Deus Necros

The incoming white tsunami washed over the Wrathful Death first, a bulging wall of snow and shattered cornice that swallowed sky and ridge alike; for an instant its broad face, all iron plates and furnace cracks, vanished beneath a churning froth of ice-dust and tumbling boulders. Though it hurled its shoulder into the rush, audaciously bracing as if it could force the mountain to obey, it was immediately blasted sideways, body corkscrewing, the long rents in its armor flaring a bloody red that steamed in the cold.

Ludwig, on the other hand, was not someone who’d wait for death with open arms. The shriek of the avalanche filled the air like tearing silk a thousand-fold; the sting of needle-snow bit the Davon skin; frost-laden wind slapped at his cape and made the edges crackle. He squinted into the white and, almost laughing at the sheer madness of the thought, angled his body to cut the slope rather than ride it under.

“Not wasting this one, Necros,” he muttered into the howl, teeth bared, and kicked up. In the same breath he yanked Oathcarver from his ring, the massive blade blooming into weight in his hands, and set it flat beneath him. The hilt bit against the soles of his boots as he hopped onto the steel, knees slightly bent like a diver on a narrow board. His Soul Chains uncoiled with a rasping clink, black links alive to his will; they wrapped themselves once, twice, around his ankles and across the guard, hitching himself to the improvised sled so the first bad jolt wouldn’t throw him headlong into the white maw.

The instant that iron met packed powder, the world tilted. The sword’s flat slid, caught, then cut a groove; snow hissed beneath, and Ludwig felt the surface stiffen to glass-hard speed. His stomach lifted as the slope pitched steeper.

“WHOAAAAA!” The cry tore out of him, exultant, half-mad, the kind of bark that rips free when a man who has been clenching his jaw for too long finally lets breath carry everything it was holding. The wind peeled the sound away, but the grin stuck to his face.

“I’d be dissatisfied if anyone else were to step on my sword like this,” the Knight King observed dryly as his shade perched on Ludwig’s shoulder, cloak flapping in wind that could not touch the dead. The old voice held, for once, a trace of amusement. “But I have to say, I’m impressed. Still, think you can go faster? You’re far slower than the incoming avalanche.” This update is available on Nove1Fire.net

“Yeah, I know,” Ludwig said, breathless and oddly buoyed, as he jabbed one arm backward into the spray. “Graviol, explode!”

The purple bead popped into existence behind him, sank into the wake of fine snow, then detonated with a muffled thump. The shove punched through his spine; Oathcarver leapt as though a giant palm had slapped it, and the groove became a silver blur, snow throwing a rooster tail in his wake. Powder stung his cheeks; the tang of cold bit like mint and knife-edge. His chains sang, tension humming through the links into the bones of his ankles.

Behind him, the mountain shrugged its skin. The avalanche did not tumble like a single sheet, but came in uneven breaths, slabs of crust snapping, cornices folding, stone knuckling free. Within that rolling white, black iron surfaced and vanished: The Wrathful Death erupted with one arm extended, gauntlet fingers splayed, as if it meant to seize Ludwig off the slope like a beetle from a leaf. He felt the shadow of it more than saw it; the air thickened, snow in front of him flattened, and his nerves shrieked a fraction of a second sooner than his eyes could catch up.

He flicked his wrist and drove another Graviol charge hard behind him. The blast cracked the thin crust of snow, spat crystals into his hair, and shaved him out from under the descending arm so neatly the edge of a plate scraped his cape without catching. The Wrathful Death’s grasp closed on empty air. The avalanche swallowed it again with a roar like an enormous inhale.

Ticks of damage chimed at the edge of his vision, tiny numbers pricking the vast health bar as the titan pinwheeled, then got its bearings, then was engulfed anew. They were paltry, maddening, fleabites on a war-beast, but they did not stop. Slow and steady wins a race that isn’t meant to be won, Ludwig told himself, a dry scrap of humor inside his skull. Seas are filled a drop at a time. He leaned his weight, edged the blade, felt the steel answer as if guided by some old habit in the metal itself.

At one point there was a rift ahead where Ludwig blasted a Graviol to path through, flying for what felt like a lifetime only to land on the other side of the rift, his balance almost lost, but the chains slammed against the side of the blade to recalibrate him back.

Turning his head, he saw the tumbling giant about to reach the rift but unfortunately, the avalanche simply pushed him across despite his terrible form.

The snow rapidly filled the groove underneath and allowed even more rocks and ice to follow after, including the titan of fire and fury that had no opportunity to even stand on its feet.

He slid for what felt like ages. The world narrowed to wind and the hiss of the sword’s passage; sometimes the slope broke into scratchy ice that squealed under Oathcarver’s weight, sometimes into powder that foamed up his shins. Every few breaths, the black shape hurled itself free again, red gashes blazing, the heat of it turning snow to vapor around its plates, only to be clubbed flat by some new surge of white. He timed his extra pushes to those moments, tasting iron on his tongue each time the recoil jolted his ribs.

At last the mountain, indulgent or tired, began to ease. The long chute widened into a shelf; the distant ridges pushed back like a crowd taking a step; the thunder softened from a battering to a grumble. The avalanche slackened, broke apart, trailed to dirty eddies that wandered and went quiet. In that pause between violence and what followed, the Wrathful Death stood up out of the gathered snow with a wet iron sound, steam ripping off it in gray streamers. It shook itself like a war-horse, plates clacking, and the furnace seams along its breastbone drew a long, red breath.

Ludwig let Oathcarver’s nose lift and skidded sideways, chains rasping, until he came to a halt on the hard crust of the open field. He took a needless breath, habit more than necessity, and lifted his eyes to meet his enemy’s.

The Wrathful Death’s health lay just under the quarter mark now, an enormous reservoir still, but no longer infinite. It should have looked like opportunity. It felt, looking at the open, wind-bitten span of the shelf and the ragged ruin of his own mana, like the cruel hope that keeps a man on a rope over a cliff. A creature that could unmake a country without drawing a second breath had been battered down by accident of mountain and a handful of tricks; to finish it in a fair field would be something more than gall. It would be a miracle with teeth.

[Your Death Point has been saved.]

The letters steadied him. The prompt did not warm; it did not promise rescue; it was a hand on his back that said only: here is the knife you drove into the board; if you slip, you will fall to this point instead of the abyss. Even Necros could do no more for him now. The god’s help was a ledger and a nail.

“Well then,” Ludwig murmured, flexing his hands around air that felt thinner than it had a moment ago. The natural hush after avalanche made the words sit oddly clear. “I see that it has regained its luster…” His gaze traveled the titan’s frame, the reset of its stance, the pulse in the vents, the way it centered on him like a tower with intent. “But let’s see how sturdy it is… your hope, that is.”

He rolled his shoulders, and the Knight King said nothing, only watched, as kings do, when boys decide whether to charge a wall.

For a moment, the battlefield stayed still, and Ludwig tensed up, waiting on the Wrathful Death’s action.

It raised its hand up, and as if the mountain high behind them obeyed, a roar of destruction followed soon, an explosion of stone and ice high above them past the clouds echoed and soon a sun covering shade came upon them.

The mace of the Wrathful Death discarded not too long ago freed itself by sheer will of its wielder to come right into his hand.

The giant pointed his mace at Ludwig. Finally, a worthy challenge…

Finally someone worth crushing.