Legion vs Stage 2 (2/4)
[DAY 36]
Neo made his way into the ruins of the subway after getting out of the truck.
The former subway looked run down, it's clear that not a single human has been here for hundreds of years. Plants and mushrooms can be seen everywhere and the soil is wet and small animals like rats are here and there.
For a moment Neo felt as if he had entered another world. The contrast to the rest of the city, which despite being devastated by the undead and the Asteroids, still looks modern and not so wild.
Neo and his two Defenders each went ahead, behind them was the Enhancer with the 30 or so undead and behind them, were the two Attackers to cover the back.
Neo also left some undead on the truck and would use them to bring some supplies to him in the Subway, if needed. Otherwise, Neo has a backpack with him that contains some explosives and some extra weapons and ammunition.
...
Neo and his Elite keep looking around the ruins and Neo quickly found his way down. He could feel the Stage 2 even better here and he was now sure that the undead must have a MID STAGE 2 MUTANT UNDEAD BODY.
Especially since the Stage 2's Aura was stronger than his own.
As they go down the stairs full of plants, they quickly found something strange.
Many corpses were lying on the stairs and the lowest floor, in their mouths, noses and ears sticking out plants which all looked like mushrooms and a green cloud of spores was in the air around the corpses.
Neo decided not to go any further and instead send one of the normal undead in front and test whether the spores are dangerous for undead.
The poor undead followed Neos command and made his way to the corpses and then let the spores attack him.
The spores gathered around it and clung to the undead for some time. While Neo couldn't be certain that the spurs wouldn't have any negative side effects, however he decided to go down with the rest of his Elite, nonetheless.
When the spores made contact with Neo's demonic armor, they clung to him just like at the undead before.
However, Neo then ordered his Miasma to enter his misty state and destroy the spores.
Neos Miasma followed his instructions and the spores in the air were destroyed and with that the green cloud disappeared.
Neo then decided to examine the ruins more closely when he was on the lower floors.
The subway had two large tracks that lead into two tunnels each. The tracks were partially destroyed and overgrown with plants.
Otherwise there were more corpses on the track station, all had different fungi in their mouths and were completely overgrown by the plants.
'Mhmm... Why aren't there any undead here? With so many corpses whose brains are still there, there should be undead everywhere. Did the Stage 2 kill them for being in its territory?' Neo thought to himself as he took a closer look at one of the tunnels.
The ruins were completely dark and it was difficult to see anything, but Neo, whose senses are much stronger than Stage 2, could still make out faint shapes everywhere.
But to see even better, he took a flare pistol out of his backpack and shot it into the tunnel.
"Purm"
The tunnel was illuminated by a bright red light and he could see inside. There was an old train in the tunnel, who knows how long it's been there.
Otherwise the tunnel wasn't really big and had a lot of plants everywhere.
"AAAARRHRHR"
Suddenly it echoed out of the tunnel and Neo jerked up.
"So the Stage 2 finally noticed us mmh... So come and let me see how strong you really are." said Neo as he looked into the tunnel.
Neo's broadsword then materialized in front of him and he ordered the Elite to stay alert and attack anything hostile.
After a few seconds it happened. A bunch of plant-like undead burst out of the tunnel and the train, and they all ran fanatically towards Neo.
The undead plants all looked different, some were greenish and had different plants sprouting from their bodies.
Others had red skin with white spots on them and looked like large mushrooms. And finally there were some Stage 1 Mutant Undead that were all blue and had huge claws and ran on four legs. From their backs grew some plants several meters long with spikes that look like swords on them.
"Interesting... examining you will definitely be interesting. But first you must die." Neo said with a smile as he saw the undead running towards him.
A few days ago, when Neo wasn't a Stage 2 yet, or when Neo didn't have his Legion yet, he would have been running from such a crowd of undead.
But today with his strength, Neo feels more than confident that he can defeat all the undead on his own. But Neo wants his undead to do the job to get stronger too.
He will only intervene when a very strong opponent is coming and his Elite cannot fight the enemy at first.
Said and done. Neo ordered his undead to attack the plant undead and a brutal fight ensued between the two sides.
Neo's Defenders immediately ran into the crowd of weak plant undead and pushed them aside, using their spears and swords to kill any undead that came too close.
The Attackers, on the other hand, who were still further behind, jumped on the bandwagon and fought five or so STAGE 1 MUTANT UNDEAD there.
The Attacker with the great ax sliced through the chest of one of the plant undead, splitting it in two and immediately attacking the next one. Meanwhile, the other attacker with the longsword dodged the attacks of two of the enemies' spikes and made a good sword stroke, cutting through most of the plants on the back of the undead.
While this was all happening, the Enhancer used its BERSERK ability and all of the Legion's normal undead glowed with a yellow light and ran fanatically towards the plant undead.
They bit and scratched the plants to death, quickly overpowering the enemies. There were even some normal undead that killed a STAGE 1, they just grabbed him by six and ripped him open and ate his brains. Even Neo was surprised at the strength of his undead.
He knew they were strong, but so much stronger than another horde of undead? He didn't expect that.
...
After a few minutes the fight was over and Neo's side was victorious, with only a few normal undead on their side dead.
But for the fact that the enemies fought in their territory and outnumbered, Neo was more than satisfied with the strength of his Elite.
The only thing he didn't like was that basically all weapons except the enhancer ones were destroyed.
Neo just looked at his Elite Undead. All of them had their heads down and were looking at the ground, they all looked ashamed that they had their weapons destroyed. Well almost all undead, the Enhancer stood next to Neo and held his head high, like it was proud that his weapos wasn't broken.
'What the hell... they don't have any emotions, right? Why do I feel like a father punishing his brats for doing something bad right now?' Neo wondered to himself.
Afterwards, he gave the undead some spare weapons he had with him.
Neo also recovered some of the purple crystals from the Stage 1 Undead, and plans to examine them more closely later, especially as another horde of plant undead emerges from the tunnel again.
The legion braced itself again and the next fight quickly began again.
...
[DAY 37]
'Damn it, how many more are there?' Neo wondered after severing a LATE STAGE 1 MUTANT UNDEAD's skull from his shoulders.
'That was already the 9th wave or so, we've probably already killed 50,000 thousand or so undead, where do they all come from? Can the Stage 2 conjure up new undead from the air? I've had a lot of trouble building my Legion and here's the bastard who built a gigantic horde under the city, f*ck' thought Neo as he killed seven undead in front of him at once.
'And then I lost most of my STAGE 0 UNDEAD, luckily none of the Elite died yet, but I have a feeling that if we don't slowly make it to Stage 2, we're going to die in this endless tunnel.' Neo added as he looked around.
The Enhancer, who lost almost all of his Stage 0s, could no longer use his BERSERK ability and went into close combat with both of his daggers.
The tracks were full of corpses missing an arm or a head. Neo slowly ran out of patience and started slaughtering all the undead in front of him as well.
Neo feels that the Stage 2 can't be far away and so he decided to keep advancing, he wants to finish the fight against the Stage 2 today, but in the end Neo decided to be more cautious.
Even though the Stage 2 isn't that smart, it's smart enough to make simple traps and thoughts. Not wanting to fall into another trap when fighting a Stage 2, Neo decided to advance slowly and keep a close eye on the area.
...
Neo's Legion was slaughtering the next Stage 1 Undead when suddenly four new undead entered the battlefield.
Neo realized that the four are LATE STAGE 1 MUTANT UNDEAD. They were all huge, about ten feet tall, with ape-like bodies.
As they entered the battlefield in the tunnel, they stomped and hit the ground, causing a small tremor that slightly unbalanced Neo and his Legion.
"F*ck that's what they're up to! Stop these gorillas quickly!" screamed Neo as he realized what the undead are trying to do.
But before they could launch the attack, it was already too late.
The floor and ceiling of the tunnel collapsed and Neo and his Legion fell into the depths of a great chasm that was beneath the tunnel.
Neo quickly activated the DARK DISC ability and his miasma shot out of his feet and formed a circular disc beneath him.
However, Neo cannot put all of his undead on the disc and save them, especially since that would be too much weight.
Neo decided to save the Enhancer and both Attackers, as the Defenders can potentially survive the fall themself.
Neo managed to rescue all of his undead and then landed on a wet and misshapen canyon floor. Everything was dark and Neo could hardly see anything, but after sometime he could see better.
"Building a tunnel under a ravine, how stupid were people in the past?" cursed Neo as he looked around.
Neo's two Defenders survived the fall as expected, but both lost their weapons in the process and Neo didn't have a replacement for now.
Neo then looked around the canyon a little more closely and found two of the undead gorillas on the ground, both dead from the fall.
Neo cut the purple crystals out of their skulls and decided to continue towards Stage 2, whose aura was stronger down here.
"It wanted me down here? He's looking to fight me in his territory." Neo said as he walks towards the aura along with his legion.
"Perhaps it senses that I am almost as strong as itself and therefore seeks a fight in order to eat me and grow in strength. Well, whatever it wants, it made a mistake in underestimating my strength and inviting me into its lair." said Neo with a smile.
...
After some back and forth, Neo finally found the Stage 2 Undead.
The MID STAGE 2 MUTANT UNDEAD looked like a giant tree with blood red leaves.
The tree was gigantic at almost 40 meters high and took up a large part of the gorge. The tree had thousands of branches and trunks all over the ground and in the air.
Under the stage 2 tree, there was a small horde of about 5,000 plant undead and among them were some Stage 1 undead.
Further up, Neo then found the two gorilla-like undead that caused the collapse of the tunnel. They yelled loudly and all bared their teeth or goads at Neo and his Legion.
Meanwhile, Neo put his bag on the ground and pulled out some grenades, then he threw them at the 5,000 more undead.
"BOOM"
"BOOM"
"BOOM"
"BOOM"
...
With each explosion, seven or so undead died and the trunks of the tree slowly started to burn. But because the wood was so wet and clearly not normal wood, it didn't burn for long.
However, the Stage 2 Undead Tree didn't seem to like the fire and all the plants in the vicinity began to attack Neo.
"Good. Here I am, let's get started." Neo said with a smile as he charged into the fight against the Stage 2 Undead Tree. While in his mind, Neo ordered his undead to attack the enemy undead and eliminate the two gorillas.
...
Neo received the first branches that came towards him like rockets with his sword and gradually cut them into pieces. But there were just too many branches coming from all directions.
Neo therefore decided to use a new technique that he had recently developed but already had the concept.
Neo's miasma erupted from his body and quickly solidified at Neo's command, forming into three large triangles, each side impossibly sharp. The triangles then rotated around his body and cut all the branches in hundreds of pieces. No branch came through to Neo and Neo was then able to inspect the tree from close up.
Neo first believed that the tree was made of a special kind of wood, but as he got closer and examined the tree more closely, he discovered that the tree was actually made up of thousands of bodies.
Faces, arms, organs, etc. were all hardened, forming the complete tree. But the worst seems to be that the people in the Tree were still alive and not as undead, but as humans.
Many cried, or sobbed, but no tears came out. Others cried out for redemption and forgiveness, as well as a quick death. After that, Neo saw the incredible.
On some of the lower trunks, the wood of Stage 2 suddenly formed the plant undead that he and his elite have been fighting for a day.
Neo was fascinated by the tree and its Traits. A Trait that allows merging with other creatures, is that how the plant undead came about?
'So the Stage 2 can create undead after all and apparently even manipulate them with its own DNA. How much stronger would I be, if I could have this ability?' asked Neo himself.
"I really need his endoskeleton, if I can get the gene segments for his Traits, then I could change my DNA in the future and create a legion much more easily, just from my own body." Neo said with a big smile as he regarded the tree as the most precious thing in the world.
"HAAHAHAH, LITTLE TREE COME AND LET ME KILL AND EAT YOU!" Neo yelled suddenly in his demonic voice as he jumped the tree again.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
UMI CHANGES:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
NEW: SOUL PATH MIASMA ACTIVE ABILITY: DARK TRIANGLES (Explanation: Neo commands his Miasma to form triangles and slice through all attacks with their sharp edges. The ability requires little imagination and is easy to use)
NEW UNDEAD FOUND: STAGE 2 TREE UNDEAD
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
STATUS STAGE 2 TREE UNDEAD:
BODY PATH.
BODY: MID STAGE 2 MUTANT UNDEAD BODY
TRAITS: NATURE & CREATION
ACTIVE ABILITIES: CREATE UNDEAD, [?]
PASSIVE ABILITIES: PHOTOSYNTHESIS, CONNECTED UNDEAD, ENHANCED DEFENCE (TREE BODY)[?]
SOUL PATH: UNKNOWN
P.S: This [?] means that their could be more abilities that are unknown to Neo, for now.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ABILITIY EXPLANATION
CREATE UNDEAD (Explanation: The Undead Tree can create undead from its own body and create their DNA at its will and ability. Attention: needs many people)
PHOTOSYNTHESIS (Explanation: The Undead Tree can remain strong without food by photosynthesizing, but then needs a lot of water)
ENHANCED DEFENCE (TREE BODY) (Explanation: The undead has a tree as its body, which protects it greatly from any explosion damage unless it is large enough)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
LEGION STRENGTH:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
LEGION COUNT: 100,249 UNDEAD -> 108,191 UNDEAD
ELITE OF THE LEGION: 5 MUTANT UNDEAD
PREFECT: 1 (Aaron)