Deus Necros

Chapter 443: The Flayed

Ludwig hurried forward, boots crunching against rubble and shards of glass that littered the streets, the smell of smoke and iron filling his nose. At one point he was forced to stop, turning in place with narrowed eyes, uncertain of which direction would bring him closer to his quarry. The capital was drowned in death and carnage. Entire avenues had collapsed under the weight of battles that had raged through them, buildings reduced to skeletal frames, their interiors spilling into the open like the innards of corpses. Fire flickered in doorframes. Smoke trailed upward and curled beneath the monstrous red moon.

Here and there, the faint movement of civilians broke the monotony of ruin. A family clutching one another, eyes wide with terror, darted from one shattered doorway to another. An old man dragged a child by the hand, disappearing into the maw of a half-collapsed cellar. They were stragglers, unlucky ones who hadn’t made it into the shelters. Ludwig slowed just long enough to watch one woman vanish into the shadows of a church, her face turned upward in prayer even as dust rained from the cracked ceiling. He could imagine what awaited them, crowded basements, suffocating air, desperation pressed shoulder to shoulder. Hiding places overfilled, faith stretched thin, and monsters still scouring the streets.

He felt no urge to intervene. His jaw clenched as he tore his eyes away. Saving one or two souls would change nothing. His role was not that of a hero. His task lay with the Apostles, and nothing could be allowed to divert him. A greater failure loomed, one measured in hundreds of thousands if not more.

“Up ahead,” Thomas’s voice rang, sharp as the flutter of wings. The specter swooped down from above, his face grim. “Keep moving. The Werewolf is fighting someone.”

Ludwig broke into a sprint again, his breath steady out of habit as he needed none, his steps measured even on uneven ground. The sound reached him before the sight, the brutal cadence of steel striking, the guttural roar of beasts, the crash of stone yielding to overwhelming force. The closer he came, the louder it grew, until it consumed the air itself.

He slid into a clearing, his boots scraping dust across broken stone. The sight froze him for a fraction of a heartbeat.

The Guildmaster, the very man who had once handed Ludwig the S-rank certificate and one of possibly the strongest in the capital was kneeling in the dirt, shoulders heaving with the strain of keeping upright. His massive frame, once so indomitable, now looked hollowed by exhaustion. Blood painted his chest. One arm was missing entirely, torn away at the shoulder, and a massive sword lay broken beside him, the blade jagged and useless.

Towering before him, strolling with a predator’s casual gait, was the Werewolf. His body was marred with deep cuts and slashes, yet every one of them was closing even as Ludwig looked on, muscle knitting, skin fusing, no wound able to linger. He loomed over the broken Guildmaster, not in haste but in indulgence, savoring the man’s futility.

The worst part, this wasn’t even the Werewolf’s serious form, not even close.

The creature’s gaze turned then, catching Ludwig’s presence. A slow frown spread across his lupine features. “Still alive?” His voice was rough, tinged with amusement and disbelief. “How? Did you truly give in and bow your head to that bag of bones? His disciple? I’d be disappointed if you did.” He shook his head in mock sorrow, golden eyes gleaming with predatory judgment. “I thought you were better than that.”

Ludwig said nothing, his stare steady. A realization flickered behind his eyes: the Treacherous Fanged Apostle knew nothing of what had transpired on the far side of the city. No knowledge of the Piper, the Lich, or the ruin left in their wake.

A faint curl touched Ludwig’s lip. “It wouldn’t be fun telling you,” he replied simply, his tone quiet, deliberate.

The Werewolf’s frown deepened. He sniffed the air once, long and deliberate. Then again, sharp, his nostrils flaring. His expression shifted, puzzlement melting into suspicion. “I don’t scent him. That bag of bones is gone. But you shouldn’t have beaten him. Not you. Not in this life, nor the next.” His nose crumpled suddenly, twisting in disgust as if he’d caught the stench of rot at close range. “Ah. The saint. He must have intervened. Stronger than we thought if he dealt with that one this fast…”

He clapped both hands together once, the sound carrying like a thunderclap through the ruin. His grin returned, wider now, fangs glinting. “Time to change things up a bit.”

Howls erupted in response, rising from every corner of the city. Beasts bayed, voices raw and bloodthirsty, echoing off ruined walls. Almost immediately afterward, the screams of humans followed, sharp, high, filled with terror, until the air itself became a tapestry of roars and wails.

The Guildmaster forced himself to his feet, voice cracking with fury. “What are you doing?!”

“Just speeding things up.” The Werewolf’s gaze lifted skyward.

Above, the moon, now swollen full, trembled as though alive. The surface rippled once, and then split. From its center an eye opened, massive, crimson, pupil burning with disdain as it peered down upon the city.

And behind it, vast and suffocating, a presence spilled outward. A presence Ludwig knew all too well, for he had felt it once before in the depths of Bastos Manor. The air thickened, cloying, forcing his skin to crawl even though he had none of the warmth or pulse of life left in him.

The Werewolf’s voice rolled low, casual in the face of horror. “Sadly only he can come, since the Queen was beaten by you. She was a waste of effort anyway. And the Envious Death killed off the Jester, disagreement, I believe. That leaves only this one. But it alone is enough,” His gaze never wavered from the rift in the sky.

Then, like a curse, words fell again, the voice not human but echoing from everywhere and nowhere at once:

When the moon turns red and reel,

All those of wounds cannot heal.

He comes with ribs like twisted bells,

And eyes that gazed the stars and knelt.

No flesh, no flame, no blessed word

Can halt the march once it’s heard.

No prayer, no pact, no holy song…

The Flayed King walks, and the night is long.

The ground shuddered. The air itself twisted, folding like shattered glass.

Moon Reavers began to fall. Hundreds, each bursting from nothing as though born of shadow and despair. They rained down like meteors, their bodies hitting the earth with the sound of stone shattering. They were grotesque parodies of men, tall, their skin flayed open, muscles exposed in raw red patterns. Their hunched spines cracked audibly as they moved, claws long and jagged, reaching to cover the faceless ruin where eyes should have been. From their backs, wings unfolded with the sound of tearing flesh, stretching into black feathers that carried the stink of rot.

And then he came.

The Moonflayed King descended.

He was as Ludwig remembered, as horrid as that day in the Bastos Manor. A colossus of white and silver, twenty meters tall, with wings vast enough to blot out the moonlight. At a distance they resembled angelic plumage, but up close they revealed themselves as strips of leather stretched tight, demonic rather than holy. His face was void of features, only a massive mouth sewn shut, and eyelids branded away. His hair cascaded down his back like molten silver, his head crowned with absence.

His chest was the most grotesque. Split open, ribs curved upward like a crown, and within them pulsed a heart. It was no living organ but a crusted ceramic core, each beat echoing like a hammer strike inside Ludwig’s skull.

His arms dragged to the earth, nails long and gleaming, weapons of their own. Each step he took left behind a field of flowers, beautiful, delicate. But the instant his foot lifted, those blossoms twisted, withered, and reshaped, becoming screaming faces of demons in miniature.

The King stepped with earth-shaking force behind the Werewolf. Instantly, the hundreds of Reavers collapsed to their knees, prostrating in perfect obedience. The King raised one grotesque arm, and in silence pointed outward. Without hesitation, the Reavers obeyed. They launched into the city, their wings scattering a storm of dust and screams.

The cries of citizens were cut short, one after another. The city bled. Within moments, crimson flooded the streets, as though the earth itself were a wounded beast.

The Werewolf laughed, the sound booming across the carnage. “Now this should make things quicker.”