"Horhir, I suppose?" the warqueen held her cleaver horizontally, her left hand running along its sharp edge, the veins on her arms subtly growing larger, bulging out as her gaze upon the knight narrowed.
The right hand fully pulled out his longsword, Horhir's dull eyes shined with pale flame, stomping one foot down, both hands firmly holding onto the handle, tip of the blade pointed straight ahead.
Without gracing the living with the slightest bit of an answer, the undead went directly for the kill, exploding with holy death, thrusting and moving forth in the blink of an eye, hardly perceptible, he switched his strike from an estoc to a diagonal slash, aiming to cleave through Maulerd's left shoulder first.
Iron roared.
'She reacted quickly…' Horhir had expected it, but it was still surprising to see a living blocking an attack from him when he was using the aspect of war to its fastest extent.
Pushing one palm against his blade, using half-swording to leverage against the warlord, forcing her to step away, setting the sword ablaze with Loimosfire by grinding it against his vambrace.
The flames twisting and twirling like snakes stuck in a pit, clinging at the walls in an attempt to scale them and regain freedom, fiercer than those wielded by lower-ranked knights and soldiers.
Whilst Ourlst wields pestilence and famine, Horhir wields war and conquest, however, the downside of those great powers was that every other abilities Horhir could use would be cancelled when trying to utilise either, but the living did not know this, neither did she know something else…
Stepping forward, he repeatedly swung his blade, Derdlim using her cleaver like a shield, demonstrating strength enough to effortlessly deflect each blow and no fear of the flames trying to stick to her weapon, the dreadful fire failing to spread upon the life force covering the blade.
Swinging downward, splitting the ground and shaking the surroundings with tremendous force, stepping on the cleaver, Horhir targeted her exposed neck, none of the feasters wore any armour after all.
'This strength!' and not just that, to have the guts to grab his blade mid-swing, as it was blazed, with just one's own barehand, one had to be either mad, or insanely confident.
The queen of all feasters was both, letting go of her weapon as she twisted the undead's blade, and by the same occasion, his wrist and arm, the veins over her arm and hand grew to concerning proportions, muscles expanding, constricting bones so tightly that a ghastly groaning came from them.
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Striking directly at the knight's chest, bending the iron inward, rotten flesh forcefully parting, ribcages breaking down the middle, letting go of the sword, only mild cuts and burns left on her skin, Horhir was sent back, his feet never leaving ground however.
Regaining his balance, stopping the backward momentum by digging one heel into the soil, swinging his flaming sword with one hand, casting curtain of Loimosfire forward, Derdlim Maulerd grinned happily, the wounds on her hand healing at a visible rate, pulling the cleaver out of the earth, she breathed in, an incandescent glow growing within her chest.
Sensing the heat growing, the right hand assumed a simple posture, sword raised high, allowing for to fall instantly as a torrent of incendiary flames pierced through his curtain, and without hesitation, focusing on his stance and the battle art he was channelling thanks to it, cut the draconic breath into two, his opponent emerging from one side, swinging her cleaver in a way allowing for her to fan part of the fire toward Horhir.
The undead coated his weapon in black blood, slapping the flames away, extinguishing the majority of them, focusing on his right hand as he only one-handed his blade, noticing feathers growing over one of the living's arms.
'Is this…? As I should have expected, even under such a system of power, there are those who are just more talented…' he had been told that feasts brought power and invited mutations upon the body of the one consuming them, many of the feasters showed great signs of transformation, Gartran for example, his body was covered in grey patches, sign of his over-indulgence in the flesh of local trolls, clearly starting to resemble them to a wide extent.
So it had not escaped his notice that the queen of the feasters, Derdlim Maulerd, showed no outward signs of this, he could attribute it to her mastery of the preparation of feasts, or to the fact that she consumed mostly other humans, not being called man-eater for no reason, but no, Horhir was certain now, unlike the average practitioners, she held authority over the changes brought about by feasting as well, allowing her to accurately mould herself as she saw fit, and to spout to the body parts of what had become nourishment.
Steel-like feathers were launched as quickly as they showed themselves, individually, they were no threat to any undead, but seeing the amount of them, the great lieutenant stopped charging up the attack using his left hand, and instead channelled mana through his sword, the tar-coloured blood slipping off the blade, corroding the ground as he brought the blade before his face, reciting a few quick words in death tongue, casting a simple barrier in front of him.
He moved away anyways, even when using incantations to boost his spellcasting, he was well aware that it was far from stellar, making an arc toward the living, he could see her skin taking onto a grey, rough tone, melded with a bit of fur.
When he got up to her, the undead dodged the rapid attack rather than trying to block it, the warqueen was monstrously strong physically already beforehand, there was no point in trying it now, freeing his off-hand, like running it through a soft waterfall, he spread miasma right up into her face.
To little effect as attacked without any change, carving a clean cut through his pauldron, actually sectioning the shoulder, but as long as it wasn't actually torn off, Horhir would not care much.
Although he had to question how to approach this battle now, the lieutenant had known that Maulerd was not going to be an easy opponent, but she clearly had not gone all out just yet and was already overwhelming him in the brute force department.
Slashing the ground as he stepped back, erecting a wall of Loimosfire, he focused on his back, one of the most challenging skills of Loimos his loyal knights could try to learn was his weaving of rot into objects and body parts.
The wall was of little use in stopping the warlord, as she already knew that resisting the flames was possible, but Derdlim still had to be careful about what was waiting on the other side, a lapse of time long enough for Horhir prepare.
Two, magnificently blightful wings emerging into a shower of black blood and rot, the sickly feathers a tombstone grey.
Quickly, he took flight, knowing that he had to be quick, almost one hundred percent certain that the living would also grow wings to follow after him, sheathing his blade, breaking a small piece of dead wood, manifesting the greatbow all Loimoisian knight had to know how to wield.
Him and Ourlst benefited of a way to keep it without having to carry it on their backs at all times, which was useful when they needed wings or other appendages.
The right hand did not bother to summon any arrows however, instead, channelling the power of the second aspect of the apocalypse within his arsenal- Conquest.
Conquest, when manifested as a being by his general, took the form of a white rider, who wielded the bow as main weapon.
Infusing his own with this power, which once again manifested with holy death, an arrow took form as he pulled back on the string, focusing on just what sort of shot he wanted to make.
As he let go, the one arrow turned into fourteen, each of them seemingly following a nonsensical path, only that each soon homed right on their target, exploding on impact.
Horhir's bow disappeared back to where it came from, having to land as his wings began falling apart, indeed, although he substituted the usual power of the aspects with holy death to allow himself more usages out of them, he had just combined multiple variations of conquest into one there, three to be exact.
Pulling that up when one wasn't a specialist was draining even for undeads, as it pulled on their death force, forcefully cancelling any active abilities, thankfully, as something physically created, the wings had not instantly disappeared but it had been a risky move nonetheless…
…And Horhir could still sense his opponent's life force.
"What a beast you are, Derdlim Maulerd! You would greatly gain from forsaking life, do you not think being capable of preparing feasts with ingredients born and infused with death would be better? An undead body would be capable of taking an infinite amount of upgrades and evolutions as well!" quickly bringing death force equally across his body, Horhir unsheathed his sword again.
As the dust and dirt risen from the explosions settled down, a bloodied living, missing an arm emerged, looking terribly joyful at the situation.
"You would accept cowards who surrender? I would never! If you want me dead, then come kill me!" licking blood off her face, she casually turned exposed ribs from th limbless side, demonstrating rapid regeneration of all that was lost, back to exactly what it was moments prior.
"Come! I can even replenish my blood!"
"Not your life force though…" as he said this, the warqueen began to change again, growing into what could only be described as a massive tumour, a lump of flesh that readily bursted like a rotten orange, revealing a chimaera-like creature, a whole troll with a collection of sharp claws, tails, fur and feathers intermingled with one another, atop of which stood the upper body of the living, still carrying her cleaver.
'She did regain her life force…' honestly impressed, Horhir was facing what his general would refer to as an exalted living.
"As a sign of respect… I will snuff out your life with my maximum power, and some of our glorious champion"
Saying this, he stretched his right arm forward, blade pointing at the ground.
To those that were trusted by Sir Loimos, a gift was given, a special ability, upon which one was free to call upon as they saw fit, and to do so, one only needed to speak its name-
"Ierpalam…"
"...Behold, as a future regional lord and perhaps even greater- You might just be granted a bit of our general's unending kindness, his sympathy… His compassion, that perfectly mirrors that of death!"