Deus Necros - Chapter 756: A King’s Feast

Chapter 756: A King’s Feast

“He’s growing. You won’t be able to beat that thing if it finishes. You must rush him. I’ll collapse on them soon. I’ve brought allied forces with me.” Kaiser said.

Eating his own troops. Growing. Ludwig’s stomach turned in a way that had nothing to do with hunger. It was that same sick comprehension he’d felt when he realized the blood pools had been a trap, an enemy willing to butcher their own for advantage had no brakes.

“Brought allies?” Ludwig thought, ’How in god’s name did Kaiser manage to convince that many to follow him?” He couldn’t believe the number of silhouettes that were rushing down the dust cloud.

The silhouettes weren’t cleanly uniform. They were messy, different shapes and gaits. Some ran low like goblins. Some moved heavy like ogres. Others looked like orcs, but not red. There were even taller forms that could only be trolls, their outlines thick against the dust. Whatever Kaiser had done, it wasn’t persuasion in the human sense. It was inevitability given legs.

“Guys, we’ll have to pinch the Red King, who’s healthy enough for a quick rush? Hit and run?”

Ludwig’s voice rose, cutting through the bustle instantly. He didn’t ask for volunteers with softness. He asked like a commander who already knew the answer mattered more than fear.

“We’re ready.” Damra, Dedal, and six more Ogres nodded.

No hesitation. Ogres didn’t do half-commitment once the decision was made. Their faces looked grim now, excited only in the way warriors got when they accepted they might die and decided to make it expensive.

Several Orcs also agreed, while the rest hesitated.

The hesitating ones weren’t cowards. They were tired. They’d just watched friends die. They’d felt the ward save them by turning the enemy into beasts. They’d tasted how thin survival was. Ludwig didn’t have time to punish them for being human in the middle of war.

“Don’t worry,” Ludwig turned to the Lizardmen, trolls, and Goblins. “I know some of you are slow, some can’t run, and the others are too small to be of great impact, just hold on this line for now. Help supply the backline with food, drinks, and healing. The rest of able bodies, come with me, we’ll have to make this quick.” Ludwig said as he began, rushing down.

He didn’t waste effort making it sound noble. It was triage. Hold the line, keep the wounded alive, keep the fighters moving. If the Red King finished eating, there would be no line to hold and no wounded to treat, only a giant with a crown and a hunger that didn’t stop.

Gale was fast on his feet as he followed after Ludwig, running down the slope as if it was a straight path.

Gale moved like gravity didn’t apply to him. Even in an orc’s body, he carried that same lethal economy, short strides, perfect balance, Oathcarver held like it weighed nothing. He didn’t talk. He didn’t need to. He simply matched Ludwig’s pace, which was the closest thing to an oath Gale ever gave.

“Didn’t think that you’d be right about that guess of yours,” Dedal said.

Dedal’s voice was strained by the run. His breath came harder than an undead’s ever would, and it annoyed him, which Ludwig understood immediately. Living bodies complained. The tower had made sure of that.

“Yeah, me neither, was a stone in the dark, and it hit, bad too…” Ludwig said as he rushed out of the tree line along the rest of the Ogres and Orcs, only to see a massacre far worse than the one that happened in the mountain.

The open field beyond the trees looked like a slaughterhouse someone had tried to tidy and failed. Red Orcs were scattered, kneeling, standing, swaying, too still, too obedient. The ground was churned and stained in wide patches where bodies had been dragged or thrown.

And at the center of it all.

The giant Red King became bigger, sitting on his ass while shoving red orcs the size of gale into his mouth.

It wasn’t a battle posture. It was a feast posture. The Red King sat like a grotesque idol, belly and chest thickening with every swallow. One massive hand grabbed a red orc by the torso like it weighed nothing; the other pried its jaw wider as if his own mouth needed room for more. He chewed lazily, not rushed, but efficient, like this was a routine. His bone crown looked smaller on him now, like it had been made for the creature he used to be.

The orcs didn’t even argue or protest as they were being held with one hand and shoved inside the beast’s gullet.

They moved like sleepwalkers. Milky-eyed. Slack-jawed. Some even stepped forward on their own, bodies offering themselves without resistance. It was the most unsettling part, not the eating, but the obedience to it.

Of the five or so hundred orcs that retreated, only a couple hundred were left. The Red King had already consumed more than half of the army in one sitting, literally.

Ludwig’s throat went dry. He could feel his body trying to react like prey, heart hammering, breath shortening, then he forced it down. Panic didn’t kill the Red King. Actions did.

“Kill the Red Orcs, if he eats them while alive, he grows stronger. Kill them,” Kaiser said through the crystal.

Kaiser’s voice was cold, almost pleased, like he’d found the lever that mattered. Ludwig hated that it made sense. Alive meant fresh vitality. Alive meant the Flesh Feast ability becoming a joke. Dead meant wasted growth.

Ludwig and Gale hurried to the line of orcs where several came to collapse on them.

The first wave wasn’t even a proper charge. It was bodies stumbling forward, arms loose, weapons hanging wrong, moving with a mechanical insistence like they’d been pushed. Ludwig’s boots dug into the dirt. He adjusted his grip on Durandal and cut down the first one without hesitation. No speech. No warning. Mercy here was letting them live long enough to be eaten.

Gale stopped for a second, where everyone rushed past him while he took his stance, and suddenly, the ground blew up as he went from last in line, to the one to draw first blood, tearing the head of the first red orc, then smoothly spin to split another’s spine.

His movement was a compressed storm. One moment, he was still; the next, he was inside them. Oathcarver’s edge didn’t slice so much as it severed existence. A head popped free, rolling with a spray. A spine split with a sound like snapping wet wood. Gale’s feet hardly seemed to touch the ground as he pivoted, each kill feeding the next step.

The ogres rushed in with their weapons, cutting, decapitating, and tearing apart at relatively unhurried Red Orcs.

They fought with grim professionalism, not frenzy. Ogres liked battle, yes, but these weren’t opponents to savor, they were resources being denied to a monster. Axes fell clean. Blades struck joints. A few ogres used shoulder checks to knock red orcs down so others could finish them quickly. The objective wasn’t dominance. It was starvation.

Their eyes were all milky white now that Ludwig was closer.

It looked like a sickness. Like the ward’s confusion had never fully left them. Like something had hollowed out the part of them that chose. Ludwig felt disgust rise and shoved it down. Disgust wasted time.

Unconscious or more like moving mechanically, more than organically.

They didn’t flinch like living soldiers. They didn’t react like fighters. They came forward in the simplest possible way, advance, swing, be cut. Their bodies still had power, but their minds had been replaced with a single instruction.

The Red King noticed the assault and howled with blood and innards spilling out of its mouth.

The howl wasn’t a rally. It was offense, irritation that his meal was being stolen. Bits of red flesh and half-chewed gore spat from his lips as he roared, and the sound vibrated through the field like an order made of anger. His jaw worked faster immediately after, stuffing another body into his mouth as if to prove he could out-eat their blades.

More Red orcs woke up from their stunned state and began rushing the group, while the Red King consumed faster.

The milky-eyed ones were replaced by sharper movement. Those closest snapped into awareness like puppets suddenly pulled by a tighter string. They ran now, real strides, real aggression, weapons lifted with intent. At the same time, the Red King’s hand speed increased, grabbing and shoving bodies into his mouth with frantic hunger, as if he’d realized time had become the enemy.

It was a fight against time. And from the looks of it, it could go either way.

Ludwig felt the edge of it, how thin the margin was. If they killed enough red orcs fast enough, the Red King would choke on scarcity. If they didn’t, the creature would finish his meal and stand up larger, stronger, and with fewer distractions. Ludwig tightened his grip until his knuckles ached, then cut forward into the next red body without letting himself think about “either way.” Thinking was for after.