The old home rumbled with fury as the father stepped forward, the floor seemed ready to give in at any moment, but it did not.
Supporting the thunderous stomp, the man raised the club high above his head, it made no doubt, this hit would carry every single bit of strength available to him, certain to blow Loimos's skull apart.
Grabbing the pillow he had just used to snuff the youngest, he chucked it without much force at the man, who completely ignored it and kept on charging forward, he was going to slam this club down no matter what.
Watching the approaching attack coming from above, it was fast, but not fast enough to catch Loimos by surprise, bending his knees, he used his maximum speed and strength to side step at the last moment whilst simultaneously reaching into his coat.
The father's bloodshot eyes were focused on the club, smashed through floorboards, he wanted to pull it back up and swing again, swing and swing until nothing but paste was left of the abject murderer.
His mouth was filled with blood, a violent sting coming from his nape brought him to his knees, sapping the strength from his arms, he fell limply down, the wrath animating him did not die down, but it was replaced by the coldness of death.
The fear.
Loimos heard the shouts of the mob converging outside as result of the father's scream, it wouldn't be long before they began trying to break in.
Seizing the heavy club from himself, he turned his attention to the lantern the man had dropped, it hadn't been broken by the fall, the flame inside was still swirling and dancing.
Quickly dragging and throwing the corpses in the room into a pile, Loimos pushed the beds together, the legion of peasants were beginning to kick into the barricades.
Loimos swung the lantern at the wooden frame of the bed in the middle, splashing the oil on the sheets, the fire bursted as Loimos stepped away and made his way back into the attic he had crawled out of.
He waited for a little while, listening to the crowd's gasps and curses as they realised everything was burning down, they had nothing at hand to even try to contain the flames, their attention was completely diverted from catching the scorned killer to searching for a solution to stop the flames from spreading to other habitations.
He slipped through the crack in the roof that he had used as his first entry and stepped out, simply taking a long step onto another nearby house and then climbing down further, away from the mob and back onto the prowl.
"Stop there!"
Or not.
The fellow that had stopped him hadn't been spotted by Loimos's sense for life, not because he was particularly stealthy or anything of that sort, the young guard had simply been napping whilst standing and had remained so still, that he had mixed into his surroundings.
This guard was wearing the same sort of iron armour as all of the others, a basic chestplate and helm, the rest was protected by thick gambeson, it might not seem like much but it was more than enough for most problems they could be made to deal with.
He pointed his spear unsteadily at the undead, it made no doubt in the youth's mind that he had just accidentally stumbled upon the sad faced man, but he wasn't particularly happy about it, he had only found him because his colleague had left him there!
Leaving the new guy where he was after he had fallen asleep on the job would have been funny normally, certainly not when a bloodthirsty psycho roamed the surroundings.
"Don't move! Drop your weapon and lay down on the ground! Face against the ground!" at least his tone wasn't a dead giveaway that he was pissing his pants in fright.
Loimos didn't abide by the orders and instead began taking steps toward the guard.
"Hey… Oi! Didn't you hear what I just said?! Stop right here! I'll seriously impale you!" he wasn't going to be impaling anybody, he didn't have the guts to strike first, even at a loathsome personage like the murderer in front of him.
The undead was well about to send all of the guard's teeth flying, but was interrupted as a crossbow bolt hit him right in the side of his head, the strength of the projectiles enough to push him away.
The dull sound of the bolt piercing fabric and rotten flesh before hitting a skull made the youth back away.
An older guard emerged from another alley.
"Damn boy! I go take a piss further away and you find the sad faced fricker?" the dry laugh of the man was in complete antithesis with the situation.
"Why are you laughing?! Your bolt just bounced off this guy's head!" it certainly looked that way, this bolt had been shot from a proper crossbow, were it not for Loimos garbing himself with additional defences, he would have had a hole in his skull right now.
He rubbed the place he had been struck, like a non-undead would and just ran off, sprinting away as suddenly as he had arrived.
The youth looked at the retreating figure and then at his senior multiple times over.
"Are we not giving chase?"
"You think you can catch up?"
"No, but we could still try something…"
"He is already gone though, bastard is quick on his feet, how the hell does he take corners at those speeds?" the older guard had given up on pursuing Loimos the second he saw that speed, his ageing body wasn't going to be of any use.
The younger fellow may seem more capable, but he was as lean as it gets, no muscles, no stamina, no stats and no XP, such was the state of this rather poor duo.
"We running to give alarm!" the older one had just been taking his time to prepare for another exercise, they weren't going to be catching up to anyone worth their salt, but not every single guard was like this.
The sound of bells soon sounded throughout the night, it rang three times in quick succession, this was the code signifying that the target had been spotted and was on the run.
"A true undead has no need for sustenance, no need for rest, no need for fear, a pure undead needs nothing"
____________________
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.
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