Deus Necros

Ludwig did not feel pain.

There was no impact, no force pressing against his body, no sensation of something cutting through flesh or bone. His hand remained where it was, close to the hilt of Durandal, his stance unchanged, his eyes still fixed on the golden figure before him.

For a brief moment, it almost looked like the domain itself had blinked and regretted it, like reality had hesitated, then decided to pretend nothing happened.

Then something… stopped.

It wasn’t his heart in the conventional sense, nor his breath in a way he could consciously grasp. It was deeper than that. A fundamental process, something that had been continuing without his awareness until now, simply failed to proceed. His body did not weaken or falter, it just lost the justification to continue existing. The way a sentence can end mid-word when the speaker decides the conversation never mattered.

The world did not shift around him. The golden dome still radiated its suffocating light, the mountains of treasure remained untouched, and the figure before him had not moved a single inch. Everything remained exactly as it was, perfectly arranged, perfectly preserved.

Only Ludwig no longer fit within it.

His grip loosened, not out of fatigue, but because the concept of holding something no longer applied. It wasn’t that his muscles gave up. It was that they stopped being asked to work. The joints in his fingers didn’t ache, they simply… forgot their purpose. His senses dulled, not fading into darkness, but thinning, like a presence being erased rather than destroyed. Even the pressure in the air, the oppressive weight of Pride’s domain, remained constant, heavy enough to crush thought, precise enough to make breathing feel like an insult.

It simply no longer recognized him.

There was no fall. No collapse. No dramatic stagger to give witnesses the satisfaction of watching him fail.

He was there,

And then he wasn’t.

[You Died]

Ludwig inhaled sharply as his eyes snapped open.

Cold air filled his lungs, real and immediate, grounding him in a way the previous moment had not. It wasn’t the staged heat of a sealed arena. This was mountain cold, thin, biting, clean enough to hurt. The spiraling staircase stood behind him, the same stone, the same oppressive quiet, unchanged. His body responded normally, his fingers moved when he willed them, his chest rose and fell, his awareness returned in full like someone had slammed a door shut behind him.

Living Vessel.

He stood still for a second, letting the memory settle into place without letting it spread. His jaw tightened once, then loosened. His hand hovered near Durandal out of habit, then dropped. Not because he relaxed, because he was counting.

“That wasn’t an attack,” he said under his breath.

There had been no motion to react to, no buildup of energy, no indication of danger in the traditional sense. The being had not lifted a hand, had not shifted its stance, had not even acknowledged him as something worth acting against. Ludwig had fought monsters, knights, deaths, gods’ servants, things that wanted to kill him.

This wasn’t wanting.

He had simply been… rejected.

Ludwig rolled his shoulders once, more out of habit than necessity, and turned his gaze back toward the gate above. The metal door waited like it hadn’t moved at all, like it was bored of pretending it was a challenge.

“Alright,” he muttered. “So that’s how this works.”

There was no frustration in his tone, no anger. Just focus. A problem had presented itself. Ludwig didn’t throw tantrums at problems. He solved them, or he died until the solution stopped being optional.

He began ascending the staircase again, his pace steady and unhurried. Each step felt deliberate, not because he was being cautious, but because he was already thinking ahead. The first encounter had given him exactly what he needed: confirmation that this was not something he could approach like a conventional fight.

’But this ain’t right. I died, but didn’t go into Undeath. It was a straight kill, bypassing my Undead second life.’

The thought clung to him tighter than it should’ve. He’d built his existence around rules, rules he could bend, abuse, weaponize. This didn’t bend. This skipped.

Ludwig took a look at his lantern.

’And my souls didn’t get halved…’

No penalty. No drain. No invisible hand reaching into his stockpile and taking its cut. That absence was louder than any notification.

Either this place didn’t charge him… or something else was paying.

He couldn’t understand the reason why. So, why not try again?

By the time he reached the gate again, his expression had settled into something more controlled, less irritation, more calculation. He placed his hands against the metal. It felt the same as before: cold for a heartbeat, then that subtle warmth that made his palms feel like they were being read rather than touched.

The gates opened once more, releasing that same suffocating heat, that same stagnant, pressurized atmosphere that felt more like a held breath than air. The smell hit him the instant he crossed: old metal, stagnant opulence, the faint sour tang of something too perfect to ever rot.

Ludwig stepped inside.

Nothing had changed.

The amphitheatre remained as it was, vast and oppressive, gold scattered like discarded trash, mirrors lining the walls with silent judgment. The trophies still hung like accusations. The marble still reflected him like it wanted to argue with his existence.

And at the center, beneath the dome’s concentrated light, the golden figure stood exactly where it had been before.

That was different.

If Ludwig returned by death, the golden figure should yet materialize.

Why was he already standing in the middle of the hall?

The thought sharpened immediately into suspicion.

The lantern rewound worlds.

This didn’t look rewound. It looked… continuous. Like Pride hadn’t reset because Pride didn’t need to.

This time, Ludwig did not speak immediately. He did not reach for his weapon, nor did he advance recklessly. He didn’t offer the domain the courtesy of a dramatic entrance.

He simply stood there.

Observed.

He took a slow step to the side, testing the space like a man checking if a floor was real. The marble under his boot didn’t shift. The air didn’t tighten. No invisible force pressed his lungs flat. The oppressive “you don’t belong” sensation from earlier was… muted.

Nothing happened.

Another step.

Still nothing.

The pressure did not return.

His eyes narrowed slightly. Not in anger, more like the way they narrowed when he saw a lock that was supposed to be locked and wasn’t.

“You have returned,” the being said, its voice carrying the same distant, detached tone as before.

The sound didn’t come from a mouth so much as it arrived inside Ludwig’s skull like it had always been there. Like thought, but not his thought.

“You’re saying that like you know me…” Ludwig cast the bait. He kept his tone careless on purpose, lazy words wrapped around a tight core. He needed Pride to talk. Pride talking meant Pride reacting.

“Know you? You’re not worth remembering, but what is in you, is…”

Ludwig didn’t flinch, but his mind snapped to the obvious. Wrath. Envy. The ugly little treasures inside him that kept turning his life into a grinding wheel.

“So, what’s this… thing, Authority? Power? you just decide something isn’t worth living and it dies?” Ludwig asked. He let the question hang with just enough edge to be disrespect without being emotional. He watched the figure’s posture. There was no shift. No twitch. Nothing.

“Impressive, for a lesser being, to know that much. Yet not fear.”

“Fear? I’m far beyond that.” Ludwig didn’t brag. He stated it like a fact. Fear was for people who believed dying mattered.

Fear was luxury for the living.

“That is arrogant.”

“Says Pride.” Ludwig couldn’t help the dry bite in that one. It slipped out sharper than the rest.

“No, because I do not know fear. It is a concept for mortals such as you to worry about. It is beneath me.”

Ludwig clicked his tongue, a small sound swallowed by the dome and returned to him like an echo of irritation. “Fine.” He said, and even as he said it he felt the air in the arena tighten by a fraction, as if the domain enjoyed being acknowledged.

“You said I’m incomplete,” Ludwig muttered. Not a question. A hook.

“Effectively.”

“And I need to be perfect? Like you?”

“Impossible,” Pride replied, “There can only be one perfection, and it is I.”

“That’s a lot of arrogance…”

“It is not arrogance if it is true. And it is true.”

“Delusion.” Ludwig said, and the word tasted good. Not because it hurt Pride, because it reminded Ludwig he still had teeth.

“The mind of a mortal cannot comprehend perfection.”

“Perfection? That’s pretty messed up. You think perfection can exist?” Ludwig asked, and this time his gaze flicked briefly to the mirrors, to the trophies, to the gold tossed like garbage. Perfect things didn’t hoard proof. Perfect things didn’t need reminders.

“It is I, in the flesh.”

“Then you’re stagnant.” Ludwig said. The word landed heavier than it should’ve, because it was a diagnosis. Something that called itself perfect was admitting it had nowhere left to go.

“You bore me, mortal.”

“Mortal this, mortal that,” Ludwig said, and his voice picked up just a hint of irritation. “You really think you’re something don’t you.”

“Perish, insignificant one, you deserves not the time I’ve given you.”

Ludwig felt it then, before it happened. Not an attack, not a spell, but that same subtle shift, like the domain was about to refuse him again. The pressure in the air sharpened into a blade-thin certainty.

“Unfortunately for you. I’ll go under my own terms, [Termination!]”

The words snapped out clean and immediate. No flourish. No regret. He didn’t wait to see if Pride could stop him. He didn’t wait to see if the domain could deny him. He forced the sequence.

Ludwig immediately cast, and his heart stopped.

[You Died!]

[You lost Living Vessel. Before Living Vessel can activate again, you entered [Undeath] if you die during Undeath, you will be sent to your last Death Point.

The switch wasn’t gentle. It was like the world yanked a curtain away. The sharp pain that stung his heart woke him up, not the pain of injury, but the jarring wrongness of forcibly changing state. His chest locked for a heartbeat, then released. A long needless breath tore out of him anyway, reflex clinging to form, and with it the feeling of the pressurized air simply vanished.

Like the domain had rules… and Ludwig had just stepped sideways through one of them.

For the first time something appeared on the face of Pride.

A fraction of a fraction of a second.

An emotion appeared.

It wasn’t anger or worry, but… surprise.

That was all Ludwig needed. Not because surprise was weakness, but because surprise meant Pride hadn’t accounted for that move. Pride hadn’t planned for Ludwig to refuse the domain’s kill by killing himself first.

“Ahhh, yes,” Ludwig took another needless breath and a sigh as he opened his eyes toward Pride. His voice came out steadier than he felt, and colder. “Now, tell me, complete being, can you refuse my existence now?”

Pride did not move.

That alone was different.

Before, Ludwig had been beneath notice, something that passed through the space without ever being acknowledged as real. Now, as the hollow breath of Undeath left his lungs, the golden figure remained exactly where it stood, but its attention did not drift away.

It lingered.

Not with hostility. Not with intent to strike.

With assessment.

Ludwig straightened slightly, the absence of pressure still fresh, still strange. The suffocating weight that had erased him moments ago was gone, as if the space itself no longer knew what to do with him.

“Ahhh… there it is,” he muttered, flexing his fingers. “Feels different.”

Pride’s head tilted by the smallest margin.

“You have… altered your state,” it said.

The voice was unchanged, calm, distant, but something beneath it had shifted. The dismissal was gone. Not replaced with interest, but with something colder.

Recognition.

Ludwig let out a slow, unnecessary breath. “Yeah. Turns out dying works wonders.”

Silence followed.

Not empty silence, measured silence.

“You were judged,” Pride continued. “And found incomplete.”

Its gaze did not waver.

“Yet you remain.”

Ludwig smirked faintly. “Seems like your judgment’s got a loophole.”

“No.”

The word came without force, yet it landed heavier than anything before.

“There are no loopholes.”

The air did not tighten. The world did not press against Ludwig.

Instead, something subtler happened.

The space… aligned.

“You are not resisting judgment,” Pride said. “You are avoiding it.”

Ludwig’s smirk thinned.

“…And that’s a problem?”

“It is an error.”

The word lingered.

Not insult.

Classification.

Pride took a step forward.

It was the first time it had moved with purpose.

The distance between them did not feel shorter, but something about Ludwig’s presence shifted, as if the space around him had begun to notice him again.

“Existence,” Pride continued, “must be defined.”

Each word felt deliberate, placed with absolute certainty.

“To exist is to be something.”

Another step.

“You are not.”

Ludwig didn’t move.

Didn’t step back.

Didn’t reach for his weapon.

He watched.

“You are contradiction without resolution,” Pride said. “A state that refuses conclusion.”

The golden figure stopped several paces away.

For the first time, Ludwig could feel something approaching what he had felt before, not pressure, not yet, but the beginning of it. Like the world remembering how it was supposed to treat him.

“That cannot be permitted.”

Ludwig exhaled slowly. “So what? You’re gonna try again?”

“No.”

Again, that flat denial.

“I will correct it.”