Hounds

"A true undead has no need for sustenance, no need for rest, no need for fear, a pure undead needs nothing"

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Loimos emerged into a field, paying no heed to his cracked skull, it would mend itself anyways.

In his haste, he went and retrieved a few more weapons that he had kept hidden away, his steps were nothing short of perfectly normal, his rate of movement decreased to a mere walk as he made his way toward a small group that had most certainly broken off from the larger mob.

The righteous deliverers of the unrefined rumble of the lowly people had broken into multiple pieces, small cliques had formed to cover more ground.

Small only in comparison to their total numbers however, there were still nine people gathered, they seemed to be debating the optics of searching this particular field, it was one filled with pumpkins after all.

It was a curious thing that they grew wheat and pumpkins during the same period, however, no one here was going to question it.

This was the norm for the locals and Loimos had no reason to wonder about such a thing, as he entered within their range of sight, he hid the weapon he was carrying behind his back and began taking a much more human disposition.

Gone were the oddly efficient steps, he acted as though the small differences in soil consistency and dirt mounds were actually surprising him as he walked in the dark.

A small man noticed him first and he waved his arm to make himself more noticeable, they could discern his shape but certainly not the more minute details of his appearance.

Were he able to talk, he probably would have said something too.

His acting was already well enough to fool those unwashed peasants, they didn't take him for a threat at all and began calling out to him.

The small man seemed to be taking steps toward him, intending on meeting Loimos halfway, he accelerated his steps subtly to avoid having to start his chain of kills in a bad position.

"Hey, did you find something-?" the man was allowed to complete his sentence, but not his life.

Loimos somewhat arched his body to the side, using the small man's own body to obstruct the others's sight of what Loimos was pulling from behind his back.

He didn't even see it coming as Loimos stabbed him in the chest with the sword of the bandit leader, he could barely even groan before Loimos decided to make use of the momentary confusion to advance upon the eight others.

They all stared directly at him rather than the corpse, it was a welcome attention to their situation, but they would have been better off acting out of line, from the depth of his hollow sockets, a dark but blinding purple light arose for a split second, blinding the fools.

He began with the biggest of them all, a man with huge hands which most certainly could have been of use, Loimos hacked right into his face, pulling the sword back to him, he sent the bloodied-up man tumbling into two others, his dead weight pinning them to the ground.

With another two slashes, he sliced right through two throats, two attacks were needed for the next one however, as he luckily raised his hand before the killing blow could reach its mark.

Almost cleaving his wrist right off, he probably didn't feel much luck as he soon joined the others on the grounds, fertilising the ground with their fresh blood.

Loimos's blinding flash was more effective than he had planned for, that or the peasants were too prone to panic, making them easy targets as they dropped both their weapons and guards to try and solve their lack of vision, absolutely not concerning themselves with the one that had inflicted this lack of sight upon them.

Apart from the few that managed to move at the right time, all of them only bore a single flesh wound, the great majority to the throat.

Loimos was aware that major blood vessels were also to be found in other areas such as the armpits, thighs and such.

Striking the heart, lungs and head directly were also options, however, not only were the neck and throat easily accessible, unprotected and tremendously easy to cut through, he couldn't help but also want to silence in the same move.

If he was accurate enough, blood would fill their throats and they would never be able to do more than gargle a bit.

Dealing with small, isolated groups was much more efficient than trying to go up against the whole mob.

He felt the death force within growing deeper as his prey's life force dissipated into the air.

Loimos would also have to do something about all of the plantations, but doing so without revealing his undeath wasn't within his reach at the moment.

He didn't want specialists of the undead hunt to come for him just yet, that would definitely end up in less living dead by the end of it than otherwise.

The skeleton moved away from the corpses and soon stepped onto a wide dirt path, the main road still bore the markings of the regular passage of carriages and caravans, even though the influx had recently dropped severely.

The sound of barking reached Loimos, he was certain that he had gotten rid of all the stray dogs, and also of all the ones domesticated by people, it had been a necessity since their keen sense of smell wasn't fooled by Loimos restricting his pungent fragrance of decay.

They had most probably been brought from within the city walls, and judging by the fact that they were rushing right toward him in spite of the darkness shrouding him, they were locked in on him.

They must have been given his scent, he had most likely lost a bit of his mask when was shot right in the skull.

He could easily beat them in a battle of stamina, and may even be able to match their speed if he decided to move like when he did back in the crawlspace of the dungeon, like a mad beast.

Though he doubted that his overall swiftness would be enough to prevent them from catching up.

Those hounds were rushing toward him without a shred of fear, they must have left their owner in the dust, he was simply going to take them out right here, if they could track his trail, they would be a problem he would have no choice but deal with anyways.