Deus Necros

“Bind him!” Titania roared. Her command snapped across the field like a whip.

Mot gritted his teeth, his eyes glimmering with strange light as more tendrils erupted around the Werewolf. Black coils whipped at him from every angle, trying to entangle his limbs. The Werewolf’s response was mercilessly efficient. His body twisted and turned, claws slicing, knees bending at unnatural angles as he tore through the snares. He shredded tentacles by the dozen, only for more to surge in their place. His sprint never faltered.

Titania didn’t wait for the outcome. She hurled herself across the field, sword first, meeting the Werewolf head-on. Their clash rang out with the sound of steel meeting raw bone and claw. Sparks flew in showers. She carved through his fingers, severing them in flashes of white aura, but the wounds closed in the blink of an eye, flesh stitching itself together as if time itself bent to his regeneration.

The ground quaked under their exchange, each strike a miniature earthquake. Ludwig felt the shockwaves even from where he stood, boots sliding across the shoulder of the giant.

From the side streets, figures emerged, armored and bloodied but not broken. Adventurers. They rushed forward, the insignia on their breastplates catching the dim moonlight, diamond-plated crests marking them as S-rank.

“Well handle this!” one called out, his spear gleaming with faint enchantment as he leveled it toward the Werewolf. His voice carried that edge of desperation masquerading as confidence.

“You can’t,” Titania snapped, her words sharp as the arc of her blade. She parried another claw strike, sparks blinding her vision for an instant before she forced him back with a vicious kick to the chest. The Werewolf tumbled into a wall, demolishing stone and timber, only to crawl free, grinning with fresh fangs.

“Assist Davon in taking down the giant!” Titania barked, her voice cracking across the battlefield. She didn’t give them room to argue. “And one of you, get the Guildmaster out of here! He’s alive but bleeding out, find the clerics and get his arm patched. We need him standing!”

Her orders cut through the chaos like iron. The adventurers glanced at one another, hesitation clear on their faces, but fear of Titania’s wrath outweighed their doubt. One broke off toward the Guildmaster, hauling the wounded man to his feet. The others turned reluctantly toward the towering Moonflayed King.

Titania drove her boot into the Werewolf’s chest again, hurling him back across the street. Buildings shattered under his impact, wood splintering and stone collapsing as he tumbled.

“That thing isn’t easy to deal with!” she shouted after them. “He’ll come back worse and stronger. Don’t waste your lives! Ironically, you’re better off fighting that godlike bastard than the mutt!”

The adventurers hesitated only a heartbeat before one of them scoffed, gripping his spear tighter. “It’s just a mutt,” he said, his tone dripping with misplaced bravado. “We killed plenty when we were green recruits, Lady Titania. Don’t overestimate him.”

Titania didn’t waste words. Her eyes narrowed, but she stayed locked in combat, blade and claw screeching together. It was Ludwig who broke the silence, his voice cutting through the roar of the battlefield. “If you can’t recognize the strength of the enemy standing in front of you,” he said, the weight of his tone grim and absolute, “then you’re already dead. He’s the one who severed your Guildmaster’s arm.”

The adventurer froze mid-step, his expression faltering. Doubt flickered across his face, but pride held him in place. There was nothing more Ludwig could do for them, those who saw death and chose it have only themselves to blame.

Ludwig yanked Oathcarver free from the Moonflayed King’s shoulder with a sickening tear of bone and sinew. He leapt upward, bringing the massive blade down in a brutal arc toward the abomination’s head.

The King reacted with inhuman swiftness. Its wings, vast and pale, unfurled in a shudder, and every feather upon them trembled like blades unsheathed. Then they shot outward.

The world turned into a storm of steel.

Feathers fell like a thousand arrows, their edges keener than forged steel, each one carrying enough force to punch through armor and bone alike. The sound of them cutting through the air was a shriek that split the ears, a storm of razors.

“Block with the sword!” The Knight King’s voice echoed inside Ludwig’s mind like a commandment.

Ludwig obeyed without hesitation. He thrust Oathcarver forward, the blade planted into the giant’s frame, and threw his entire body behind it. The steel wall became his only shield. Feathers slammed against it in waves, sparking on impact, detonating into shards of searing light and bone. The force rattled his arms, every impact threatening to tear the weapon from his grip and send him tumbling to his doom. His boots skidded against the King’s shoulder, gouging deep ruts into the flesh-like surface.

Still, he held.

The sound was deafening, metal shrieking, sparks bursting, the roar of the unnatural storm. Each feather that shattered became shrapnel, lacerating his skin, embedding shards into his clothes, tearing all the way down through stone and rubble. Below, streets collapsed under the barrage, bodies, human and monster alike, reduced to ribbons where the storm struck unguarded.

The Moonflayed King screeched, its mouth sealed shut yet the sound erupted from within its ribcage, a keening wail that tore at the marrow. The cry summoned more of its kin. Shadows writhed across the sky as Moon Reavers poured from the red-lit heavens, hundreds more clawing their way down, wings snapping open like blackened banners of war.

They landed all around, the ground cracking under their weight. Bent and twisted, their skin peeled raw, they clutched at their faceless heads as though ashamed of the horror they embodied. Then their backs split wide with sickening cracks, raven wings tearing free, and they rose screaming into the night.

The battlefield, already on the edge of collapse, descended into chaos.

Ludwig’s arms quivered as the storm eased. His body screamed from the impact though his undead form refused to falter. He ground his teeth and forced himself upright, Oathcarver still clutched tight. His eyes flicked to the King’s chest, its ribcage crown twisted again, closing around the ceramic core like a living cage.

“How the fuck are we supposed to kill this thing…” he muttered, his voice low, bitter, almost drowned by the cacophony around him. The King’s health, if it could even be called that, hadn’t budged.

Then, in a flash of silver, she appeared.

Celine.

She landed beside him with a ferocity that almost cracked the stone underfoot. Her hair whipped wild in the wind of the battlefield, her pale face taut with resolve. One eye burned red like a furnace, the other calm and steady. “Buy me time,” she said, her voice taut and dangerous, each syllable iron. “I’ll rip out its core.”

Ludwig didn’t hesitate. He met her gaze only briefly, then nodded once. “Sure. I’ve got you.”

And then she was gone, sprinting up the giant’s frame, her blade poised for the cage around its heart. Arms, feathers, and ribs closed in on her from every angle. She never looked back.

Ludwig followed, hurling himself upward after her, his arms alight with burning magic, every ounce of his power funneling into the storm he was about to unleash.