Deus Necros

Ludwig ripped Nightbreaker from the last head of the giant that was left bleeding, spasming and shuddering under his boots.

The blade came free with a wet resistance, the kind that made the wrist want to recoil even if the mind didn’t. Hot blood sprayed in a short arc and misted the air before it splattered against the blue stone tiles.

The room swallowed the sound like it had been built to witness executions, high ceiling, wide circular walls, and columns carved in pomp that belonged to a throne room, not a slaughter pit.

The giant’s body tried to keep living out of habit. Fingers curled. Legs jerked. The neck stump quivered like it was searching for the head that had already been made irrelevant.

Ludwig kept his boot planted for one more heartbeat, not out of cruelty, out of certainty. Some things twitched long after they were dead, and the tower loved punishing complacency.

“Can’t believe he did it,” Kaiser said as he walked forward. They were in a large circular room, a room fit for a king, but at the same time, ruled by a beast.

Even suppressed, even dragged down to a level the tower approved of, the air here still carried the residue of power, old wards, ancient blood, and the faint metallic taste of someone’s last spell failing.

“If this is what a Demon Prince is…” Gale said, “I doubt the one the Hero is fighting is any weaker.”

Gale stood with Oathcarver angled down, as if he still expected the corpse to lunge. His voice didn’t match the posture, too calm, too measured, like he was forcing his nerves into discipline. The tower had a habit of staging its trials like stories, but the wounds were always real.

“Nah, this thing is heavily nerfed,” Ludwig said as he placed Nightbreaker back in his inventory. There was no expression on his face. “Not to mention, a Demon King should be far stronger than this. Not that the Hero has it in him to take it down.”

He didn’t even bother to look at the body as he did it. The hammer vanished into the invisible space with a soft flicker of system logic, leaving his hand empty and clean while his boots stayed stained.

His words weren’t bravado, either. They were an assessment. The way you spoke when you’d watched enough “heroes” posture and die. A Demon Prince that fell like this, in a room this theatrical, was a prop with teeth. The real one, outside… was something else completely.

“So… four months, that’s pretty fast,” Kaiser said as he stood next to Ludwig and stared at the portal that opened.

The portal hung ahead like a wound in the air: a vertical slit of light that refused to match the room’s shadows. Its edges shimmered as if the tower was polishing it, presenting it like a reward.

Beyond it, you could already make out hints of structure, stone walls, straight lines, the geometry of a city that thought it was safe.

“Yeah, we took too long on the eighth floor. Didn’t expect to meet that much resistance…”

Ludwig’s gaze stayed on the portal, but his mind flicked backward anyway, corridors choked with bodies, traps that punished impatience, enemies that didn’t belong on “easy” floors. The tower had promised ten floors like it was a courtesy, then immediately adjusted the difficulty like it had been insulted by Ludwig’s existence.

“Not your fault, the tower was pretty adamant you don’t get to use [Noctivex] after you almost broke the whole seventh floor with it…”

Kaiser’s tone carried a bitter amusement, but the memory behind it wasn’t funny. Ludwig still remembered the way reality had reacted to Noctivex, like the floor itself had screamed and tried to recoil from what he’d done. He’d felt the tower watching then, not like an audience, but like a judge deciding how to punish talent.

“Yeah, I didn’t expect it to be that strong, to be honest…”

He said it quietly, almost like an admission that tasted wrong. Strength was supposed to be earned in clean increments. Level, skill, rank. What he’d done on seven had felt less like growth and more like something inside him had shifted its teeth into the world.

The portal’s light wavered as if impatient.

“Now, how do we get to this… Pride floor? We’re already at the tenth now… that portal seems to be leading outside, I can already see the walls of the city.”

Gale’s head tilted slightly, eyes narrowing.

“Yeah… I’m also a bit confused…” Ludwig muttered as he walked toward the gate.

The floor beneath his boots was gritty with dried blood and stone dust. Each step toward the portal felt like walking toward a stage change mid-play. He could smell outside air through the light, cooler, cleaner, carrying distance, yet the taste of magic still clung to it like smoke.

“Since we didn’t walk in together, call us back to the book, if the guards spot a lich and a Death Knight, things might get ugly for you.” Kaiser said.

Kaiser’s eyes flicked to Gale and back to Ludwig, practical as ever. Whatever the tower had turned them into for this trial, the empire wouldn’t see “temporary bodies” and “scenario suppression.” It would see an undead horror holding a slab of metal and a lich with a staff. In a city. In daylight.

“Yeah, you can go in,” Ludwig said.

He didn’t bother to look at them as he granted it. He just lifted his hand slightly, and both of them dematerialized immediately and were absorbed by the invisible Codex Necros that was always on Ludwig’s side.

The air where they’d stood went briefly colder, then normal again. Silence rushed in behind that, thick and heavy, like the room itself had been waiting for them to leave. Ludwig’s own body felt wrong in the same way it always did in these trials, stronger than a mortal’s, weaker than himself, forced into a shape he didn’t trust.

But thankfully, the higher he went up, the less the restrictions on him became.

Suddenly, just as Ludwig was about to walk to the exit gate, something inside his lantern shook and shuddered.