Deus Necros

Celine swung, and the crystalline sword passed through the air with enough force to split the canyon apart.

Ludwig had seen Wrath manifest through his own body countless times. He understood the pressure, the fury, and the constant desire to destroy whatever stood before him. Yet his experience with the Authority was fundamentally different from Celine’s.

Undeath protected him.

Whenever Ludwig drew too deeply upon the Wrathful Heart, the power still flooded him with violence. It demanded destruction, pushed him toward excess, and made every problem appear solvable through sufficient brutality. Which in fact was not wrong.

However, his Living Vessel could suppress that emotional imbalance. He could quiet fear, pain, rage, and instinct by falling back upon the nature of the undead.

Celine could not.

She was a True Vampire, ancient and powerful beyond most living beings, but she was still alive. Her heart beat. She breathed. She desired, and she hated. Wrath had far more to seize inside her.

That was why she had never willingly used the shard before.

Centuries ago, the power had been introduced into her body during the attempt to transform her into the Queen of Thorns, one of Wrath’s Kings. If the sealing chamber beneath the Dawn Isles had not imprisoned her, the process would have continued until little remained of the woman she had once been.

Ludwig had reached her before that transformation could be completed. He had defeated the Thorn Queen that sought to overwrite Celine’s will and turn her into another vessel of Wrath. The victory had liberated her from that fate, but it had not removed the shard buried within her.

It remained sealed deep inside, dormant and untouched because Celine had never needed it.

Until now.

She had awakened it for one reason.

Wrath did not care enough to designate a single enemy.

That was what made it different from every attack they had attempted against Sloth. Ludwig needed to deceive his intention, directing his hatred toward the space around the Usurper rather than Sloth himself. Cain had failed the moment his malice became too focused. Redd’s poison had been forced into stillness, while Kaiser’s magic had lost the desire to do anything meaningful.

Celine possessed no such problem because she was not using Wrath.

Wrath was using her.

The Authority did not recognize Sloth as a protected target surrounded by untouchable space. It recognized the canyon, the creatures, the tribesmen, the sky, the stone, and every living thing around Celine as deserving destruction.

Everything was an enemy.

Sloth included.

Wrath had never cared about his Authority. If it had, Sloth would have crossed Solania long before Ludwig arrived.

”GET AWAY FROM HER! RIGHT NOW!”

Ludwig released Nightbreaker and thrust his left hand toward the tribesmen. Soul shackles erupted from his arm, the dark chains crossing the canyon before wrapping around bodies, waists, and limbs.

Several tribesmen were too burdened by Sloth’s influence to understand what was happening. Ludwig did not wait for them to cooperate. He pulled, tightening the chains and dragging the entire group across the ground. They were hauled behind him just as Celine’s aura erupted outward.

Cain reacted without hesitation. He seized Tull by the back of his armor and vanished, ripping the captain from his feet while his sword remained in hand. By the time Tull could protest, Cain had already carried him dozens of meters away.

Redd needed no warning beyond what his instincts were already screaming. His body shifted into something built for speed. His legs lengthened, claws tore through his boots, and scaled muscle spread along his back. He caught his sister’s spectral form against himself and fled toward the nearest canyon wall.

Thomas remained frozen near Ludwig.

”Move!” Ludwig shouted.

The fire spirit shot upward as crystalline growth erupted across Celine’s body. It spread from her sword arm first, climbing over her shoulder in jagged veins of blood-red crystal. Curved thorns pierced through her clothing along her back. The growths pulsed with every furious beat of her heart, extending farther as the Authority fed upon her rage.

Then Ludwig felt something pulling at his own chest.

Wrath answered her.

Heat leaked from the Wrathful Heart without his command. Crimson energy seeped through his skin in thin, twisting streams and reached toward Celine, as though the shard inside her were calling to the greater whole.

Ludwig clenched his teeth. ”Get the fuck back in here!”

He forced the escaping Authority inward. The red currents struggled against him, stretching toward Celine before snapping back beneath the pressure of his will.

If too much of the Wrathful Heart passed into her, she would not merely become stronger. She would be cursed by it. The shard might grow into another Heart of Wrath, and Celine could become the next Wrathful Death.

Ludwig could contain that power because undeath allowed him to shut away the emotions upon which it fed. Celine had no such defense. If the Heart fully awakened inside her, she might continue breathing, speaking, and moving, but the woman Ludwig knew would be gone.

”Get a grip!” Cain shouted.

Celine’s head snapped toward the voice. Her blood-red eyes passed over Cain and found Kaiser instead.

The former lich had only just finished rebuilding most of his left side. Muscle still crawled across newly formed ribs, and the reconstructed arm remained partially skeletal beneath layers of writhing flesh.

Celine launched herself toward him.

Kaiser stared at the crimson sword descending toward his neck. ”Damn,” he said. ”This is going to hurt.”

Ludwig dismissed him.

Kaiser vanished an instant before the blade reached him, and Celine’s sword cut through empty air. The force of the missed swing continued beyond him, releasing a crimson arc across the canyon.

Several distant rock formations split apart. The cut traveled through one wall, crossed the narrow ravine beyond it, and tore through another. Entire sections of stone slid free before collapsing into the canyon.

The black creatures hiding within those fissures never had time to flee. Roars and shrieks rose beneath the avalanche as stone crushed bodies, sealed tunnels, and buried dozens of Sloth’s hidden amalgamations beneath thousands of tons of debris.

Celine turned, her body already searching for another target. Anything living. Anything moving. Anything that had not yet been destroyed.

Cain stood too far away, Redd had already reached the canyon wall, and Ludwig remained near the tribesmen. Only one figure stood close enough to satisfy Wrath immediately.

Sloth.

The pale giant remained in the center of the canyon. His unnatural calm had not changed, though his three crimson eyes followed Celine as she chose him. He stood without fear, concern, or urgency, his body towering above her.

Celine charged.

Her feet shattered the ground with every step. Blood-red crystal climbed farther across her face, forming two curved horns that emerged from her temples and swept upward.

Sloth raised one hand, opening his fingers toward the incoming blade. His other hand closed into a fist near his waist.

His Authority would strip the sword of momentum before it reached him. He would pluck it from Celine’s grasp, then drive his fist through her body while she remained extended and defenseless.

Ludwig cursed.

The sequence was obvious.

Celine was going to die here.