Deus Necros

[Both Noctivex and Nightbreaker agree to your suggestions!]

[Noctivex has allowed you to use its power. However, it is only to the extent that you do not oppress it or suppress it when it wishes to wreak havoc if it finds remnants of the family that killed its master.]

[Nightbreaker allows you to fully use its power without any restraints.]

[You have managed to convince Noctivex, an object that is composed of every known metal in the world to do your bidding.]

[You have obtained the title {Lord of all that is Metal}.]

Ludwig took a deep breath, there was pride in it, not the arrogant one. But being proud of his own achievement. The system’s text hovered with the same indifferent certainty it always carried, yet the words hit differently when they described something he had earned without killing for it.

The forge around him was quiet. Coals banked low, smoke thin, the scent of oil and worked iron still clinging to the rafters. No cheering apprentices. No noble applause. Just a hovering verdict and the weight of two weapons in his hands that, for once, did not immediately try to bite him.

Thinking that he needed to learn metallurgy and fully understand it was the only way to use Noctivex, that would have cost him years and decades for a result unknown.

But the notification explained things clearly for those who can see. The answer wasn’t that the forge path had been useless, it was that it hadn’t been the only door. It was a door that demanded time. This one demanded something else.

“Lord of all that is Metal… and Noctivex is composed of all known metal…”

The pieces clicked together with an unpleasant neatness. Ruling over Noctivex, immediately grants that title.

It wasn’t a medal for effort or study. It was recognition of a relationship, of something that had stopped resisting and allowed itself to be used.

Ludwig understood instantly why Wrath could do this by brute force. Wrath was pressure without mercy, a flood that drowned anything in the way.

Obtaining the title can be done in two ways.

Brute force, like Wrath.

But Ludwig didn’t have that endless wrath inside him, even with the Heart of Wrath, he couldn’t come close to displaying the same rage that the Wrathful Death had inside him.

His Heart screamed and surged, yes, but it was still something he carried and managed. Wrathful Death had been wrath itself. Ludwig could borrow the flavor, not the ocean.

So, his other option was to barter for control.

He would give Noctivex what it wants, and receive what he wants from it in return. Trading revenge for use was a good way to get what you want. It wasn’t pretty, but it was honest, and honesty was the only currency Noctivex had responded to. Ludwig could feel that now in the way the cube sat in his palm, no longer pressing that baleful hostility into his skin like a threat. The anger was still in it, but it wasn’t directed at him anymore. Not yet.

Ludwig held the cube closer, it was no longer exuding its baleful energy against Ludwig’s control. The metal looked dull in the forge light, but it felt awake, like a sleeping predator that had opened one eye. Ludwig didn’t squeeze it.

He didn’t try to dominate it with grip. Andre’s lesson echoed in his mind in a way Ludwig hated admitting: understand before command.

[Your Living Vessel has rebooted!]

Immediately, Ludwig’s form returned to normal as his heart of Wrath began beating once again. The shift was instant and unmistakable. That constant internal pressure returned like a door slamming shut, the roar of rage resuming its place behind every thought.

For a second, the energy of the Heart seemed to want to oppress Noctivex, to push into it the way it pushed into everything around Ludwig, demanding submission out of habit rather than reason. Ludwig caught himself in that moment and adjusted, not wrestling the Heart, simply refusing to let it spill into his hands like a tantrum.

Noctivex didn’t flare. It didn’t retreat. It simply endured the wave like it had endured worse, and Ludwig felt the boundary form between them, not a chain, more like an agreement being respected.

“I’ve kept my promise,” Ludwig said. “Now, show me what you are.” Ludwig was about to channel his own mana into the cube before Gale stopped him.

The instinct to test it was immediate. Ludwig’s mana gathered in his palm with that familiar readiness, the way it always did when he reached for a spell.

He wanted to see the armor. He wanted proof. He wanted to confirm that the deal had teeth. His fingers shifted, and the cube’s surface shimmered faintly as if noticing his intent.

The Knight King’s voice echoed in Ludwig’s mind loudly, “DO NOT!”

That stopped Ludwig immediately. The warning wasn’t polite. It was the kind of command Gale used only when the consequence would be immediate and irreversible.

Ludwig froze mid-motion, mana held back by sheer control, and the forge’s quiet suddenly felt fragile, like a glass cup placed too close to the edge of a table.

“Why, what’s wrong?” Ludwig asked.

“Do you believe that you can use that thing here without it breaking this whole building apart? What do you think would happen if Noctivex turned you into something the size of the Wrathful Death?”

The image came with uncomfortable clarity. The forge ceiling wasn’t built for a six-meter body of living metal.

The beams would crack. The walls would buckle. The anvil would become shrapnel. Andre’s entire life’s work would be reduced to a pile of broken stone and twisted iron because Ludwig couldn’t wait for open space.

“Oh, you’re right, that might make Andre very mad…” Ludwig realized that the six-meter giant form would break apart this whole forge if he were to transform to it.

He didn’t know he could become that size, but it was better not to try. Even if it didn’t break the building, the sound alone would bring half the district running, and the capital didn’t forgive displays of power without permission.

Not when dark magic was involved, and not when the Emperor’s eyes were always somewhere nearby.