Bro, I'm not an Undead!



"...the stadium was transported elsewhere after that man disappeared from our sight. All of a sudden... we were somewhere different. Some kind of safe storage space, I assume. Just us and millions of corpses..."

It brought Alaris no degree of pleasure to narrate his experience. His moustache that was always so firm was crippled and withered now, dabbed with some of the perspiration scrolling down his face.

He looked less like the Bloodless Steel Phantom, and more like a broken, lingering ghost.

His face almost shared the same pale pigment as that which showed from the several corpses laying between him and everyone else in room.

A little girl with blonde pigtails could be seen laid over the tarp on the floor, along with a sharply dressed man whose attire made starkly clear that his occupation was related to servitude.

One pair of eyes kept staring at this young girl with twice as much emptiness as that which was swelling from Alaris' own. On top of that, it seemed the sight took away from the owner of this particular pair, all desire to live.

Theurien had been in this dire pose for fifteen minutes.

The image tore Alaris apart all the more.

He had done all he could to explain what had happened, but he didn't believe any of it mattered to Theurien. At least most of it.

There was a deep silence now, and it hadn't been the only one to persist.

Beside Alaris, was seated Red Rage, in his starkly pristine armour. He had not said a word since Alaris arrived, and with a guest. Said guest finally broke the silence.

"I sympathise..." Ruhrees said meaningfully. "...I never dared to believe that a bastion of Pelian would help orchestrate something like this. There was a point where we could have stopped it, but we relaxed at the last moment..."

No one said anything, or even reacted to the Paladin Champion's words. Ruhrees hadn't expected anyone to anyway. He simply set his eyes on the other set of corpses on the tarp.

The Governor and his son.

He had retrieved these, and then used his Divine Blessing to escape the stadium with Alaris and a few other survivors without taking the time to investigate where they had been transported to.

"I hate to take away your time to grieve, but... things are about to get worse. On our way here, we saw a lot of dreadful things happening all around Pelian. There are two mad men causing all this terror, and at the very least, we have to fight against their continuous triumphs. People are dying. We need to stop that first before succumbing to our pains..."

Ruhrees had half expected Theurien to intercept his words with an outburst, but the Bryne Family Head did no such thing. Still, the Champion wanted everyone here to know that the worst was yet to come, as he and Alaris had seen.

The dual transparent veils – Chieftain Screens – around the Bryne Family Estate, as Ruhrees had noticed, blocked the effects of the great trembling from the entire caged in area, and he imagined that it would be easy to miss the end of the world because of this protection.

Alaris was hoping to get Theurien to break free from his sorrow too, only for a little while, but the guilt he felt at not being able to save the last of Theurien's children close at hand, was too great.

Thus, he kept quiet.

But...

"What of Festos?" Theurien suddenly asked, surprising Alaris and Ruhrees. "What became of him?"

Alaris didn't have an answer. The screens had shut off when the event took a turn for the worst.

"My master is alive," Red Rage answered simply.

His answer was so firm that no one ventured to doubt it immediately, and as Theurien's bloodshot eyes stared at the Apostle, he seemed to gain further confirmation that it was true somehow . Whether it was simply a coping mechanism born from Theurien's immense grief at losing everyone that caused this or otherwise, was unknown.

It didn't really matter. Theurien rubbed his eyes, even though he had shed no tears.

He rose, and gave out a great breath.

Ruhrees looked at him anxiously.

People stricken with crippling grief seldom retained reason, especially if they were powerful, in some cases.

"You are right. This is not the time to drown in my sorrow. Terese wouldn't have wanted to see her father's face so dark," Theurien said, though with a tragic frown. "I'll think about saving the living for now."

Red Rage stood up sharply in support.

Theurien seemed to appreciate the gesture.

"Rally your beasts. We have a territory and a nation to defend," he commanded.

Red Rage nodded. His tamed beasts would certainly appreciate the opportunity.

Deep down however, despite his resolve, he could feel that Skullius was not exactly well, even if he wasn't dead. He seemed closer to perishing than anything else, but the Apostle believed that his master would pull through.

He had to, and he would.

***

Far from Pelian, in the middle of the ocean.

Ever since the disturbance hours ago, the cool waters had turned rather feisty, rising in high waves to beat against each other while storm clouds had begun to form above.

This would have been a terrible experience for one stuck on a ship or boat, but that wasn't the case for the man currently seated atop the surface of the violently swaying waters.

Droplets of water, and vapours splashed onto his armour constantly, but he retained an unbothered attitude. In fact, he quite liked the cool sensation that they brought, after all, it warded off, even if a little, the often stifling feeling conjured by the pressing innards of his Granted Armament.

"This... is getting too boring. Hurry up, why don't you?" the man said, and then pushed his head through the water below to look around with his vibrant red almond eyes.

His wild tufts of snow white hair danced within the cold, swooning wet as he turned this way and that.

Still no sign of her.

The boss wouldn't be mad if she took another day, would he?

The man pulled his head out and sighed.

He crossed his legs as the water attempted to move him further away with its waves. His blue, white and silver plate armour allowed for flexible mobility of that degree, at least, plus more. On the chestplate were long, glass-like pads attached that seemed to house some form of flowing energy. Different kinds of energy. On the greaves and gauntlets, this seemed to be the case as well. The Granted Armament was no simple armour, after all.

The boss only gave it to the most exceptional.

An hour passed, then another.

The white-haired man had turned to entertaining himself by testing out how quickly he could summon a set of large, white and curled claws from the finger ends of his gauntlets, which were custom tempered to fit his abilities, when he turned to his right.

The dark pupils drowning in the sea of his red irises turned into narrow, horizontal slits as he focused his sight.

Hundreds of kilometres away, the man saw vicious blazes of white.

'Well, that's either a group of Incandescent Stagers or some unique Cluster beasts. The latter seems more realistic...' he thought.

A blast of excitement ignited within him.

Well, it wouldn't hurt to check it out right? Hardly anything was keeping his attention right now anyway.

Clusters erupting without being dealt with was a common on this side of the world littered with small islands.

"Don't mind if I..." the white-haired man had begun when he felt the waters he was sitting on turn mildly hot.

He quickly turned back his focus, and with his keen sight found that the person he was waiting for, was finally rising up.

'You have the worst timing!' he grumbled.

Seconds later, a tall, wiry looking woman popped out of the water and stood over it while panting.

She had a series of bruises, gashes, burns and sores, but a satisfied smile soon crept up on her face.

"How was it?" the white-haired man said with a dash of agitation in his voice.

"Good. Great even! Barely survived but... woooo!" the woman cheered. "Looks like we'll be partners now, Grim."

"Don't count on it just yet," the man, whose name was Grim, said with a half scoff. "Allora, an Unlimited. Who would have thought?"

Grim pointed to the top of his head.

A bolt of Levin streaked from his finger and exploded to form a thick, white cloud above his hair.

Grim then gestured for the woman, Allora, to draw closer to him, which she did, and pointed below them. With another spark, a bigger cloud formed under their feet.

Soon, the duo was flying up on the cloud, completely unfazed by the fact that they were about to sink into the thunderclouds overhead.