Deus Necros - Chapter 436: True Mastery

Chapter 436: True Mastery

Ludwig’s eyes narrowed, a faint glimmer flickering across them as the familiar command left his thoughts.

[Inspect]

The vision that followed was sharp and invasive, the strings of information etching themselves in the forefront of his mind.

Name: Unknown

Title: The Marrow King

Level: 361

Race: High-Lich

Status Effects: None

Skills: Hidden

Lore: A man who once was obsessed with reviving his lost one, only to fall too deep along the dark path. His pursuit of forbidden knowledge brought him mastery over the Art of Necromancy, and in time he forsook his mortal shell to become an immortal vessel, a being of bone and will alone, so that he might have endless years to chase the impossible. His hope, once rekindled by Necros’s promise, was extinguished when he learned the true difficulty of the task demanded of him. Disillusioned, he abandoned Necros entirely, walking the dark in solitude, following his own designs.

The words pressed against Ludwig’s thoughts, heavier than simple description. A life reduced to a paragraph, yet each sentence reeked of centuries of obsession, loss, and a will twisted beyond the living’s understanding.

“That’s an interesting ability you have,” the Lich said, his voice bone-dry, almost curious. “I felt… vulnerable for a moment there. Is that all it does? A piercing gaze?”

The pale blue lights in his sockets seemed to pulse faintly, like distant lanterns swaying in a fog.

“Maybe,” Ludwig replied, keeping his tone flat. His muscles tensed as he shifted, trying to wrench his boots free from the cold, unyielding hands that clamped his legs. The fingers didn’t merely grip; they locked, each knuckle rigid with a stubborn strength only the dead could hold. He felt the grinding of bone on bone beneath the pressure, the chill sinking through his clothes. It was like standing in a grave with the earth itself unwilling to let go.

“What do you intend to do with this child?” the Lich asked, without moving his gaze from Ludwig.

“Can’t kill him,” the werewolf interjected casually, his tone almost bored. “Well, myself, that is. Gluttonous would be… displeased.” The shrug that followed made light of it, but there was something in his voice that suggested the truth of the statement carried weight.

“Then it’s fine if I make him one of my puppets?” The Lich’s words were shaped like a question, but they lacked the cadence of someone seeking permission. It was a pronouncement waiting to be carried out.

“Suit yourself,” the werewolf said with an easy flick of his hand, already losing interest.

Ludwig took in a long, measured breath, not for comfort, but as one does before a plunge into deep water. The werewolf’s departure removed one predator from the field, but what remained was far from a relief. A fight with a lich… that was another matter entirely. There was a dark temptation in it, an opportunity to witness true mastery of necromancy, to read its patterns in the heat of survival. But the temptation was chained to the reality that he might die, over and over, for that lesson. With all he had endured to reach this moment, starting from nothing again would be… intolerable.

“Fine,” Ludwig said, the word leaving him with the weight of resolve. “Limit Breaker!”

The surge tore through him like molten metal, his muscles swelling with brutal force, the sinew straining beneath his skin. It was the third use, the last before the backlash came. And when it came, it would hurt.

The sudden strength ripped through the arms at his legs, bones snapping with a dry crack as he tore himself free in one violent motion. He landed a step back, Oathcarver still dripping faint remnants of the Bearowl’s ichor.

“Struggle well,” the Lich murmured, raising one withered hand.

All around Ludwig, corpses twitched, as if strings had been tied to their limbs and plucked from the beyond. They rose in uneven jerks, the stench of rot sharpening in the air, eyes glassy and hollow.

“You seem to be forgetting something,” Ludwig said, his voice low but carrying, “Crush ’em all!”

The Bearowl stirred at the command, turning its massive head toward the Lich with a rumble of challenge. It moved like an avalanche, claws digging furrows in the cobblestones.

Only then did the Lich seem to register what he faced. “Necromancy? You dabble as well,” he said, and the faint curl in his voice almost passed for amusement. “This might prove… interesting. I did need to refresh my mage undead.”

The Bearowl’s claw descended, a killing strike. But the Lich’s arm rose in reply, and the street answered.

Several arms erupted from the cobblestones between the Bearowl and the Lich, a forest of pale limbs bursting upward as if the ground itself had decided to take sides. They were not the sluggish, clumsy limbs Ludwig had seen from common undead. These were fast, unnervingly coordinated, each hand clawing and locking with the next in an intricate weave that rose in seconds to match the Bearowl’s towering height.

They met the beast’s descending claw with an impact that thundered through the street. The sound was not merely a clash, it was a chorus of snapping joints, grating bone, and the low groan of the Bearowl’s massive frame straining against resistance it had not anticipated.

Ludwig felt the vibration travel up through the soles of his boots as the Bearowl pushed, snarling deep in its throat. For a heartbeat, it seemed it might overpower them. But the arms multiplied, spilling from the ground in their hundreds, each set wrapping tightly around the beast’s legs, shoulders, neck. The Bearowl’s movements grew sluggish under the relentless constriction. Its feet were dragged from under it, and in a grinding collapse, the massive body hit the stone hard enough to crack the nearby walls.

“Would be a waste to leave such a specimen in your hands,” the Lich said, his tone as calm as if he were discussing the weather. “I’ll be taking it.”

Ludwig’s jaw tightened. “Bone Spears!” he barked, stomping down.

The stone beneath him split in sharp, clean lines as a tide of ivory shafts tore free from the earth. They surged forward in a rippling wave, each spear gleaming pale against the dark, racing toward the Lich.

“Bone Spears,” the Lich answered without raising his voice. He barely moved, only his fingers twitched, and the street answered in kind. His wave was larger, denser, each spear thicker, edges serrated like teeth. They clashed mid-air with a sound like grinding millstones, the collision showering the street in splinters of bone. Ludwig’s assault broke first, the Lich’s spears slicing through and pressing on without pause.

Ludwig sprang back, his boots leaving deep gouges in the dirt as he avoided their reach. He raised a hand mid-leap, fingers tightening in a gesture of focus. “Fireball!”

The air before his palm bloomed into a sphere of molten orange, heat rolling off it in shimmering waves. It streaked toward the Lich, trailing smoke.

“Dark Bullet,” the Lich murmured. He did not aim so much as extend his staff. From the curved wood at its head, a perfect orb of black was born, so deep in shade it seemed to drink in the light around it. It moved with frightening speed, colliding with Ludwig’s flame in a burst that shattered both spells into a spray of molten embers and black fragments.

The shockwave caught Ludwig midair, twisting him before gravity reclaimed him. His coat smouldered at the edges, a jagged burn marking his forearm where the heat had bitten through.

-4,800.

The number rang in his head with the cold neutrality of system text.

He hit the ground hard but came up ready, his gaze fixed on the Lich’s movements. Resignation had no place in his eyes, only calculation.

“Rise Undead!” Ludwig slapped his palm to the street. The gesture was forceful, urgent, and the response was immediate: a dozen corpses in varying states of decay clawed their way upright around him. Some stumbled, others hissed, each taking the space between him and the Lich.

The Lich tilted his head slightly, the pale flames in his sockets narrowing as if in amusement. “Still a novice,” he observed. His voice carried no contempt, only the detached certainty of someone stating an obvious truth. He raised his own hand. “Rise Dead.”

The ground quivered like a drumskin. Corpses stirred everywhere, far beyond Ludwig’s dozen. Dozens became scores, and scores became near a hundred. They rose not with the erratic twitching of fresh summons but with the measured discipline of soldiers answering a roll call. Each bore the stamp of selection; none too broken, none too weak.

“Drown in a sea of corpses,” the Lich intoned, lowering his staff. “Dark Tide.”

The words sank into the air like weights, and the change was instant. A wave of shadow poured over his minions, seeping into bone and cloth until all trace of their former selves was gone. Armor formed from the darkness, sharp and angular, covering their frames in full. Rusted blades were replaced with gleaming shadow-forged weapons. They moved as one, an army reborn from death and clothed in midnight steel.

They crashed against Ludwig’s undead like a tide against fragile driftwood. Bones splintered, skulls split, and his line buckled under the first wave. The black-armored dead pressed forward, stepping over the fallen as if they were stones in a stream, weapons raised for the next kill.

“Detonate Dead!” Ludwig’s voice rang sharp and commanding, the kind of sound that cut through chaos like a blade.

Flame and destruction soon followed.