Deus Necros

Ludwig held his sword with both hands, every tendon in his undead arms drawn taut as he swung Oathcarver downward. The weight of the blade, even for him, carried momentum enough to rattle his frame, and when the edge struck the flailing bulk of the Wrathful Death it was like slamming steel into a mountain of living iron. Sparks screamed out in every direction, not delicate but violent, thick bolts of raw light and clashing thunder leaping along the jagged edges of the titan’s armor. The impact shuddered up Ludwig’s arms, numbing bone and sinew, leaving his fingers tingling though he had no living nerves left to feel them. Follow current ɴᴏᴠᴇʟs on novel•fire.net

Instead of frustration, Ludwig’s grin only widened, fangs glinting in the half-light of their freefall. “Wouldn’t have been fun if you were easily injured!” His voice came out ragged, carried away on the gale of wind that whipped past them both as they plunged.

The Wrathful Death’s reply was no word but a sound that seemed to tear the air itself apart: a howl, shrieking through metal plates, vibrating from deep inside its cracked chest. It spun, massive gauntlet arcing with the speed of a landslide, but Ludwig was already moving. His instincts had sharpened through too many deaths to misread the rhythm of its strikes. He kicked free of its armored shoulder and triggered [Explosive Mine], the detonation bursting behind his boots and hurling him away in a streak of flame and smoke.

The recoil singed his coat, filling his nose with the acrid stink of burnt fabric and scorched iron. He ignored it, thrusting Oathcarver forward, arm raised high, then angled the blade downward like the tip of a pilebunker ready to punch through stone.

“Explosive Mine!” he roared.

The spell surged through his arms into the weapon, and for a heartbeat the sword became less a blade than a cannon, propelling him down with bone-snapping speed. He shot toward the Wrathful Death’s face, the monstrous helm with its cruel T-visor, its eyes burning like pits of coals. The impact came in a blinding flash, steel against abyssal steel, and Ludwig felt Oathcarver bite deep into the helm’s slit with a force that rattled his entire body.

The air lit crimson.

-25,114,444!

The numbers blazed across his vision, burning into his retinas as if the system itself wanted him to savor every digit. For a moment Ludwig laughed, a wild, guttural laugh that belonged to a man who had been broken too many times to care about consequences anymore. The hit had landed true, the strike piercing where any mortal nose and mouth should have been.

And yet, what gushed from the wound was no blood, no bone, nothing mortal. Instead a torrent of raw energy burst outward, red as fury and thick as liquid fire. It surged against Ludwig’s face and arms like standing too close to a roaring furnace, scalding him with heatless flame, light that seemed to burn his very existence.

Despite the catastrophic number, the Wrathful Death’s health bar only trembled, shifting by the barest fraction. A scratch. A graze. Nothing more.

“Figures,” Ludwig muttered, eyes narrowing. His exhilaration did not falter, but it twisted into something hungrier. If even this damage could barely shift the beast, then the challenge was worthy of his struggle.

As the old adage says… If it bleeds… It dies!

The Wrathful Death’s colossal fist lashed out in retaliation, but the motion was clumsy. They were still falling, bodies tumbling through thinning clouds and shrieking wind, and without the ground to anchor it the punch carried less inevitability than the last.

Ludwig’s mind ticked with manic clarity. Expected. Predictable. He kicked away again, air buffeting his limbs, and with his free hand he scrawled the spell that had saved him before. A bead of violet light winked into existence on the titan’s armor.

[Graviol].

It latched to the collarbone, pressing down with crushing weight, dragging the Wrathful Death’s mass into imbalance. The titan’s head dipped, body folding at its center.

The fall turned into a somersault.

“Dance for me!” Ludwig spat, then snapped his fingers.

“Explode!”

The orb burst apart in a concussive wave, and the Wrathful Death’s body flipped in midair like a puppet pulled by a cruel child. Its head swung down first, limbs flailing with unintended momentum in a cartwheel spin, and Ludwig rode the chaos with a snarl curling across his lips.

He extended his chain, the links shrieking through the air like a striking serpent. The black steel wound tight around the titan’s chest, dragging Ludwig forward into the maelstrom of its fall.

The Wrathful Death’s claws swiped for the chain, but Ludwig was already gone, releasing his hold and letting the slack unwind. He landed, light as he could manage, on the horned crest of its helmet. Beneath his boots the steel shuddered like a bell being struck, reverberating through his bones.

A gauntlet rose to crush him like a gnat, blotting out the sky. Ludwig kicked off again, chains tightening around Oathcarver’s hilt where it was still buried deep in the helm’s faceplate.

The hand missed him, but not the weapon. Rage and blind strength shoved the sword deeper, steel sinking through the slit of the T-visor until the hilt rattled against the helm’s rim.

117,777,445!

The number flared, searing against Ludwig’s eyes in bloody brilliance. For the first time, the health bar dipped with visible force, dragging down to two-thirds.

The Wrathful Death howled again, but this time the sound carried pain, not only wrath. The cry split the clouds below them, a vibration that sent avalanches tumbling from unseen cliffsides.

And Ludwig, clinging to his chain, felt his grin stretch feral. “Ah, the sweet sound of approaching DEATH!”

Then the world itself seemed to pause as a new notification carved its way across his vision:

[Your Death Point has been updated!]

He barked a laugh, manic and grateful all at once. Necros was still watching him. Necros was saving his progress. And that meant he could push harder, risk more, spend himself like kindling until victory came.

Hope for Ludwig kindled, as for the Wrathful Death… It began to fleet.