Deus Necros

That was the sentence the bishop eventually gave, and Ludwig felt the shape of the entire plan begin to unfold. The Holy Order had sponsored a savior, polished him, raised banners around him, spread songs, sermons, and rumors.

But Solania was not desperate enough. Not yet.

The monster tides from the Dark Continent were dangerous, yes, but tower masters stood near the city. Conscripted soldiers held the lines. The Holy Order had influence, but influence was not worship. People respected the Hero. few admired him. many hated him. And a majority mocked him.

He was failing to be the symbol the Church needed.

For a savior to become necessary, people had to believe they were beyond all other help.

So the plan was simple in the way all monstrous things were simple once stripped of ceremony.

Let the Demon King rise.

Let Sloth enter the board.

Let Solania choke.

Let the empire tremble.

Let monsters pour in, armies fail, nobles panic, and civilians pray not because they believed, but because terror had broken every other option in them. Then the Hero would stand at the center of the disaster, sponsored by the Holy Order, framed as the one answer left when every other institution failed. Even those who disliked him would look to him. Even those who distrusted the church would kneel if kneeling promised survival.

Faith born from despair was still faith.

Followers gained through fear were still followers.

And the Holy Order would gain a stronger footing in the empire than it had ever held through sermons alone.

After all, Clementine had a guarantee from Sloth. That sloth’s armies will never go beyond Solania.

’Yeah, guarantee,’ Ludwig remembered the dead, dying, and the creatures that had swallowed half the empire from his last return by death.

There was no guarantee with the Sins. Never was, never will be. They will take, and take, and take some more.

Ludwig listened until the bishop’s voice cracked into useless whimpers.

By then, the old man’s robes were ruined, his hands mangled, and his face had lost every trace of sanctimonious authority. He looked less like a servant of the divine and more like what he had always been: a frightened creature hiding behind holy words.

”You were going to summon a Demon King,” Redd said, his voice thick with disbelief and disgust. ”On purpose.”

The bishop shook his head weakly. ”Not summon. Allow. Guide. Prepare the conditions. The prophecy requires—”

Ludwig’s hand closed around his jaw, cutting off the rest. ”Don’t dress it up.”

The bishop’s eyes rolled toward him.

”You hurt children to measure despair. You trapped souls to study suffering. You worked with Sloth’s people and helped prepare a catastrophe because your church wanted more believers.” Ludwig leaned closer, his voice dropping until it became almost gentle. ”You do not get to call that prophecy.”

Kaiser’s bone arms tightened slightly around the bishop, enough to make him groan. ”We have enough,” the lich said. ”Clementine. Sister Gallows. The soul seal beneath the catacombs. The Demon King’s rise. The Hero being used as a focus for mass faith. It is... unpleasantly coherent.”

Redd’s expression darkened further at the Shrike’s name. ”Then we kill her.”

”Eventually,” Ludwig said.

Redd turned toward him sharply. ”Eventually?”

Ludwig looked back toward the cells. The living children were still there, listening from behind bars. Some had crawled closer despite their fear. The dead remained bound. The lantern at his side trembled again, softer now but still furious. The quest from Necros remained unfinished.

”The Shrike is part of the problem,” Ludwig said. ”But she isn’t the origin of the soul sealing.”

Redd’s hands clenched. ”She helped.”

”I know.”

”Then why wait?”

Ludwig looked at him, and for a moment Redd saw the anger there, buried but not gone. It was not mercy holding Ludwig back. Not hesitation. It was calculation sharpened by fury rather than dulled by it.

”I can’t go gun blazing,” he couldn’t explain how Necros already warned him. ”As much as I want to rip every strand of skin off their flesh, we need to play it slow. And I have to meet up with Mot, or Titania...” he stood and kicked the geezer then pinned him to the ground with the same foot. Even with all the whimpering, Ludwig’s foot didn’t do mercy. ”Apparently, even in a world of filth, those two are still clean.”

Kaiser’s gaze shifted slightly toward Ludwig, as if noting the choice of words. Redd said nothing for several seconds. The ghost behind him flickered, then rested a faint hand on his shoulder. Whether he felt it or only imagined it, his breathing steadied.

”So what now?” Redd asked.

Ludwig removed his foot from the bishop’s jaw and walked away. The old man sagged in the bone restraints, barely conscious. Ludwig wiped his bloody fingers on the bishop’s robe with open contempt, then turned toward the corridor.

”Now we find the origin of the soul seal,” Ludwig said. ”We break it. We release the souls. Then we use what this thing told us to find where the Shrike moves when she thinks no one is watching.”

The bishop let out a weak laugh that turned into a cough. ”You cannot stop it. You don’t understand how many hands are already moving. The Hero will rise. The people will need him. The Order will be stronger than ever. Don’t take away their Hope”

Ludwig paused.

He turned back just enough for the bishop to see his face.

”You people keep making the same mistake,” Ludwig said. ”You think hope belongs to whoever can make people desperate enough to beg for it.”

The bishop’s lips trembled.

Ludwig’s eyes were cold. ”I don’t think so. Hope is for those who want it. Seek it, bleed for it, hard enough they make hope a reality. You, have no hope, never had it in you, and it disgusts me to say, Your hope was never fleeting, it was never there.”

He nodded once to Kaiser, and the bone arms tightened around the bishop’s mouth again, sealing whatever prayer or plea he was about to make.

The bones from Kaiser’s spell began wrapping around the old man, further tightening, untill he almost looked like a ball.

But Kaiser never killed him, he allowed him to live, with arms and boney hands gripping and almost ripping away at his skin and flesh, and the lids of his eyes, yet strong enough not to allow him a single word of complain or agony.

He then simply tapped him with his staff where he disappeared inside. In the same place where Kaiser hid all his innumerable treasures.

The children watched Ludwig from their cells as he approached again. The boy with one arm and one eye stared up at him, still terrified, but there was something else now. Not trust. That would take more than a few dead guards and one screaming bishop. But the boy had seen the men who took children away become afraid. He had seen someone make them bleed. In a place designed to teach helplessness, that mattered.

Ludwig crouched in front of him once more.

”What’s your name?” he asked.

The boy hesitated. ”Maren.”

”Maren,” Ludwig said. ”We’re going to open these cells, but you and the others need to stay quiet here. We cannot take you with us. But we’ll make sure you don’t get harmed. We’ll also release these... spiritual binds.”

The boy’s one eye shifted toward Redd, then back to Ludwig. ”Are the spirits going to leave?”

Ludwig looked at the dead children behind him, then at the lantern. ”Yes.”

”When?”

”As soon as I find the thing holding them.”

Maren swallowed. ”Will it hurt them?”

Ludwig’s expression softened by the smallest amount. ”Not anymore.”

For the first time, the boy looked like he wanted to believe something.

Ludwig stood and turned toward the deeper passage. The catacombs stretched below the Sacrosanctum like a diseased root system, full of holy symbols, hidden doors, and the stench of sanctified cruelty. Somewhere beneath all of it was the origin of the seal. Somewhere above, Sister Gallows moved with Sloth’s conspiracy. Somewhere beyond that, the Hero waited inside a city that did not yet understand it was being prepared as kindling for faith.

Ludwig’s hand rested near the Soul Letting Lantern, feeling the trapped dead tremble against the world.

”Let’s go,” he said. ”Before I change my mind and do this the stupid way.”