Deus Necros

Chapter 431: Apathy

The thralls obeyed instantly, an abomination of bodies moving not in chaos, but in a grotesque imitation of unity. Feet scraped and claws skittered. Bones cracked beneath unnatural movement. The horde poured into the narrow street like a tide of death, scraping along the cobbles with sickening friction, their cries twisted by the Piper’s will into something voiceless, yet still screaming.

Ludwig watched them approach in silence.

At first, he did not move. His expression betrayed no urgency. His eyes, half-lidded beneath his pale brow, simply watched the flood of bodies coming toward him. Then, without a word, he stepped forward, not away from them, not to brace or defend, but directly toward the Piper.

The masked figure blinked, eyes darting beneath his mask. “You’re… coming for me?” he said, voice cracking as he stumbled back a step. “Then be torn apart for your Hubris!”

He doubled over mid-sentence, the remnants of the sabotaged potion still causing intermittent spasms in his gut. Ludwig ignored him. He didn’t even glance at the advancing beasts.

The first to reach him was a Lizardman, jaw distended unnaturally, scales slick with gore and rot. It let out a strangled croak as it lunged, claws reaching. Ludwig moved before its hands could close. His blade arced once, a clean, fluid motion, and the Lizardman split in two, its body collapsing in a clatter of bones and organs that splashed against the stone.

The second attacker was a great wolf, its mouth open in a snarl, lips curled back to reveal blackened gums. Ludwig didn’t need to strike.

Soul Shackles.

Dark chains of translucent magic burst from ludwig’s wrist and shot up, looping around the great wolf’s jaws with a sharp snap and dragging it down with impossible force. It struck the earth face-first, whimpering once before going limp.

Ludwig moved through them like a wraith. Each step brought him closer to the Piper, and with every meter, more bodies fell, split, crushed, or burnt by magic that tore through them with brutal elegance. His blade left bright arcs of silver and blood in the air, a ribbon of light and death. While his free hand painted the street in explosions of flame and fire, The horde parted around him not by choice, but by attrition.

The Piper’s breathing grew ragged. He tried to step back again, but his foot caught on loose stone and he stumbled. As he caught himself, a glimmer of inspiration flickered behind his mask. A figure, a young woman, wide-eyed and slack-jawed, was running past him toward Ludwig. One of the mind-controlled. Her body trembled, her steps unsteady, but she moved with the same suicidal momentum as the others.

The Piper seized her by the arm and yanked her in front of him.

She gasped, mouth parting, eyes momentarily flickering with something human. But she said nothing.

The Piper grinned from behind her shoulder.

Ludwig did not slow. If anything, his stride became more measured. He raised Durandal.

The Piper’s grin widened, expecting hesitation, expecting panic. But Ludwig’s blade came down without pause.

The sword passed clean through the woman, bisecting her from shoulder to hip in a single motion and continuing through, severing the Piper’s left arm at the bicep.

The scream that followed was sharp and ragged, echoing through the alleyway as the Piper dropped to his knees, clutching the gushing stump with his remaining hand.

“GHHAAAAAA! You madman!” he shrieked, voice cracked from agony. “You cut through her! A human! She was…She…You didn’t even hesitate! You’re a monster!”

Ludwig flicked his blade once to the side. Blood sprayed in a wide arc across the broken wall of a nearby bakery. He took a step forward, his boots crunching glass.

“Pot calling the kettle black, Ludwig laughed, also, why should I hesitate?” he said, quiet and flat. “I’m no hero. Remember?”

“You’re not human!” the Piper said as he was despair between gripping at his stomach or his bleeding hand, he grit his teeth behind his mask and you could heat it from how his voice was grating.

The air around them stilled for a moment. The remaining monsters fidgeted, as if uncertain whether to advance or retreat. Something in Ludwig’s voice had shifted. Cold certainty. Not cruelty. Not cruelty at all. Just inevitability.

The Piper met Ludwig’s eyes for the first time without the mask, and what he saw there turned the blood in his veins to frost. No fury. No fire. Just that gaze, empty of pretense, devoid of mercy. It reached into the bones.

The Piper’s lips trembled as he whispered a curse under his breath. Then he raised the pipe to his mouth once more, his hand shaking visibly. He blew.

This time, it was not a summons.

It was an attack.

The note that came from the pipe was shrill, no melody, no rhythm, just pure, focused sound. The air around Ludwig warped. The walls vibrated. Dust fell from the upper floors. Every piece of glass that remained within earshot exploded outward in a burst of powdered shards.

Ludwig staggered half a step, the force of it pushing into him like a battering ram. Then blood trickled from both ears. A small, slow stream. But he didn’t fall.

[As an Undead, you’re immune to disorientation.]

The text flickered, unnoticed by the Piper.

He was staring.

“Impossible…” he whispered.

The monsters around them, however, did not share that immunity. The note had struck something deep in their enchanted marrow. Their eyes rolled back, their limbs shook, and then, as if gripped by some new madness, they attacked again.

Only this time, there was no control. It was not loyalty, not duty, not command.

It was frenzy.

They surged with wild desperation, claws tearing into one another as much as toward Ludwig. The sound of it, the gurgling howls, the scraping limbs, the tearing flesh, became a chaos all its own. One that Ludwig had no time to entertain any longer.

He took one breath.

“I didn’t want to do this,” he murmured, “because it exposes me more than I’d like.” He flexed his fingers. “But since you’ve come with a necromancer…” his eyes narrowed, “I’ll just pin it all on him.”

He raised one foot.

Then stomped.

[Bone Spears]

The ground answered.

It split open in jagged lines that raced through the street, breaking past cobblestone and dirt alike. All around him, from beneath corpses, through the gaps in stone, from the very marrow of the battlefield, rose spears. Not of iron. Not of steel.

But of bone.

Pure, bleached, sharpened white, glistening faintly in the red mist. They tore up from the depths and skewered every thrall in their path. Rats impaled mid-scurry. Lizardmen split at the waist. Wolves driven through like meat on a spit.

Then came the second phase.

The blood.

The spears darkened one by one as they were soaked, coated in crimson, a cascade of blood rising unnaturally from the pierced corpses, adhering to the white shafts like oil to flame. The stench was immediate, thick, metallic, and foul. The entire street became a field of impaled bodies, all of them twitching faintly, caught in place.

The frenzy had prevented any from retreating. They hadn’t even seen it coming.

The Piper dropped his pipe.

His lips trembled.

“Dark Magic…?” he asked.