Deus Necros

Chapter 632: A Request of Servitude

Ludwig stopped beneath the thick canopy, the living forest pressing in with damp smells and soft insect noise that still felt strange after the hut’s collapse.

“That is a request of all requests… Why are you so interested now?”

The lantern’s glow was muted in daylight, yet its presence hung close at his side like a shadow with weight.

He held it slightly away from himself as if distance could make the words less irritating, brow drawn tight as his mind tried to decide whether this was audacity or an ambush.

“I’ll prove more… valuable to you than merely being here, in this lantern.”

The voice from within carried that peculiar hollow resonance, like sound traveling through bone instead of air.

Ludwig could almost picture the Lich’s patience in the pause between his words. A deliberate hesitation meant to sound dignified rather than desperate. The forest breeze slid past Ludwig’s cheek, cool enough to be pleasant, but the thought of letting something like that out into the world made his skin itch.

“I don’t think I’ll be needing your help, you’re too… unpredictable. You’re a lich that went against Necros.”

He didn’t raise his voice, but there was steel in it, a refusal sharpened by long experience with bargains that came with teeth. Especially one that needed Mot’s interference to kill.

Ludwig’s fingers tightened on the lantern’s handle, knuckles whitening, and his gaze flicked across the trees as if expecting the very mention of Necros to draw attention from somewhere unseen. Unpredictable. That was putting it kindly.

“It isn’t as simple as that…” the Lich replied. The answer came slower, as if the words were being weighed before they were offered.

Ludwig could hear the faint scrape of old arrogance under the restraint, something that didn’t like being summarized into a single accusation. The Lich sounded almost tired, and Ludwig hated how that sounded like sincerity.

“I doubt even Necros would allow it.”

Ludwig let the doubt settle in the air, letting it do the work of a threat without him needing to dress it up.

He could imagine Necros’s indifference, that cold, vast attention that didn’t negotiate; it decided. If this were forbidden, it would be crushed. If it were permitted, it would be for a reason Ludwig would not enjoy.

“He will,” The Lich replied.

The certainty in those two words was what made Ludwig’s eyes narrow. Not confidence, knowledge.

The Lich spoke like someone who had already seen the shape of the answer and found comfort in it.

Ludwig frowned, “How would you know that?” he asked.

His voice came out lower than before, the question not curious but suspicious, as if he expected a trap to spring from the explanation. He shifted his stance, boots sinking slightly into damp soil, the forest floor soft with old leaves. It was too quiet around them, and Ludwig didn’t like quiet.

“Because to become like the Death Knight, you have to give up something, and it is all Necros wanted from us anyway…” The Lich said.

The words “give up something” struck with the weight of ritual, of price.

Ludwig felt his stomach tighten despite himself, because he knew Necros never offered power without demanding surrender in return. The Lich’s voice carried something like resignation, an ugly acceptance dressed up as wisdom, and Ludwig could almost hear the hint of bitterness in “wanted from us.”

“Stop talking in riddles,” The frustration was clear in Ludwig’s eyes.

He exhaled through his nose, sharp and annoyed, and his gaze hardened until it looked like he was daring the lantern to keep testing him.

The forest’s sounds, birds, distant rustle, the faint creak of branches, continued as if nothing momentous was being discussed, as if a man wasn’t considering binding a former apostle’s soul into servitude.

“It is subservience. To bind myself to the Codex you’re carrying means I won’t ever defy your orders, that includes Necros’s orders.” The Lich said.

The answer came cleanly this time, no poetry, no mist. Subservience. Ludwig felt the word settle like a collar being laid on a table.

He glanced down at his side and the hidden weight of the Codex within it, the memory of its presence always faintly mortifying, like carrying a book that could end the world if enough of its pages were turned. The idea of binding a Lich to it made his instincts recoil, not from danger alone, but from the permanence of the act.

A new notification appeared next to the other two that Ludwig was holding off on.

The familiar sensation came with it, that quiet pressure at the edge of sight, text forming as if the world itself insisted on being read. The forest seemed to dim around the words, as if reality politely stepped aside to let the system speak.

He didn’t hesitate. If the Lich’s request was going to matter, the terms mattered first. Ludwig’s eyes moved across the lines with practiced speed, expression still, but his mind already racing through the implications.

[The Marrow King, Kaiser, is requesting to become a full servant of Necros at the cost of his own Soul.]

You have two options.

One, a full memory wipe and enforced enslavement of Kaiser’s soul. Will allow the user full control of the lich in combat and will be made to obey any orders, the same as any other undead.

Two: allowing Kaiser to retain his memories will give him the chance of defying some of your orders if they aren’t aligned with his will completely. They may not refuse, but they can still argue and contest; however, they’ll retain their memory fully and will be able to ’grow.’

Which will you choose?

***

The phrasing was clinical, but the meaning was ugly. Memory wipe. Enforced enslavement. Ludwig’s jaw tightened. Complete control was tempting in a simple, brutish way, especially when the thing in question was a Lich who had once turned on Necros.

Yet the second option carried that dangerous word: grow. Growth meant agency. Agency meant risk. And risk meant surprise, which Ludwig had learned to hate whenever it came from allies.