Deus Necros

The word “pest” landed sharply in the small hut, made sharper by how calmly she said it. It wasn’t hatred in her tone, just a blunt framing, like naming rain wet.

Redd’s ears flicked with irritation, and Tull’s mouth tightened immediately, a soldier’s pride rejecting the label even as his mind listened.

His displeasure was immediate, contained only by discipline and by the fact Ludwig sat unbothered. Tull’s grip shifted subtly, not reaching for the sword again, but reminding himself it was there.

“Let her finish,” Ludwig said before anyone spoke.

The command was quiet, but it cut cleanly through the brewing argument. Ludwig didn’t look up when he said it, as if interruptions were an inconvenience he refused to entertain.

“It is how the other races see you. Humans are inherently weak, cowardly, greedy, and very vicious. And unlike the other races, you breed too fast. And you amass knowledge incredibly well, you take from the failures of others, reshape them into success for yourself. It is not to undermine you, but that is your nature. The Demons are a race that thrives in battle. What you saw in the River was nothing but exiled deformities; the real demons are far more ferocious than that.”

Her explanation broadened the insult into a worldview. Weakness and viciousness placed side by side, cowardice paired with rapid breeding, greed balanced by frightening adaptability, she spoke as though listing traits from long observation rather than prejudice. The line about knowledge stung in a different way; it made humans sound like thieves of experience, brilliant and shameless.

“No wonder they were named Demonlings,” Ludwig said. He sounded almost pleased to have a name that fit, the sort of small satisfaction that comes when something ugly at least makes sense.

“Oh, that’s a name lost to the ages, I’m surprised you know of it,” The witch said as she drank her tea.

The cup lifted again, and the room briefly returned to the strange normalcy of sipping tea while discussing world-scale threats. Her surprise seemed genuine, and it put a new light on Ludwig, not just what he could do, but what he had somehow learned.

“So where is this demon king?” The Prince asked.

Alex didn’t let the conversation drift. If Demon Kings were ’balance’, then location mattered. His tone was steady, but the question carried urgency under its politeness.

“That is not knowledge I’m allowed to share. Do you not have your hero? His task is to fight him. When the human race becomes strong, a Demon King is born to unite them against the humans, and when the opposite happens, a Hero is born to bring balance; that was the way of the world, the game of the gods. And everyone is but a pawn in that game.”

Her refusal wasn’t evasive; it was a boundary. She implied that there were rules even she obeyed.

“And how does the Usurpers fit in this game?” The question followed naturally, because if the board existed, and pieces existed, then what were the Usurpers?

Alex’s eyes stayed fixed on her, searching for the shape of the threat in language he could carry back to war rooms.

“The Usurpers are the one that flips the board, which is why Necros is angry. You’ve been given a task to stop them from tampering with the board. Right now, the Demon race is far too weak to compete against humans, even with the Demon Kin,g simply because of the Usurpers. They took territory that was supposed to be theirs and owned it, lowering their chances at this battle. It is light playing the King’s Gambit, but your opponent only has pawns and a king while you have double the troops.”

Her answer made the room feel colder without changing the air. Flipping the board wasn’t winning; it was refusing the game and breaking the rules the gods relied upon. Necros being angry suddenly felt obvious; even a god of death needed order to mean anything.

And the knowledge that everyone was but a mere pawn in a game felt far too oppressive to swallow.

Tull’s gaze sharpened at the injustice of it, and Alex’s expression tightened at the implication that balance, real balance, could no longer be trusted to arrive gently.

“I still don’t understand why the hero gets summoned then? If, as you say, we humans are far too strong?” the prince asked.

The question came quieter now, frustration tempered by the sense that the answer might be worse than ignorance. Alex’s mind kept returning to that point like a sore tooth: why now, why him, why this contradiction.

“That is something I cannot answer. You’ll have to figure it out yourselves. But you all must know one thing: the world will always return to balance.” She said.

She did not soften the refusal. She gave them only the certainty, and the certainty itself felt like a threat wrapped in comfort. Balance always returns. That meant whatever imbalance existed would be corrected by force, if needed.

Ludwig seemed to be the only one to understand what she meant.

His eyes lowered for a moment, not in deference, but in calculation. The tea no longer looked like a treat; it looked like something he was using to keep himself steady while his mind ran ahead.

And the thought itself seemed to be quite frightening to even think about. How can the world of humans, which is already powerful, balance itself with demons who are weak?

The implications were clear enough to taste bitter. If demons were weak and humans were strong, balance would not be achieved by gentle adjustments. Something would give.

A riot that flipped the table entirely, chaos as correction, or a “hope” that arrived in a form no one would call hope if they saw the cost.

The answer was quite frighteningly simple. Either the Usurpers will cause a great riot and ’flip’ the table.

Or, the hope of the humans is not what they expect it to be…