Deus Necros

“Phase two? What do you mean?” Thomas’s voice came strained through the haze of clashing spells and howling roots.

“You’ll see,” Ludwig answered. He didn’t look back. His eyes were locked on the grotesque shape writhing before him. Slowly, step by step, he began to back away from the Queen, boots crunching over splintered bark and debris scattered across the blood-slick ground. Each step felt as if it dragged a phantom weight behind it.

Then, without warning, the Queen’s mournful hymn faltered, cracking in the middle of a note like brittle glass. It ceased entirely, and in its place came a soul-wrenching scream. A raw, primal shriek that shivered the very bones of the cavern. She clutched at her head, clawed fingers digging into the sides of her faceless skull as if trying to hold it together. The noise echoed like the cry of a thousand voices caught in torment, building in volume until the very roots that coiled and slithered around the chamber began to tremble in resonance.

Ludwig didn’t flinch. He had seen this before. He had watched her do this, again and again, and he already knew how it would end. The sound of her scream signaled not her weakness but the breaking point in a cycle he could never seem to overcome.

The shriek rose to another pitch, an even more discordant octave that pierced the air like a blade. Dust fell from the ceiling. Stalactites groaned above. The earth quaked in reply. All around them, the gnarled and rotting roots twisted with agitation, writhing like worms beneath skin. It was a cacophony that reached into the marrow of every living-or unliving-thing in the cavern.

The first to show signs of its influence wasn’t Ludwig or Thomas, but the figure standing confused and exposed near the Queen. The Vampire woman, draped in the remnants of a tattered cape that barely clung to her shoulders. She stood adrift in that chaos, motionless, though the tremor in her limbs betrayed the storm beginning to awaken inside her.

Ludwig’s gaze narrowed, cold realization tightening his jaw. He knew who she was now.

It had been little more than fragmented clues at first. A vague sense from the quest log that didn’t sit right. The werewolf’s slip of the tongue confirming her family name. The way her aura, even in that broken state, had pressed down on him like a mountain. That power was that of a true one.

And it would take a fool not to know who she might be.

Celine, Celine Bastos.

The name held so much weight in itself, not to mention the person. The proud sentinel of Lufondal, knight of renown, warrior of a lineage woven into the roots of the world. Rumor once whispered that her strength rivaled even Dante Bastos himself, and perhaps even matched the current dread power of his master Van Dijk and maybe, just maybe, she has always been stronger. A legend in her own right.

And yet, that wasn’t who stood beside him.

What stood before Ludwig now was a husk. A mindless fragment of that greatness, hollowed out by years maybe centuries, of torment. The proud soul had been scraped raw by something darker than pain. Something that shattered memory and mind alike. But even so, even in this ruinous state, she was still strong. Dangerously so. Her presence burned at the edges of perception like the heat of a dying star.

Then, almost imperceptibly, her eyes flickered.

It started as a tremor in the pupils. Then came the glow, slow at first, then swelling like embers given breath. Crimson. A deep, ancient red, the color of blood passed down through generations of monsters and warriors. It flared outward, casting her face in an eerie light that clashed with the moss-green glow of the cave. It wasn’t just Ludwig who noticed.

Even the werewolf, lounging with exaggerated boredom atop a stone ledge, cocked his head slightly. One brow raised. His posture, once languid and amused, stiffened by a hair’s breadth. He didn’t speak, but Ludwig could feel it. That prickling of attention. That tension that filled the void just before the storm begins.

Celine’s transformation had begun.

The blood she had consumed earlier surged through her like a second awakening. She twitched once. Then her charred skin began to break. Cracks split across her body like the surface of a volcano on the verge of eruption. Slivers of blackened flesh peeled away in curled flakes, drifting to the ground like ash from a dying pyre. What lay beneath was no less terrifying.

Fresh flesh. Smooth, pink, and unmarked by torment. New muscles knit themselves together before Ludwig’s eyes. Veins pulsed. Bones reformed. The jagged stumps of broken teeth extended into sharp fangs with a sickening crunch, as if time itself was rewinding.

A cough burst from her chest, dry and guttural, followed by another. Then came a third, more violent this time. Black sludge and charred blood splattered against the ground, purged like poison from her lungs. And with each retch, her form grew cleaner, her posture straighter. Blood surged beneath her skin now, tracing delicate rivers under pale flesh. It coursed visibly across her neck, her arms, her collarbones. Her face, previously slack and ruined, began to take shape. The cheekbones reasserted themselves. The eyes grew sharper, clearer.

Her hair, once bald except for patches here and there scorched and half-burnt, began to cascade anew in silvery strands, unfurling like a waterfall of moonlight. It grew past her shoulders, reaching her waist in mere moments. Her body was still gaunt, visibly starved, but no longer broken. Now she was whole. Now she was dangerous.

Ludwig’s throat went dry. He saw this many times before, and every time it was mystifying.

To him, she looked like a queen from a forgotten nightmare. A vision wrapped in moonlight and death. Eyes rimmed with the black of exhaustion, yet glowing with unnatural life. Lips no longer cracked, but full and pale. Fingers sharpened into talons. Each movement of her healing body carried weight. Intention. It was like watching a blade being drawn from its scabbard.

All of this unfolded in mere seconds.

And it was enough to make Ludwig tighten his grip on his weapon.

Because the worst part wasn’t the change.

It was what came next.