, but then, it is wholly dependent on the user's soul, if they are weak and unfit for what they are trying to achieve, the manifestation will probably be inferior"

At least, when binding, you could choose something without your own eyes and reasoning, when manifesting, it was already predetermined.

"They consider the beast variants lesser solely because it does not really strengthen the user themselves" he added.

"As for soul depth manifestation, I haven't gotten to learn anything precise about it yet" he then admitted, those capable of using this way of power seemed incredibly rare and were all said to be holed up in the city's grand building.

"Huh… I probably can't learn or use any of them, but what about you?" Maliah put her hand on Loimos's shoulder, nearly recoiling when she felt warmth instead of coldness.

"Naturally, all of them" he stated.

"As expected of mister champion… Now, how do we even get inside of there? Surely they won't let anyone in, especially not a bunch like us"

"They value strength above else, if we show that we could defeat lots of undeads despite just showing up, they will let us in"

"Right, but how do we explain our peculiarities?"

"We do not"

"That settles that, what will we introduce ourselves as? If we stay enigmatic, they'll surely be a bit suspicious…" Maliah tilted her head in thought "...We look nothing alike, so brother and sister is a no-go… I am not that good at coming up with lies, I usually just sneak past or murder everyone… Can I not do that?"

Loimos responded negatively and just led the way toward the gates, seemed like he knew what to do.