Deus Necros

“Speaking of apostles,” Ludwig said, his voice low and steady, though something simmered beneath it, fatigue perhaps mental one of course, or the slow, creeping weight of realization settling deeper with every breath. He glanced toward the arena’s shattered silhouette looming beyond the smoke, then back to Titania with a grim look hardening his features. “You know this isn’t the only one attacking.”

The Holy Maiden turned sharply to face him, the motion crisp and deliberate, a line forming between her brows. Her silvered pauldrons caught what little light filtered through the dust-choked sky. “What?” she asked, the word clipped, almost disbelieving, but not entirely surprised. “How do you know that?”

“Four,” Ludwig said. He didn’t pause this time, didn’t offer room for rebuttal. “Don’t ask me how I know, but I do. There are four apostles in the city right now.” His eyes narrowed slightly as they settled on the mangled figure of the Shrike, still twitching in unnatural glee as she clashed with Titania’s earlier blows. “That one’s the third. The last one… I think he’s a necromancer. Something about the air he brings, it reeks of death.”

Titania inhaled slowly, holding it in as if trying to steel herself. “What about the other two?”

“Monsters,” Ludwig muttered, the word bitten off like it tasted foul. “Absolute monsters. I’ve seen them up close, too close. Mot met one of them. He should’ve told you.”

Her frown deepened, fingers briefly curling into a fist before she relaxed them again. “The werewolf?”

He nodded. “Yes.”

Titania’s gaze drifted to the ground, her jaw tightening for a beat. Then she exhaled hard through her nose. “Damn. This is a true trial…”

She closed her eyes briefly, letting the sounds of the distant chaos, the screaming, the roar of collapsing structures, the metallic clangs of weapons, rush into her ears and settle there like a tide of dread. When she opened them again, they were resolute. “You need to go,” she said.

Ludwig blinked. “What do you mean?”

“She isn’t an opponent you can handle,” Titania said, firm and final, as if she had already weighed the argument and dismissed its counter. Her tone was not cruel, only brutally pragmatic.

Ludwig scoffed faintly, more out of pride than disbelief. “That’s pretty lame,” he replied, though the flicker of wounded pride in his eyes betrayed his tone. “I know I’m not as strong as you. But you’re really looking down on me like that?”

Titania shook her head slowly, her voice quieter but no less cutting. “She can’t be killed. Not like this. And you, you’re but a human. No matter how skilled, you’ll exhaust yourself long before you do anything lasting. She ignores all forms of physical damage, and just shrugs it off, and your magic,” she paused, eyes narrowing, “it isn’t strong enough. And you don’t have Aura, which is, as I’ve found, the only thing that seems to even dull her regeneration.”

Ludwig sighed, mouth flattening as he looked toward the still-laughing apostle, his grip on Oathcarver tightening. “Incompatible, I suppose…”

“Very,” she said. “Go handle the other apostles. Avoid the Werewolf if you can help it. From what Mot told me…” She trailed off, her voice briefly shadowed by doubt. “That thing is incredibly powerful. I don’t know about the others though, but that one especially, don’t even go near it. We’ll see how we can handle it once we’re done with all this kerfuffle.”

She turned then, sharp as a command, toward Celine. “Vampire lady. Can you handle one of the apostles on your own?”

Celine’s gaze was already settled in the south, distant and cool. “I should be able to not die at least,” she said with a slight smile that didn’t reach her eyes.

“That’s more than good enough,” Titania replied, satisfied. “The Hero and a couple cardinals went south. I’ve a feeling they’ll need your help.”

“Isn’t Mot with him?” Ludwig asked, brow furrowed.

“No.” Titania’s eyes flicked over the battlefield, as if trying to spot the outline of the missing apostle. “He went to the lower city section. Now I know why. It was probably to find the last one.”

“There were a lot of Undead there,” Ludwig muttered.

“Curses,” she hissed. “It’s fine. Mot’s arsenal is tailored for killing Undead. Though…” she glanced to the southeast, where black smoke curled thick into the heavens, “the whole damn lower city might get destroyed in the process…”

Ludwig fell into silence for a beat, then nodded. “Then that leaves just me,” he murmured, voice steady but with something bitter behind it. He turned to Redd, who had been uncharacteristically silent.

“And Redd, I guess.”

“I have to ask you to handle the remaining Apostle,” Titania said, her tone slowing as her gaze locked onto Ludwig’s again. “But listen to me, don’t fight the Werewolf if he is the first one you meet. Avoid him. Understand?”

Ludwig exhaled, long and slow. A flicker of something passed behind his eyes, a wish, unspoken, tied to the absent figure of Van Dijk. He couldn’t say the name aloud. It would link him too closely. Too dangerously. And the Holy Maiden, of all people, must never know that the man before her was not the noble Davon, but Ludwig Heart, the presumably Undead student and bound to Van Dijk it’ll tie both their faiths to the gallows of the Order.

“Sure,” he finally said. “I’ll need to find the damned Piper then.”

“How do you know all that?” The words cut the air like a knife, venom-laced and strange, and they didn’t belong to Titania.

“Too much for a mere coincidence, you know too much… who are you?” she asked.

Ludwig’s eyes narrowed slightly as he turned back toward the source. He hesitated and stopped himself from instinctively reaching toward his lantern, she shouldn’t realize he was also an Apostle of Necros, so far only the Werewolf knows his true appearance.

He gave a tired grin. “Wouldn’t you love to know,” he said, and with that, he turned on his heel and burst forward into a sprint.

The shrike’s delighted shriek followed like a twisted melody. “I love it when they run!” she cried, voice high and giddy as a child’s. She bolted after him, sickles twitching with anticipation.

But Titania was faster.

With an almost imperceptible step, the Holy Maiden moved, and in the blink of an eye, she was already in front of the apostle. A brilliant shimmer of silver flashed from her gauntlet, and a sword materialized in her hand. With a single strike, she tore the shrike cleanly in half from shoulder to hip, like slicing through parchment.

The apostle didn’t scream.

Or rather, she didn’t need to. Her body, slack and collapsing mid-stride, was suddenly seething. From the jagged halves, tendrils of blood, sinew, and something darker, flesh that writhed like worms, burst forth. They slithered and writhed, clutching to each other, reforming, pulling her back into something whole.

It took less than half a second.

“You should wait your turn,” the Shrike said as her reformed body rose slowly from the stone, her eyes glittering, her smile wider than her mouth should have allowed. “To die.”

Titania didn’t flinch. “You’re the one who’s making me feel all too jealous,” she said flatly. “I also like some attention.”

For the briefest instant, the two of them, one human, one something far less, flashed identical, crooked smiles. The kind that spoke of blood. Of joy found in violence. And then they lunged.

Steel and bone collided in a storm of shrieks and sparks.