Deus Necros

Ludwig crossed Solania from above.

He landed on the first rooftop hard enough to crack the tiles beneath his boots, then pushed off again before the dust had time to rise. The city blurred under him in broken pieces. Chimneys, slanted roofs, prayer banners, narrow alleys packed with people who had rushed outside and then immediately regretted it. Bells were still ringing from the Sacrosanctum, but the sound had lost all rhythm. It was panic now, dressed in bronze and holy tradition.

Kaiser followed at an angle behind him, carried by a controlled flight spell that kept him just high enough not to waste time on rooftops. His burned hands remained hidden inside his sleeves, though Ludwig could still smell the holy damage on them, faint and ugly beneath the dust, blood, and ritual smoke that had spilled out of the Sacrosanctum. Neither of them spoke. There was no need. The Demon King’s aura had already become a landmark, a massive pressure outside the city walls that every sensitive being in Solania could feel even if they had no idea what had happened.

People were watching.

They leaned out from windows despite trembling hands. They climbed onto rooftops with pale faces and wide eyes. Guards crowded along the battlements, some shouting for orders, others simply staring past the city walls at the thing that had been thrown out of the Sacrosanctum like a curse given shape. The common folk did not know what the creature was, not at first. They only knew that something had descended into their holy city and that the pressure it carried made their lungs feel too small for their chests.

Outside Solania, in the open frozen fields beyond the walls, the Demon King stood alone.

He was impossible to mistake for anything mortal. Purple skin, long curved horns, ivory hair spilling across shoulders carved like a sculptor’s violent dream. His aura churned around him in waves of heat and cold so contradictory that the ice near his feet melted, froze, melted again, and then locked into distorted shapes that looked like clear glass twisted by a fever.

The Demon King’s body faced Ludwig.

His head, however, was turned toward the distant peaks of Solania.

Ludwig landed several paces away from him, Nightbreaker resting against one shoulder. The impact sent a shallow crack through the frozen field, but the Demon King did not turn immediately.

”Something caught your attention?” Ludwig asked.

”There is something there,” the Demon King said. His crimson eyes remained fixed on the peaks. ”It has the same smell as you do.”

”I’m a clean person,” Ludwig replied. ”And all that’s there are monsters and a wretched being.”

”That being that I speak of,” the Demon King said, finally turning his gaze back toward Ludwig, ”he too is strong. Worthy of a full-scale battle even.”

The Demon King lowered his eyes to his own hand. Mana leaked from his fingers like smoke through cracked glass, dispersing into the air before it could fully stabilize. His expression soured with disgust.

”But this form will not last long enough for it to arrive.”

”You don’t have to worry about that,” Ludwig said. ”I’ll send you back to where you came from long before that happens.”

The Demon King’s disappointment faded.

A smile took its place.

”That,” he said, ”is something I hope to see.”

On the walls of Solania, the guards were beginning to lose what little order they had.

”What is that thing?” one of them shouted.

”Where are the paladins?”

”Why is no one attacking?”

”Where is the Hero?”

No answer satisfied anyone. A demon had descended into the heart of the holy city and been launched outside its walls, and yet the priests were not giving orders. The paladins had not formed a charge. The Sacrosanctum still trembled behind them, coughing dust and divine pressure into the sky. Citizens looked to soldiers. Soldiers looked to priests. Priests looked back toward the broken holy seat and found nothing but smoke, bells, and distant explosions.

Down in the streets, Hiro was running.

His armor was dust-caked, his hair a ruffled mess, and blood streamed from his nose where stone or impact had finally managed to do what shame could not. He looked nothing like the painted murals of the chosen savior. No divine glow framed him. No solemn music followed his steps. He looked like a man who had been thrown through several walls and had taken the experience personally.

”Motherfuckers,” Hiro snarled as he ran. ”I’ll kill them all!”

A man stepped into pace beside him, moving fast enough to keep up without looking out of breath. ”You better slow down. The Pope hasn’t given the order to attack yet.”

”Fuck the Pope!” Hiro spat. ”That bastard is still hiding back at the Sacrosanctum. He’s too much of a pussy to fight or send proper orders.”

”He’s trying to hold Titania down,” the man said. ”She wants to drink his blood right now.”

As if summoned by the words, a loud explosive boom echoed from the Sacrosanctum. The force of it rolled through the city like thunder trapped under stone. One of the giant statues adorning the outer structure cracked from shoulder to hip, then lost its head. The marble face fell several stories and smashed into the plaza below, sending people screaming away from the impact.

The man glanced back. ”She’s really pissed.”

”Hoyo,” Hiro snapped, ”don’t fuck with me right now. Are you in, or out?”

”Of course I’m out,” Hoyo said, sounding almost offended. ”Are you stupid? I can’t use my powers here. I’ll be branded as a dark user immediately.”

”Don’t worry about that. We’re technically outside the Empire’s territory. Here, it’s the Holy Order’s land. And if you use it, you’ll get a pardon since you’re helping the Hero. Clementine already promised me that.”

”That only works if Clementine survives Titania,” Drak replied. ”I’m not risking that.”

Hiro’s face twisted. ”Son of a bitch. After all the corpses I fed you, useless shit.”

He accelerated and left Hoyo behind.

The gates of Solania were already half-open, more from panic than coordination. Hiro forced his way through the confusion, shoved past two guards who tried to ask for orders, and burst out into the open fields beyond the walls.

Then he saw the fight.

It was not what he expected.

It was not a noble confrontation between Hero and Demon. It was not a waiting evil, standing beneath the sky so the chosen one could arrive and be seen. It was a nightmare already in motion.

Ludwig and the Demon King clashed across the frozen field at speeds Hiro’s eyes could barely follow. One moment they were twenty paces apart, the next their weapons and claws met with a sound that made the ice shudder for hundreds of meters. Nightbreaker tore through the air with brutal arcs, each swing carrying enough force to flatten stone battlements, while the Demon King answered with claws, horns, tail, and bursts of raw mana that twisted the weather around them. Ice rattled, shattered, rose in glittering fragments, then froze in midair under the pressure of colliding energies before exploding again from the next shockwave.

Durandal flashed when Ludwig switched grips, catching a claw meant to split him open from throat to hip. Fire erupted from somewhere in the Demon King’s palm, not red like ordinary flame but violet-black, hot enough that the field hissed and vaporized beneath it. Ludwig answered with a swing of Nightbreaker that drove the heat back in a cone of force. The ice beneath them changed color with every exchange, white, blue, black, red, then white again, depending on whose power overwhelmed the field for that single instant.

Above them floated five figures.

Every person in Solania who had even a passing education in magic knew them. Their robes, their presence, the terrifying calm with which they watched the battle from the sky made their identities impossible to mistake.

The Tower Masters.

Gray, Red, Blue, White, and Black hovered above the field in a loose arc, not interfering, not yet. The Gray Tower Master watched with hands folded behind his back, unreadable. The Red Tower Master’s eyes burned with open interest, as if half the battle were an experiment in destruction. The Blue Tower Master stood with a faintly amused expression that did not reach the eyes. The White Tower Master looked troubled, every second of inaction clearly costing restraint. And Van Dijk, the Black Tower Master, smiled as if the entire world had arranged a private lesson for his amusement.

Near the city, Mot stood with his staff planted into the frozen ground.

Purple lines stretched from the base of the staff into a wide ward along Solania’s outer boundary. Whenever a shockwave tore toward the walls with enough force to crack towers or pulp civilians against stone, Mot’s ward caught it. The energy spread across the purple barrier, warped, thinned, and vanished into places that did not look like distance. His expression remained mild, but the strain in the air around him was obvious to anyone who understood magic.

Hiro did not care.

”He’s taking my spot,” he snarled, eyes fixed on Ludwig. ”I’m supposed to be there.”

He rushed forward.

Mot’s head turned slightly. ”Stop right there. You’ll die if you go too close.”

”Fuck off, Mot!” Hiro howled.

He drew his holy sword again, its light flaring as he pushed toward the battlefield. But his aim was not on the Demon King. His eyes were locked on Ludwig’s back.

Above the field, the Red Tower Master noticed. His hand rose, fire gathering at his fingertips in a condensed point of brilliant crimson.

”Leave him be,” Van Dijk said.

The Red Tower Master glanced sideways. ”Van Dijk, are you sure? He is aiming for your disciple.”

Van Dijk’s smile widened by a fraction. ”Worry not.”

Below them, Ludwig parried a claw with Durandal, ducked beneath the Demon King’s tail, and drove Nightbreaker into the ground hard enough to launch a ridge of broken ice toward his opponent. He still had not looked toward Hiro.

”I didn’t raise someone who would be done in by trash,” Van Dijk said.

Hiro crossed the last safe distance, sword lifted, fury turning his face into something ugly and small.

Ludwig unsummoned Durandal and snapped his fingers with one hand behind his back.

”Gravitas.”

A small black orb appeared near Hiro’s ankle.

It drifted lazily for less than a heartbeat, then latched onto his foot.

The world beneath Hiro changed.

His forward momentum died as if a mountain had decided to sit on his leg. The ice cracked around him, then swallowed him. Hiro’s body plunged downward violently, armor scraping against frozen earth as gravity compressed around his foot and dragged him under. He barely managed to scream before the field sealed around him, burying him up to the neck and leaving only his face exposed above the ice.

The Demon King saw the opening and took it.

His claw swept across Ludwig’s chest in a diagonal arc, too fast for any ordinary defense. Noctivex manifested over Ludwig’s torso in a sudden black bloom, the living metal snapping into place just before impact. The blow still hit hard enough to send Ludwig flying backward across the field. He cut both boots into the ice, dragging twin trenches as he slowed, then landed upright beside Hiro’s buried head.

Noctivex retreated across his chest, dented but intact, its surface rippling with displeasure.

The Demon King lowered his claw. Mana leaked harder from his wrist now, his form continuing to lose stability with every passing exchange. ”You said there would be no interference.”

”I said the powerful wouldn’t interfere,” Ludwig replied. He looked down at Hiro’s exposed, furious face. ”Not the fool.”

Hiro spat blood and ice. ”You bastard, let me out!”

Ludwig stepped on his face.

The pressure forced Hiro’s head deeper into the frozen ground, cutting off the next insult with a muffled sound that was more satisfying than it had any right to be. Ludwig did not pause to enjoy it longer than half a second. The Demon King was already moving again, smile sharp, aura boiling, delighted by the insult and the continuation both.

Ludwig pushed off Hiro’s face and launched himself forward.

Nightbreaker rose over his shoulder.

The Demon King opened both arms as if welcoming the blow.

Their next clash split the ice between them.