Deus Necros

Ludwig thought for a moment of what the Werewolf had said. He knew deep down that this was a fight he will never win. The mere ease this creature used to tear away the Queen's head was enough to inform him of how dangerous this creature was. He needed to tread carefully now.

"The same? Maybe," Ludwig said, his voice carrying a faint rasp, the kind that came not from wear but from disuse, as if he'd been holding it back too long. He took a small breath, one that didn't fill lungs since he had none, only corrected his posture. "We may look like monsters," he continued, his gaze never leaving the beast before him, "but I'm not one who'd kill the family of a man who once lent me a hand on a dark, cold night."

The memory of Van Dijk's journal flickered as he said it not in nostalgia, but in principle. "Treacherous Fanged Apostle," he finished, letting the title land with the weight of a truth spoken aloud rather than a curse hurled in anger.

The werewolf's face shifted, but not as one would expect from a beast whose life had long since been ruled by instinct. It didn't snarl, didn't bare its teeth in immediate threat. The transformation was slower, uglier. The creature's mocking smile drained into a narrow line of displeasure, its lips twitching as though the name had tasted bitter in its throat.

He lifted the severed head of the Queen without ceremony, and without reverence, as if it were little more than an inconvenient tool. Ichor dripped from her rooted tendrils like strands of algae dragged from the sea floor. With a bored grunt, the beast hurled the head toward the base of her still-forming body. It struck the mossy ground with a dull, wet sound, and the roots responded immediately. They reached out like fingers desperate to grasp a lost limb, pulling the head into place with sickening slowness. The fusion was not violent, nor delicate. It was practiced. Ritualistic.

"You speak as though you know your outcome," the werewolf replied, voice low and curving around the air like the beginning of a storm. "Defiant, proud. But you misunderstand the nature of your position." His eyes followed the Queen's body as it began to reknit. The sinews worked their way inward across the nape like curtains being drawn shut, and he spoke again. "You're only draw breath because I've allowed it. Nothing more."

Ludwig adjusted the angle of Oathcarver in his grip. It wasn't a preparation for battle, not yet, but a quiet acknowledgement of the inevitable. His stance remained still, shoulders level, and the edge of his mouth shifted as he replied. "I stopped drawing breath a long time ago," he said, not in boast but in recollection. "I'm undead."

The words were barely finished when he moved.

The blade came screaming across the space between them, its weight far beyond what any living man should have been able to carry, let alone swing with precision. The strike was pure instinct, cold, decisive, stripped of hesitation. A true application of the tyrant blade. One that would make the Knight King proud.

It came down toward the werewolf's throat with force enough to shear through armor and bone.

But it didn't land.

Instead, the sound that followed was one of betrayal. Oathcarver shuddered to a halt in mid-air, stopped not by muscle or spell, but by the effortless lock of two extended claws. The werewolf hadn't moved his body. Only his hand had risen, slowly and deliberately, to intercept the blade's arc. His fingers closed over the metal with surgical calm, not flinching, not pressing. Just holding.

Ludwig felt it before he understood it. The instant the blade struck, the shock rolled back into his forearms and shoulders, the energy rebounding so sharply that his own elbows screamed in protest.

Oathcarver didn't budge. Nor did the werewolf. It was as if time had stopped between them, with only Ludwig allowed to feel the consequences.

The creature smiled again.

That smile should not have existed. It was a horror crafted with precision. The jaw stretched wider than it should, not with the frenzied gape of a mad beast, but with the calm control of something that had seen this pattern before. His teeth, long and jagged like twin rows of splinters, gleamed in the half-light. It was the kind of grin meant to humiliate, not simply to frighten.

"You think you're the first?" the werewolf said. "That lantern of yours, the one that drinks from the fallen and lends you pieces of them, you think you're unique? Remember who I am, undead."

Ludwig said nothing. He didn't need to. The answer was already crawling across his thoughts like frost through a broken window. Of course it wasn't unique. Of course Necros had given it to others.

"I used it," the beast continued. "For longer than you've been dead or alive, likely. For centuries. I took what I needed, and I grew stronger with each death that fed me." His voice had settled now, no longer condescending, but not quite nostalgic either. "Until I learned what Necros really intended."

He released the blade with a sudden flick of his wrist. Oathcarver was thrown downward and buried itself in the dirt with a metallic thud, sinking to its halfway point in the loam. It hummed from the force of impact, the reverberation lingering like an echo in Ludwig's bones.

"He took most of its power back," the werewolf continued. "Stripped it from me the moment I turned from his design. Though I kept my physical prowess from feeding on the souls, I could no longer use its other abilities… He left me to rot in the dark. But the Usurpers… they are more generous in their heresies. It is through them that I still hold this power."

He paused there, staring at Ludwig not with anger, but disappointment. "You are too new. Too thin in the blood. You carry the weight without understanding its depth. It clings to you, but it does not know your shape."

Ludwig remained quiet. He didn't correct him. Not yet.

"You know killing me is useless," he said instead.

The werewolf let out a small huff, more bemusement than agreement. "I do," he said. "And it's infuriating. Truly. But that doesn't mean I won't enjoy it." He took a single step forward, and the earth seemed to dim under his foot.

"From the light on your lantern, you don't have many lives left… you've been quite lazy."

Ludwig didn't reply.

"Imagine it. Watching you die. Ten times. Maybe twelve. Peeling back each layer of you. Until there's nothing left but smoke and salt."

Ludwig's lips thinned. "You'd risk me going back to a point you don't remember?"

"You can't," the werewolf said. "Not anymore. I've watched you. Followed you. There's not enough light in that lantern for you to leap far. The most you could do is stagger back a few hours days even. Not enough to outrun me. I've been after your for longer."

The first part, he was probably right about, Ludwig's lantern had unfortunately updated his death point to about fifteen minutes ago, not enough to do anything to escape the werewolf.

The second part though, he was wrong about that, Ludwig thought. He didn't know about the stockpiled soul items tucked deep into his lantern, unused, unadded to the lantern, their light not fueling it yet. The beast knew some of the system, but not all. That ignorance might yet be useful.

"I could still disappear into the Order, blend among them" Ludwig said, his tone steady. "Doubt you'd hold your own against the boy."

The werewolf's smile faltered just slightly. "The boy," he muttered, and his jaw twitched. "He is small. Insignificant. But what protects him… even Necros does not tread there without reason or purpose." His gaze refocused. "But don't mistake his proximity for sanctuary. You'd be cut down the moment they saw what you are. The Order does not shelter the dead. They burn them."

Ludwig shrugged once. "I'd still take my chances."

The creature's smile returned in full. "And what if I make you into something worse than dead?" he said. "What if I tear your arms from their sockets, crush your legs to pulp, and bury your screaming skull so far into the earth that the only company you'll ever have is the blind worms who do not know your name? You'd be awake. You'd feel it all. Trapped. Forgotten."

Ludwig's jaw tightened. Not in fear, but revulsion. The werewolf's grin had widened to the point that his jaw looked disjointed. It was unnatural. Not even animal anymore. Just wrong. Flesh wasn't meant to stretch like that.

"I suppose it'd be an interesting experience," he said finally. "Not one I'm looking forward to, but worth noting."

His mana began to rise.

Slow at first, then more visibly. A soft blue aura unfurled around the top of his head, shimmering just enough to reflect in the eyes of the beast watching him. The air crackled faintly in response. The werewolf stilled.

"You've realized it," Ludwig said, almost amused.

"Of course I have," the werewolf said, voice dropping again. "You're a mage. If I push you too far, you'll surge your own core. Blow yourself to nothing. Take the knowledge with you."

Ludwig nodded once. "Exactly."

The beast's shoulders shifted. "But what if I take you somewhere your magic doesn't work? You'd have no options then. Only the silence. Only the dark."

"You'd be hard pressed to find a way like that before I self-destruct, so…"

"A stalemate, quite frustrating, I must say, even other Apostles were easier to kill when their lanterns were functional, you, on the other hand… frustratingly enjoyable," the wolf smiled enough to make one's bones freeze over.