Deus Necros

Chapter 432: Incompatible

Ludwig turned his head slightly, watching the last of the blood finish pooling at the base of the bone spears. His face remained unreadable.

Though everyone that was impaled and still lived simply whimpered out as thy bled from the spears, a display of great control over magic that would seem simple to any novice of the art, but for a true Dark Mage, the control over these spears and how each and everyone of them impaled a target, that would require years of practice and effort to even mimic.

The piper couldn’t help but tremble at the monster in front of him.

“Shit, shit,” The words came out sharp and uneven, each syllable bitten off in a panic that seemed almost alien coming from him. The Piper’s voice, usually steeped in smug calculation, now wavered on the edge of desperation. It was strange, deeply strange, for Ludwig to hear. Apostles were not meant to sound like this. They were not meant to look like this, shoulders hunched, breath coming ragged, eyes darting wildly behind the narrow slits of the mask. An Apostle should not have been reduced to such obvious weakness.

“Damn you,” the Piper spat, the sound more strained than venomous. He lunged forward in a jerky, graceless flight, pipe clutched tight in his hand as though it were a blade meant to cave Ludwig’s skull in. His aim was fixed entirely on Ludwig’s head, the tip of the pipe trembling with the force of his grip.

But he was slow. Painfully slow. A crawl compared to the fluid swiftness he had shown earlier. His movements dragged, each one costing him more breath than the last.

Was the potion really that powerful?

The thought slid coldly through Ludwig’s mind as he shifted his weight. He did not retreat. He did not counter with his blade. Instead, he moved with a sudden, precise sidestep, letting the Piper’s wild lunge pass harmlessly by. The stench of the Apostle’s breath, bitter, metallic, brushed his cheek for the briefest moment.

Ludwig’s leg coiled, and then uncoiled in a perfect arc.

The roundhouse kick struck square in the center of the Piper’s back with a heavy, reverberating thud, the kind of impact that rattled bone and sent a shockwave through the spine. The masked figure lurched forward, weightless for an instant before being hurled into the air. He tumbled end over end, flailing in a grotesque imitation of flight, sent crashing away in almost the exact same arc the Bearowl had thrown Ludwig at the beginning of this fight.

Stone split beneath his landing. The Piper’s body tore through the pile of corpses, scattering limp limbs and snapping brittle bones. Spears of bleached bone scraped sparks from his mask and some of his metallic light armor he wore as he ricocheted past them, before his fall finally ended with a jarring thump against the still-warm corpse of the White Bearowl. The impact knocked the breath from him, leaving him heaving through clenched teeth.

When he lifted his head, the angle of his right leg was wrong, too far inward at the knee, an ugly twist that left the joint swelling beneath the cloth. Blood leaked from the corner of his mouth, trailing down his chin in a thin, trembling line. And yet, even in that state, his hands sought the pipe first, clutching it as though his own life force ran through it.

He raised it to his lips with visible effort, and the sound he made was more hiss than breath. But the note came through.

“I’ll summon all the remaining Bearowls!” he snarled, his voice cracking with strain. “Let’s see how you can survive that one!”

“You’re right,” Ludwig replied evenly, his voice cutting through the echo of the note, “with that many Bearowls roaming the city, if they all come at me, I might be in a pickle.” His gaze narrowed slightly. “So that’s your hope?”

“Hope?” The Piper’s laugh was jagged, trembling with feverish triumph. “No, That is my power! Cry out in despair as they all maul at you!”

The answer came almost immediately. From somewhere beyond the fractured streets came the low, bone-deep rumble of a stampede. The sound grew in waves, rolling through the city’s skeleton like a drumbeat in the earth. Each pulse was punctuated by the clatter of claws on stone, the faint metallic clink of the harnesses they bore. The Bearowls were converging, every one of them answering the Piper’s call.

But Ludwig’s expression did not change.

“But unfortunately,” he said quietly, “you’re heavily incompatible with me.” Then, without raising his voice, he spoke the words that made the Piper’s grip falter.

“Rise, Undead.”

The Piper froze.

His hand trembled once, twice, as the meaning sank in, as though the words themselves had weight. Then his fear became something more immediate when the corpse beneath him… moved.

A tremor ran through the White Bearowl’s massive frame. The metallic harness along its back groaned and warped, reshaping itself as if under the will of some invisible craftsman. Joints snapped back into place with sickening pops, its ribs flexing beneath torn flesh. The shuddering grew into a full-bodied convulsion, dust and dried blood shaking loose from its fur.

Then, impossibly, it stood.

The Bearowl’s shadow stretched over the Apostle, swallowing the Piper whole in its mass. Its head turned toward the sky, and with lungs no longer breathing air but command, it loosed a single, piercing howl that rolled through the ruins like a shockwave.

Somewhere far off, the stampede faltered. The rushing steps slowed, then stopped altogether. An unnatural hush fell over the city, as though the world itself had been commanded to still.

Every Bearowl, wherever it was, stood frozen mid-stride. They would not take another step.

Even without seeing his face, Ludwig could feel the moment the Piper’s color drained beneath the mask. This was no trick of magic, this was the Alpha’s voice, the law written into the marrow of their kind. The Bearowl before him was their true leader, and no song from the Piper’s pipe could ever outcommand it.

Ludwig’s gaze never wavered. His voice came quiet, almost kind.

“How does it feel?” he asked softly. “That fleeting hope of yours?”