Deus Necros

Cain stood next to them as his body had finished materializing.

Celine tilted her head. "You’ve lost your touch."

Cain looked offended.

"It used to take you a few seconds to reconstruct," she added.

"I haven’t fed in a few centuries." He shrugged.

"That sounds like an excuse."

"It is biology."

"An excuse with a longer word." She grinned.

"Where did you learn to talk like that?" Ludwig asked.

She looked at Kaiser then turned her eyes to Ludwig and gave him a knowing look.

"Ah figured as much..."

"Hey don’t blame me, I’ve always been like this." Kaiser says.

"Doesn’t mean it’s good manners," Ludwig said.

Cain opened his mouth, then closed it again.

Ludwig stood behind Celine and brushed the dust from his coat.

"I’m staying out of this one."

"You caused most of this," Cain muttered.

"Not the vampire family issues."

Celine smiled faintly, and for a moment, she looked entirely like herself again. Then she turned toward Sloth, and the smile disappeared.

His missing fingers had almost finished reforming.

"I’ll give it another go."

"Celine, wait."

It was already too late. She charged.

[You are in a hostile environment!]

Ludwig flinched despite expecting it.

Noctivex’s visor sealed, and red light ignited behind it. The change was immediate. Celine’s posture lowered, and her movement stopped resembling the precise elegance of a vampire who had spent centuries mastering her body. Every action became predatory as Wrath flooded through her.

Sloth turned just as Celine reached him. Her sword came from below, forcing him to shift his torso enough to avoid being split open. Even then, the blade cut through his side and tore a chunk of pale flesh free.

His hand came down, but Celine twisted beneath it. The strike missed her head by inches, and she drove her shoulder into Sloth’s ribs.

He actually moved.

It was only a single step, but Ludwig saw it.

Celine pursued instantly. She attacked with sword, claw, elbow, and knee. Anything capable of inflicting harm became a weapon.

Sloth responded just as quickly. He blocked what he could and dodged what he could not. Whenever his Authority should have made an attack stop, Celine simply continued.

Wrath refused rest. It did not reconsider or decide that violence had become unnecessary. It possessed only one function.

Destroy.

The two moved through the canyon in a violent exchange that almost looked even.

Almost.

Celine could hurt him, but that did not mean she was winning. Sloth remained faster and stronger, and every wound she inflicted closed almost immediately.

Her sword opened his shoulder, and the flesh regrew. She pierced his stomach, but the hole sealed. She cut through his cheek and exposed the teeth beneath his pale skin. By the time she swung again, his face had already reconstructed.

More troubling was how often Celine had to dodge.

Sloth’s strikes were catastrophic. One mistake would undo her.

Somewhere beneath Wrath’s influence, she understood that. Perhaps Noctivex understood it for her. The living armor shifted constantly, dragging plates away from harmless areas and reinforcing whichever part of her body Sloth threatened next.

Ludwig watched the exchange closely. "At least she can touch him."

A voice came from behind him. "What the hell is going on?"

Ludwig looked back and found that Tull had finally returned.

The captain walked with a noticeable limp, though the injury appeared to be improving by the second. His armor was crushed along one side, and dust covered him from head to foot. An empty potion bottle remained in his right hand.

Apparently, being embedded inside a canyon wall for several minutes had encouraged him to use one of the expensive ones.

"You’re alive," Ludwig said.

Tull stared at him. "I noticed."

"You were gone a while."

"I was inside a mountain."

"Canyon."

"Fuck you."

"Fair."

Tull turned toward Celine. She ducked beneath Sloth’s arm and cut deeply across his thigh. Sloth responded with a kick that she barely avoided, though the displaced air behind it blasted a hole into the canyon wall.

Tull’s eyes widened. "What happened?"

"Celine found a way around his Authority."

"How?"

"Wrath."

Tull looked at Ludwig, then at Celine, and finally back at Ludwig. "She has Wrath?"

"A piece."

"How does she even have something like that?"

"Blame the former Wrath. He kind of did that to her. Was a pain in the ass to suppress it."

Tull paused. "I feel like that explanation skipped several important events."

"It did."

"Are you going to explain them?"

"Nope."

Celine’s sword struck Sloth’s forearm, scattering blue blood. Sloth grabbed for her throat, but she twisted away and cut through two of his fingers before they could close.

Tull watched the battle for another second. "Don’t you have more of that power?"

Ludwig sighed. "Yes."

"Then get on with it."

"I can."

Tull waited, but Ludwig merely looked around the canyon.

Cain stood nearby. Redd and his sister had moved closer again, while Gale remained ready with Oathcarver and his shield. Thomas hovered above them. The tribesmen remained behind the others, barely holding themselves upright beneath Sloth’s influence.

Kaiser had not yet been called back after the latest exchange, but Ludwig could summon him whenever necessary.

There were too many allies.

Way too many.

"There is one issue," Ludwig said.

"What?"

"I can’t guarantee any of you survive if I go psycho mode."

Tull stared at him. "That sounds like a fairly large issue."

"Exactly."

Ludwig flexed his fingers as the Wrathful Heart pulsed within him.

He could release it. He could allow the Authority to take over completely and stop caring about intention, just as Celine had.

He saw it back in the Tower of Trials, in the floor where he had to fight a fully unleashed Wrath. If it wasn’t for the tower rules, he’d still be there. Stuck. Fighting a version of him that never knew the meaning of rest.

That might solve the problem of Sloth, but it would create several new problems immediately afterward.

Wrath did not distinguish friend from enemy once it truly took control. If Ludwig reached the same state Celine entered, Nightbreaker would not care whether Cain, Gale, Tull, Redd, or anyone else happened to be standing within the area he decided to destroy.

Ludwig also possessed something Celine did not.

The Heart.

It was not a shard or a damaged remnant. Ludwig carried the actual Heart of Wrath.

Then there was Noctivex.

The living metal currently wrapped around Celine had already endured one master who allowed Wrath to drive him into endless self-destruction. Ludwig had promised the armor that he would not walk the same path.

Noctivex had spent years being battered, broken, and forced to rebuild itself because Wrath did not care what happened to the body carrying it. Ludwig suspected the armor would be extremely dissatisfied if he deliberately surrendered himself to that exact same madness.

Tull looked toward the battle. "So, last resort?"

"Obviously."

Celine screamed, though the sound did not come from pain.

It was rage.

Her sword slammed into the ground beside Sloth. The resulting burst split the canyon floor apart beneath both of them. Sloth emerged through the collapsing stone while Celine followed without hesitation, kicking from one falling slab to another.

Ludwig pointed toward her. "For now, stay away from Celine."

"That was already the plan."

"I mean very far away."

Tull looked at the red glow surrounding her. "She doesn’t recognize us?"

"She doesn’t recognize anything as an ally."

That silenced him.

Ludwig watched Celine attack Sloth again. "That’s why it works."

Tull frowned. "Because she’s insane?"

"Temporarily, yes, but that’s not the important part." Ludwig raised one hand. "Sloth’s Authority works by making action unnecessary. Violence loses purpose. Movement loses meaning. If you want something badly enough to attack him, that desire itself becomes something his Authority can burden."

Celine’s sword came down. Sloth moved, but she changed direction instantly and attacked again.

"But Wrath doesn’t think like that," Ludwig continued, his expression hardening. "It doesn’t want one thing dead."

Another crimson slash crossed the canyon.

"It wants everything dead."

Understanding slowly appeared upon Tull’s face. "So Sloth can’t tell the attack to stop because..."

"Because there is no singled-out attack against him to suppress. No special hatred aimed only at Sloth. He’s just another thing standing in a world Wrath wants broken."

Sloth caught Celine’s wrist. For the first time, he managed to stop the sword physically.

Celine headbutted him.

The crystalline horns struck his face and tore through one cheek. Tull winced, while Ludwig almost smiled.

"More importantly, Sloth’s Authority can bully magic, flesh, poison, momentum, intent, and almost anything weaker than itself." Ludwig could feel the Wrathful Heart inside his chest reacting to Celine’s violence. "But not another Authority standing on the same level."

Tull looked toward him. "And Wrath is equal?"

Ludwig watched Sloth throw Celine away. She struck the ground, rolled once, and immediately launched herself back toward him.

"Wrath once kept this bastard from crossing Solania for who knows how long."

Nightbreaker appeared in Ludwig’s hand again as his eyes remained fixed upon Celine. "So yes."

Rage did not know how to rest.

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