Floating upon the water, the corpse of a massive whale-like creature, its back covered in white growths serving as natural armour, it laid riddled with harpoons, amidst cracked pieces of ice and its own blood, circling the fresh, still twitching carcass were multiple massive ships, cleaving through the dense ice with ease, miasma rising from it, water was syphoned and instead, crimson blood was expelled instead.
After coming upon a frozen part of the ocean, it was decided to make it into one of frozen blood instead, as such, an agile knight jumped out of the ship, the design of his armour different from the usual, the helm in particular was made to resemble a swordfish, marking this particular undead as a beast knight, one of the many castes that had arisen under the command of Loimos.
Diving into the freezing waters, unsheathing a knife, carving his way to the monster's heart, indeed, this particular bone needle granted by the champion was different from the usual who was meant to pierce the brain to show its best effect thanks to a condition and art cast upon them.
No, this one was to turn a target into a vampire specifically, and it had to be precise, this future sea of blood in particular was not supposed to be made from the blood of any of the lords, so the putrid skeleton had to find a very specific dosage to create unaffiliated vampires, akin to atypical naturally occurring vampires, which would typically pledge allegiance to a lord and be granted lord blood anyways, the creatures of this region had to be without any clear lord influence, that was what had been decided for this place.
The knight planted the needle and quickly made his way out of here, the monster beginning to move, awakening once again as an undead, holding onto the edge of the ship, he watched as the whale creature swam down to the depths, it was slow work, the further they went from Viridis, the less death held influence, and it seemed like death growing in power suddenly had prompted life to empower as well, miasma produced from the ships was not remaining for long, and so was everything else touched by death introduced with the support of the great miasma sourced from the holy land.
But Loimos was resourceful, and had equipped his vanguard with equipment to spread death's influence in spite of this, water was taken and replaced instead of being immediately changed, rather than melding life and death together, he took away life and put death in its place.
The blood used was also not carrying death force, instead made to be incredibly thick and non-dissolvable, rather challenging the matter that was water instead of life directly, once the frozen area was completely changed, it was then that death would strike, leading battles against the environment itself, claiming territory and victories day after day, month after month, year after year, indeed, the champion led his repressive and murderous campaigns, his destructive and violent crusades without rest.
To the one that was the purest of all undeads, a single second and a millenia might as well be the same thing, but in the grand scheme of thing, being well aware of the passing of time was required, it was only ignored for the opposition he faced off against was no real army that could challenge him or his troops, mere tribes, minuscule kingdoms at best, microcosms unaware of the world's vastness.
He prepared the terrain for the terraformers and architects that progressed alongside the royal miasma, but the further they spread out, the more surface area there was to cover, by simple virtue that the circle grew larger, but also because the oceans grew deeper, and filled with beasts and monsters much stronger, calling for more careful expeditions, and thus, even slower progress.
At this very instant, Loimos was working upon another one of his crystals, his soldiers working on their own without their great leader, his Loimoisian knights commanding the troops.
Even after all this time, Elenantiel had yet to use the crystal, rather than breaking it directly, a single crack was put upon it, the death force slowly absorbed little by little, communing with it and such, today, she was planning on finalising the whole process and as such, she had called for Loimos to overlook the process, the giant-blooded woman had definitely lost her colours, certainly much paler, but not quite undead just yet.
Apart from that, she was not showing other signs, which was what the skeleton had intended, taking into account her ability and what he was trying to achieve, her physical form was not supposed to be compromised, and certain biological aspects of living beings had to be replaced, normally lost upon death, the crystal was engineered to inflict a specific undeath upon the one using it, usually, Loimos would let the process make its normal course without applying his own spices into it, but obviously, he had already devised multiple crystals of congealed festering death to achieve particular results, which could actually influence a being that was already dead.
Allowing the members of his forces aiming in a certain direction to reach it.
The bare bone concept was already well understood by Loimos, but the application here was on a different level, not simply trying to make Elenantiel a special undead, but attempting to introduce the concept of reproduction to death itself, now was the moment of truth.
As the crystal finally shattered, the pinkish glow held in its center vanishing as it flew directly into Elenantiel, its bright glow returning after an instant, exploding outward, true dark and true paleness surrounded Loimos, as per usual, he showed no reaction to anything happening around him, his hand was lifted of its own, no, amidst the dark and pale, there was a being sharing the same colours, holding his hand in its own.
A few words were spoken, and then, he was back to where he had been standing, the giantess looking pretty pleased with herself, trying to shake Loimos by the shoulders, but utterly failing to budge him a milimeter.
"Incredible, I already feel no more back pain! Is this the bliss of death I have been hearing about?" interlocking her fingers and stretching both arms.
The putrid skeleton did not respond to this question.
"You can go ahead now, it was a success, I have been told" indeed, Loimos didn't have to check to know that he had been successful in this endeavour, although, it was not really due to his own efforts, but rather thanks to his connection to death.
His idea had simply been approved.