Deus Necros

Chapter 435: True Power

The ground groaned beneath them, a deep and unsteady shudder that rolled through the ruined streets like the breath of something vast and unseen. Shards of loose masonry rattled down from rooftops, clinking on the cobblestones. Somewhere distant, the warped chimes of broken metal rang against one another in uneven rhythm.

“The hell was that?” Ludwig’s voice cut through the uneasy stillness, low but edged, as he steadied himself against the tremor. The vibration lingered faintly in the soles of his boots, the air itself carrying that subtle, oppressive hum that spoke of great forces moving just out of sight.

“Don’t know, to be honest,” Thomas answered, materializing at Ludwig’s shoulder as if drawn by the disturbance. His spectral form wavered slightly, the edges of him shimmering with each pulse of the quake. “But we should probably head out, no?”

“Yeah.” Ludwig’s agreement came without hesitation, but his attention was already drawn downward, to the crumpled body at his feet. The Piper lay twisted where he’d fallen, the glint of his mask stark against the dull stains spreading beneath him. Ludwig crouched slowly, each movement deliberate, and reached for it.

“There’s one small issue, though,” he murmured, fingers curling around the edge of the mask’s smooth surface.

He pulled.

Beneath it, there was no face.

No eyes to glare back at him. No mouth twisted in defiance. Only the blank expanse of flesh, featureless, pale, and wrong, as though the idea of a face had been stripped away.

“I had a feeling this would happen…” Ludwig’s tone carried no surprise, but a note of irritation threaded through it.

Thomas tilted his head. “Care to explain? Because I’m really lost here.”

Ludwig straightened, the mask dangling loosely from his grip. “Necros’s Quest. I should have gotten a Shard of Darkness for defeating one of the Apostles.” His eyes narrowed at the corpse, scanning it for any sign he might have missed.

“Yeah, that should have been the case,” Thomas agreed, his brow furrowing. “But nothing… you think it’s not working?”

“No.” Ludwig shook his head once, certain.

The mask vanished in his hand, not slipped away, not stolen, but simply gone, dissipating in an instant as if it had never existed. The air where it had been felt faintly colder for a breath.

“Ah,” Ludwig exhaled, the sound halfway between confirmation and resignation. “That settles it.”

The Knight King’s voice rumbled from a few steps back. “What is the matter?”

“It’s not the real thing,” Ludwig replied, gaze still on the body. “Or at least… not the Piper.”

Thomas frowned. “How can you say that? He confirmed meeting you before, didn’t he?”

“Indeed. That’s what’s throwing me off.” Ludwig finally looked up from the corpse, his voice quiet but certain. “What I think is… maybe the Apostle isn’t the Piper by himself. This one doesn’t have the lantern, and the quest still says I need to kill the Piper. That means he’s still alive. Maybe we killed a clone. Not to mention,” his eyes flicked once toward the sprawled limbs, “,this guy was absurdly weak. Though he had the same speed and tone as the one we met back then.”

“Let’s think about that later,” Thomas urged. “There’s far too much dark magic thickening in the air here for us to be standing around. Sooner or later, a Holy Order squad will be on top of us.”

“You’re right. Let’s move,”

Ludwig’s agreement died halfway out of his mouth. His eyes had caught movement ahead, not the shuffle of debris or the slow drift of settling dust, but something deliberate, silent, and far too large to have approached without warning.

It stood there in the open, framed between the leaning facades of half-collapsed buildings. Even in stillness, its presence pressed on the senses like heat from a nearby fire.

The creature was massive, broad-shouldered and powerful, the thick corded muscle under its fur promising terrible speed. Its wolfish muzzle was parted in what might have been mistaken for a grin if not for the red smear staining the fur around its teeth. Only when the dim light shifted across its mouth did the truth show itself, the pale, limp arm of a child, wedged carelessly between its fangs.

The Treacherous Fanged Apostle.

“Guess you killed one of him. Not bad, not bad,” the werewolf said, his voice an unsettling blend of amusement and familiarity, as though commenting on a shared pastime.

“Shit…” Ludwig’s curse was quiet, but the weight in it was unmistakable.

“Why such gloom?” the Apostle asked, tilting his head slightly to one side. “Wouldn’t it be better to say it’s a pleasant surprise to have met me?”

“Would you say that if you were in my shoes?” Ludwig’s voice was calm, but his hand was already lifting, palm tilted back toward the looming shadow at his rear. The great White Bearowl, still towering even in death, responded without hesitation. With a grinding wrench of bone and sinew, it dug its claws into its own chest, parting flesh until its talons closed around the hilt of something hidden deep within. It withdrew Oathcarver in a slow, wet pull, the blade slick with its own blood, and offered it to Ludwig like a knight presenting a sword to his lord.

The Apostle’s grin widened, though the red-stained teeth remained bared in that mockery of a smile. “I’m not here to fight you,” he said, each word rolling out unhurried. “Not to mention, you don’t even stand a chance against me. For one who struggled so much against one of Crucendo’s puppets…”

“Then why are you here?” Ludwig asked, his grip tightening on the weapon’s hilt.

“You should already know,” the werewolf replied, leaning forward just enough for the light to catch the faint, cruel glint in his eyes. “Didn’t Necros inform you?”

“Maybe,” Ludwig allowed, his tone almost flat. “But do you think it’s wise to summon the Wrathful Death here?”

A low hum rumbled in the Apostle’s throat, not quite a laugh, but something close. “Ah. So you were told that much. If only he had informed us as he did you back then… perhaps we wouldn’t have turned on him.” He exhaled, the sound almost like a sigh, before stepping closer. His shadow stretched across the cobblestones, swallowing the space between them. “Still… seeing how you’ve grown, though only a tiny bit from last time, you’re a monster yourself, aren’t you?”

“Says the one using a child’s hand as a tooth-filling.” Ludwig’s tone carried no warmth, only the faintest edge of disgust.

The Apostle glanced at the pale arm as if noticing it for the first time. “Ah,” he said simply, and spat it out. It fell with a soft, sickening thud to the stones. “Didn’t even notice it was still there.” His grin returned almost instantly. “Regardless… you’re in far too deep over your head. Renounce Necros. It will serve you no good, nor glory.”

“And pair with maniacs spreading terror and mass murder?” Ludwig’s fingers closed more firmly around the bloody Oathcarver. “No, thank you.”

“It’s a far better alternative than standing against the Usurpers,” the werewolf replied.

Ludwig’s only answer was the faint shimmer of mana beginning to gather around him.

The Apostle’s eyes narrowed. “Child, know this, if you act, I will split you into bits and scatter your remains across the world. The Gluttonous Death made sure I should not kill you yet… but he said nothing about doing worse.”

“If you serve the Gluttonous Death,” Ludwig said, “why help the Wrathful one? I doubt they’re friends.”

“More like… coworkers,” the werewolf said, almost lazily. “That doesn’t mean I can’t take a bonus from each of them. The Wrathful one was bored, trapped in Solania. He came up with this idea. You, of course, thwarted it in the Dawn Isles, making descent there… inconvenient. But here will do. And besides…” His gaze drifted upward, following something unseen. “We’re almost there.”

Ludwig followed his eyes, and froze.

High above the city, in a sky where there should have been nothing but the dim, warped light filtering through the purple dome, hung a massive red moon. Its surface was scarred and uneven, yet almost full, its crimson glow spilling across the rooftops like a thin wash of blood. A second moon, a Gibbus, hanging where it had no right to be.

“So,” the Apostle said, his tone almost playful. “What will you show us this time? Last time, you barely stopped it. But now… there are four Apostles in this city. How will you halt the Wrathful one’s descent?”

“By any means possible,” Ludwig answered, his voice steady. “Even if it takes a thousand deaths.” He slapped the side of his coat, revealing the dull, ghostly glow of his Soul Letting Lantern.

The system’s warning came instantly:

[YOU ARE IN A HOSTILE ENVIRONMENT!]

Ludwig shifted into a defensive stance, but the werewolf didn’t move.

The cobblestones beneath Ludwig’s boots gave a faint, unnatural tremor, not the rumble of distant collapse, but a localized, creeping quake that seemed to focus entirely under him. A dry, scraping sound followed, like brittle fingers clawing through packed earth.

Before he could shift his footing, the stones bulged and split. From the gaps, pale arms erupted, half a dozen in number, their skin the color of ash, their joints stiff but strong. The hands clamped around his legs and boots with the strength of a drowning man’s grip, their nails cracked and blackened. A faint reek of soil, mold, and something long-dead rolled upward with them.

“So,” came a voice, cold, unhurried, its words spaced as if time itself bent around them, “this is the child who’s been wreaking havoc all over the place.”

The tone was detached, neither impressed nor scornful, simply stating a fact. But in that calmness was a weight that pressed against the air, like a deep, still ocean hiding things that should not be touched.

“Quite the interesting lad…” the voice went on. “Here I thought it would be that hero they summoned here.”

Ludwig turned his head slowly toward the source, his eyes narrowing.

The figure that stepped into view was tall, taller than him by at least two heads, and so gaunt that the word ’man’ felt almost inaccurate. Whatever humanity had once lived there had been long since scraped away.

His face was little more than a bare skull, the last stubborn shreds of skin stretched dry over the bone, brittle and paper-thin. The sockets held no eyes, yet from their depths burned the steady, ghostly shine of pale blue light. The ribs beneath his chest were exposed, each one clean and dry, and where a heart should have been there was only emptiness.

He was swathed in layered robes of blackened cloth, the weave old but intact, their edges frayed like they had brushed against centuries of stone. The folds of the garment moved faintly, disturbed by currents of magic rather than wind.

In his hand, though perhaps ’gripped’ was too strong a word for the way the bony fingers seemed grown into it, he carried a staff taller than himself. The shaft was gnarled wood, darkened by age, its surface knotted with tiny, grinning skulls the size of a child’s fist. At the crown of the staff, the wood curled upward in a spiral, cradling a hovering jewel of deep violet light. The gem pulsed slowly, like a heartbeat that did not belong to the living.

From the figure’s body radiated a haze, a dark aura that seeped outward like ink in water, staining the air with the taste of rust and old earth. The pressure of it prickled along Ludwig’s senses, each pulse like an unwelcome hand brushing too close to his mind.

On the figure’s hip, hanging from a chain of tarnished silver links, was an object Ludwig recognized instantly: a Soul Letting Lantern. Its glow was muted and warped, as if the light within strained against whatever will held it.

The word left Ludwig’s mind without needing to be spoken.

Lich.

And not a common one.

A presence of that magnitude meant centuries, perhaps millennia, of accumulation. This was not a petty necromancer clawing at forbidden arts; this was mastery, steeped in a patience only the dead could afford.