Deus Necros

Chapter 472: Heart of Wrath

Another explosion erupted of darkness and fire, right where the first one that separated Ludwig and the Wrathful Death. The energy of it was all Ludwig needed for his weapon to dig even deeper into the chest of the incarnation of Wrath. Raw pure power surged out and the final number of damage ticked up signaling the Wrathful Death’s health pool has been fully consumed.

The Wrathful Death’s body lurched as though about to collapse. It staggered on ruined knees, its mace drooping low, and for a fragile instant Ludwig allowed himself the thought that it will finally fall and end these years of suffering and endless battle.

But instead, the titan raised one colossal hand to its own chest. With a screeching grind, black claws tore into armor and steel flesh alike, ripping itself open. The sound was obscene, metal rending against metal, like the mountains themselves crying out in agony.

From the cavity it wrenched something free. Not flesh, not blood. A heart, yes, but not a mortal heart. The thing pulsed with furious light, a crystalline core of ruby fire. It looked grown rather than forged, as though hatred itself had congealed into gemstone. Every beat throbbed with a resonance that rattled Ludwig’s skull. A heart of hatred.

Then it hurled it.

The motion was brutal and sudden. The crystal heart tore through the air with impossible speed, shrinking as it spun, collapsing inward like it had been alive, seeking its prey.

“Move!” the Knight King roared, but Ludwig was already diving sideways, boots skidding over snow. The heart curved after him, heedless of space or momentum. Its glow brightened as though delighted to have found him. It felt like a heat seeking missile that cannot be dodged or avoided.

He twisted, chains flaring, and still it struck. The core slammed into his chest with the force of a battering ram, small now, but impossibly heavy, impossibly hot.

[YOU HAVE SLAIN THE WRATHFUL DEATH!]

The notification burst across his vision, blinding white letters singing with victory.

[Eternal Quest Update!]

[Death Point has been saved.]

Relief, sharp and fierce, clawed through him. He had done it. After five years of endless slaughter, uncounted deaths, false starts, broken blades, and failure upon failure, the nightmare was ended. Finally he slew one of the Seven. Finally he was one step closer to going back home. Something that not even the other Apostles had managed a feat that hasn’t been done yet. Something that can finally raise Ludwig’s standing from the student who struggled, to the one who killed a divine.

He almost laughed.

“Huh?”

The word broke from his mouth in a strange, puzzled rasp. Because the heart did not vanish.

It melted.

The crystal core softened into liquid fire, sinking through his regalia, through his very sternum. It poured into him, a molten torrent of rage searing him from within.

The heart felt like a foreign parasite that was forcefully finding its way inside his chest, and no amount of clawing it out even stopped it from doing so. Ludwig was about to be consumed.

Ludwig screamed, except he did not. His mouth opened, his jaw locked, but no sound escaped. He was Undead. Pain was supposed to be muted, distant, an echo of sensation without true weight. But this was agony raw and pure, a sun collapsing into his chest, crushing every nerve and bone in his body with incandescent fury.

Red-black vines erupted across his skin, etching themselves into muscle and marrow. They wrapped tight, cracking bone with each spasm. His arms bent the wrong way, ribs snapped, his spine bowed until it felt he would fold in half.

“I’m going to die.” The thought slammed into him like a hammer. “Right after I killed it! This is not fucking fair! This will truly kill me!”

And he knew it was true. His Death Point had been saved after Wrath’s defeat. Which meant this pain, this impossible torment, would follow him again and again. He would resurrect only to burn, to break, to scream without sound, to suffer without end. Chapters first released on novel⦿fire.net

Necros had fucked it up this time him. Or worse, Necros had planned this. If he knew he’d end up suffering this pain, he would have thought of a different plan to avoid being struck with this heart.

Despair clawed at him. His vision darkened at the edges, his consciousness fragmenting under the crushing weight of Wrath’s heart fusing into his own hollow chest. Something that as an Undead he shouldn’t have felt.

Then the lantern rose.

It did not rise because he willed it. It lifted of its own accord, hovering before his face, its compass spinning wildly, more frantic than it had ever moved. For the first time in more than a dozen years, five for the world outside, the arrow pointed straight up.

The lantern cracked. From its seams poured silver light, cascading down in rivulets like mercury turned holy. Nephilium. Every drop of the liquid he had ever harvested from the fallen angel. For years it had burned his body whenever he tried to use it, unprocessed and wild. Now it streamed freely, unbidden, as if summoned by the will of something greater.

The tide of silver fell upon the searing heart inside him. Where Wrath burned, Nephilium cooled. Where red fury dug deeper, silver spread wider, wrapping, containing, suffocating and then it began spreading all over his body and through the circuit created by Van Dijk.

The clash tore the world open.

A column of light erupted from Ludwig’s chest, red and silver intertwined. It roared skyward, tearing clouds asunder, melting snow on distant peaks. The beam was so bright the mountains glowed as if day had dawned again, though the light was wrong, raw, oppressive.

The aura rolled outward like a heatwave, boiling snowmelt into steam, shaking boulders loose from their ancient perches. Every bird fled the sky. Every beast in its den shivered. And Ludwig was at the center of it, crucified between Wrath’s consuming rage and Nephilium’s cooling purity.

The vines writhed tighter. The silver liquid surged harder. He could feel his body caught between annihilation and salvation, torn in two directions at once.

And he could not tell which one would win.