Although they never remained for more than a day's worth of time, the direct surroundings of the barrier began to be crowded by large beasts as well as monster, all of them carrying tombstones upon their backs, some seemed to be growing them, whilst others had them strapped to their bodies with chains or ropes.
Once Antieeld was finally able to use Toby's expertise on the subject, and after many attempts, he was finally able to know more about them, but the descriptions he got access to… They were far from detailed and sinister.
"Well… When I inspect a beast, it tells me that it is a 'beast of you-know-who', but both monsters and beasts share the name of 'Tombstone Carrier' which isn't surprising, but it also says that they were create by Life's Scourge in person and that they are capable of channelling some of The Graveyard's power through the tombstones" the otherworlder did not really know much about The Graveyard, he knew the name referred to a particular undead, but that one had not personally appeared during the war on Tamaris, only a few livings had actually seen it.
And it did not explain why these undeads in particular were being placed so close to the barrier, nothing about them seemed to imply that they could do anything about it, or that they could bypass some of its effects, the only odd thing about them was that they seemed to be able to remain out of the structures built by the dead for longer than the rest, but they did eventually leave after a while, and furthermore, they were always remaining in a strange state of dormancy.
Antieeld had thought that the first tombstone carrier had merely been pretending to be asleep, but it seemed more like it was a state meant to conserve the energy necessary for them to remain out and about.
Unfortunately, Toby could not tell her anything more about those creatures, the fact that they had been created by Loimos himself, whether literally or as in their caste had been put together by him did not matter much, but it implied that they had not existed for that long, so the amount of information that existed about them was small, furthermore, their strong connection to Loimos meant that was little intel existed was strongly linked to him, and naturally, that meant that the otherworlder couldn't just get access to it without trying to brush up against the champion's influence.
Toby would rather take a plunge from the tallest tower than do that, he would actually have better odds of coming out unscathed.
"Though, I have to say, I have never felt my appraisal ability grow as much as it currently is, since I started using it on undeads, it has grown many times more precise"
"Must be because they are strong and also because they are all carrying defences against that sort of thing" Antieeld did not know what to think of those tombstone carriers, as per usual, she barely had a clue what was the point behind the enemy's actions.
Which was the same for everyone, but as a commandant, one who held a talent in leading, it was embarrassing to not be able to glean even anything about the intentions of the undead, but perhaps she shouldn't feel so bad, as the one calling the shots was a being that could hardly be fathomed.
The dark loomed in the distance, appearing as a eerie omen for what was to come, everyday that passed, the more it seemed like the war was getting closer to intensifying, the more likely it seemed that the undead would begin their assault upon the barrier, Antieeld wasn't exactly certain what the two ancestors were waiting for, whether they wanted a certain advancement to be made upon the barrier, or if they had something else brewing up in secret, the kind sun and All-Beast were weirdly approachable, but also rather mysterious, they weren't just waiting for the empire to strike first to make a move, everyone knew that.
However, it was worrying that only they seemed to be aware of what was objective.
Antieeld was confident that the barrier could hold, in fact, she felt that no undead, even at their strongest, would be capable of bypassing or breaching it, the barrier of Tamaris had held up for a long time despite being crude and weak compared to this one, with the realm on their side, they shouldn't have to worry on that front.
But They would have to fight the dead eventually, although Loimos might have claimed that he and his troops would dearly avoid destroying the land, he had also used to word 'senselessly' to go alongside his words, which meant that if deemed necessary, they would tear the Emerald Realm apart to conquer it.
And if they did so, who knew what could happen to the rules governing this place.
"By the way, Rummy, weren't you further down the south? Is there any undead activity over there?"
"None whatsoever, as far as we are aware, they are only present in the south, and the surveillance over in the west is tight, if they try to expand this way, it would pretty much force us to take immediate action, so I find it weird that they aren't…"
"I also think that it's strange that they are allowing us to prepare, even if they need some time to set some things up as well, you would think that they would still benefit from kickstarting the conflict already, but they are just remaining mostly passive…"
As the two women were discussing, Toby, who was still looking at the tombstone carrier with curiosity suddenly straightened up and took a step back.
"Is something the matter?" Rummy flipped her lenses off as she spoke.
"We have a problem" Toby swallowed his saliva, Antieeld and Rummy had no idea what he was talking about, for it was something only he could see.
It had been a long time since this particular aspect of his special system had manifested itself, the last time this had occurred, was when the heretical being, known The First Of The Hollows, had appeared before him.
This feature was what he would call a boss health bar, and from his understanding, it only showed up when a most mighty foe considered itself engaged in combat with him, but since he could see no such being anywhere, he had to assume that at the very last, it had engaged someone else.
"Someone is fighting a powerful undead!"
But who? The barrier was up, and no one should be outside of it…