Deus Necros

Chapter 404: The Trace of Darkness

“This is as far as I can get you,” the coachman announced, his voice low and carrying that morning rasp of a man who had been awake since before the sun. The carriage’s wheels crunched over loose stone one final time before slowing to a halt. The horses pawed nervously at the ground, steam rising from their nostrils in pale ribbons.

The sun was barely awake. Thin gold crept along the far ridge of the eastern sky, struggling against thick clouds, so the world remained in that strange gray hour between night and morning. The mountain range before them loomed, shadow devouring shadow, jagged spines reaching toward the dim light. At the foot of those mountains, a wide gash cut into the rock, a cavernous mouth, rimmed with uneven stone that jutted like teeth. A cold wind hissed out of that mouth, carrying with it a damp chill and the faintest reek of something old, something rotting far beneath the earth.

Celine had stepped out silently, her boots touching the frost‑dusted ground with no sound at all. Her cloak clung to her frame, the hood shadowing her eyes, but even without expression her stillness spoke volumes.

Ludwig followed her, boots sinking slightly into the soft earth. He scanned the shadowed entrance, the way the mist rolled out of it in slow curls, dissipating into the dawn. “What do we do if we need to go back?” Ludwig asked, voice calm, though he did not take his eyes off that darkened threshold.

The coachman gave a breathless chuckle, a humorless thing, and adjusted the collar of his heavy wool coat. “Go back?” he repeated, shaking his head as though the question itself was folly. “Son, you don’t ’go back’ from places like that.” His eyes, lined by years of squinting against harsh winds, darted to the cavern and back again. “S‑class adventurers, real legends, spent three… four days clawing their way outta that hellhole. Most don’t. But…” He shifted on the driver’s bench and rubbed his chin, the leather of his gloves creaking. “Pay me for my time, and I’ll be here on the fifth day. I’ll wait one more for good measure. If you come out, I’ll haul you back to wherever you need to go.” He spat to the side. “If you don’t…” His tone dropped, quiet as the mist itself. “I’ll light incense. And offer some prayer. That’s all a man can do.”

Ludwig regarded him, head tilted slightly. Then he reached into his belt and withdrew a pouch of Kronas, heavy enough to make a satisfying clink as it hit the coachman’s palm. The man’s brows shot up, his mouth hanging open for a second before a thin smile cracked his weather‑beaten face. “Well now… with that much, I reckon I can wait two more days after the agreed time.”

Ludwig smiled faintly, a simple acknowledgment. “Your incense will go unburned.”

The coachman tipped his cap, muttered something that sounded like a prayer, half habit, half hope, and then with a click of his tongue, urged the horses back onto the trail. The carriage rattled and faded into the morning fog, until the sound of wheels and hooves was only a memory.

The mountain wind picked up, whistling between the stone. Ludwig’s cloak rippled against his legs as he turned to Celine. “Ready?”

Celine’s eyes flicked to him from beneath her hood. “I’d be better off if I had a weapon,” she said, her tone even, but beneath it, something faint, bitterness, perhaps.

“Oh right,” Ludwig murmured, his hand brushing over his ring as though to check the arsenal stored within. “You were the empire’s strongest knight… but I don’t think I have anything on me that would be worthy of your hands.”

“Your weapons are too heavy for me,” she said. Her gaze slid toward the shadowed maw of the cave. “And with how many adventures died in this dungeon… we’ll find something.”

The wind caught her cloak, pulling it briefly tight around her. Ludwig was caught off guard by her words. That was the most she had spoken in a single breath since they’d met. He studied her profile, pale in the low light, and found himself remembering that distant, hollow look in her eyes when she first came out of the seal. A step forward, perhaps.

“Tell me more,” Ludwig said softly as they approached the gaping entrance. “About your past. About your knighthood… your house. Van Dijk… he never spoke much of his history.”

Celine’s boots made no sound as she moved, her stride measured and sure despite the uneven ground. “I was not given the title of the empire’s strongest because I was the strongest,” she said. The words were flat, factual, but a shadow moved through her tone.

“Oh?” Ludwig pressed gently.

“It was because the emperor then was afraid. Afraid of my house. So he gave us a seat on his council, a gesture of goodwill, they called it. A leash, in truth. To keep us close, to keep us watched.”

“So you weren’t the strongest,” Ludwig said, brows knitting as he stepped over a jutting stone.

Celine’s lips curved faintly. Not a smile, but close. “No. But I was not weak.”

The mouth of the cave loomed, the darkness almost tangible now. A notification pulsed across Ludwig’s vision:

[You are entering the Trace of Darkness Dungeon.]

“What then, if not weak?” Ludwig murmured, glancing to his left

But Celine was gone.

“Celine?” His voice echoed against stone, warped by the cavern. He turned in a sharp arc, cloak flaring. The entrance that had been there moments ago was gone. In its place, a seamless wall of rock, cold and gray. Ludwig stepped forward, hand outstretched, palm pressing against unyielding stone. He slammed his fist once, hard, expecting some trick, some illusion. Nothing. No vibration, no shimmer. It was real.

“Celine!” His voice rose, sharper this time. He waited, but only the drip of unseen water answered him. A prickle crawled up his neck, the familiar stir of something not right.

He dropped his gaze to the ground, eyes narrowing. There, beneath a layer of dirt, lines, faintly carved, forming sigils that glimmered faintly when the dim light touched them. He crouched, brushing away more dirt with his glove until the circle revealed itself fully.

“Magic circle,” he whispered. A teleportation glyph.

“No exit message,” he muttered, scanning his vision for system notifications. “Which means… I’m still inside the Dungeon.” He straightened slowly, hand tightening around Oathcarver’s grip as the massive blade manifested, its weight familiar and grounding.

The air around him shifted. Thomas and the Knight King appeared in twin flickers of light, spectral forms hovering at his shoulders.

“This place gives me the creeps…” Thomas muttered, folding his arms as though that could shield him from the oppressive dark. “It’s pulling at my soul. Something is alive here, Ludwig… something that shouldn’t be.”

The Knight King’s voice was colder, lower. “You are deep.. The air here is wrong. Stale, heavy… we are far underground. Be wary.”

Ludwig inhaled deeply through his nose, not for breath, but letting the scents settle, wet stone, rot so old it had become part of the air, and something else, metallic and sharp. His fingers flexed over Oathcarver’s leathered grip. “So this is why so few return,” he murmured, stepping forward into the dark.

The first few steps sank deep into silence. His boots brushed loose gravel, the faint crunch swallowed almost immediately by the cavern’s weight. The tunnel ahead twisted like the inside of some great beast, the walls slick with condensation. Strange patterns of mineral growth shone faintly, like veins of silver and bone threading through the stone.

Ludwig kept his shoulders square and his breathing steady, though he didn’t need air. The habit of breath grounded him. His eyes cut through the dark easily, undeath had its advantages. To him, the pitch black was a muted gray world, shapes and edges clear enough to navigate.

“Watch your footing,” the Knight King murmured at his ear, spectral eyes narrowing. “Traps like this are rarely alone.”

“I know,” Ludwig muttered back, crouching briefly to run his fingers over a patch of the floor that looked too smooth. His gauntleted knuckles brushed aside more dust, revealing another glyph, this one fractured, dormant. “Not active,” he whispered, and rose again.

The further he went, the heavier the air grew. The smell of rot thickened until it lay on his tongue, bitter and damp. His ears strained for sound, any sound, but nothing moved. No scurrying rats, no dripping water now. The stillness pressed in, like standing in the heart of a tomb.

Minutes stretched into what felt like hours, until the tunnel widened abruptly. He stepped through an arch of rough stone and found himself in a cavern so large the ceiling vanished into darkness.

Here, faint luminescence pulsed from clusters of fungi clinging to the walls, some glowing green, others a sickly blue. Their light shimmered on pools of stagnant water and jagged stalagmites. The floor dipped gently toward a central pit where the remnants of a camp sprawled in ruin.

Ludwig approached slowly, eyes scanning. Six other tunnels branched from this chamber, yawning black throats leading deeper. Around them, remnants of canvas tents slumped in decay, their fabric eaten through by mold. Rust‑spotted pots lay overturned beside fire pits long since cold.

He stopped near a figure propped against a rock. The corpse was still in half‑rotted armor, gauntleted hands splayed limply at its sides. The visor was down, but a faint glimmer of white bone peeked through a hole in the helm. Nearby, another body lay curled within a collapsed tent, skeletal fingers clutching a rusted blade. Around them, pale mushrooms sprouted from eye sockets and ribcages, thriving off what remained.

[You resisted Mind Controlling Fungi.]

Ludwig flinched slightly at the sudden notification. His head snapped around, Oathcarver rising instinctively. “What?” His voice echoed sharply.

No enemy appeared. No hostile alert. Just the oppressive dark and those silent, grotesque remains.

“Seems the spores invaded their bodies,” Thomas said softly, grimacing as he hovered near one corpse. “And it tried to do the same to you too… Parasitic Spores it seems.”

Ludwig crouched beside the armored skeleton, brushing aside a cluster of yellow fungus. “Parasitic… I’ve seen something like this back on Earth.” His lips thinned. “Ants. They’d get infected and climb to a high point before dying, spreading spores.”

The Knight King nodded slowly. “A fungus that puppets. Clever and cruel. But you… you are immune.”

“Undeath has its perks,” Ludwig said, standing and then approached the corpses and crouching down.

“No rest for the dead, huh?” Thomas mused.

Ludwig smiled and planted his palm against the earth. Purple and black mana bled outward in a spiraling pattern, a ripple of dark power that crawled over the campsite.

The air thickened. The corpses trembled. Bones shuddered and cracked as they shifted against armor and mold. One by one, skulls lifted, empty sockets igniting with a cold blue glow.

[You have summoned 14 Skeleton – Variants.]

Ludwig’s brow arched. “Variant?”

A new notification bloomed:

[Variant race: An evolution and a degradation of the entity.]

He focused on the knight in rusted armor, inspecting the aura that clung faintly to the fungal blooms in its sockets.

[Skeleton Variant – Fungal Skeleton]

Level 144

HP: 20,000/20,000

Damage: 2,400

Status Effects: [Variant Degradation of Health] [Evolution – Poison Body]

Skills:

• Passive [Pestilence]: All attacks apply a stack of pestilence. (100% poison damage per stack, max 5 stacks.)

• [Spore Explosion]: On death, deals 500% base damage as poison to all in range.

Ludwig’s eyes widened slightly, a grin tugging at his lips. “Low health, sure… but you’re walking bombs, aren’t you? Glass cannons with teeth.”

As if in answer, the Codex Necros floated from his belt, its pages riffling in an unseen wind. The third page glowed faintly, then absorbed one of the corpses entirely. Moments later, it spat the remains back out, black glyphs crawling across the page.

[You have unlocked: Summon Skeleton Variant.]

[You now have a chance of summoning a Poison Variant skeleton when using Rise Undead.]

Ludwig let out a low whistle, genuinely impressed. “That… never happened before.”

“I think it’s because your necromancy has increased in proficiency,” Thomas explained.

Ludwig straightened, scanning the skeletal ranks now assembled before him. “If only one of you could talk, we’d at least know what happened…” he murmured. His voice, though casual, held a trace of longing. In the silence of the dungeon, even the smallest word would have felt like an ally.

A pause. Then,

“…I… can…”