Pestilence: Rise Of The Pure Undead-Chapter 725 - Operation Arid Soil Part Thirty-Six
725: Operation Arid Soil : Part Thirty-Six
725: Operation Arid Soil : Part Thirty-Six
“You monster… You are no better than the worshippers of Cleansing Undeviginti…” the Ersta’la cursed, the city center was currently crowded with the soldiers of Ir’Houwl, the few remaining livings, and many corpses.
He had agreed to sign her piece and paper, and yet, most of their already small numbers had been butchered, which included those who had taken residence in towns further away, the minor lord had had her troops attack every single one of them at the same time, taking control of all towns around, including those that weren’t even populated at all, turning them in camps for her own usage.
The undead oases bloomed all over the place, expanding the reaches of their area of control in one fell swoop, just a few hours had been necessary to do it all, and by the time the number of suns increased, it was already too late for the locals, the empire was already done settling down.
“Foolish remark, I am much better than them, I will kill all within this realm” she casually retorted, the Ersta’la’s right arm was currently in a sling as Ir’Houwl had thoroughly crushed his biceps and had yet to call the doctor to solve the problem, same for the arm-bearers of the city, who had all received a severe beating by her troops, but none had been killed.
Indeed, the lined-up corpses only belonged to non-combatants as she had no uses for them alive, they were much better as corpses, having received confirmation for the living that they were now on what could be considered the edges of the populated and civilised portion of the desert, she decided to establish a base of operation here, a pit would be dug, and the bodies stacked atop one another, they would be shielded from the heat and sunlight, allowing them to putrefy, spread death force and with the presence of undeads as well, they should be able to invite death into this realm little by little, until they were able to raise the remains of livings as new undeads.
Once this would happen, there would naturally be much less use for livings.
“Mister Ersta’la” she spoke up.
“Ersta’la is a title, not my name-”
“Do not interrupt me, I’ll call you by your title until you are true part of the empire”
The living turned silent.
“Much better, you must be wondering why I kept you all ‘arm-bearers’ as you call yourselves, alive, right?
It is very simple, now that each of you signed my binding contract, you are to fulfill each order to the best of your capabilities, in the manner that benefits the empire the most amongst other details…”
The contracts were fool-proof, she knew they were because she had asked General Loimos himself to help her with making them.
“…As livings and known tricksters of the desert, you’ll serve a my information gatherers, even if you are caught, you are incapable of revealing anything and it won’t be suspicious for servants of Illusory Undeviginti to be sneaking around, so I want you to get out there, make maps and document the habitats of creatures, camps of orcs and other beings like them, as well as infiltrate cities and towns, report on the population there in every detail and bring them back all the good news”
“We’ll keep you fed and such for the duration of our contract, and remember, it is a noble duty to serve the empire in life”
The livings looked a little bit more than gloomy, but it didn’t matter, they literally could not give any less than their best for their new missions, it was stated in the contract as well.
“Now, Ersta’la, do you have nothing to inform me of?”
“Inform you?
I don’t…”
“You must have forgotten, but there is still someone alive in that temple of yours, I can sense them”
‘Crap!
The kid is still in there?’ he glanced back to the corpses, considering what Ir’Houwl had already done without remorse, killing a young man like him would be nothing, so there was no use trying to plead about the fact that he was still young.
Indeed, she had stomped much younger already.
“Aherm… L-Lady Ir’Houwl…” he began, struggling to pronounce her name.
“Lord Ir’Houwl” she corrected him.
“Lord Ir’Houwl… He is in the selection to become an arm-bearer… He has potential!”
“Is that so?” she then spoke to some of her soldiers, and they ran toward the solar temple, dragging a beaten up youth out by his arms only a few seconds later.
“Then he’ll sign my contract as well, the more the merrier, right?
The doctor will get you lot patched up, the moment you’re healed up, you’ll get to work, understood?”
“Understood…”
“You’ll go last, Ersta’la, I have a few questions for you” as she said this, one of the arm-bearers, who turned out to be the one that had been imprisoned and interrogated first, grumbled, clearly feeling like he had been cheated as he had been locked up and tortured for information when they could have just forced him to sign a piece of paper to ensure that he would spout everything he knew.
He had been used as training for the good doctor and the troops to know how to engage in traditional information gathering.
“Lord Ir’Houwl” one of her elites called out to her.
She signalled for him to speak.
“Why did we not use a contract on the first prisoner he got during the time of the pale blue sun?”
“Good question, you wouldn’t know since you weren’t there yet, but although we can force someone to sign it against their will without any degradation of the terms, they still need to actually sign it, which that living never accepted to do, moreover, the contracts felt as though they were repulsed by that one, I feel that Watchful Undeviginti already enforces a sort of contract of its own upon its faithful, or at least those that it dispatches itself, and my contracts didn’t seem like they were capable of overwriting it anyways”
Though, those restrictions were mostly due to the fact that these contracts were coming from her, Ir’Houwl wasn’t exactly an expert on the subject, her main two things were fighting and collecting sand, none of which involved making binding contracts, as such, they weren’t the best around.
But they were plenty good enough for these livings who had nothing shielding them from its conditions and were much more easy to coerce.
After exchanging some more with a few of her soldiers in death tongue, she turned back toward the Ersta’la.
“First, tell me where the rest of the followers of Illusory Undeviginti are, does your little cult have any members that can control the vapour without a weapon?”
“Also, do you know anything about the area of the desert with quicksand?”
