NOVPUB743: Operation Arid Soil : Part Fifty-Four
743: Operation Arid Soil : Part Fifty-Four
It was only amongst their peers that any group or individual could truly demonstrate where they stood on the chain of power, each regions, each continent, each ecosystem, each realm was a microcosm with its own rules and hierarchies, all were but specks underneath the cosmos, but to those living within them, they were everything.
The undead empire had taken to invade these places, bringing their superior knowledge and strength to places that never could have expected their arrival, the forces of eternity were invaders, pillagers- Anomalies.
They conquered without rest and made entire civilisations that had ruled over realms comparable to the sizes of some worlds like mere infants before them, but so it was that they and them simply did not exist in comparable environments, the main world was a crucible that had forged the kingdom of Oblivion into a superpower that absorbed and devoured all, nothing was destroyed forever, all was swallowed and added to the conglomerate of strength, naught was allowed to go to waste.
All livings were to become loyal undeads, and those that refused, were instead turned into fertiliser for the silent nation.
The undead wielded death, and laughed in the face of life, so it was only natural that when they set foot within a realm that had never had to face the tyranny of undeath, that they would appear as nigh unstoppable machines.
And this made it easy to forget that certain things should not be compared, it was an exercise of futility to try and compare a fox that lived in the desert to one that lived in the frozen tundra based solely on which would win in a fight, this wasn’t of importance, because neither had evolved and worked to best the other.
They had adapted to the environment and to the dangers unique to where they existed, and on such grounds, one might say that the dead and living stood shoulder to shoulder.
Both defied everything and managed to sustain themselves in extreme conditions, both could build, both could destroy.
In the main world, the undead weren’t yet at the top and still had contenders.
In this scorching realm however, the humans reigned at the top without question, they had won, they had successfully adapted and dominated the environment enough to be the uncontested rulers.
The giants?
Nearly wiped out.
The orcs and molochites?
Forced to bow down and abide by rules to survive.
The beasts and monsters?
They were prey, each and every one of them.
Objectively, the livings were perfectly good as they were.
And as such, to know which one of them was strong by the metric of their own world, one merely had to watch them fight against one another, and it soon became clear that the livings that had all seemed like the same weaklings stood on different levels from one another.
Some were not far apart, whilst others were light night and day.
Limbs and blood were flung through the air as a sanguine mass moved through the warriors of the city, Benerib had been the first to surge forward the instant the signal was given, instantly slaying a distracted warrior via decapitation, and then rushing through the masses with incredibly agility, her sickles were formed from vapour, so every portion of them were awfully sharp, allowing her to deliver mortal strikes from distances many couldn’t even swing their weapons properly at.
Many received deep cuts, or where pushed aside, for Benerib wasn’t targeting the arm-bearers, her goal was to reduce the number of enemies, as simple as that, so the natural course of action was to rush directly for the unarmed combatants, who could not wield vapour and thus, would never be able to block or deflect any of her attacks.
“Oh shit, it’s her!” an arm-bearer shouted as he pushed aside after receiving an elbow right to the jaw, his words were mysterious at best but everyone who heard them seemed to understand.
Benerib was rather famous it seemed.
An arm-bearer of Watchful Undeviginti tried to block passage, thrusting his decorated spear right at the center of the masked woman’s body, but like momentum was a joke to her, she spun right past the attack, and with odd gentleness, pressed the tip of one sickle against the young man’s stomach as she walked past him, spilling his guts upon the warm sand and did not even bother to finish him off, continuing to run at the unarmed warriors, who had all been in the back as the initial clash between arm-bearers had been expected to be too much for them to handle.
That decision did not save them in the least as blood curdling screams soon erupted from their ranks, most of the city defenders could not turn to try and deal with the heretic as they had plenty of enemies to pay attention to.
Meritites was not far behind the sanguine arm-bearer to reacting to the signal, simply taking sometime to gather vapour into her blade and then swing it, the way in which she was going to attack was painfully obvious to anyone with sight, but the defenders were still very worried about it, as radiant vapour shot forward, splitting an arm-bearer that had not reacted in time, and knocking a few more back as they had to endure the attack.
“You wench!” a warrior of Prime Undeviginti, wielding a khopesh stepped forth to meet the approaching butcher, unlike Benerib, Meritites wasn’t recognisable as she had never left anyone alive to speak of her glorious acts of slaughter, but everybody knew that the cleansers were all raving lunatics that were to be faced with a healthy dose of fear at all times.
Channelling the first one’s vapour, the warrior augmented his body to sidestep an overhead slash that fell right into the sand, then swinging right at the woman’s face, his blade going right through without any resistance whatsoever.
“Shi-” his mistake cost him dearly, as the executioner’s sword pommel came crashing right into his nose, caving his face in and killing him instantly in the very next instant.
“Ahah, what the hell are you swinging at?
Was your soft skull pressed too hard as a baby?” she stepped on his broken face until it was goop, as a few more arm-bearers tried swinging at her, but all were off their marks.
The butcher turned her head and blew a kiss at Cheops.
“I love you too, Meri!
But please pay attention to your surroundings!” the Ersta’la walked forward, the enemy still held the advantage, and they were clearly aiming to focus on him and the other illusory arm-bearers as their mirages were an absolutely awful combination with the two murderous women.
