Bro, I'm not an Undead!

1308  Fading

Revia could hardly feel her face with the boils festering over her skin. They twitched and convulsed as though they were alive, breathing. Some grew fatter as the seconds passed, some moving, extending to the wall she was leaning against; they truly were an infection.

Her pale, cold skin was hardly recognisable under the reddish-green affliction. In the first few hours, she had felt the throbbing pain they caused, but now, she felt nothing. If she were alive, she would have probably been dead by now. But alas, she was already dead; she was a walking corpse. She had been doomed to this fate since that day she fought Actuass in the Isise.

For a moment, Revia burned with fury. She had been assigned on a mission to that place by the nine, the High Authorities, back then; a mission to purge evil.

'Ungrateful fools!'

Revia could have given anything just to be able to stand right now.

She wished she hadn't ignored the signs.

Days ago, when she, Alaris, Ruhrees and another Paladin Champion had made for this place, she had felt herself start to get weak. Her hands twitched, losing strength and control. She should have known back then that she was on a steady path to decline. She should have known that this must have meant that the one who had called her to Undeath, was dead.

Revia wasn't sure what was keeping her alive right now: the fact that she wasn't a typical undead minion, or perhaps her fierce desire to tear down this wretched place and all that was in it. Perhaps it was both.

Since becoming an undead, after Actuass had kidnapped her and used her for his sick plans, Revia had known she'd have no place in the Purity as she was now. Of course, she could have chosen to live a quiet life away from society doing nothing but brooding.

But that wouldn't do.

Many things had burned within her ever since her skin started lacking warmth.

She had found out that Elita was gone. That woman she considered to be an older sister, had been falsely judged and demoted from her rank because the Purity hated what she was. Elita had been the one to calm her down when she (Revia) had talked to her one last time – in her prison. She had not flared because she had seen Elita smile despite how cruelly they treated her.

But where had Elita gone after that? What had the Purity done with her?

That question had turned Revia's thoughts dark.

Unlike Elita, Revia hadn't joined the Purity because she wanted to. She had joined because she had to. After losing her parents and her only sibling, she had been approached by a Priest who swore she was destined for great things. She had never truly believed it, even when she became the youngest Paladin Champion. All she believed in was Elita.

For Elita, she had stuck around with Actuass despite how sick it made her feel. She made herself believe that she could ride the coattails of the masked man's deed to gain enough authority to confront the Purity. She knew in her heart it was wrong, and she was prepared for retribution after, but she had to burn the Purity first. Only Actuass had had the power to do so; he was the only one she knew who could.

Revia had second-guessed herself once she, Alaris and Ruhrees had reached the Purity Headquarters, which wasn't easy. On top of the fact that only the top three Paladin Champions and the Cursed Bloods (because the Purity preferred to keep them all close) knew where the Purity headquarters actually was despite living in it, there had been many arrays to break through.

On facing the three faceless statues in the inner courtyard, she had questioned why she came to this place with a sword and malevolence. However, when one of the statues had risen and spoken to her, her fury had been validated.

To think the nine had the gall to denounce her; to claim that she had failed to protect the world and instead sided with the enemy due to weakness.

To think they'd set their Purity Knights against her, to kill her.

To think… to think they had been breeding something even more sinister than she could have imagined in the sacred dark depths.

Even Ruhrees, who was only accompanying Revia because he wondered why the Purity had not sent out more Knights to assist against the Cavern had been perturbed.

Alaris as well, had been stunned. He had joined to assist because he had hoped they might come back from the Purity with a great host of allies.

But alas…

Revia coughed and blood spilled from her.

She wondered where Ruhrees and Alaris were now.

They had fought their way through the Purity Knights, but when the Paladin Champions appeared, the battles had turned uglier.

Ruhrees had disappeared somewhere, fighting one, and Alaris, holding his own quite well, had vanished while fighting another.

As for Revia. Well, her body decided to fail her at the most crucial moment, when she had drawn closest to the sinister darkness brewing beneath. Her assailants had failed to judge what she was and thus, after stabbing her in all the right places, they had left her here to die.

'I can't die now! I can't atone now! At least let me see what they did to Elita, and then I'll gladly take any punishment I deserve!' she screamed from within. The boils merged around her lips, sealing them shut.

They were odd these boils.

What the Purity wished to do with disease was beyond Revia. It made those crones and geezers that called themselves the High Authorities look even more ugly.

Once more, a jolt of weakness took Revia's flesh.

She started to slide off the wall to the floor, her silver hair covering her eyes. It was cold. Too cold. Was this the true approach of death?

Revia had always known that undeath was potent, but pure death also had an authority to it. Perhaps its powers were the coldest of all, hence why she felt like a glacier at this moment. Her mind turned fuzzy.

Perhaps she couldn't have eluded true death much longer, after all, even Actuass hadn't.