Deus Necros

Malakar sensed the powerful creature escaping and looked between the path leading to the surface and the hundreds still pouring through the breach.

He had to make a choice, and that was to allow it to go. To stop the immediate and greater threat. He knew well the damages that these fiends could do. He knew well of their capabilities of harm and of the power they possess, and he knew well that the humans will suffer greatly if one of them ever gets out.

Still, he made the only rational choice available and remained behind to contain the greater threat. He intended to pursue the escaped monster after destroying the horde.

By the time Malakar reached the surface, an entire city lay dead. Thousands of bodies covered the streets while celebrated heroes stood over the corpse of the escaped creature.

The rulers saw Malakar arrive and recognized an opportunity. "You allowed it through."

Malakar stopped before answering, "It escaped. I asked for soldiers so such matters do not happen."

"You allowed it outside so you may punish us!"

His three eyes narrowed.

Silence followed before one of the rulers continued, "And afterward one of your creatures reached our city."

"It is not my creature."

"Everything that escapes the rift is your responsibility."

Malakar stared at them. "I was holding back hundreds."

"You possessed the strength to prevent this."

"One man’s strength is not enough."

"You’re no man!"

"You were just not strong enough."

"You hid your strength. You didn’t act!"

Malakar’s voice remained level. "That is why I asked for help. That is why I need assistance. I alone cannot shoulder all this weight."

The answer came immediately. "You asked others to perform the duty entrusted to you."

Something inside Malakar went quiet.

His expression remained unchanged as the accusations spread.

The rulers announced that the ancient guardian had abandoned his responsibility. They claimed he had become distracted by the surface and had started demanding assistance because he no longer wished to carry his burden.

They blamed his weakness for the thousands who had died. No one acknowledged the millions of creatures he had stopped, the thousands of years he had spent beneath the earth, or the soldiers already buried around the rift.

One failure swallowed every previous sacrifice. People needed something to hate, and the creature that destroyed the city was already dead.

Malakar remained alive, visible, and terrifying. Blaming him offered the grieving population a target.

A new title began spreading through the cities: The Lazy Guardian. The One Who Didn’t Act Eventually, people forgot the guardian and remembered only the moment he was ’Slothful’.

Crowds gathered while officials accused him publicly and heroes stood nearby in case he became violent. Malakar listened without anger, retaliation, or any attempt to defend himself.

When they finally finished, he said only one thing. "You are right."

The rulers relaxed because they believed he had submitted. Malakar continued, "I should never have left my post."

He turned away from them and returned underground. Malakar descended farther than Ludwig had ever seen him go until he finally reached the breach.

Another horde approached from the other side. Thousands of years of instinct urged Malakar to stand, fight, and endure as he had always done.

Malakar looked at the advancing monsters and sat down. The horde charged, but he allowed his hands to remain at his sides and made no effort to reach for a weapon.

Something changed as the world finally noticed him. Ludwig felt the arrival of an immense metaphysical weight even though he was only witnessing a memory.

Thousands upon thousands of years of action had accumulated within Malakar. Every battle, wound, sleepless day, fulfilled duty, accepted order, and protected life contributed to that impossible weight.

A single lifetime should have ended long ago, yet Malakar had accumulated dozens, hundreds, and perhaps even more. Throughout all those years, he had never asked reality to grant him anything.

Ludwig remembered Cain and the Authority of Dominion. Cain had gained that Authority through extraordinary age because his continued existence had gathered enough metaphysical weight to make the world recognize him.

Malakar had lived and labored far longer. Ludwig understood that the same process was occurring on an immeasurably greater scale.

"Why now?" Ludwig asked, but the answer arrived before he could finish the thought. Malakar had spent his existence serving, obeying, and protecting without ever attempting to impose his will upon the world.

His strength had always served obligation, and his life belonged entirely to duty. Sitting before the approaching horde marked the first time Malakar claimed something for himself.

Malakar looked toward the monsters and closed all three eyes. "If one moment of rest makes me guilty..."

Something impossible spread through the tunnels as he finished, "...then let nothing move again."

The first monster stopped completely with one claw suspended inches from Malakar’s face. Its heart ceased beating while its body remained trapped between life and death.

Another creature froze behind it, followed by hundreds and then thousands more. The entire horde became motionless as the rift itself shuddered and stopped.

It could no longer expand, contract, release another creature, or close. Soldiers sent after Malakar froze within the tunnels above him.

The Authority continued spreading through stone and soil until it reached the cities on the surface. White consumed everything in its path.

Ludwig realized he was witnessing the exact moment Sloth was born. The White Draught had preserved Malakar’s life and transformed his body, but it had never created his Authority.

Immortality had merely allowed him to accumulate enough sacrifice for the world to recognize the significance of his final decision. Malakar had become tired countless times without abandoning his duty.

Sloth emerged when the hardest-working being in creation finally chose stillness and forced reality to acknowledge that choice as law. Malakar opened his eyes while the monsters remained frozen around him.

The breach had become perfectly contained for the first time in thousands of years. Nothing could escape, enter, change, decay, or die within the Authority.

Malakar had finally completed his duty with absolute perfection. Ludwig immediately understood the crime because Death had been denied as a consequence of Malakar’s solution.

Malakar looked across the frozen world and said, "Futile." The Authority expanded, and reality obeyed him.

He had spent thousands of years watching the same pattern repeat. Kings sent soldiers to die in wars while remaining safe within palaces, and cities prospered because forgotten people labored beneath them.

Civilizations praised sacrifice while ensuring that someone else performed it. Every generation celebrated duty until the person carrying it asked for help, at which point admiration hardened into entitlement.

Malakar reached a conclusion far more dangerous than hatred.

Humanity could not be trusted with effort because someone would always force another person to carry its burden.

His Authority removed effort from the world. War became impossible when armies could not move, conquest disappeared when no one desired land, and exhaustion ended when no one performed labor.

The rift could release no monsters while it remained still. Rulers could exploit no servants after movement and desire vanished from both.

No one would ever carry another burden. Everything would rest forever.

The vision began fading as the white world disappeared around Ludwig. One realization remained with him as the memory collapsed.

Malakar had never desired dominion over Death or sought Necros’s throne. He had never considered himself superior to the natural order, and immortality had only mattered because his king ordered him to accept it.

His crime had emerged from a solution that became too perfect. Countless people stopped dying, while countless souls eventually became trapped within his Authority.

Death had been denied what belonged to it. The final image Ludwig saw was Malakar sitting alone before the frozen breach with only stillness surrounding him.

Necros’s domain returned, leaving Ludwig standing before the throne once again. Malakar’s white soul remained inside the God of Death’s hand.

Ludwig remained silent for several seconds, and Necros allowed him time to process what he had witnessed. Eventually, Ludwig looked toward the soul.

"So that’s why."

"Yes."

"He never wanted to become a Usurper."

"No."

"He just..."

Ludwig searched for the right words before finishing, "Finished his job too well."

Necros’s soul-fire flickered. "A crude description."

"Accurate though."

Necros did not disagree. Ludwig continued studying Malakar’s soul as the Lore revealed through Inspect returned to him.

He gave his rest so others could sleep. He gave his strength so others could endure.

He gave his life because duty demanded it. When he finally stopped, the world named his sin.

Sloth.

Ludwig exhaled. "That’s fucked up."

Necros remained silent while Ludwig stared at the white soul for another moment. Then something else struck him.

All the other Usurpers had desired something. Wrath desired destruction, Envy desired what others possessed, and Pride desired superiority.

Malakar had reached his Authority by finally desiring nothing. Ludwig looked toward Necros.

"So what are you going to do with him?"

Necros looked down at the soul in his palm. For once, the God of Death did not immediately seem to know.

Ludwig almost laughed. Malakar had spent thousands of years carrying everyone else’s burdens, and even in death, Necros seemed reluctant to give him another one.

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