Deus Necros

Chapter 613: Villain

“I am not to be trifled with!” she roared as her body reconstructed to a functional status.

The declaration echoed across the ravaged ground, but the force behind it rang hollow. Flesh dragged itself back together in uneven layers, muscle knitting with a wet, nauseating sound that carried far too clearly through the still air.

Bone snapped into place not with grace, but with urgency, as if whatever power was forcing the reconstruction was afraid it might run out of time. Her posture wavered as she straightened, shoulders twitching, knees locking a heartbeat too late. She stood, yes, but only just. The smell of scorched blood, of burning aura turned viscous, clung to her like a second skin.

“But you are,” Ludwig replied, his voice carrying easily through the ruin, unhurried and almost conversational. “Without the invincible shell of your sister. What are you but gossamer flesh and brittle bones?”

He stomped closer as he spoke, boots crunching against broken stone and churned earth, each step deliberate enough to feel like punctuation. He did not rush. There was no need. His gaze never left her, tracking every twitch of muscle, every falter in balance. He catalogued weaknesses the way a scholar might annotate margins, clinical and mildly amused.

As he advanced, he felt it slipping.

The aura clinging to him, the oppressive heat and pressure borrowed from the Heart of Wrath now lodged inside her, was thinning. The sensation dulled at the edges, no longer screaming through his nerves the way it had moments ago.

As an Undead, he had no emotions to burn for Aura It simply slid away, unable to anchor itself. When he had worn a [Living Vessel], it had been different. Back then, the emotion had weight, presence, sustainability. It had Wrath in it… Now it was borrowed flame on cold stone.

Minutes, perhaps less.

He noted it without panic. It simply meant efficiency mattered.

Compared to Wrath itself, she was crude. Emotional to the point of instability. Too young, too reactive, too desperate to prove dominance over a force that did not care about her pride. Wrath had always been enraged, yes, but it was a practiced madness, honed over time into something brutally effective. Envy, by contrast, was unraveling while still trying to fight, losing ground inside her own mind with every passing second.

“Sir, get behind me,” Tull said, stepping forward with practiced ease.

His voice was steady, but his eyes flicked briefly toward the prince, and in that glance Ludwig saw it too. The faint tremor in the air around him was gone. The static charge that had clung to his presence had bled away entirely. The prince hovered lower now, shoulders slumped, breath shallow. He had emptied himself completely with that last spell.

Tull noticed. The realization struck him harder than the battlefield had any right to. Even Shadow Tull, forged for one singular purpose, had not known his highness was capable of wielding such magic. When had he learned it? From whom? The questions rose unbidden and were crushed just as quickly. There was something more important than learning the prince’s secret.

This was not the time.

They had not won. They had hurt her, badly, reduced her to something unstable and cornered. Ludwig more than anyone had carved her down to this point. But she still stood, and standing meant danger.

“COME TO ME!” Envy howled again.

The command rang out sharp and desperate, vibrating with authority that no longer existed. The air answered with silence. No surge, no answering pull, no tremor of obedience. Her eyes widened just a fraction before she masked it, but Ludwig saw it.

She was not calling the mace this time.

“It’s slipping,” Ludwig said quietly as he continued forward, tone almost reflective. “Bit by bit. Slowly. It’s slipping.”

Panic bloomed openly now. Her gaze darted, unfocused, the way prey looks when it realizes the forest has gone silent. Wrath was too much. It was not bending. It was consuming. And her own identity was being replaced. No obliterated.

“Not even the demons under you are listening now,” Ludwig added, following her glance as she looked back over her shoulder.

Nothing stirred. No reinforcements clawed free of the ground. No corrupted will answered her call. The battlefield was empty except for enemies who were no longer hers. This was not supposed to happen, this was too sudden, too unexpected. Yes Wrath lost to this body, but Wrath was mad, she wasn’t. This frightening undead was too vicious. Too malevolent… Too villainous. The thought wasn’t even funny for she was the epitome of evil incarnated into a loathsome sin.

Her legs twitched.

It was subtle, almost imperceptible, but Ludwig recognized it instantly. The instinct to flee. The primal understanding that staying meant annihilation. It was, objectively, the correct decision. Run. Retreat. Regain control. Subdue Wrath before it finished devouring her identity.

In her place, Ludwig would have done exactly that.

Which was precisely why he would not allow it.

“Now,” Ludwig said.

The Knight King moved the instant the word left Ludwig’s mouth.

The ground cracked beneath his step as he appeared behind Envy, presence slamming into place like the closing of a gate. His shadow swallowed hers before she could fully turn.

“BEGONE!” she screamed, swinging wildly.

Her fist came down with immense force, but desperation robbed it of precision. The massive, gate sized tower shield snapped up in time. Her strike skidded across its scarred surface, flesh and bone scraping against the rough metal with a sound like tearing leather. Sparks jumped where aura met steel.

The Knight King was already moving.

His sword rose and fell in a wide, practiced arc, the kind of strike meant to end wars rather than duels. Envy barely managed to get her other hand up. It stopped nothing. The blade split between her index and middle fingers, tearing through palm and bone alike. The cut continued up her arm, ripping through sinew until it struck the dense bone near her elbow and halted with a jarring impact.

Before pain could register, the Knight King raised his shield and slammed it down.

The force shattered the ground beneath them, shockwaves rippling outward. Envy reacted with ruthless clarity. She severed her own arm without hesitation and hurled herself backward, escaping the crushing blow by a hair’s breadth as debris exploded upward.

She landed hard.

And then the reckoning came.

Ludwig’s hammer descended.

It came down like judgment itself, carried by undead strength unburdened by fatigue or hesitation. The impact was catastrophic. Massive damage numbers erupted above Envy as her scream tore free, raw and unfiltered, echoing across the battlefield. Ludwig did not pause. He followed through, driving the momentum home, denying her even the smallest sliver of reprieve.

Blood-like vines spread rapidly across her body, writhing beneath her skin, pulsing with thick crimson aura. Wrath was asserting itself violently now, no longer content to linger beneath the surface. With every blow, every spike of pain, Envy felt herself slipping. Thoughts blurred. Memory fractured. Identity thinned like stretched parchment.

“How unfortunate,” Ludwig said coolly, stepping closer. “For Envy to die so fast and so easy.”

He tilted his head, mockingly contemplative.

“Maybe it is true. Maybe you really are the weakest Usurper.”

The words cut deeper than any blade.

“Do you not think I understand what you’re doing!” she spat, forcing herself upright despite the tremor running through her frame.

“What do you think I’m doing?” Ludwig asked, genuinely curious, head tilted.

“Riling me up,” she snarled. “So that Wrath takes over!”

“Ah,” Ludwig replied lightly. “Caught me, I suppose.” A faint smile tugged at his lips. “Though I wasn’t trying to hide it.”

He stepped closer, voice dropping.

“And even so, I’m succeeding. You’re weak. Brittle. Unable to properly use [Living Vessel]. You lost everything that made you invincible.” His gaze bored into hers. “And you can’t even envy me right now. Isn’t that right?”

“The disparity in our strength,” she hissed. “How ENVIOUS!”

[The Envious Death has envied your strength… Resisted]

“Ah,” Ludwig said, almost pleased. “Seems like that failed too.”

He shrugged.

“You’re not fully Envy now. You can’t even do that. It’s too much for the current you to envy my power. You are weak.” The words sounded like a hammer on an anvil. Painful, but true.

She hissed, realization dawning with terrifying clarity. Wrath’s voice bled into her thoughts, drowning them out, replacing her own with something crude and violent.

“MURDER! KILL! DESTROY! NOO!”

The words tore from her mouth in fractured screams.

Ludwig recognized them instantly. They were the same words the Heart had whispered to him when he first claimed it. Back then, they had meant nothing. Now, they meant everything.

“Soon,” Ludwig said softly, almost kindly, “all I have to do is keep you here. Once Wrath fully takes over, Envy will be no more.”

He smiled.

“And that will be the end of one of the Usurpers. What a laughingstock you’ll be. The others will laugh at how weak and foolish you were.” The smile on his mouth was one where nightmares were born.

The taunts struck deep, carving into what remained of her sense of self.

“Never!” she screamed. “Not like this!”

Wrath surged violently. Most of her body glowed red now, veins and vines pumping thick, viscous aura into her failing frame. Fluid seeped from her eye sockets, heavy and dark. Not blood. Wrath itself, condensed and suffocating. Turning aura to what looked like viscous blood.

She clawed at her face with trembling hands and peered through her fingers at the nearest figure.

“I ENVY YOUR HEALTH AND BODY!”

“NO!” Ludwig shouted, lunging forward. He tried to ’intercept the envy,’ so that it wouldn’t harm anyone else.

Too late.

Tull collapsed instantly, hitting the ground hard, breath tearing from his lungs as his body visibly withered. Skin tightened. Muscle shrank. Across from him, Envy’s form surged, wounds sealing, strength flooding back.

Envy gave up her current form for something that was alive. At least this way she would have hope. Hope to escape, Hope to fight another time. Hope to have her revenge.

[You have Regained {Living Vessel}]

Ludwig’s smile was impossible to hide.

“You fool,” he said calmly. “You actually fell for that.”

Realization struck Envy a fraction of a second too late.

“Now tell me… How does it feel? That fleeting hope of yours?” The words dripped with both sarcasm and venom as the truth behind what happened finally began registering into her mind.

She fucked up. Big time.

The Knight King’s sword came down in a wide, merciless arc.

Only then did Envy’s head realize what had happened.

She had traded invincibility for growth. Traded growth for a human body. Only to lose it again before sanity could return.

[You have Slain a Usurper.]

[Your Death Point has been saved…]