Whilst the minor lords were each busy with their own missions, some managing to achieve true control over the realms they were to conquer, some getting close to it, and some constantly discovering a new challenge awaiting them after overcoming the previous one, all of the information concerning the conquest of the realms and the mission into Verdoyante was relayed back to the empire and most precisely, to the current leaders of the vanguard, Ourlst and Horhir, the hands of Loimos busy at work in the absence of their general.
Unlike with the rest, they had no news concerning him, the realm he had gone into did not allow for an undead to easily go back and forth.
They would only hear of the empire's glorious champion once he was done with this realm…
"So, that's the one? Looks the same as the rest" an unclear amount of time ago, an undead and living stood before the pulsating orb of light that signified the entrance to a realm, both clad in black.
"That is indeed the way into the realm I spoke of, within, undeath as we know it does not truly exist, replaced by a variant instead, in fact, life as well is different from the one we commonly encounter here, this realm operates on a different ground"
"Your habit of being detailed only makes your explanations harder to understand, you know?"
"For the average living, yes"
"Heh… And I'll be fine in there?"
"Of course, your special constitution and traits will allow you to adapt swiftly, although, I predict that you will lose access to your armoury and items, so do be wary on arrival"
"I see, I can understand that undeads of another kind could exist inside as they are close enough, but aren't you like… Death incarnate? Won't that be different for you?"
"Do not worry for me, I have already sent a clump of rot inside and determined that I simply needed to attach myself to a native inhabitant, unfortunately, we will surely land into areas controlled by living, so I will have to take over one of them"
"And that's bad, because…?"
"I will not be able to detach myself and hop between vessels, I would need to return to a portion of me here and reenter, with no guarantee of landing in the same area, and by using a living as my body, I will be forced to limit my abilities even further than if I had gotten my hands on a native undead"
"But won't you just turn your vessel into an undead anyways?"
"Negative, I will have to pilot a living brimming with life force the entire time"
"Welp, I am starting to believe that it would have been better to let your soldiers do the job since they aren't as limited as you are, right?"
"They would indeed be able to operate with their true bodies and with minimal restrictions, that is true, however, the strength of the people within is too high"
"Ooh, if these people are too strong for your troops, then won't that mean that we'll have some trouble too?"
"Then what are we waiting for?!"
"Waiting for me to explain to you the things you need to know about this realm"
The living listened attentively despite looking as bored as was possible the entire time, after all, both of their abilities and strength would be suppressed to a certain extent, and if the undead deemed the threat within too much for even the minor lords to handle, then they would be stuck in there for a whole while.
'...And a whole lot of fun!'
Once the lengthy, overtly detailed and incredibly monotone explanations concluded, the two grabbed one another's hand, to ensure that they weren't sent to wildly different areas, as this realm also had the quirk of not having a fixed apparition point for those that invaded its premises.
"One would definitely get even paler if she learned that I held your hand-" they stepped in, the two of them manifested surrounded by what might look like some sort of white foam.
These were clouds, and they were thrown into a free fall.
"Hey, you didn't tell me about that"
With a casual expression, Maliah spoke despite the strong air currents that should be muffling all sounds, not quite caring about the fact that she had stepped in wearing her usual attire and then appeared here dressed in her birthday suit.
Meanwhile, Loimos had just now appeared at all, or rather, it was his physical self that wasn't there, his dead soul, alongside his dead mind and spirit were there as intended, intertwined and looking like a most vile lump of visible gas.
"I was spawned on the ground during my tests" he simply stated before flying down in search of a vessel for him to possess.
"I swear…" the assassin shook her head, and let herself be dragged down by gravity, taking in the sight of this realm, from where she was, Maliah could not quite see anything that was exceptionally different from what she had seen in the main world.
The Death Dealer had visited every area and even further that the empire had conquered, so naturally, she had seen a whole lot of illogical and mind-numbing things already, honestly, at this point, the sight of a bunch of gods playing catch with suns the sizes of continents wouldn't even be surprising.
Although, one thing that was hard to miss was the fact that this world sun was blue, and emitted a kind of energy Maliah wasn't very familiar with, only knowing enough to identify it.
'Soul energy? That's some pretty potent stuff'
She herself couldn't interact with ambient energies, so there was no way for her to tell if being there was supposed to invigorating to the soul or instead be life getting poisoned via overconsumption, in any case, she soon landed with heavy boom, in the middle of a calm, most plain flatland of green grass.
Apart from being loaded with soul energy, nothing in the natural environment was really worth noting, the trees were rather crooked and small, but not of a sort that was one hundred percent novel.
Instead, she turned toward a nearby habitation coupled with a small garden of some kind, the style of the wooden architecture was a bit more interesting.
Maliah felt like calling it Tochian architecture, but that wasn't right, it was something different, the house itself had smaller structures creating a bilateral symmetry to the whole thing, whilst the garden itself was much asymmetrical.
It looked a bit complex but all in all, it was just a small house sitting in the middle of nowhere.
"Hey folks! You wouldn't happen to have some extra clothing for a poor, innocent young woman?" Maliah shouted to no one in particular as she approached the place.
A youthful-looking lady poked her head out of a window, her looks looked like those of a regular human, at least, if regular humans were so filled to the brim with soul energy that their bodies and flesh and bones clearly acquired an ethereal appearance.
Although she visually looked like a human, there was definitely something odd from the assassin's perspective.
"Mmh, nice clothes though, looks a bit hard to move around with, but classy" the unknown woman did not seem to realise that Maliah was different from her and seemed willing to assist her, but the language she spoke sounded like nonsense to the assassin's ears.
So instead of trying to converse back, she tried to test something else and grabbed the woman's face in the blink of an eye, a casual flick of her wrist, and her victim's neck was turned a whole one hundred and eighty degrees.
'I guess the soul energy doesn't render you immune to physical damage… Now, where is Loimos anyway?'