Deus Necros

The enraged Ludwig began smashing through the walls and buildings, to a point where he threw an entire room flying outside the perimeter of the city with one claw swipe. Architecture turned into ammunition. Rooms became debris. The creature moved through the city like a siege engine with a grudge, and the roar of collapsing structures became its background music.

Rage and wrath bolstered and roared out as it cried to the heavens as if it was a demon scorned. The sound carried up to Ludwig’s rooftop, echoing through empty streets, bouncing off shattered stone like the city itself was amplifying it just to be cruel.

Ludwig remained on top of the building, staring, watching, with an apathic look. Unimpressed.

For now that is, the first time he saw that transformation even he was shook, not out of fear, for the dead fear nothing, but for how much power this thing contained in it. He’d been impressed once.

He’d been startled once. He’d had that moment of, so this is what I could become if I stopped caring. Now he watched like a man studying a wildfire he’d already been burned by, waiting for the wind shift.

It was strong, absurdly so. So strong that not even the Wrathful Death could match it. That realization didn’t inflate Ludwig’s ego. It did the opposite. It made him colder, because it explained why brute force had failed so many times.

He wasn’t fighting a person. He was fighting a concept given permission to cheat.

Something about having a living body that wrath could abuse and use made the Wrathful Heart much more powerful. Morde’Xander was nothing but the energy of Wrath encased in Noctivex. Here, this was Wrath with a living body. A body that could overclock itself, break itself, rebuild itself, and keep going until the city ran out of stone to grind.

Ludwig knew well, if what was in the Solania mountain that day was this guy, he’d have spent far more than just five years to kill it. Five years had been misery. This would have been a lifetime of misery, stretched thin and repeated until even his stubbornness started to crack.

That is, if it could survive that long. After all, a living body had its limits, and Ludwig saw them. Not clearly, not yet, but enough. The way the monster’s movements grew sloppier at the peak of its frenzy. The way the transformation demanded more each time. The tiny moments where its weight shifted wrong, where it overcommitted, where it had to spend an extra heartbeat correcting itself because rage didn’t do finesse well.

“You noticed it,” he heard.

Ludwig didn’t turn, remained standing on top of the rooftop until the ’calmer’ copy of himself approached him and stood next to him. The copy’s presence didn’t bring sound with it. It arrived like a thought, quiet, immediate, invasive.

“I did, in fact.” Ludwig replied. His eyes stayed forward, watching the city tear itself apart below.

“Took you long enough,” the copy said.

“You saw me die? You remember that?” Ludwig asked, finally letting his gaze slide toward it, measuring the face that was his, the posture that was his, and the discipline that wasn’t.

“Why wouldn’t I, I am you, after all, with all your memories, but better application.”

“So, you know what I’ll be doing next?” Ludwig asked. His voice stayed flat, but his muscles tightened anyway, the way they did before a fight that mattered.

“I do…” He said. No smugness. Just certainty.

“Good, don’t blame me then,” Ludwig said, as if he were warning himself more than the copy.

“Why should I blame myself for wanting to survive, but…” the copy said, and the pause felt deliberate, like a blade hovering.

“You are me, and I am you, so you know I won’t make it easy.” Ludwig’s mouth curved, not quite a smile, not quite a grimace.

“I already assumed as much,” Ludwig said, because pretending otherwise would be insulting.

“You learned enough from how to fully let go, and let loose into anger. But you haven’t learned how to stand still when the waves crash upon you.”

“You’re mistaken,” Ludwig said. He didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t need to. The statement had weight because he’d paid for it in deaths.

“Am I, now?” the copy asked, eyes narrowing, the tiniest tension gathering there like the first crack in a perfect surface.

“Indeed, am I not standing still?” Ludwig smiled. It was a small thing, but it was enough. A reminder that he could be calm in the middle of a ruin.

The copy didn’t, there was tension between its eyes. It didn’t like being shown that Ludwig could understand and still choose not to perform the way the copy expected.

“I already know how to leave this floor, if you had my memories, my intelligence, you’d know I knew how to, day one.” Ludwig kept his tone casual, but the claim landed like a thrown stone. Not because it was arrogance. Because it was true.

“I didn’t think you’d realize it that fast.”

“Yeah, It was rather obvious,” Ludwig snapped his fingers, he didn’t cast a spell, nor call a summon, nor do anything but the snap. The sound was small. Sharp. Human. The kind of noise that didn’t belong in a city being erased by wrath.

And that was all he needed for the giant that was breaking apart the city to snap its head toward the noise that wasn’t a building collapsing. The monster’s attention moved like a spotlight, instant, hungry, violent. Its horns angled, its posture shifting toward the rooftop as if the rest of the city had suddenly stopped being worth destroying.

“You’re calling it? it hasn’t exhausted itself enough.”

“If it exhausts itself too much… you’ll be an even bigger problem for me to kill.” Ludwig’s answer came without hesitation. He didn’t pretend he was doing this for mercy. He was doing it because he needed the monster angry and strong, not dying and then replaced by something colder.

“I had my doubts, but you really do understand this trial.”

“Kill without power. There is only one answer, Kill with a borrowed dagger.”

The copy’s hand moved to Durandal, drawing it smoothly, blade catching the thin light of this false sky as if it appreciated being held by someone who didn’t waste motion.

The copy drew Durandal, “I won’t allow it to be easy.”

“I never counted on it. Bring it on.” Ludwig said as an explosion of energy erupted behind him, the giant wrathful Ludwig was coming at him.

Or in this case, at them.

The swords collided. Ludwig noticed it, this time there was a small margin of haste.

Worry. The copy was worried.

’Good,’

Ludwig stepped back as the explosions moved closer, and closer. The two connected again, Ludwig had no intention of falling for the obvious tell that the copy showed him, a loose shoulder, an easily exploited opening that could take an arm if need be.

He didn’t take the bait.

He moved back until he was standing on the rooftop’s wall.

Instead of the copy chasing after Ludwig, “I won’t make it easy,” he turned tail and ran away while the wrathful Ludwig gave chase to the closest one of the two, the real Ludwig.

Never expected it anyway, Ludwig rushed forward from the rooftop chasing after the stable copy.

The Wrathful Death that took over Ludwig was faster. He’ll make it in time to collapse on Ludwig before Ludwig could even reach the copy.

So, “Black Mirror,” Ludwig cast, this time it wasn’t to protect himself from the Wrathful Death’s attacks, it wasn’t to stop a projectile, but was to create a displacement.

The mirror appeared right in front of the copy that was running away, mid sprint, mid jump, without any way or method to dodge and avoid it, it was going to get sucked into it. Yet, the copy simply flung its left wrist sideways, the chain from its hand shot out, wrapped around a nearby broken pillar and yanked him to the side.

He twisted in mid air as the chains pulled him away from the black mirror and gave a smug smile to Ludwig.

Ludwig however wasn’t surprised.

“I knew you’d do something like that, I’m you after all. Black Mirror.” He cast again, never canceling the first, but summoning a second, right where the chain was pulling the copy.

This mirror managed to absorb the fake Ludwig and called him right behind the real one.

“Better block this,” Ludwig said as he struck hard with Durandal.

The copy, for some reason only known to Ludwig immediately raised his sword to block the strike.

This was something Ludwig had come to understand, that although the copy knew it cannot take damage from Ludwig. Instincts overpowered reason. So it raised its sword to block mid air. And the impact sent him flying toward the incoming Wrathful Death.

“Now, this should make for a great show.” Ludwig muttered as the two fakes encountered each other.