Deus Necros

“We can’t stay here any longer, Solania might go on a full lockdown… the damned pope couldn’t have chosen a worse time to just eat the dirt,” Joana said.

Her voice carried a clipped urgency, sharper than the winter air that scraped across the mountain. She stood with her arms folded tight, eyes flicking down toward the valley where the distant sprawl of Solania crouched beneath a lid of low clouds. The cold pressed hard against her cheeks, reddening the skin, but her words had little to do with weather. She was already imagining gates sealed, soldiers posted at every street corner, and frightened citizens penned in behind walls.

“Why should we care? We didn’t kill him, wasn’t he like a hundred and some years old,” Kassandra said.

Kassandra adjusted her glasses with two fingers, her breath fogging the lenses. She spoke with a calm that sounded almost indifferent, though her tone edged toward curiosity rather than cruelty. She was younger, less seasoned than her teacher, and politics to her felt remote, an academic discussion rather than a danger that could sweep them up. Yet the set of her shoulders betrayed unease; she clutched her scarf closer, as though defense against the wind might also serve against Joana’s warnings.

“Yeah, even if it was a natural death, it’s not that I’m worried about the Pope, but the replacement. Sutros had already lost almost all his followers and supporters, and Clementine has more than the crushing majority of the cardinals behind him. Once he takes the seat, it’ll be hell,” Joana said as she walked out of the blood pool where the carcass of the hellhound was a moment ago.

The shallow ice-crusted water cracked faintly beneath her heel as she stepped clear of it. She wiped her blade along the leg of her trousers before sheathing it, her eyes narrowing as she spoke of cardinals and the power of the Holy Order. The names hung heavy, not just as figures of church hierarchy but as forces that could turn a country fate. The Pope’s death had been a tremor; the succession would be the avalanche.

“We haven’t even located Ludwig yet…”

The name came quietly from Kassandra, more an admission than a complaint. She glanced up the slope as if expecting to see him crest the ridge at any moment, though no such figure appeared. The silence of the mountain gave her nothing back.

“Let me solve that then, we can’t stay here too long.” Joana said, and immediately a powerful emerald aura erupted outward of her body. It shot out everywhere like a shockwave of pure power that spread through ice and stone, washing over the canopy of the mountain range.

The air shuddered with the force. Frost hissed as the aura raced over it, stones trembled, and far-off snow loosened from cliffs in faint powdery slides. The blast had no shape but carried weight, a presence that pressed into every hollow and ridge before snapping back toward its origin. Joana’s body glowed in the aftermath, her outline edged with emerald fire.

Soon the aura returned to its owner, condensed and surrounded her body.

“This isn’t right…” Joana said, worry clear in her eyes.

Her brows knitted as she studied the horizon. The aura had carried further than she intended, and what it returned was wrong: something vast, violent, closing the distance faster than instinct could comfortably reckon with.

“What is it?” Kassandra asked, already shifting her weight, ready to act.

“The Wrathful Death,” Joana said, her voice rougher now. “I sensed it over there, and it’s coming toward us. Fast…” She pulled her sword free, the ring of steel flat against the whistling wind.

“That thing is still alive?”

“GET READY! INCOMING!” she howled, the sound carrying down the slopes. The urgency in it pulled the air taut, a signal both to her companion and to herself that there was no time left to doubt.

Kassandra immediately threw several crystals of multiple colors on the ice. As they struck, a dozen or more magic circles planted themselves all around, their runes igniting under the snow like veins of fire. In her left hand a palm-sized purple orb hovered, humming with contained power, ready for release.

They waited, tense, every breath visible in the air between them.

And soon, a young man appeared, leaning on one knee as he rose from a hill of ice right in front of them.

“Oh, good seeing you here professor, I knew I recognized that aura.” He smiled.

Joana’s brows furrowed. The young man before her looked exactly like Ludwig, the face and frame familiar enough to stir an old recognition. Yet it wasn’t him, or rather, it couldn’t be. This one was alive. Very much alive. From where she stood she could feel it clearly: a heart inside his chest, beating strong and steady, pumping blood with a vigor no undead could ever mimic. And it was loud, too loud, each pulse resonating in her awareness, full of power that churned and twisted in ways she could not easily name. The worst of it was that this living heart carried not merely strength, but something dark and unearthly, a force that made her skin prickle and her instincts scream.

He tilted his head, his smile widening. “Hah, Kassandra, you turned out to be pretty good looking,” he said as he slid down the slope with casual ease, stopping in front of them as if he had walked into a friendly gathering. “I never expected the bookworm to get such a glow up.”

Kassandra stiffened. Her free hand brushed instinctively at the collar of her cloak as though to shield herself, and the orb above her palm wavered slightly before regaining its hum. “L-Ludwig?” she breathed, tilting her head in disbelief. “… you look fine…” The words came out half-formed, as if her mind had not yet caught up to her eyes.

“Is that what you have to say to someone you haven’t seen in five years?” His smile remained, but there was a sharpness behind it, an edge that turned his jest into a quiet reproach.

“It’s been close to six,” Kassandra corrected softly, the reflexive exactness of a scholar surfacing even through her shock. She stared at him longer now, searching his features for some hint of deceit. “But… yes. You look like you haven’t aged a day…”

“Well, that’s obvious. I have good genes.” His gaze shifted then, leaving Kassandra and falling squarely on Joana. His grin curled wider. “And you look like you want to duke it out right here, right now.”

Joana tilted her head at him in the same manner he so often used, her eyes narrowing to match the gesture. “Yeah,” she said slowly. “I mean, who wouldn’t want to see how their student changed after so many years? Where’s your sword?” Her tone carried the weight of suspicion. Whatever this was, resurrection, imitation, or something worse, she needed proof in steel. Fresh chapters posted on novel fire.net

Inwardly, her thoughts turned like wheels. Perhaps possession? Perhaps some parasitic creature riding his body? But who in their right mind would anchor themselves in an undead shell? And yet, the presence before her wasn’t undead at all. This boy was alive. Too alive.