Deus Necros

His hands continued burning as he forced mana into the leyline. The red glow resisted him, then flickered. The black tear in the sphere pulsed, trying to draw the room’s attention inward, but Kaiser was no longer attacking the ritual to stop it. He was spreading information through the broken concealment path, forcing the structure to reveal itself in every direction it had previously blinded. Every ward. Every blood channel. Every trapped soul. Every divine severance. Every thread leading back toward the authority that had sanctioned the chamber.

The sphere trembled violently.

Gallows’s eyes widened. ”No.”

Kaiser smiled through clenched teeth. ”Yes.”

The entire room flashed.

For a moment, the lines written in glowing blood became visible beyond the chamber itself. Ludwig felt them extend through the walls, through the floors, down toward the cells, across Titania’s veil, upward toward the mass, and deeper still into the Sacrosanctum’s hidden bones. The ritual layout was no longer buried. It unfolded like a map made of blood and light, exposing itself to every sensitive eye inside the structure.

And beyond.

The Sacrosanctum screamed.

Not metaphorically. The wards carved into its foundations shrieked as the deception layer inverted and turned against the secrecy it had been built to maintain. Holy bells shattered somewhere above. A long crack split the ceiling of the chamber from one side to the other, raining dust and fragments of marble down around the floating core. The pressure from the descending Demon King swelled again, but now it was no longer the only force shaking the building.

The door behind them burst open.

Stone slabs slammed outward against the walls, and light poured into the chamber from the corridor beyond. Dozens of paladins stood there in white and gold armor, weapons already drawn. Priests clustered behind them, their faces pale from what they had just sensed, some holding staves, others clutching holy symbols with shaking hands. They had come ready to condemn intruders, but what lay before them was not simple enough for immediate judgment. The floating sphere. The glowing blood. The torn leyline. The former Apostle in priest robes pinned by Ludwig’s hand. The young nobleman with both hands burning inside a forbidden formation.

And leading them was Mot.

Ludwig recognized him immediately, though the boy had grown.

The last time he had seen Mot, the Saint of Dreams had looked around thirteen, young enough that the power behind his eyes made the body feel like a joke played on everyone nearby. Now he was older, somewhere in his teenage years, taller and sharper in the face, but that same unsettling smile remained. Creepy, gentle, and terrifyingly calm. His robes were simple compared to the paladins around him, but the space near him bent in a way that made rank meaningless. Priests stood behind him. Paladins stood before him. Yet the entire doorway belonged to Mot simply because he occupied it.

His eyes moved across the chamber.

First to the sphere.

Then to Kaiser’s burning hands.

Then to Redd, whose bestial form and bloodied body drew several paladins into defensive stances.

Then to Gallows, whose priest robes were torn and whose eyes had gone wide with fury.

Finally, Mot looked at Ludwig.

The smile on his face did not vanish, but it changed. Became smaller. More awake.

”Well,” Mot said, his voice soft enough that the panicked breathing of the paladins almost covered it. ”This is not what the Pope said was happening.”

No one moved.

Ludwig kept one hand around Gallows’s throat and slowly turned his head toward the young Saint. The crack in the sphere widened behind him, black light leaking from within it, while Kaiser continued forcing his mana into the leyline despite the holy power burning through his hands.

”Good,” Ludwig said. ”Then you’re not completely stupid.”

Several paladins stiffened at the insult, but Mot raised one hand before any of them could act. His gaze remained fixed on Ludwig, curious and deeply unsettling.

”You came to warn me earlier,” Mot said. ”Something about the sky breaking.”

”I did.”

”The guard ignored it.”

”He looked like the type.”

Mot’s smile widened by a fraction. ”He was.”

The chamber shook again, this time hard enough that several priests lost their footing. The tear in the sphere opened wider, and something vast breathed from the other side. The air heated instantly. Ash drifted out of the crack despite there being no fire visible within it.

Mot glanced toward the sphere, then toward the exposed blood lines spreading along the walls. For the first time, something cold moved behind his cheerful expression.

”This is a summoning rite,” he said.

Kaiser laughed once under his breath, though the sound was pained. ”A wonderfully quick student.”

Mot ignored him. His eyes moved to the four lines, then followed the revealed layout as far as the chamber allowed. His face shifted again when he noticed the line leading down toward the cells.

”And soul-binding,” he said.

Some of the priests behind him went pale.

Redd’s claws flexed. ”Ask your Pope about that.”

At the word Pope, Mot’s smile faded fully.

For all the strange cheer he carried, for all the dreamlike softness of his presence, the expression that replaced it made several paladins instinctively step away from him. It was not anger in the ordinary sense. It was the sudden absence of anything human enough to be called patience.

Mot looked back toward Ludwig. ”Where is Titania?”

”Below,” Ludwig replied. ”Chained. Sealed away from her gods. Your Pope made sure she couldn’t hear them.”

The priests behind Mot began whispering at once.

One of the older paladins shook his head. ”Impossible. The Saintess is under lawful confinement pending investigation.”

Mot turned his head slightly toward the man.

The paladin stopped speaking.

”Is she alive?” Mot asked.

”Yes,” Ludwig said. ”For now. But this line here is blocking her from her patrons, that one is keeping the dead from leaving their corpses, and the one Kaiser is currently burning his hands through was hiding all of it from everyone.”

Kaiser grunted. ”Still doing so, somewhat. Explanation appreciated. Assistance would be better.”

Mot looked at Kaiser’s hands, then at the leyline.

”You are not holy,” Mot said mildly.

Kaiser’s smile twitched. ”Not everyone gets to be perfect.”

”No,” Mot replied. ”But you are helping.”

He stepped into the chamber.

The paladins moved with him instinctively, but Mot raised his hand again, stopping them at the threshold. ”No one touches them yet.”

A priest near the back looked horrified. ”Saint Mot, they are intruders. They have breached the restricted lower sanctum. They are with that woman, and that beastman is clearly...”

Mot’s gaze slid toward him.

The priest’s voice died.

”I said,” Mot repeated softly, ”no one touches them yet.”

The order settled over the doorway like a dream becoming law. The paladins lowered their weapons by a fraction, unwilling but unable to fully resist the authority in his voice.

Gallows began laughing again, though Ludwig could feel the tension in her throat beneath his fingers. ”Too many witnesses now, little Apostle. Too much noise. You think this helps you? The Demon King is already descending. The Pope will still choose the Hero. The people will still need salvation.”

Ludwig looked down at her.

Then at Mot.

Then at the cracked sphere, the burning leyline, and the exposed ritual spreading through the Sacrosanctum like a wound finally opened to air.

”Maybe,” Ludwig said. ”But now everyone gets to see who lit the fire before he starts selling water.”

”This isn’t good,” Mot said as he looked at the giant spherical orb.

”When did good thing ever happen when the two of us meet...”

”Exactly.” He raised his staff up.

”Please no more summoning of your god’s apendages, things will get very creepy and very fast.”

”Don’t worry,” Mot said as he slammed the butt of his staff onto the ground. ”I never trusted that woman in the first place,” Mot said toward Gallows. ”How could one repent after only a few days of holy counseling was beyond me.”

”I also wondered about how she got to wear priest clothes, especially after the fuckfest she did in Tulmud.”

”Don’t ask me,” Mot said as purple energy spread out from the bottom of his staff and warped around the sphere in the middle. The rumbling of the Sacrosanctum reduced significantly, but the sphere itself didn’t seem like it was going to stop.

”Oh, this is helping,” Kaiser said, ”You managed to block the lay lines form further fueling the sphere.”

”It is easy, if you separate the lines not by space, but by dimension.” Mot smiled.

Kaiser looked at him, then frowned, ”That’s not something I can do.”

”Neither it is something I can, but I just sent the feed to Azathoth. They won’t be feeding the sphere anymore, but...”

Kaiser finished the words for him, ”It won’t stop the descent but will make it weaker, good enough, we can handle a weaker Demon King, I think.”

”What is going on in here?” the loud, almost nerve grating sound of a person that Ludwig least liked to see echoed from behind the room.

The hero, in all his worthless glory came out with his holy sword drawn.