Deus Necros

Chapter 407: Cleanup

“P‑please! I have kids!”

The scruffy man’s voice cracked as he choked on his own breath. His face was a ruin of swollen welts and dried blood, one eye swollen shut, his split lips trembling as he clung to the arm gripping his neck. Both hands were mangled, fingers bent at impossible angles, but he clawed desperately anyway, nails snapping as he tried to pry the iron grip loose. His legs kicked weakly in the air, boots scraping against the damp stone of the sewer wall.

“You should have thought of your kids,” the woman holding him said. Her voice was calm, almost gentle, but carried a cold weight that struck deeper than a shout. Her arm didn’t tremble, her stance didn’t shift as she held him aloft like a rag doll. “Before deciding to join the Demon Lord faction.”

Her free fist blurred a single short arc that carried the practiced momentum of countless drills, and met his jaw with a crack loud enough to echo through the tunnel. Teeth flew in a wet spray, clicking against the stone floor before skittering into the dark water that trickled along the channel. His head lolled, consciousness fleeing as quickly as his remaining dignity.

To her right, on a dry stretch of stone, a younger woman knelt amid a flickering lantern’s glow. Her small frame was bent forward, hands pressed tightly together, lips moving in a steady stream of whispered prayers. Her dark hair hung over her face, swaying as her shoulders rose and fell. In front of her lay a hill of bodies, some groaning, some still, all wearing the ragged insignias of the cult they had pledged themselves to. The smell of sweat and blood hung thick in the cold, damp air, mixing with the sour tang of the sewers.

“Here,” the older woman said, stepping forward without ceremony. With one last flick of her wrist, she sent the unconscious, toothless man tumbling onto the pile. His body landed with a dull thud atop the heap of defeated followers. “Add this one.”

The praying girl flinched at the sound, her fingers tightening together, a flicker of sympathy crossing her features before she forced her gaze downward again.

“Lady Titania!” she said, voice thin but carrying a hint of admonishment, “I’ll have to start all over again! Couldn’t you just… knock them all out at once?”

Titania turned toward her, brushing her hands off against each other, the faint traces of blood leaving dark smears on her gloves. Her eyes softened just enough to take the sting out of the rebuke. She smiled, not a warm smile, but a patient one, the kind she used with stubborn recruits who didn’t yet understand the world.

“Sometimes a lesson isn’t learned unless it hurts,” she said quietly.

The torchlight caught on the steel of her vambrace as she adjusted it, the faint scratches from countless battles catching the glow. She let her gaze sweep over the grim corridor around them, the dripping walls, the black channels of slow-moving filth, the faint skitter of rats retreating into shadow, and she breathed out a sigh that fogged in the cold air.

Above them, the city lived in bright ignorance, but down here, in this forgotten artery of stone and waste, Titania moved with purpose. What was meant to be a respite, a few weeks of peace to mend wounds unseen, had turned into anything but.

Her mind wandered briefly, unbidden, to that strange interlude on the road with Davon and his companions. A rare stretch of days where her shoulders had felt lighter, if only for a breath of time. She had even laughed, genuine laughter that still felt foreign on her tongue. But that was a different road, a different battle.

Here, in these depths, there was no such reprieve. The work was filthier than the sewers themselves, each cultist she put down only one head of the hydra. The demon worshippers multiplied in shadows, and tonight she would cull them until her arms ached and her spirit grew numb.

She flexed her fingers once, the blood drying in dark lines across her knuckles.

“Rest,” she murmured under her breath, though whether it was a command to herself or a wish for the broken bodies at her feet, even she could not say. Then she straightened, eyes already moving to the next dark tunnel where whispers and footsteps were beginning to stir.

The hunt was not over. Not yet.

***

The shard drifted in the still air, hovering before Ludwig’s face as though the dungeon itself offered him tribute. It resembled a curl of smoke frozen mid‑swirl, black yet faintly luminous, twisting as if it held a tiny storm within. The air around it smelled faintly of old ash, like a burnt offering left too long in a censer. Ludwig raised a hand slowly, cautious but certain, and felt a cold prickle across his fingertips as he closed his palm around it.

The shard was solid despite its smoky appearance. A faint pulse, like a distant heartbeat, throbbed against his skin. He narrowed his eyes and whispered, “Inspect.”

[You cannot Inspect this item yet]

Ludwig exhaled through his teeth, a humorless sound. “Well, that’s useless.” The shard vanished into the lantern’s storage with a shimmer of dim light, tucked away until he could learn more.

“How did you know?” Thomas’s voice drifted from near his shoulder, carrying both curiosity and unease.

“Know what?” Ludwig’s tone was mild, distracted as he adjusted Durandal on his back and scanned the cavern.

“That it was actually not Celine,” Thomas said, his spectral form shifting uneasily. “I didn’t even see a difference. Not a flicker of false movement, nothing…”

Ludwig allowed a short laugh to escape, dry and without mirth. “Too coincidental.” His voice echoed softly through the stone chamber, mingling with the faint hum of lingering magic.

“Too coincidental?” Thomas tilted his head.

“Think about it,” Ludwig said, stepping closer to the tunnel from which the impostor had emerged. His boots crunched faintly against the grit and old dust. “That thing, whatever it was, must have met Celine at some point to copy her form so perfectly. But there’s no way in all the forgotten hells it could have either broken her mind or beaten her outright.” He paused, the memory of her silent strength flickering behind his eyes. “Celine’s been through seven centuries locked in that seal. Seven hundred years of mental torture, starvation, and solitude… and she didn’t break. You really think some ghost‑spawn could undo her in a few hours?”

Thomas floated closer, his faintly glowing outline swaying. “That’s… a fair point,” he admitted after a beat, his tone carrying reluctant respect. “But where are you going now?”

Ludwig had already turned, Oathcarver shifting on his back as he moved toward the narrow passage from which the shadow had slithered.

“We’ll check this place first,” Ludwig said without hesitation.

Thomas drifted after him, hesitant. “Don’t you think it might be wise not to go in there? I mean, there could be more of… that thing.”

Ludwig glanced over his shoulder, a faint smirk crossing his lips. “You do realize they’ll all die the moment they mimic one of my undead, right?”

Thomas blinked, then gave a sheepish grin. “Ah… right. Right. Necromancy and all. My mistake.”

“Also if it had mimicked Celine and came from there, then the real one might be somewhere on the other side.”

“True, again, true…”

Ludwig chuckled under his breath and crouched low to slip through the narrow gap. The stone scraped lightly against his shoulder plates as he squeezed through, the faint scent of earth and age stronger here, damp and metallic.

The tunnel wound downward almost immediately, the angle forcing them into a steady descent. The air grew thicker, cooler, and the stone walls gleamed faintly with moisture. A thin ribbon of water trickled somewhere in the darkness, the sound subtle but constant. The path twisted in slow spirals, always turning left, then right, as if it had been bored into the mountain by some endless burrowing creature.

Time stretched in the darkness. Minutes passed like hours. Ludwig’s thoughts drifted briefly to Celine, somewhere out there in the dark, and to the shard in his storage. Thomas kept quiet for once, his presence hovering like a watchful shadow.

At last, the narrow throat of stone opened abruptly into a cavern that felt almost… built. Ludwig’s eyes swept across the space, adjusting to the faint blue‑green glow of strange fungi. Here, the walls were not the raw jagged rock of nature, but crumbling cobblestone, ancient and blackened with moss. Columns rose crookedly from the floor, their carved surfaces eroded by time, yet hints of old runes and patterns still clung to them. Giant spore‑pods clung to the walls, pulsing faintly with bioluminescent veins that painted the room in a sickly pallor.

“Someone built this,” Ludwig murmured, his voice low as he stepped further in, the sound of his boots dulled by thick layers of dust.

“Would make you wonder,” Thomas whispered, his tone tight with unease, “why those adventurers camped back in that open area instead of here.”

The answer revealed itself in grisly detail.

The luminescent light caught on the ground ahead, glinting off metal, off bone. Hundreds of remains lay scattered across the stone like driftwood after a flood, human skeletons tangled with monstrous shapes Ludwig could not name, and strange warped things that looked like both and neither. Bits of rusted armor lay half‑buried in fungi, weapons fused with roots and stalks, bones broken and gnawed. The smell hit next, faint but lingering even after so many years, a dry, musty scent of old death layered with the earthy rot of fungus.

Thomas fell silent, hovering near Ludwig’s shoulder. “Ah…” he murmured, the single sound heavy with understanding.

Ludwig crouched near the nearest pile, fingers brushing over an old breastplate. It crumbled under his touch. He rose, lifting his hand and whispering, “Rise Undead.”

His mana surged outward, purple and black tendrils sweeping across the chamber like a tide. The temperature dropped, the light dimming as though the darkness itself leaned closer to listen. The remains shuddered. Bones rattled against stone, scraping and clinking as they knit themselves together under Ludwig’s command.

[Your Charisma stat allows you to summon 31 additional Undead]

Ludwig’s mana sank like a stone in a pond, but he stood steady as the ritual took hold. The corpses rose, slowly at first, then with more strength, until the room filled with the sound of clattering armor and hollow movements.

[You have summoned 21 Skeletons. 4 Variant Skeletons. And 6 Ghouls]

The ghouls crouched low, their elongated claws scraping stone, eyes burning faintly in the dim. The skeletons took up weapons where they could, rusty blades and jagged pikes pulled from the debris. Ludwig’s small army shifted restlessly, awaiting orders.

“Why summon this many?” the Knight King’s voice resonated from the other shoulder, deep and steady. “They will hinder your movements if battle grows narrow.”

“Also, aren’t they taxing your mana?” Thomas added, his form flickering briefly as if to punctuate his point.

Ludwig only smiled faintly, surveying the assembled ranks. Their presence filled the cavern with a sense of dominion, of inevitability. Something that anyone would wish to do at least once in their lifetime, command a horde of undead. But he couldn’t explain it in words.

“Recon,” he said simply. His voice carried authority, sharp as a blade.

He faced the undead, sweeping his gaze across them. “Spread out. Cover every path. Find survivors. Find Celine. If you find her, do not engage. Beckon her back to me. If you find an enemy…” His lips curved slightly, dark amusement in his tone. “Fight it out.”

The orders struck like a spark. Without hesitation, the undead turned in unison and began to move, each group peeling off toward a different tunnel, their movements purposeful and eerily synchronized. The sound of their steps faded gradually, leaving Ludwig in the cavern’s hollow echo.

For a long moment, only silence and the faint drip of water remained. Then the notifications came, one after another, sharp blue text flashing before Ludwig’s eyes like distant thunder.

[An Undead under you has died to a trap]

[An Undead under you has died to, Umbrite]

[An Undead under you has died to, Umbrite]

…

The messages kept scrolling, relentless. Ludwig’s smile faded, his hand tightening on Durandal’s hilt.

“Looks like we’re in for a long night ahead…”