Deus Necros

Chapter 438: The Whales and the Shrimp

Ludwig took several slow steps back, creating just enough distance to remove himself from the immediate danger without losing sight of the battle unfolding ahead. It was the sort of fight that burned itself into memory at a single glance. Even without sound, without the back-and-forth of shouted threats or gloating declarations, it radiated a sense of absolute conflict. Neither combatant needed words. Every movement spoke for them.

This was a battle between two opposing forces and neither seemed to care.

Mot, barely thirteen in appearance, fought like a creature that had lived and bled through centuries. There was no fumbling, no wasted step, not even the slightest hesitation when reacting to the enemy’s counters. His slight frame shifted between stances with the precision of a master duelist and the adaptability of a predator. The Lich King opposite him, no mere wandering necromancer, but one of the great masters of the art, showed not a trace of unease in the child’s presence. It was as though the Lich were accustomed to crossing blades and spells with entities of equal monstrosity, and this was simply another trial of wills.

Ludwig’s eyes darted between them, his mind working to catalogue the layers in their exchange. Spells bloomed into existence from both sides with alarming speed. From Mot’s position, the battlefield warped beneath the weight of his summons, waves of writhing tentacles, masses of aberrations so alien in form that Ludwig’s gaze slid away from their details before he could register them. Shapes existed for only a second before rearranging, like thoughts that could not be fully held. There was no mistaking the origin. This was the touch of an Outer God, Azathoth, twisting reality in ways mortal senses were not meant to endure.

The Lich answered with his own brand of overwhelming control. He called to the dead as naturally as a man might breathe, drawing corpses from the cracked stones at his feet and from deeper beneath the streets, older bodies dragged from layers of forgotten soil. Each one rose in silence, their loyalty bound not by chains or orders but by the iron certainty of the necromancer’s will.

The clash was relentless. Undead surged forward only to be torn apart by impossible limbs that sprouted from the cobblestones. Tentacles whipped across the narrow street, severing arms and legs before dragging the remains into unseen maws. Yet for every abomination Mot cast forward, the Lich raised another rank of corpses, his army moving like a tide that refused to ebb. It was a battle far too large for the confines of the street, yet neither side yielded ground.

Ludwig felt the weight of it in his chest, not the magic itself, but the sheer scale of the powers at work. Regret crept in at the edges of his thoughts. To stand anywhere near this was to risk being crushed simply by the overflow.

“When whales fight,” Thomas murmured at his shoulder, his tone dry, “it’s the shrimp’s back that breaks. You should probably leave before that becomes you.”

Ludwig didn’t look away from the fight. “No.” His voice was steady. “I want to see how the Lich fights.”

His vision sharpened, his attention narrowing until he was watching not with the focus of a swordsman, but with the hunger of a student. Through that unbroken focus, his perception shifted, and he began to see the flow of mana itself. Shapes of energy traced their way along the edges of spells, lines of force arcing between the caster’s fingers and the forming constructs. Without meaning to, Ludwig had slipped into using [Trace]. There was no specific spell he sought to steal, just the desire to record every nuance of this duel in his mind.

It was worth the strain. The Lich’s fingers moved with an elegance that belonged to neither life nor death, forming gestures so intricate they bordered on artistry. In the space of a single breath, he conjured four different spells at once, a black bolt that hissed with corrosive energy from his index finger, a torrent of searing heat so dark it seemed to consume the light around it from his middle finger, a slow-rolling wave of thick black smog from his ring finger that clung to the ground like tar, and, from his smallest finger, a shaping of the shadows themselves into spears, blades, and arrows. All of it moved in concert, a storm of death bearing down on Mot.

Yet every strike found itself intercepted. Tentacles as thick as pillars and as quick as striking snakes wove into their paths, batting projectiles aside, splitting gouts of fire into harmless arcs, and catching blades in their coiled grip. The air between them shivered with the constant clash of forces.

Ludwig frowned slightly. “Why isn’t Mot just summoning a tentacle directly into the Lich’s chest and ending it?”

The Knight King’s answer came at once. “Who says he isn’t? Look not with your eyes, but with your mana. See what clings to him.”

Ludwig obeyed, letting his vision sink past the physical. He pushed more of his own mana into the act, straining himself further, until the truth began to emerge. There were shapes, small, incomplete appendages, forming around the Lich’s body, only to wither and die before they could fully manifest. Something was killing them the instant they appeared.

A thin, continuous film of mana enveloped the Lich like a second skin. It wasn’t flashy, but it was absolute, rejecting any foreign intrusion the moment it touched him. No wonder Mot’s more direct methods failed.

“It’s unfortunate that I can’t fight you using my full power,” the Lich said.

“That would have indeed been annoying to me, after all, you’re on holy soil, you can’t use your Death March,” Mot replied, “Azathoth, Bring down your reckoning!”

Mot’s voice carried no urgency, no tremor of strain, as though he were simply stating an inevitable truth. He didn’t raise his hands so much as unfurl them, pale fingers spreading in an almost careless motion.