Death Surrounds me, whispering to me, softly and harshly, the cold hands of my loved ones urge me to follow.
I must not yield, I must not give in to its lies, I must fight back, I must discover the real truth.
My efforts have come short until now, only feeding death's endless appetite.
There it is, death is now before me, I look into its eyes and see something familiar, victorious over life, I can only stand down.
But I refuse, I may have bent but I am not broken just yet, my hopes and dreams, my unlikely vision of a bright future now seems ever more distant.
There he is, even with life at its lowest, he still stands, brighter than the sun, capable of defying it all.
_____________________
"Plug it! Defend and reinforce yourselves!" the death hunter yelled, circulating his mana through his body, swinging his arms up, a powerful breeze blowing forward, lifting the generators of life mist up the air.
All of them did the exact same motion, speaking the same set of words:
"Life, defend from corruption!" uttering the words necessary for the art to function, each of their life forces moved to shield them.
The man turned to look at each of the two undeads as he used the winds to lift himself up, none had moved a single centimeter, the other hunters used their magic and skills to block up the way down, trying to prevent the ink-black blood from reaching them.
It was no use however, the life mist couldn't slow it down, as right before everything surged, the rot emitted greater amounts of miasma, the artificially produced white mist prioritised defending itself, allowing the rotten blood to go past basically unhindered, it didn't rise up like normal liquid either, like a sentient mass, it crawled up the steps, climbing up onto the walls and ceiling.
The quickly placed counters weren't good enough to stop it from slithering through cracks, once it got through, everything came crashing down, basically eating through anything that weren't the hunters themselves.
Their equipment was already good enough to prevent them from being turn to mush by the acidic properties of the blood, adding the life force defences, they didn't even have to worry about being impaired, the blood was unable to close the gap on them, instead spreading everywhere else, taking down the walls, the cattle and crops, growing in mass exponentially every time it devoured something.
"We lay down our life to defeat death!" yelling a motto, the leader couldn't help but not be very hopeful about their chances.
The metal giant began moving, the swarming mass of dark allowing free passage for him.
'This is being controlled… Not by the giant-' his eyes landed on the other undead, the blood that reached this one didn't make way, it wasn't making any move, retaining the same pose, not acknowledging anything that was happening in particular.
Like it was nothing but a prop.
'This one controls the blood, probably the one responsible for the rot as well… What is an undead of this sort doing in a metal-themed dungeon?'
"Everyone, work to hold the giant back, don't try to win, just survive" he gave his command and began rushing forth toward Loimos, unsheathing a short dark blade, it was imbued with mana that wasn't his own.
"Life, grant me strength!" performing another art; his blade was coated with his life force as well.
At last, the undead showed movement, suddenly bursting with rot, completely encasing himself, the hunter swung his blade thrice, slashes of life flying through the air and slicing right the rot.
He didn't hit any bones, the rot continued spreading, extending a multitude of tendrils in every direction, holding themselves up in the air by sheer defiance of physics it seemed.
Slashing some from a distance, the living kept his distance from them, not certain what to expect from this particular skeleton.
Two pillars of rots extended to each of his sides, one five meters to his right, the other ten meters of his left.
He kept his attention on both of them equally in spite of the difference, the rot had already proven that it could extend itself swiftly, he expected to be rammed by rot or be assaulted by a surge of black blood.
Instead, one skeletal arm emerged from each of the two pillars.
'It dismantled itself?' the small amount of time it took him to react and understand how it was possible was minuscule, he had experience, he knew what skeletons were capable of, but he didn't understand that point of the manoeuvre, the two arms came out and went away without doing anything.
"Crap!" he understood too late, he could only watch as Loimos was launched right at him with terrific momentum.
Raising his blade, he took on the appropriate stance to block most of the damage from the attack.
He hadn't been expecting to get drop kicked by a skeleton ever, but here he was, his arms aching and blade vibrating from the impact of the undead cannon ball.
Nothing was broken, he took time to regain full control over his stricken limbs, watching as Loimos put his arms back on, carrying them to himself with rot.
'Coming to me in person now? I can't predict anything this one is doing…' the leader of the hunters didn't mind the lingering ache in his arms bared his blade at Loimos, it made no doubt that a cut from the life infused sword would slash right through the undead like butter, even with his great death force, his reinforcement and usage of it wasn't good enough to block something .
There was also the blade itself, there was clearly something special about it in of itself, was a weapon meant to fight the undead? A sword wasn't the preferred tool to fight a skeleton with as well.
Perhaps it was a bluff, the sword was nothing but a distraction to make any undead intelligent enough focus on it.
Loimos could play the game of misdirection and bluffs as well, he had already shown it.
Clacking his jaw loudly, he went into a fighting posture, taught directly by Faraday, it was supposedly his own, original fighting style.
The death hunter couldn't recognise it, and steeled his wariness, an entire fighting style had the possibility of being one, big battle art, in this case, the possibilities of the arts were hard to predict and could get rather powerful.
'Is this it?' one wrong move, and he could lose his life, lose it to undead filth.