Deus Necros

”Rage doesn’t know how to rest.”

The statement sounded good. Watching Celine fight made the reality far less reassuring.

She could hurt Sloth, which alone placed her above nearly everyone else in the canyon. Her sword reached him without slowing, her fists connected, and Wrath ignored the invisible boundary that had stopped Cain’s claws and Kaiser’s magic. Every attack she committed to continued until something physically prevented it.

The problem was that being able to hurt Sloth and being able to defeat him were two very different things.

Celine ducked beneath a fist, twisted around Sloth’s enormous arm and swung for his ribs. Sloth stepped backward, allowing the crimson blade to barely catch his stomach and open a shallow line before he disappeared.

Celine turned immediately, but she was too slow. A kick struck Noctivex across the side, and the living metal screamed as she flew through a canyon wall. She passed through several meters of stone before emerging from the other side in a rain of debris. Before she even landed, black metal raced across her damaged armor. The section covering her ribs had folded inward from the impact, but Noctivex pulled itself back into shape before she struck the ground.

She rolled as Sloth appeared above her, then threw herself aside an instant before his foot came down and collapsed the ground beneath him. She rose from the dust and attacked with one slash, but Sloth avoided it. He caught her wrist when she attempted a second, then shifted his body just enough to evade the knee she drove toward his stomach.

His remaining hand swung toward her head. Celine released the sword, allowing Noctivex to catch the weapon with a strand of metal while she dropped beneath the blow. She retrieved it an instant later and cut across Sloth’s thigh.

Blue blood sprayed from the wound, but the flesh immediately began closing.

Ludwig watched carefully. Once he stopped focusing on the simple fact that Celine could touch Sloth, the imbalance between them became obvious.

Out of every ten exchanges, Celine spent nine defending herself. She dodged, blocked, twisted away and allowed Noctivex to absorb attacks that would otherwise have torn her apart. Only after surviving all of that did she earn a single opportunity to strike back.

Whenever she did, Sloth healed.

Celine drove the sword through his shoulder, but the hole vanished as soon as the blade came free. She severed a portion of his side, only for flesh to crawl across the exposed ribs before the piece she had removed even reached the ground. When she cut through his forearm again, bone extended from the stump, followed by muscle and white skin.

It was not enough.

”She’s losing,” Tull said.

Ludwig nodded. ”I know.”

From a distance, the fight appeared almost equal because Sloth was taking visible damage. It was not. Celine was spending far more to accomplish far less.

Sloth did not breathe harder, slow down or show pain. Celine did all three. Her breathing had become audible even from where Ludwig stood, and each time she escaped one of Sloth’s attacks, the pause before her next movement became a fraction longer.

Noctivex could protect her body. It could reinforce damaged muscles, support fractured bones and absorb impacts that should have killed her, but it could not change the fact that Celine was alive. She possessed stamina and could exhaust herself. Her body needed blood, energy and time to recover.

Sloth needed none of those things.

Worse, physical exhaustion was not the only thing accumulating inside her. Wrath was spreading.

The crimson lines between Noctivex’s plates had grown brighter, while the curved crystal horns emerging from her helmet were longer than before. Smaller branches had begun forming near their bases. Blood-red growths occasionally pushed through gaps in the armor until Noctivex crushed them back down.

Every second Celine remained in that state gave Wrath more influence. Each attack fed it. Every blow Sloth landed gave it another reason to hate, while every wound, failure and moment of frustration pushed Celine farther from the point where she could return to herself.

Ludwig knew exactly why she had avoided this power since obtaining it. When Wrath first manifested inside her on the Dawn Isles, she had not possessed Noctivex. She had been alone inside a sealing chamber while something ancient tried to hollow her out and rebuild her into one of Wrath’s Kings.

The Thorn Queen had nearly succeeded. If that chamber had not contained her, Celine would have escaped and begun killing. She would have continued until there was no Celine left to remember why she had started.

Ludwig had stopped the transformation, but he had never completely removed its cause. Now, she was voluntarily opening the door she had spent centuries keeping closed.

Cain watched his niece with an expression Ludwig had rarely seen from him: concern. The ancient vampire’s body had fully reconstructed, but he made no attempt to charge back into the battle.

Ludwig glanced toward him. ”You done?”

”With attacking him directly?” Cain asked.

”Yes.”

Cain lifted one hand, causing blood to gather along his fingertips. He stared at the forming claws for several seconds before allowing them to disappear. ”I cannot do what she is doing.”

Tull looked at him. ”You’re a thousand-year-old vampire.”

”An observation I have made before.”

”You’re telling me you can’t stop thinking?”

Cain finally looked at him. ”When I attack, I attack something.”

”That sounds obvious.”

”It is the problem, a habit I cannot easily overcome.” Cain gestured toward Sloth. ”My mind identifies him as a threat. I calculate where he will move, consider which portion of his body would be most vulnerable and decide how much force is required. I choose the angle that gives me the greatest chance of success and prepare a response for the possibility that the attack fails.”

Ludwig understood what he meant. ”You can’t switch that off.”

”No,” Cain said, looking toward Celine again. ”Not completely.”

Celine screamed and swung. Sloth avoided the blade, so she immediately tore her free hand across the ground instead. Blood-red energy ripped through the stone in every direction, forcing him to move away from the destruction rather than simply stopping an attack aimed directly at him.

”I have spent centuries refining my instincts,” Cain continued. ”Asking me to fight without intention is asking me to discard everything that makes me effective.”

Tull rubbed the side of his neck. ”Bit ironic.”

Cain glanced at him. ”What?”

”You got too good at fighting to fight him.”

The vampire’s stare sharpened, causing Tull to raise both hands. ”I’m just saying.”

Cain ignored him and returned his attention to Ludwig. ”I can support.”

”That’s what I was thinking,” Ludwig said. ”No more trying to kill Sloth directly. Keep everyone else alive.”

”What about Celine?”

”Especially Celine.”

Cain’s jaw tightened as Ludwig surveyed the others. Gale stood with his tower shield raised, ready to rejoin the fight at any moment. Redd remained crouched farther back with his body still partially transformed and his sister close beside him. Thomas hovered near Ludwig, while Kaiser watched from behind his staff with dark mana already gathering around him for another spell.

Tull was upright again, but Sloth’s presence continued affecting him more than anyone else. Then there were the tribesmen, who had no place in a fight like this. Even at their current distance, several were struggling to remain conscious.

”We back off,” Ludwig said.

Gale turned his helmet toward him. ”How far?”

”Far enough that Celine doesn’t decide we look interesting.”

”That is a considerable distance,” Kaiser observed.

”Then make it considerable.”

Tull frowned. ”We’re just leaving her in there? She’s getting her ass kicked.”

”I noticed.”

Celine narrowly avoided another strike. Sloth’s fingers scraped across her shoulder, peeling Noctivex away in several layers and scattering black metal across the canyon. The fragments immediately flowed back toward her body as she countered with a slash across Sloth’s chest.

A deep wound opened from his shoulder to his stomach, but it closed almost as quickly.

Ludwig pointed toward them. ”She can keep him occupied. None of us can inflict enough damage while she’s fighting him anyway. If we crowd around her, we’re just giving Wrath more things to attack.”

”And when she gets tired?” Redd asked.

”We pull her out.”

Cain looked at Ludwig. ”If she allows us.”

”She won’t,” Ludwig replied, which did nothing to improve anyone’s expression. He pointed toward the armor surrounding Celine. ”Noctivex will.”

The living metal shuddered around her as though it had heard him. A thin black tendril rose from Celine’s shoulder, curled slightly and then flattened again.

Thomas tilted his head. ”Was that a yes?”

”I’m choosing to believe it was.”

Kaiser chuckled. ”A dependable foundation for a battle plan.”

”It has kept me alive through worse.”

”You are a remarkably low standard for survival.”

”Thank you.”

Ludwig began moving backward, and the others followed. Cain remained nearest to Celine’s fight, though even he kept enough distance that Wrath would need to actively pursue him. Gale positioned himself between the group and Sloth, his shield ready in case the Usurper abandoned Celine and attacked someone else.

He did not.

Sloth seemed to understand the same thing they did. Celine was the only immediate threat, so he focused entirely upon her.

The pace of the battle increased. Sloth disappeared and struck Celine from behind before she could turn. His fist crashed into her back, bending Noctivex and driving her into the ground.

Celine rolled with the impact and swung from her knees. The sword cut through Sloth’s calf and spilled blue blood across the stone, but he answered with a kick. She raised both arms to receive it, and the impact sent her sliding nearly fifty meters.

When she stopped, she did not rise immediately. Ludwig’s expression tightened, but then Celine planted her sword into the ground and used it to pull herself upright. The red glow behind her visor became brighter.

”That’s what worries me,” Ludwig said.

Tull glanced at him. ”What?”

”She should be tired enough to know she needs to slow down.”

Celine charged again, and Ludwig watched the increasingly reckless way she moved.

”Right now, she doesn’t care. Wrath is claiming too much.”