Deus Necros - Chapter 603: Authority of Envy

Chapter 603: Authority of Envy

“You’re so eager to die,” she said as she slowly moved her hand forward. The gesture was almost gentle, fingertips describing a lazy arc through the stale air, yet the world seemed to lean away from it. The yellow light of the river went thin and papery, the current flattening like a beast warned quiet by a larger one. Even the grit beneath Ludwig’s boots felt hesitant, grains settling as if not wishing to be counted.

Ludwig didn’t hesitate to clash with her extended fingers, but the moment the sword landed on her open finger, the two of them were forced back. The contact made no proper sound, just a low, wrong shiver that passed through crystalized steel and bone, a sensation like biting tinfoil. His heels carved two shallow grooves in the mud, her slippers slid a thumb’s breadth, and the river exhaled as if it had been holding its breath.

This made her frown some more. The expression was small, an annoyance rather than anger, yet it put a thin crack through the pretty stillness of her face. She blinked once, the sort of blink that would have made men apologize for existing in softer rooms.

“Oh, feels like you haven’t gotten pushed back in a while, how does it feel?” Ludwig asked. He kept his weight low and his wrists loose, Durandal angled not at her throat but at her shadow, a habit learned from monsters that were more world than body.

“Arrogant!” she said.

Ludwig couldn’t hear her, but could easily read her lips. The shape of the word fit her mouth like a favorite jewel. He watched the play of muscle at the corners, measured the slight lift of her chin, and filed it away. He could have smiled then, a thin private curve that belonged to a man who had found a lever.

There was no big thing to it, her magic that was, or at least her effect. She made it too obvious, probably since she was too used to her overwhelming prowess against others. She no longer felt the need to hide how her magic function. Her confidence was an architecture around her, tall and expensive, windows open, doors unlocked, certain that no thief would dare the street.

She is the true definition of envy. The air near her carried the metallic tang of old wanting, like coin rubbed threadbare between impatient fingers. Even the yellow river seemed to watch her with the suspicious attention of something that knew it had something she might decide to take.

And her words are her catalyst, if one were to hear her utter her ’envy’ of what they have… they simply lose it. The thought moved through Ludwig with the coolness of a blade being sheathed. The rule was simple, and because it was simple it was cruel. He felt the hush of relief that he did not need to respect it.

It is probably the same method she used to usurp what her sister, the Witch of the Mare had. He saw, not with eyes but with that necromancer’s intuition that lived where his ribs used to, a memory of a skin peeled with a compliment. The world did not fight flattery when flattery had teeth.

But if Ludwig couldn’t hear it, then it shouldn’t affect him. Silence had weight now, not absence but armor. He held it the way a drowning man holds the last breath he is allowed.

Tull who was next to Ludwig immediately slammed both open palms against his ears, bursting both drums without hesitation. The motion was simple and brutal, the way soldiers put out torches with their fingers, the way farmers kill chickens. A pair of wet pops, bright pain turning his eyes sharp and cold. Blood mottled his sideburns in quick lines.

Without uttering a word, Tull’s eyes made contact with Ludwig who understood the signal. The look was clean and military. No panic, no question. This was the arrangement of a battlefield where talk would only slow them.

Full on offense. Ludwig dipped his chin once. The world obligingly narrowed.

Tull’s hand called to his claymore without hesitation, a loud and wide swing that hurled toward Envy’s neck, but she, once again didn’t dodge or block, and simply took the hit head on. Steel met that borrowed perfection and behaved itself. The edge screamed, the hilt kicked. The blow would have butchered a dragon, cracked a tower, humbled a king. Here it simply failed to be an opinion that mattered.

The sword bounced, but that allowed Ludwig a moment since she was more than annoyed with the mere flies that were swarming her as they tried to retaliate against her. He saw the shift, a fractional turn of her attention, the mistake predators make when swatting gnats. It was not panic. It was disdain that had to multitask.

Ludwig’s sword slammed right into her side, but once again it bounced away, some of the crystalline on it fractured and broke only for his aura to once again fuel them back in place. Shards spidered, then drew inward like frost receding from glass under heat, the red lattice mending itself with a stubborn whisper. The impact ran up his arms, sat briefly in his shoulders, asked to be remembered later. He ignored it.

“Shit, too damn sturdy,” Ludwig said as his eyes lit up. The curse came like a craftsman’s complaint rather than fear.

[Inspect]

***

Name: Envious Death

Title: [Usurper of Death]

Level: N/A

Tier: Mythic

HP: Infinite [Envied]

Danger Rating: ☠☠☠☠☠

{Status Effects}:

• [Absolute Envy – Conceptual Authority]

The Envious Death may covet any trait, authority, or state she perceives. Upon fixation, the target suffers degradation of the envied aspect proportional to her desire. This effect bypasses defenses and resistances.

• [Borrowed Perfection]

All defensive properties of the Envious Death are stolen, not inherent. Her body reflects the strongest defensive concept she has ever successfully envied.

• {Envied} [Evangelic Skin] Currently wearing the Usurped Exoskin of the Fallen Angel [XXXX]- The Witch of the Mare. Granting impervious body and immortality.

{Abilities}:

• [Envy Made Manifest] (Active)

Selects a visible target and declares envy. The envied attribute begins to fracture, weaken, or betray its owner. Effects intensify the more the target acknowledges the disparity. It cannot be resisted, cannot be reflected and cannot be nullified. But one must acknowledge it first for it to be effective.

• [Covetous Exchange] (Active)

Can use the abilities of anyone present within her perimeter, without any cost of her own. All abilities used by the Envious Death will have their resources be it mana or strength sapped from the owner of said ability instead of the Envious Death herself.

Passive

• [Mirror Existence] (Passive)

The Envious Death cannot create, only reflect. Her power is absolute so long as something greater exists before her. When faced with nothing she desires, her authority stagnates.

{Lore}:

“She was never born incomplete, yet she could never accept completion.”

The Envious Death is not driven by hatred, nor greed, nor hunger, but by comparison. She does not wish to destroy what others have, only to prove that it should have been hers. Every strength she bears is borrowed, every perfection stolen, every defense a memory of another’s superiority.

She is strongest in the presence of greatness. and weakest when forced to confront what she truly is without it.

***

“Shit…” Ludwig said as he jumped back. His knees loaded and released in the same motion, boots landing heel then toe, body angling so that the river sat at his flank rather than his back. The Inspect pane might as well have been a gravestone written in polite script.

“That ability of yours,” She said, “To see the true nature of those your eyes land upon…The power of Necros…” Her lips shaped the words with almost tender care, a little curl at the corner as if tasting what she said. She had the look of a thief admiring another thief’s lockpicks.

“How Envious…”

Ludwig however didn’t hear any of that, he could read her lips and chose to look away the moment he realized where she was going with her words. He didn’t gift her the acknowledgement the text warned about. He let his gaze slide to her shoulder, to the line of her collarbone, to the place where the pretty ended and the problem began. He could feel the tug, that little social muscle that wants to answer when addressed by something terrible. He refused it.

He couldn’t simply give up his abilities. The thought arrived without ceremony and took a seat.

There would be no generous mistakes today.

And her hope has to be shattered.