Deus Necros

Chapter 552: Exposed

The hands moved and every chakram went toward Ludwig. They left the hooded man like a flock let loose at once, each ring taking a slightly different line, each edge singing a different hunger. Dodging, parrying, blocking were all thoughts that didn’t last in Ludwig’s mind more than a millisecond. Doing any of the three would leave him open, and open here meant a throat opened the wrong way, or an arm spun off at the socket, or a neat red line across the ribs for the next nail to find. All terrible conclusions. All too easy to reach.

“Graviol. Gravitas.” Ludwig howled as he slammed his staff down on the ground, digging through the dirt. The strike sent a grit-shiver up his hands. Weight answered the call. The floor felt briefly older under his boots.

An orb of magic spawned at the top of the staff hovering a few centimeters above it. Black torrent like magic that absorbed both light and matter with greed that knew no end. A pressure formed, a heavy knot that made the air between staff and ceiling sag, the way air sags under storm-clouds that have forgotten how to fall.

The weapons that were sent in a straight path were forced out of their way, veered toward the orbs by the invisible hands of gravity. Their arcs bent in small delicious curves, edges shivering as they fought against pull and found themselves disloyal to their own throw. Still they were too fast to be caught in the radius of the sphere and simply shot upward toward the ceiling. The ring-whine climbed the walls. The nails in the captives’ wrists twitched. Dry stone took each steel mouth with a sixteen-fold thud.

Ludwig looked up. Every one of the sixteen chakrams had dug itself into the ceiling. A star map drawn in wrong metal. Without waiting a second, he pulled and pointed his staff forward, the spell then shot at the servant of Necros who tried to dodge, but it followed after him like a sticky bomb. The orb dragged a skirts of dust behind it. The floor pebbles skittered in its wake as if pulled on strings.

“Futile.” the man howled as he used two of his eight arms to grasp the spell, causing it to pause within a barricade of sorts, a shimmering barrier of pure force. The barrier looked like heat, like glass deciding to pretend it is water. The orb pressed, sank, and held, a black fruit cupped between hands that had hammered saints.

“Fine.” Ludwig said as he realized he lost control of his spell. “Explode.” he cast.

Immediately the man’s eyes widened, or felt like they did since his face was covered, as he looked down. The spherical magic that held the orb in place expanded as the antimatter substance blew up then collapsed on itself, creating a vacuum that sucked in the barrier from within, shattering it against itself and within the process, ripped both the arms of the former servant. Sound stepped out of the room for a heartbeat and then returned all at once like the breath after a plunge.

Grunting a painful sound, the man used another set of his arms to rip the stubs that were now useless, and in a second, new arms replaced them that came from the side of his ribs. The motion was practiced, obscene, and tidy. Flesh found seams already opened. Bones knew where to sit. Fingers flexed and learned their old work again.

“How is it? You feeling your despair yet.” the servant said. The voice turned almost cheerful on despair, like someone asking after sleep.

“That’s my line, bitch,” Ludwig said as he hurled himself forward, twirling the staff once and with the butt of the staff he sent a stab toward the man who immediately stopped it with two of his arms. The contact drove a dull sound through the wood. The staff heel dug a half-step into those palms and stopped as if planted in swamp ground.

The six remaining arms all rose up, and in a second they morphed, switching to what looked like bladed weapons as they were about to go down on Ludwig. The change was not metal appearing. It was metal being remembered. Wrists turned. Fingers became curves. Edges found themselves along thumb bones.

He had only one option left.

“This staff is mine.” the former servant said. His new hands curled greed around it even as the old pair held it.

“In your fucking dreams.”

Ludwig didn’t take that option. He created his own.

“Dark bullet.” he howled.

Immediately, Misty’s hairs went up. She snapped her head toward Ludwig. He just used Dark magic. For a servant of the four gods of the Order, to see Dark magic used is immediate reason to execute the caster. Her mouth went tight on the oath that wanted out. The chain on her wrist shivered as she checked the urge to look at him a second time. She ground a many-armed thing under her heel instead.

But right now, she was fighting off these horrid creatures that were hampering her motion. The anchor’s head rose and fell in a slow rhythm, each drop another limb torn loose, each lift a wet thread snapped. The bodies twitched like broken beetles. But they were relentless in wanting her flesh. And she was relentless in breaking their bones.

As for Ludwig didn’t use the dark spell subconsciously, he knew the risks, but he realized that he might not live this time, he will die, and come back again, after everything is reset, so he needed to test things out in this first try. The thought came quiet and clean. If this run ends on the floor, learn what you can on the way down.

It wasn’t that the fight was hard, or difficult. In any other location, Ludwig would have pulled out Nightbreaker and smashed the ever living shit out of this guy. Turning him into a paste of bone and ancient skin was nothing too difficult, but that weapon was able to raze a small hill to the ground with a single swing, using it in this cramped place would undoubtedly crumble more than a million fuckton of sand upon them. He could see it already. A wave of weight the size of a city. Air turning to stone. Everyone pinned forever in a single breath they did not choose.

Undead, and stuck in a sand prison for all eternity isn’t something Ludwig would want. Some mistakes don’t even give the comfort of movement.

The man’s chest tore open as the bullet shot right through him, for that second, nerves couldn’t resist the man’s will to keep the staff clutched tight as he let go. The hole was a clean circle burned through old cloth and older flesh. The smell that came out of it was not right. It was like dead myrrh. It was like a prayer put out with blood.

Black blood, barely any seeped out of the ancient body, as the man staggered back. The liquid came slow and syrup-thick, reluctant to admit to wound, then drew itself back along muscle like a shy animal.

And the fight had just started.