Deus Necros - Chapter 748: Costly Battle

Chapter 748: Costly Battle

“GET OFF THE BLOOD!” Ludwig howled and immediately began sprinting back toward the stone formation.

The shout tore out of him raw, not the measured bark of command he’d been using all morning, but a warning screamed from the gut. Ludwig didn’t bother explaining; there wasn’t time to explain, and he didn’t wait to see who understood.

His boots slapped through mud and shredded reeds, momentum dragging him backward through the jagged maze he’d raised, shoulders twisting to avoid catching himself on stone points slick with gore.

The smell of blood was suddenly worse, like it had thickened, like the ground itself had started to breathe it.

Gale’s retreat was a masterclass in violent discipline. One second he was inside a red orc’s range, Oathcarver poised to finish; the next, he was gone, legs coiling and releasing in a backward leap that yanked him out of danger without giving his opponent the satisfaction of a hit.

He didn’t look confused. He didn’t question. Ludwig’s voice had the kind of urgency that meant obey now, understand later. Fast enough that dust and grit chased his heels.

Damra and Dedal both jumped back, moving away at the same time. Most Orcs listened too and dove out of the pools of blood they stood on. For one second, the fight that was in their favor was immediately turned into a fleeing mess of bodies.

The line broke, not into panic, but into survival. Ogres yanked themselves free of the slick footing, pulling weapons loose from bodies they’d been carving, abandoning kills mid-swing. Orcs who a moment ago were roaring and hacking suddenly looked like they’d remembered they had throats to protect. They scrambled backward, splashing through gore and mud, slipping, catching themselves, then slipping again. The retreat had the ugly rhythm of a stampede forced to turn around in tight space.

They didn’t understand what was going on, but they all knew one thing. When the chieftain tells you to run, you run.

That instinct was the only thing keeping this from turning into a total collapse. Orcs didn’t need reasons; they needed direction. Ludwig had given it, and the ones with enough sense left the blood like it had become venom.

A couple of orcs and one Ogre were too enthusiastically slashing away at the red orcs, immersed in the battle, and didn’t hear Ludwig’s warning. They were too far up and deep in the fight, Ludwig, who barely managed to reach the side, where the boulders he erected in time could only stare at the catastrophe that was about to happen.

Ludwig planted himself behind a stone spear, chest heaving, sweat running cold down his spine under the grime. From here, he could see them, three figures still committed, still inside the thickest stain. One orc with an axe buried in a red body, wrenching it free for another swing. Another shouting something about glory. The ogre was worse, too strong, too confident, too used to being the one with the most kills on the field. Their boots were soaked. Their legs were dark to the knee with blood, and they didn’t even notice the way the ground under them had started to thrum.

The blood ignited.

It wasn’t something gradual, no, it happened all at once.

Like oil to flames, the whole area turned up the heat, feeling like a slice of hell manifested itself onto these planes.

The stain lit with a sudden violence that stole breath. One heartbeat, it was only red mud and gore. The next, it was a sheet of fire crawling across the ground in a perfect, hungry sweep, racing faster than a man could sprint. It didn’t behave like normal flame. It didn’t flicker uncertainly. It claimed, as if the blood itself had been waiting for a command to burn. Heat punched outward in a wave, slamming into Ludwig’s face and making his skin sting through the grime.

For a second, there were the roars of battle and the blows of metal, the second moment, the only sound left was another roar. This one, the roar of fire eating away at everything within it.

The noise wasn’t crackling. It was a sustained, guttural fury, fire consuming meat, leather, hair, and whatever ritual taste it found in blood. The three who hadn’t heard Ludwig’s warning vanished into it, silhouettes for a fraction of a second, then nothing but screaming and flailing shapes swallowed by orange-red brightness. Even the red orcs in that zone went up with them, bodies turning into torches, the air filling with the stench of burning fat that made the back of Ludwig’s throat tighten.

Ludwig cursed.

“Son of a bitch… he even killed his remaining allies…” Ludwig hated that the most. Not the fact that the Red King didn’t fight fair, but he fought in a way that disregarded all rules of engagement.

It wasn’t just cruelty. It was waste. It was a leader treating his own as fuel, not soldiers. Ludwig had seen tyrants. He’d fought monsters. This was something colder: a king who had learned that bodies were just material for spells.

To blow up a third of your own army to kill just a few enemies, how was that a victory?

The answer pressed at Ludwig’s mind, ugly and obvious: it wasn’t about the few enemies. It was about shaping the field, bleeding the defenders, forcing them to move where he wanted.

The roaring flames kept raging on while Ludwig ordered the rest of the troops to back away.

He waved hard, chopping his hand backward like he was pushing air itself. “MOVE!” didn’t need to be said twice. Orcs and ogres stumbled farther from the heat, dragging wounded with them, hauling goblins out of reed cover where the smoke could choke them. Lizardmen surfaced in the river with wary eyes, keeping distance from the burning zone as if the fire might leap into water next.

“The heat’s too much, it’ll dehydrate us, we can’t stay near this place, otherwise we’ll be needing to drink more water than what’s safe.” Ludwig pulled out.

The fire wasn’t just killing. It was changing the fight into a war of lungs and tongues, drying mouths, cracking lips, stealing stamina in the worst way. Ludwig could feel it already, the way the orc body reacted to heat like a living thing, demanding water, demanding relief. That would get them killed later. The river was poisoned. Thirst here was a trap.

“It’s a shame that we’ll have to leave these boulders; they’re really good at breaking the enemy’s charge,” Damra said.

Damra’s eyes kept flicking to the stone spears Ludwig had raised, as if part of him wanted to cling to them like a shield. Those rocks had saved lives. They’d turned a flood into fragments. Letting them go felt like giving up ground you’d already bled for.

“We can’t do much more than that. Also, the fire is somewhat acting in our own interest,” Ludwig said as he pointed, “It’s closing the only path forward. They have to cross the river, and they already know it’s lizardman-infested.”

The burning stain had become a barrier, an ugly wall of heat between Ludwig’s line and the enemy’s reserve force.

The Red King couldn’t just slam straight through the same path anymore without cooking his own. If he wanted to reach them, he had to go around. Around meant the river. Around meant water where lizardmen waited like teeth beneath the surface. Ludwig didn’t like being grateful for enemy fire, but he’d take the advantage and use it.

“Ludwig, we’re not out of it yet. I can feel the movement of the red orcs from the earth.”

Gale’s voice cut through the retreat like a blade. He wasn’t looking at the flames. He was feeling what Ludwig couldn’t: mass shifting, feet pounding, bodies moving in coordinated weight. The ground carried the message before the eyes could.

“Shit, Everyone withdraw, back to the tree line! We can’t fight here anymore!” Ludwig ordered

The command snapped the last of the hesitation out of the line. There was no debate now. They weren’t retreating because they were losing; they were retreating because staying would get them buried under a second wave while thirsty and disorganized.

The plane vibrated. Not with the chaotic tremble of scattered fighters, but with the deep, consistent rhythm of a force that had started moving together. Like a drumline under the ground. Ludwig’s teeth clicked once as he ran, the impact traveling through his legs, through mud, through bone.

“Back, back! Everyone fold back!” Ludwig ordered as he was the last to back away.

He stayed behind on purpose, watching the spacing, making sure the goblins weren’t left to be trampled, making sure the ogres didn’t bunch up into an easy target, making sure the lizardmen were already slipping into water routes to avoid getting pinned on land. He didn’t like being the last one moving, but he liked even less the idea of someone dying because they didn’t know when to turn.

Just then, while his small army was retreating, the ground began trembling harder; he could feel the movement of the Red Orcs now.

It rose from a vibration into a pressure, like something huge was getting closer to stepping on his chest. Ludwig’s instincts sharpened. He could almost map the approach by tremor alone, wide formation, heavy bodies, a straight push toward where his line had been.

And around the massive flames, their army showed up, going in a rapid sprint.

They poured out from the edges of the burning zone like red shadows given muscle, fresh bodies that hadn’t been poisoned as badly, or at least hadn’t been the ones drowning in the river. They didn’t hesitate at the heat. They curved around it, using the fire as cover, using smoke and brightness to hide their numbers until they were already moving. The Red King’s tactic was clear now: burn a zone, force retreat, then send the real wave while defenders were repositioning.

They won’t make it before Ludwig’s army reaches the tree lines first, but that was never the issue; the issue was that the protective tree line was far too fragile to stop these massive juggernauts. So they’ll have to brace for the collapse and impact once there.

The mountain’s perimeter, wards, confusion, the first teeth of safety, wasn’t built to handle a thousand bodies slamming into it like a battering ram. It could disorient. It could slow. But if brute force pressed long enough, even a clever ward became a wall you could break with enough meat behind it.

Ludwig’s mind ran through the possibilities in quick, bitter calculations: where to anchor, where to funnel, how to keep the enemy from spilling into the safe lands before night invited the soothsayers to feast.

’I hope that the formation could at least slow them down,’ Ludwig sighed as he withdrew.

He felt the weight of the earlier victory settle into something less satisfying. They’d gutted a third of the Red King’s force, yes, but the Red King had chosen that. He’d paid those bodies to buy position and blood.

They won one battle, but the fight was still going on, the war for survival was still raging, and the Red King was still hungry.