Deus Necros

Celine would not protect herself. Wrath amplified her fury and stripped away any concern for the damage she suffered. Pain became irrelevant, and every injury became another reason to attack harder.

Without Noctivex protecting her body, a direct punch from Sloth could tear her apart.

Most vessels of Wrath did not die because the Authority failed them. They died because they ignored every wound until their bodies collapsed, or because Wrath consumed their life energy faster than they could recover.

Ludwig released the chains wrapped around the tribesmen and hurled them toward Celine. The soul shackles shot across the canyon, their links stretching toward her waist and shoulders. Ludwig prepared to pull her away the instant Sloth stopped the sword.

The chains were too slow.

Thomas hovered above him, his small flames trembling. ”Celine!”

The crimson blade came down.

Everyone expected it to stop.

It did not.

Sloth’s fingers reached toward the edge, but the sword passed through them. Three pale fingers separated from his hand and spun into the air, followed by a spray of blue blood.

Sloth’s head tilted.

The crimson blade continued through his palm, split his wrist, and cut down the length of his forearm. Flesh and bone separated cleanly until the sword reached his elbow.

Half of Sloth’s arm fell to the ground. The fingers remained attached to the severed piece, still curved as though attempting to seize the weapon that had already passed through them. Blue blood splashed across the canyon floor.

The power released by Celine’s strike did not end with his body. A long seam opened in the earth behind him. The cut traveled through the canyon floor, splitting stone and continuing far into the distance before disappearing between the ravines.

Sloth stared at his missing arm.

For the first time, his Authority had failed to protect him from a direct attack.

This had not been collateral damage. It had not been a collapsing mountain or space torn apart around him. Celine had intended to strike him.

Wrath had recognized him as an enemy and ignored the refusal that stopped everyone else.

Sloth’s surprise lasted less than a second.

It was enough.

The soul shackles reached Celine and wrapped around her torso, arms, and waist just as Sloth’s remaining fist drove forward. Ludwig pulled with everything he had.

Celine flew backward.

Sloth’s knuckles passed through the place where her chest had been. The pressure alone split the ground and sent a violent gust through her hair as Ludwig wrenched her toward him.

The chains dragged her across the canyon, but Celine did not resist the pull.

She used it.

Her body twisted in the air, crimson eyes locking onto Ludwig. The curved horns framing her face made her look more like one of Wrath’s creatures than the vampire he knew.

Ludwig stared for half a heartbeat. ”Damn. Do I look like that when transformed?”

Celine seized the chains and pulled herself toward him, her sword already rising.

”Yes,” Redd shouted from the distance. ”Worse! NOW DODGE!”

”That’s scary.”

The blade descended toward Ludwig.

He did not want to strike her. Nightbreaker could stop the attack, but one careless counter would crush Celine’s body. She was an ally trapped beneath Wrath, not an enemy he could dismantle and trust to reconstruct herself afterward.

Ludwig prepared to redirect the chains and throw her aside.

Something moved across his arm.

Metal.

Dark, wretched, baleful metal poured from beneath his sleeve and spread over the soul shackles.

Noctivex.

Ludwig had not summoned it.

The living metal acted on its own, racing along the chains in a thick black stream and covering every link between Ludwig and Celine. There was too much of it. More metal emerged than the compact cube should have held, multiplying as it advanced with the hunger of something that had recognized a new purpose.

Celine’s sword nearly reached Ludwig when Noctivex struck her arm.

The metal latched onto her wrist and climbed. Celine jerked away, causing the crimson blade to miss Ludwig by inches.

Black material spread across her forearm, flowing over the Wrath-born crystal rather than being repelled by it. It climbed toward her elbow and then her shoulder, forming overlapping plates across the vampire’s body.

Celine snarled and clawed at the metal with her other hand.

Noctivex seized that one too.

Thin tendrils wrapped around her fingers and crawled up the second arm. Every place she touched gave the living armor another point from which to spread.

”What are you doing?” Ludwig asked.

Noctivex did not answer.

It had never needed words to express spite.

Celine stretched her neck away from the climbing mass, but the metal reached her collar before she could pull free. It flowed across her chest, back, and waist. Plates locked around her torso while thinner strands filled the spaces between them.

She twisted violently, but the armor followed.

Black metal spread over her legs and sealed around her boots. It climbed her throat last, expanding across her jaw and forming a dark visor over her face.

The curved crystalline horns remained exposed, rising through shaped openings in the helmet. Crimson lines glowed beneath the black plates, Wrath’s energy visible between the seams.

Within seconds, Celine stood fully armored in Noctivex.

The soul shackles fell loose around her as she stopped moving while Ludwig could only stare.

Noctivex had been his armor. It had answered him after he became the Lord of All That Is Metal. It protected his Living Vessel, shifted forms at his command, and carried its own immense store of resentment toward the world.

Now it had abandoned his body and wrapped itself around Celine.

For one brief, terrible moment, Ludwig wondered whether the living metal had changed sides. Celine already possessed Wrath’s shard. If Noctivex had chosen to amplify her rampage rather than restrain it, the situation had become far worse.

She remained motionless as the red glow behind her visor dimmed. Her sword lowered slightly.

Ludwig kept Nightbreaker ready. ”Celine?”

The crimson light brightened again, and her head turned toward him.

This time, the motion was controlled.

The animalistic tension had vanished from her shoulders. Her breathing steadied behind the helmet, and the hand holding the sword loosened enough that the blade no longer trembled.

Her voice emerged from behind Noctivex’s visor. ”What just happened?”

Ludwig looked at her, then pointed toward Sloth.

The Usurper remained several dozen meters away, staring at the severed half of his arm while blue blood flowed down his side.

”You did.”