The bright explosion of mana sent one piece of shrapnel right into the undead's skull, and against his body, right as this happened, the spells of every single spell caster present hit true upon his back, throwing him forward, right into the way of Milo, who was already back to his feet, concentrating his energy onto his fist, he pinned Loimos with a powerful strike, the rot weaved into armour did not yield, barely bending inward under the strength of the blow, golden mana tried to seep into the undead, but was quickly pushed away, the very mana seemingly afraid of being in contact with the undead.
Digging his fingers into the soil, Loimos pulled himself away, getting back to his feet, blocking a series of attacks from Milo, and as he struck back, Milo had to augment his body as a whole, thus making his attacks weaker than the first one, even if potent enough to budge the skeleton, they dealt no real damage, the chips piling upon Loimos were mostly due to Helena, the elemental champions and the talent holder in magic, Merno.
Loimos was standing amidst ruined buildings of Millipolo, not far from the flat lands created during the clash of world trees, the churches and cathedrals here were feeble and easily destroyed, but it was upon those unsteady structures that many of the livings were perched, casting spells in peace as the undead could not reach them, occupied by the close-quarter fighters.
Each and everyone of them, he scrutinised, he analysed, he knew them all, their names, their aspirations, their skills, their links to one another, Loimos had done his studies on the enemy, as per Luminary Nitok had guessed, after his show of strength, after his triumph of Thanatok Ynigós, trumping all of his strength and power, Tamaris had dispatched a force to take him out, Loimos was the most dangerous of all undeads in their eyes, and this might be true on the individual level, based on his capacity to scorch the lands with death.
But judging death based on individuals was a foolish affair, this was better done upon the living, fractured and at odds with itself, only haphazardly strung up together when the knife that was oblivion was brought directly against their throats.
Death, and the undead however, were one and whole, all under the rule of King Nitok, Prince Of Death, only the unworthy that lived in death, and yet, they were but a plague brought by the living.
Life was ill with its own existence, death was ill with life's.
Such thoughts and philosophy was not for Loimos however, it was better left to the scholars prowling the king's library, those who were not as blank as he was.
He was forming a map, even without a mind or soul, what was going on in his head was nothing short of mind boggling, without a problem, he took note of every living's position, what they were doing, of their facial expressions, of what they were currently doing, and what they were most likely going to do after that, he brought an art into motion, without his way to cheat and abuse the system, he had to employ the ways a regular person would have to.
Even his great talent with the arts had been hit pretty hard, even if it was supposedly unrelated to his death and such, so he put an art in place that required for his predictions about the future actions of each of the livings to be true.
Their actions as they reacted to his next move, that was, they had their guesses, but were they really certain that Loimos was completely deprived of his powers? The undead was willing to bet that they did not.
Right in front of him, Milo was moving back in for another exchange of blows.
To the right, Helena was floating in the air, preparing multiple spells at once, presumably to prevent Loimos from knowing what was coming next, that girl was ready to propel herself right at him if he found a way to wiggle out of the grasp of the fighters.
Loimos knew exactly why.
Amongst the people that approached Loimos, there was Milo, Griar, Msir, Hoffnu and Menhirel, the shieldwoman was out of combat at the moment, her shredded arm necessitating attention to heal properly.
They were mostly relaying themselves one-by-one, forcing Loimos to pay attention to them first and foremost, that formation was easy to break, raising up both arms, pointing one finger at two different people, reciting words in death tongue, he aimed his index directly at Minli and Helena.
The mana in the air pulsed for a split moment, nothing dreadful, but that immediately put everyone else on guard, naturally expecting something else to come into play, Milo moved to shield Helena, whilst the wounded Menhirel got in front of the talented healer, Griar was ready to cancel Loimos's finely crafted art.
The undead also knew all about the young noble's art, Loimos allowed his art to be cancelled, which was practical since he had also put into place drawbacks once it was over, but by having it forcefully terminated, this was all gone, and he still had accomplished what he wanted, which was to move Milo and catch everybody's attention, get them to just look of to the two he was pointing at for a split second.
Rushing toward Griar, the undead passed by him, pushing him in the direction of the champion of sword, leaving only Hoffnu in the way, getting closer to the ruin the other champions were standing upon, he engaged the girl talented with the sword.
Her talent manifested in great power and finesse when handling this sort of weapon, as demonstrated earlier, it carried a certain pulse of power beyond the target of blade, she swung at him, blocking with his left wrist, the subsequent pulse went right toward the fragile remnants.
"Well shi-" realising that she had been duped like a little fool, she attempted to pull back as the ruin and her allies came falling down, Loimos was quick to slither his arm used to block and grab her wrist, ever-so gently, pulling her in for the top of her head to meet with his helm, being too short to receive an actual headbutt from him.
Without a care about what was happening around him, as rocks fell to dust upon striking his body, Loimos handled the girl like she was a mannequin, raising her above his head and kneeling down, the undead's knee waiting for the spine of a living to come test its durability.
The talent holder was not an easy prey to keep a hold upon, even if relatively easy to overpower, she was still powerful, her heel and free arm battering against his head, the clang of iron drowned out by the shattering of stone all around.
Without much time to let her breath, he brought Hoffnu's back down on his knee.