Deus Necros

Chapter 391: Again

Titania’s twig flared pale blue in her hand, not with the erratic flicker of flame but with the calm, unwavering light of a star long past anger. A thread of smoke rose from the bark’s split grain, coiling upward like incense at an altar.

Her expression did not shift. Eyes half-lidded, she regarded Ludwig as though measuring a single grain of sand before casting judgment on the whole desert. There was no heat in her stare only stillness. A stillness that unnerved in its simplicity, not born of grace or serenity, but of utter confidence. The certainty that what would come next had already happened in her mind a hundred times, and the outcome would not waver.

Ludwig crouched low, posture coiled with intent, fingers pressing deep into the damp forest floor. His gloves darkened with moisture, cold earth clinging to the leather like blood to a wound. The scent of churned roots, thick with petrichor and decay, filled his lungs with every steady breath he took. Leaves rustled overhead where birds had fallen silent, the entire clearing stilled in the shadow of a duel not yet begun. He didn’t blink. Couldn’t. Her presence forbade it. Every nerve stood alert beneath his skin, each fiber of his body caught between tension and purpose. She wasn’t acting anymore, not hiding behind traveler’s charm or dry banter. This wasn’t mockery. This wasn’t a test of good humor or companionship. This was a ritual. And he was the one being weighed.

The instant the words left him, “Limit Break”, they did not echo. They landed heavy, like stones cast into still water, each syllable rippling across the forest’s hush. The air tightened around him. His aura ignited, not in flash or color, but in pressure, in gravity, in a deep, soundless thrum that made Oathcarver shiver faintly in his grip. The greatsword’s surface hissed softly, vapor rising from its edge where mana pooled too fast to settle, as if remembering battle and thirsting for it again.

Then he moved.

The lunge was sudden, violent, but clean. No roar, no wasted flourish. Only the rustle of cloak snapping behind him like a banner caught in storm wind. His boots left shallow scars across the moss and loam as he closed the gap in a breath, weight compacted into a forward charge meant to cleave, not to threaten, not to impress, but to end.

The blade came down in a vicious arc, aimed directly for Titania’s core. No feint. No flourish. A blow meant to kill if left unchallenged.

Titania didn’t blink. She didn’t retreat. Her right arm shifted. The twig, still faintly steaming with residual aura, moved in an arc that could only be called… indifferent. A sideways motion, as if swatting a leaf from her shoulder. Her grip didn’t tighten. Her body didn’t tense.

The moment the two weapons met, there was no clash of steel. No crash of magic or burst of light.

Just stillness.

Oathcarver halted mid-swing as though it had struck the spine of the world itself. No give. No rebound. The sword simply stopped.

Then came the response.

Ludwig’s body was no longer his own. He was flung, not thrown, but displaced, swept sideways by a force he could neither see nor resist. His feet skated briefly across the ground before lifting, weightless, as if gravity itself had revoked its contract. The air yawned open to receive him, and the tree waiting behind did not offer forgiveness. His back hit bark with the sound of old wood splitting, the impact dull and deep enough to rattle the ache into his ribs.

[ -1 HP ]

He exhaled instinctively, though no air was required. Lungs that had not needed breath since he came to this world still responded to the shock. A ghost of pain threaded his spine, not real pain, but something adjacent. Phantom memory of a life once lived, of a body once breakable.

“I’m being toyed with…” he muttered under his breath, not as complaint, but as fact.

Titania’s voice reached him before her feet did. “Again” she ordered, tone lighter than the hit she’d just delivered, but devoid of cruelty. A hint of impatience curled at its edges. “I hope you’re not winded. That would be disappointing.”

She was already advancing, her step so smooth the moss beneath her feet scarcely stirred. The twig hummed faintly with the rhythm of her breath, the light along its tip pulsing like a second heartbeat. Ludwig pushed himself up without responding, one gloved hand braced against the dirt, the other gripping Oathcarver’s hilt. His stance was different now. Lower. Tighter. The bravado of the charge replaced by something colder. More aware. He’d learned something in that strike, something vital. Not about her, but about the gap.

Not in strength. Not even in speed. But in control.

And she had far more control than he could ever hope for with his inferior experience.

He moved again. Not blindly, not recklessly, but with a force that seemed to drag the very wind behind him. The ground cracked underfoot, shallow fissures in the soft loam marking the power of each stride. Oathcarver came down again, not as a slash this time, but a weighted judgment. His trajectory honed toward her shoulder, the kind of strike meant to disarm rather than kill. Clean. Direct. Intentional.

Titania’s response was not a parry. It was not even a block. It was a decision.

A subtle tilt of her head. A breath drawn in the space between seconds. Then a lean, barely perceptible, a shift of mass too minute to register until the swing had passed.

Missed.

Oathcarver caught nothing but mist and air.

And then the twig moved.

No magic flared. No gale screamed.

It tapped Oathcarver’s flat, not with might, but with timing. With truth. The kind of truth only centuries of combat could engrave into the wrist.

The strike touched Ludwig’s hand at the wrist, not enough to bruise, not enough to hurt. Just enough to remind him of where he stood.

And he flew.

His entire body lifted as if spun by invisible thread, flipping backwards in a wide arc. Bark scraped across his boots as he caught himself against a high limb, landing low on its bend with a grunt. Leaves trembled above him. The forest, quiet and waiting, bore witness in silence.

Ludwig’s chest rose and fell, not from breath, but from thought. Not pain, but calculation.

And down below, she waited.

“Again,” he said, breath even, eyes narrow.

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