Deus Necros

Right outside the jagged teeth of the Solania Mountains, where the air always tasted of iron and frost, the Holy Order maintained its forward camps. One such outpost was little more than a circle of weary adventurers huddled around a fire that crackled too brightly against the endless white. The flames snapped and spat as fat from a boar sizzled over the spit, sending up a greasy smoke that mixed with the thin mountain air.

Two of the younger men had locked elbows, their hands trembling as they strained in a contest of arm strength. Their companions half-watched, half-ignored, some occupied with rubbing oil into dulled blades, others feeding the fire with branches stripped bare of frost. Snow crunched under boots whenever one shifted his weight, and their laughter, thin, tired, but genuine, rose into the brittle night.

“I still don’t get it,” one of the younger ones muttered, breaking the comfortable rhythm of silence. His voice had the sharp edge of boredom, that restless itch that crept in whenever the waiting dragged on too long. “Why did Sigurd order us to camp here, then vanish off on her own? Makes no sense.”

The man opposite him shrugged, poking at the boar with the tip of his knife. The meat hissed, skin splitting open to drip more fat into the flames. “Because she has eyes sharper than any of us. She scouts. Someone has to check if beasts are moving this close to the empire’s edge. You’ve heard the reports, Dark Continent spawn wandering where they shouldn’t.”

The younger’s brow furrowed, his gaze flicking uneasily toward the looming black silhouettes of the peaks. “That’s… unsettling. But we’re safe enough, right? The Guardian keeps this land.”

A harsh laugh escaped the man who had just slammed his companion’s arm to the dirt, claiming victory in the match. He shook his hand loose, flexing the stiffness from his fingers. “Safe? Not hardly. Haven’t you noticed? Sightings keep climbing every year. The Guardian isn’t doing what it used to. Maybe it’s slumbering. Maybe wounded. Whatever the truth, the peaks bleed more beasts into our world than they should.”

Another voice cut in, quieter, though it carried a weight that made the fire crackle seem louder. “Could be Tulmud’s fault. The disaster years back. Folks say the Guardian tried to enter, only to be shoved back into its cage.”

“Hearsay,” someone countered quickly. “The Order keeps that whole event buried. No reports, no clarity. Just silence.”

The younger one chewed his lip, eyes catching the fire’s glow. “Still… everyone calls that man a hero. But if he stopped the Guardian from tearing down those apostles, how’s that heroic? Sounds like collusion.”

“Enough,” an older cleric snapped, his voice gravel rubbed raw from years of chanting in frozen air. He jabbed his staff into the snow as if to pin the younger’s words there. “The Guildmaster himself honored that fallen soul. He wouldn’t have stood vigil at the casket of a traitor. Respect the dead, even if you don’t understand the tale.”

The camp grew quiet again, save for the pop of resin in the fire and the sighing wind that curled down from the mountain slopes. One of the adventurers shifted, unease prickling in his voice. “The range has been too quiet these last nights. No rumbling. No avalanches. No storms from the peaks.”

Another nodded slowly. “A silence before something breaks.”

As if the mountain itself had listened, the snow behind them fractured. A figure staggered into view, Sigurd, wrapped in ranger’s leathers crusted with frost, her bow still slung but forgotten. Her face was a mask of terror, eyes wide, lips cracked as she forced her breath into words.

“We need to leave,” she rasped, then screamed it with a force that broke their stunned stillness. “Now!”

“What is it? Sigurd, what did you see?” one of the men demanded, half-rising, his hand gripping his hilt though the fear in his knuckles betrayed him.

Her answer tore the camp’s thin calm apart. “A horde. Dark Continent beasts. Dozens, hundreds. They’re pouring down fast. If we stay, we die.”

And then the sound came. A thunder that wasn’t thunder. The kind of rolling, grinding cacophony that shook the marrow inside bones. Over the ridge where Sigurd had appeared, a wall of white dust surged forward, billowing like a storm front. Shapes loomed within, grotesque silhouettes that broke into clarity as the snow-cloud parted.

Slimes that pulsed with inner rot. Crows whose beaks were so monstrously swollen their wings flailed uselessly in imbalance. Hulking things, half boar, half bear, bristling with tusks that jutted in impossible directions. Lizards scaled in feather and fire, their breath searing the snow to steam as they bounded forward. A menagerie of nightmare forms, all hunger and teeth and malice, blotting out the horizon.

“Gods preserve us…” the cleric whispered, his voice hollow. Discover more novels at novelFir.net

“Grab what you can!” another barked, panic cracking his command. “There’s a cave north, I saw it. We run, now!”

They scrambled, hands shaking as they tore up packs and shields, the fire scattering sparks that vanished in the snow. The ground itself trembled beneath the oncoming tide.

And then it struck.

A beam, no, a pillar, of red light erupted from deep within the heart of Solania. It carved through the storm above, splitting the night sky apart, scattering clouds as though they were smoke. The shockwave that followed was not mere wind but raw force, an aura of hate and heat that swept outward in a circle, melting snow into steaming rivers, searing the skin like a forge’s breath.

The adventurers buckled. Every muscle trembled under weight unseen, their bodies bent against the ground as if the world itself demanded they kneel. Fear, pure and primal, sank into them like iron hooks. Not one could raise their voice, nor their blade. Even the fire guttered under the wave, sparks extinguished midair.

The beasts halted too. Their screeches cut off mid-note, limbs frozen, bodies locked. For a single heartbeat, silence ruled. Then instinct screamed louder than hunger. The horde brokes, cattering in every direction, their stampede transforming into a frenzied retreat.

Because they knew.

The master of the mountain had stirred.