Loimos stood in the middle of the forest, now turned into a wasteland, facing a huge, leafless tree.
The tree wasn’t simply large, it had a face, the face of an old man sprouting out from the trunk, looking down on the undead.
The old wood creaked and cracked as the ancient tree smiled softly, though there was a certain sense of madness to it.
Loimos wasn’t familiar enough with the facial expressions of the living to get much of that display, he simply stayed in place.
The tree wasn’t being affected by the life-devouring miasma, in fact, there was some sort of bubble free of the smog surrounding the overgrown plant.
"Your soul, it is quite special, undead" it spoke slowly, its voice deep, so deep that it seemed to come from the depth of this very world.
"You are an undead unlike any other, dead in all forms and shapes, never having tasted the sweetness, delicateness, bitterness of life" it chuckled, the voice was neither masculine nor feminine.
Loimos couldn’t and didn’t wish to respond, he was only there to try and figure out a way to bypass the tree’s defences.
Upon being exposed to its voice however, it became clear to the skeleton that The First Seed wasn’t nearly as simple as the goblins and other tribes believed, the voice wasn’t truly present physically.
But it wasn’t occurring within Loimos’s undead mind, he could clearly feel how it was communicating with him.
Soul to soul, they were much closer to one another as it seemed.
"Truly an antithesis" it mused aloud without elaborating.
They weren’t the smartest bunch and had already suffered greatly from his actions, even if the goblins managed to reach them, they would be greatly disappointed.
To ensure that maximum damage was dealt to the goblins, Loimos quickly made his way toward the small, central island and planted a small portion of rot on the tree there before returning near the shores.
Sitting at the bottom of the water, he began producing the maximum amount of rotten blood he could, quickly tainting the water.
The goblins wouldn’t be able to get water from anywhere, apart maybe from some wild fruits, they would only be able to satiate their thirst by drinking the blood of beasts and monsters, which were most certainly already all contaminated to some extent.
They would either slowly die or be forced to venture deeper into the lake to get some untouched water.
Loimos couldn’t completely extend his rot to the entirety of the lake in so little time.
If they tried to do that however, they would be attacked from beneath.
Maimed and dragged into the depth, there was no cutting it, Loimos didn’t need to put any of the plans he had thought of to deal with the tribe’s strongest members, they would have to die without being able to lay their eyes on him.
Gobstroz had the sheer might to take on all of the undeads by himself, but it didn’t matter.
Nothing mattered for them anymore, they would simply have to accept death, something no living being could do.
After their lives were reaped, it would be time for the next tribe, and then the next, until the entirety of this small world was overtaken by death.
The miasma will eventually condense and force its way beyond the limits of this place.
Loimos didn’t know what was beyond here, but he would be finding out soon enough.