Deus Necros

Ludwig caught him by the throat mid flight and kept him there, suspended like a bad decision that had finally been grabbed before it could land. The duke’s feet kicked at empty air, and the extra hands came up in a frantic mess, some clawing at Ludwig’s wrist, others trying to pry fingers apart.

One set never left the cube, hugging it close with the kind of desperation that said he still believed it could rescue him if he held on hard enough. Ludwig’s hold stayed steady, not tightening for show, not loosening for pity.

His robes which were burnt revealed a disgusting appearance that needed to be covered. A man who had a hunched back, where instead of skin, he had scales. Patched here and there, mixed with that of what looked like human and beast. It was not a wound or a curse. It was deliberate, stitched into place by choice and greed, the Drak signature written in flesh. Ludwig didn’t need to inspect the seams twice to know what he was looking at, and the sight alone made his patience thinner.

“I hate your kind,” Ludwig said to the duke as his mana channeled to his left hand, mixed with dark mana and fire, Ludwig created his master’s [Dark Flames] but didn’t allow it to consume or eat the Duke… yet.

The black fire gathered close, wrong heat with a hunger to it, hovering near the duke’s throat without biting down. The message was clear enough: Ludwig could end this slowly if he wanted to, but time was still a factor, and cruelty was only useful when it served the objective.

“You never try to improve yourselves, you never try to learn, train, or exert effort. Worthless scum that steal from others.”

He watched as the Duke struggled futilely.

“The murders, executions, the tyranny. Some would think you’re nothing but a mad ruler who is oppressing his people. But I know you, your house. I know how you use those as excuses to kill others. You’re liars, murderers, and thieves.”

“WHAT DO YOU KNOW!” the Duke howled.

The duke’s outrage tried to sound righteous, but Ludwig heard only a man panicking because someone had named the method out loud. The rot outside the villa, the bodies inside it, and the harvest marks in this corridor all pointed to the same practice. Rule through fear, kill freely, take what you want from the dead, and call it governance so no one dared label it theft.

“You know nothing, you bastard! Let me go!” he said as he tried to claw at Ludwig’s face with two of his arms, while the remaining arms tried to release the grip.

The claws never reached Ludwig. He didn’t lean back, didn’t flinch, didn’t waste motion. He simply lifted the duke higher, then used gravity and strength like a teaching tool.

Ludwig raised the Duke then slammed him onto the ground, then raised him again and slammed him once more.

The stone cracked under the impacts. The duke’s breath came out in broken bursts, and the cube’s vibration stuttered with each slam, as if his concentration was being shaken loose from his skull. By the second hit, his limbs were still moving, but the fight in them had turned clumsy and reactive.

“You deceive those around you and steal from them, then pin the blame on others. You did that to your brother, and ruined this house, stole from him what was his, only to do the exact same thing he did.” Ludwig finished his sentence undisrupted this time as the Duke didn’t even have air left in his lungs to speak or argue.

“Your brother was no better; he did indescribable things to poor people. You continued on that legacy after framing him, and your nephew is no better, thieves and murderers who refuse to grow their own strength and use that of others to grow stronger. But tell me, Duke, do you feel strong now?” Ludwig asked.

The question wasn’t meant to start a debate. It was meant to strip the illusion. Graft could give mass, extra limbs, stolen advantages, but it didn’t create real capability. If this was the duke at the first moment real pressure touched him, then the entire dukedom had been ruled by a coward wearing other people’s parts.

“You’re acting like some hero, you know nothing of the reality of the world! You’re just a brat with dreams too big to even understand. But don’t worry,” the Duke’s eyes twitched. “Once she wakes! You’ll all be on your knees begging!” he said.

Ludwig didn’t need more explanation than that. The duke kept glancing toward the vat space, and the twitch wasn’t just rage; it was anticipation, the kind that only existed when someone was counting on an outside force to win the fight for them.

Ludwig looked at Gale; he didn’t need to say anything, and Gale obliged.

He stepped forward toward the vat where Teresia was showing signs of waking up. Just as the Knight King raised his sword to strike down, he disappeared from where he stood.

The ward reacted to the instant intent, and steel crossed the threshold, removing Gale as cleanly as if he had never been there. It wasn’t trying to kill intruders. It was doing exactly what it was designed to do: buy time.

“HAH! YOU CANNOT STOP IT! Once she wakes, you’ll all know what it feelslike to despair!”

“Come back,” Ludwig said in a bored tone.

Gale reappeared beside him at once, recalled without effort, and the duke’s confidence hiccuped. That single display of control ruined the satisfaction in his face, replacing it with brief uncertainty he couldn’t hide fast enough.

That made the Duke shudder for a moment. “H-how is he back already?” He asked, probably not intending to receive a response. But Ludwig still obliged and satisfied this man’s curiosity.

“Isn’t it obvious? He’s an Undead, and I called him back to me.”

“D-dark mage!”

“Took you long enough, wasn’t I using dark magic just earlier?” Ludwig tilted his head.

“You should have been executed!”

“Ludwig…” the Knight King sounded impatient as he looked at the vat. He couldn’t physically get there.

Ludwig didn’t share the impatience as emotion, but he shared the urgency as calculation. The wardwork around the vat wasn’t crude. It was layered to punish every obvious approach, and every second wasted arguing with the duke was a second handed to Teresia.

“You’re very fond of that ward you have set there, I suppose. I can see how if anything physical goes near it, it’ll be transported away. And you also have wards against projectiles painted all over that room. Not even my aura was capable of breaking that…” Ludwig said.

“Since-” he coughed as Ludwig’s arm began feeling a bit too hot on his neck. “Since you know that, let me go, and just leave, I’ll act as if nothing happened!”

“You know well I can’t do that. I have to kill her.” Ludwig said.

“Are you mad! It’s not possible! You’ll merely waste your time, I’m being generous! Giving you a chance to run away!” he said, though the words sounded sincere, he didn’t.

The duke kept trying to sell the offer as mercy, but his eyes betrayed him. He wasn’t sparing Ludwig. He was stalling him, waiting for the wake-up like a man waiting for a door to open so his bigger friend could step through.

Ludwig looked at his eyes, all six of them, and sniffed hard as if he smelled something delicious.

“You… you smell like you have Hope,” Ludwig said.

“Hope?”

“Yes, you’re hoping very much that she wakes up, and we’ll be somehow defeated. You do know I already killed her before.” Ludwig said.

“You killed nothing but a puppet! This is the real thing! You’ll all die once she wakes. There aren’t even ten seconds left, she’s moving! Run away!” he said, not as a warning, but like someone offering a man to run so the hunt would begin.

“Ah, that’s what I wanted to hear, Gale, you heard that?” Ludwig said.

“I did,” Gale replied.

Ludwig got the man close enough to his face that he could smell his disgusting breath, “That hope of yours, I’d like to see it. SALEM!”

Immediately, darkness covered the whole room where Teresia’s body was.

Jaws larger than trees and sharper than knives manifested from the ground, and then a gigantic mouth simply consumed the whole area. Wards, stone, floor, walls, and vat, all together in one single bite.

Salem disappeared immediately after. Fusing back into Ludwig’s shadow. And the Latter looked at the shocked Duke:

“Now tell me, how does it feel? That fleeting hope of yours?”