Deus Necros

The sword pierced from the bottom of her abdomen to the upper part of her chest. It anchored there, a steel stake nailed through a storm.

“Hmm, seems like I can still use some of its Aura…even without the Heart.” The words came like a deduction instead of a surprise. Ludwig’s current Undead form was a surprise to everyone present. Including the Envious Death.

But she didn’t bleed. The wound showed like a crease through fabric that refused to stain. The body shuddered around it, not from pain, but from confusion. Things that should have been simple were misbehaving.

“How are you still alive!” she howled as she swung her fist backward, ignoring the degree at which her shoulders should move, her whole arm snapped back and swung. Joints complained with small pops that would have been screams in any other anatomy. The fist cut air with a high, wire-bright whine.

Yet Ludwig seemed to have noticed it already and pushed his head away, dodging it with ease. The motion was minimal, the rejection of contact as precise as a surgeon’s cut. His hair stirred in the wind of her miss. He did not bother to blink.

She faced Ludwig with eyes the color of crimson. The pupils had narrowed to sharp little lozenges. The red around them pulsed like something under glass trying to be free.

“Seems like my gamble was right, you can’t harbor Wrath. It’s eating away at you isn’t it?” Ludwig smiled. It was not a kind smile and it did not need to be. It had the tiredness of someone seeing a plan do exactly what it was supposed to do for once.

“You dare think that you planned all this?”

“More like hoped that it would work…as even if you actually Envied my heart and took it… you’ll never be able to suppress Wrath, it’s too much for you. It would eat you alive, and you’ll simply be another Wrath, and guess what I already beat it before. What’s one more try?” He spoke as if discussing weather that had decided to be inconvenient again.

“I WILL NOT BE CONSUMED BY WRATH!” The denial cracked as it left her, an oath that sounded like it had been filed down to fit a mouth too small.

“King,” Ludwig muttered and immediately right behind the Envious Death an entity of pure dark magic manifested. The air folded there, a shadow knitting itself into shape, seams showing for the span of a breath and then settling until they looked like engravings.

A knight of a great stature and bulked up to the teeth with armor that felt like it could stop the world itself if it crashed down on it. Plates overlapped in an architecture of threat, each curve designed to turn aside not just steel but intention. A tower shield that should be used as a gate to a castle, yet without a weapon. For now. The shield’s face bore no sigil, only the suggestion of one when the light thought about it.

The Knight King simply reached with his free arm and grabbed Durandal’s hilt which was embedded inside the Envious Death. The gauntlet closed, leather creaked, and the sword answered like a name being called by the right voice.

In contrast to The Knight King’s three meter size, Durandal that looked like a great blade in his hand looked like a short sword. Yet he still used his power to rip at an angle, tearing the Envious Death’s chest to the side of her hip. The cut was indecent in its efficiency. Flesh parted and refused to remember being one piece. Her body staggered without weight, like a puppet with the wrong strings pulled.

“That’s… dark magic, isn’t it…” The prince said. The words were soft and horrified and fascinated, all braided together. His training had names for things. None of the names made this feel safer.

“As dark as it can get…” Redd said. He did not bother to pretend at reverence. He respected the useful, even when it made priests angry.

“And you knew that?” Tull asked, skepticism and anger clear in his voice.

“Oh, the dark magic part? no, I had my suspicion, but not this much…” Redd kept his eyes forward and his voice even. A joke tried to climb into it and he pressed it down. Not here. Not now. Later, maybe, if later existed.

“We need to leave, in case both of them turn on us, we can’t trust them…” Tull said. Duty kept trying to simplify the math and failing. He could protect the Prince from men and monsters. Concepts were not in the field manual.

Redd frowned, “You do understand that Ludwig is confirming your own words from earlier.” He did not look at Tull when he said it. He did not need to. The point went where it was supposed to.

“What are you talking about,” Tull asked.

Redd moved away from Tull and walked forward, planning on helping Ludwig.

” The very words you said: that if the prince’s life was in danger, you’d use dark magic if need be. He’s simply confirming it… you didn’t hesitate before, or are you simply a coward who says what he cannot do?” He let the insult land flat, without heat, which made it land harder.

“It’s against the laws of the Empire!” Tull’s voice cracked on the last word. He hated that. He hated more that a part of him knew the law was not going to stop what stood in front of them.

“Shut up Tull… don’t you see it…” The prince said. “He’s currently an Undead. He either did something to his body to give us another chance at survival, or maybe it was the Envious Death that turned him that way. If we were to escape and leave them here, if she wins… that’s a plague unleashed upon the world. We have to stop her, no matter how or what!” His hands came up of their own accord, fingers spreading as if to hold something that was already there.

He raised his hands together and a copious amount of mana began gathering around him. It came to him like birds to a hand that had learned the shape of seed, blue and gold and white in thin threads first, then in thicker cords, spinning around his wrists and up his arms until they nested at the hollow of his palms. The air near him tasted metallic and cold.

Redd’s nose wrinkled, “Seems it wasn’t just Ludwig who was hiding his strength, that’s the power of a sixth-tier mage…” He tried to make that sound like approval. It came out like worry that had dressed itself in a compliment.

The prince smiled, “I can’t let him fight by himself. Also, he must only be affected by dark magic from that creature; he is not an enemy yet, he has yet to show that he is using it willingl-” His mouth stumbled over the lie before his mind finished it.

“RISE UNDEAD!” Ludwig’s voice cut through the branch like a blade through silk. The command was not loud. It did not need to be. It had the kind of authority that makes old doors unlock out of habit.

“Fuck…”