Deus Necros

Chapter 664: The Hunt Begins

The words landed quietly, and in some ways, that made them harsher. Ludwig wasn’t threatening a duel or an execution. He was reminding the man of inevitability, and inevitability did not care about noble titles.

“Are you threatening to kill me! In this court of nobles!” The man said, trying to get the support of other nobles.

He turned his outrage outward, searching the crowd for allies.

The crowd responded with the kind of silence that meant nobody wanted to stand beside him. Nobles enjoyed the spectacle. They did not enjoy sharing consequences.

“Why would I dirty my hands? You’re not going to live forever, no one will, and eventually you’ll meet Necros, so why should I even care? Just a word to the wise, don’t badmouth something far stronger than you. Especially when you’re bound to meet them.” Ludwig turned to the emperor.

He ended it decisively, dismissing the man without granting him the honor of being worth violence. The phrase dirty my hands wasn’t a boast. It was a statement of priorities. Ludwig had monsters to hunt, not egos to indulge.

Turning back to the Emperor signaled the conversation was finished, whether the nobles liked it or not.

“All former apostles of Necros were given a task: to kill the ones that refused Death,” Ludwig said.

He spoke as if reading a mission statement, because that was essentially what it was.

Duty. Target. Outcome.

“Like the Wrathful Death. And the creature you killed in the desert.”

The Emperor’s follow-up was precise, and it did what Ludwig expected: it grounded the discussion in known events, reminding the room that Ludwig’s claims had history behind them, not just rhetoric.

“Yes, she was the Envious Death; she could envy one’s skin and flesh from their very bones.”

That statement sounded like an exaggeration, but only the Third Prince knew how real that statement was.

Ludwig added. “The former apostles, however, refused the task; it was too grand for them, too difficult. They couldn’t mentally afford to battle beings that can break apart mountains and burn seas. So, instead of service to Necros, they switched allegiance to these very beings, which gave them a powerful vitality. They mistook longevity for immortality. And I’m here to end them, and their current patrons.” Ludwig said.

Ludwig didn’t raise his voice for effect. He let the scale of the enemy speak for itself. Mountains. Seas. That kind of magnitude made several nobles go stiff in ways they couldn’t hide, because it threatened the illusion that the empire was the center of the world.

“So, technically you’re a Saint.” The Emperor said.

The attempt to label him sounded almost desperate, like the room needed to fit him into something it could understand without choking.

“No, I’m no saint, no hero or savior. I’m just doing as asked and ordered by someone more powerful than I could even fathom.” Ludwig said.

He cut the label off immediately. Saint and hero were flattering masks that the Empire and the Holy Order used to control people. Ludwig refused to wear either.

“And if Necros were to ask my head?” the Emperor said.

A test. A clean, dangerous hypothetical. Ludwig met it without flinching.

“It’ll be a hard task,” Ludwig replied.

He didn’t deny, he didn’t agree. But he still gave his opinion.

The Emperor’s smile was small, controlled, the kind that acknowledged Ludwig had answered in a way that didn’t insult the throne and didn’t bow to it either. Ludwig had given truth without theatrics, and rulers appreciated that.

“Good, do you have the means to find that former apostle? If she transferred her soul to something else, not even the best trackers of the empire can find her.”

The Emperor returned to usefulness, where he was most comfortable. Divine morality didn’t interest him nearly as much as whether the threat could be contained.

“I have my means,” Ludwig said, “I cannot stay here any longer. Would you excuse my rudeness then?” Ludwig said.

He didn’t explain the means. Explanations were how people stole methods and how people who had no reason to be part of a plan started asking questions.

“You have a task far greater than serving a mere emperor,” the Emperor said, “Be on your way, Viscount Ludwig.” The Emperor said.

The dismissal was clean, and in its own way, it was permission that carried respect. Ludwig didn’t waste it.

“As you command,” Ludwig withdrew both Oathcarver and Nightbreaker into his storage ring and turned to walk away from the noble room.

Steel vanished into the ring with practiced ease. The motion drew eyes, but Ludwig did not look back.

He walked at a measured pace, leaving the nobles to stew in disappointment. Many of them had come for a spectacle and wanted either punishment or reward. Instead, they got uncertainty.

Just as he was halfway gone, the Emperor spoke, “I almost forgot. My daughter had shown interest in you, so make sure that once you’re done with all your otherworldly matters, you come back to speak about more worldly ones.”

The words landed late on purpose.

Ludwig understood that immediately. Dropping it at the end ensured it echoed behind him, followed him out, and forced the nobles to digest it without the comfort of immediate debate. It wasn’t a suggestion. It was an imperial hook adorned with jewels and gold, but a hook nevertheless.

When an Emperor is introducing his own daughter, that meant that he shown interest in trying to tie Ludwig to the imperial family.

“I guess you’ll have a spouse soon,” the Knight King snorted.

The snort carried the kind of humor only someone ancient and battle-hardened could afford.

“More trouble added to my plate. I don’t have time for that,” Ludwig replied mentally.

He didn’t answer the emperor and only nodded, after that although the emperor had ’asked’ it was more like an order.

Ludwig left after claiming all of his old stuff from the guard at the gate and stood at the garden of the palace.

Outside, the air felt different. Cooler, cleaner, carrying the scent of trimmed greenery and damp stone instead of incense and politics.

The guards at the gate returned his belongings with stiff formality, their expressions carefully blank. Ludwig didn’t press them, didn’t provoke them, and didn’t offer friendliness either.

He pulled his lantern up. There was a shard of darkness there still.

The shard at the bottom of the lantern looked wrong in a way that didn’t belong to ordinary shadow, like a fragment of night that refused to accept daylight’s rules.

Ludwig’s grip tightened slightly as he lifted it, his focus narrowing. The palace garden was quiet, but quiet didn’t mean safe.

Quiet was simply the space between problems.

“Show me where I need to be,” Ludwig muttered, and the compass at the bottom of the lantern began turning.

The compass needle spun, hesitated, and then rotated again with a more decisive rhythm, as if the lantern was tasting the world for a trail that didn’t want to be found.

Ludwig watched it without blinking, already preparing himself for whatever direction it chose.

The court of nobles, the Emperor’s daughter, the nobles’ outrage, all of it would have to wait.

Teresia was still moving somewhere out there, and Necros’s tasks rarely tolerated delay.