Deus Necros

Chapter 453: The Holy War Maiden

Mot did not share in the grim smile. His expression was sharper now, the usual mask of half-amusement gone, replaced with a furrow of irritation that cut across his childlike features. He shifted his staff in hand and let out a low breath that hissed through his teeth.

“This is going to be a problem…” he muttered, almost to himself. The words were not laced with fear, but with annoyance, as though the unfolding disaster were more troublesome than terrifying.

“A problem,” Ludwig answered, his own tone grim and unflinching. Oathcarver was raised in his grip, the weapon’s black edge catching the dim light of the battlefield. Around its blade the aura that had carried him through endless death struggles now trembled faintly, as though even the weapon itself sensed the weight of the foe before them. Ludwig’s voice was steady but low, measured. “I doubt we’ll live this one.”

“Ah, no, not that…it’s not about the werewolf…” Mot tilted his head, eyes narrowing as he studied the ground where Titania bled. The werewolf loomed just beyond her, restless and crackling with violent potential, but Mot’s gaze lingered on the fallen maiden, not the beast. His voice dropped further still, though somehow it carried, as if the battlefield itself conspired to make it heard. “He’s not the issue here. Let me ask you a question…”

Ludwig did not lower his guard. His body was still crouched forward, the tip of Oathcarver faintly quivering with readiness. But he gave the boy a sidelong glance, a flick of attention that carried the weight of trust in crisis. “Odd time for a question but sure, what is it?”

Mot snickered, “For someone about five hundred years old,” Mot said, his voice calm in its quiet strangeness, “especially a battle maiden who has fought longer than entire kingdoms have stood… why do they have not a single scar on their body?”

Ludwig’s eyes narrowed, a flicker of confusion threading through the iron of his focus. The question lodged in him. He replayed in memory the flashes of Titania’s form in battle, her strikes fluid, her flesh unmarred. And now, even as she lay broken on the ground, the skin revealed beneath torn armor showed nothing of old wounds, no trace of healed marks or half-forgotten injuries. Besides the massive claws that tore through her body, the rest of her skin was white and clean as porcelain. His breath caught, not with fear, but with the unsettling realization of what Mot was implying.

“I wouldn’t know,” Ludwig said at last, his voice quiet, more to himself than anyone else. “They should have at least one or two wounds… now that you mentioned it… she’s too…clean.”

“Exactly, and that’s not without reason,” Mot’s mouth pulled into the thinnest of lines. He tapped his staff once against the dirt. The sound was soft, almost inaudible, yet its echo carried unnaturally far. “We need to back off. She’ll go into her crazy mode. And I don’t have enough energy to deal with that, nor do you.”

He did not shout. Yet his words spilled into the ears of every adventurer present, as if his warning was carried on unseen currents of air. The voices that had been shouting encouragement a moment before faltered. Blades hesitated mid-swing. One by one, the fighters nearest the King and the werewolf began to retreat, their boots grinding across stone, confusion flickering in their eyes. They thought it was a call to withdraw entirely, and so they obeyed it as such.

The sound of armored footsteps pulling away filled the edges of the battlefield. The furious rhythm of clashing steel dwindled into silence, broken only by the groans of the wounded and the wet sound of Titania’s labored breaths.

The werewolf tilted its massive head, watching the retreat with visible amusement. Its grin stretched wider, splitting its snout until the teeth gleamed like rows of knives. “Don’t be too scared,” it said, almost playfully, though its voice was drenched in menace. “I promise, your death will be quite spectacular. But it is more fun when the prey runs away, I hate despairing prey that quivers in place awaiting death. Flee and run, only then will it be worth hunting you down, one after the other.”

Ludwig did not flinch. His weapon remained leveled, his stance rooted despite the oppressive weight pressing against the air. His chest ached with every shallow rise, his body worn from wounds upon wounds, but his eyes remained steady.

Mot’s reply cut through, calm and cool, his voice lowering again with a certainty that unsettled even the werewolf’s bravado. “I wouldn’t be too relaxed if I were you. She’s the Holy Maiden for a reason.”

Almost as if those words had been a trigger, the ground trembled beneath them. A vibration ran through stone and earth alike, subtle at first, then surging in intensity.

And then the light came.

It began as a faint shimmer at the edges of Titania’s broken body. A glow seeped from her skin, no longer masked by torn cloth or shattered armor. It brightened swiftly, burning away the gore that had drenched her, until she seemed to be carved from radiance itself.

The light expanded outward in a sudden, violent burst. A blinding flood of holy brilliance surged across the battlefield, brighter than torches, brighter than fire, brighter than the red moon above. It swept over broken stone and scorched earth alike, drowning all in searing white. The roar of it consumed the battlefield, not a sound but a pressure that rattled the skull and squeezed the breath from the lungs.

Ludwig’s eyes snapped wide as the brilliance was surging toward him. There was no time to prepare, no chance to shield himself. It came at him directly, a concentrated detonation of sanctity turned to wrath, and in its path, there was no shelter.

His teeth clenched. The taste of blood and dust was sharp on his tongue. One word left him, a hoarse growl through clenched jaw as the light bore down.

“Fuck…”