Ludwig's focus was absolute. The rhythm of his blades was no longer asured. He wasn't counting strokes. He wasn't reserving stamina not that he would ever need to. He hacked as if the Queen's flesh was the only thing keeping his own body upright. Every movent was a decision made a thousand tis in the span of a heartbeat.
Celine was at the other end of the queen's body, and he'll make sure to reach there even if he were to break his own arms doing so.
Durandal split deeper into the muscle of her back, now hot and sticky with what passed for blood, while Oathcarver ripped ragged grooves through root and vein, pulling them apart in curling strips like at cleaved from bone. Bark split. Fibrous flesh tore. Her body heaved with each strike, but never managed to rise in defense.
"Stop… ruining… other… people's… lives!" Ludwig's voice cracked with each word, not with grief or pity, but the echo of fury sharpened over countless loops. The howl of his final blow rang through the cavern like a bell struck too hard, followed by the wet, sickening noise of tissue collapsing inward.
He did not rember how many tis he had struck her by then.
He only noticed when she stopped fighting.
Her limbs, what remained of them, did not move. Her roots ceased their twitching, and her bulk slumped with the resignation of sothing that had finally emptied the last of its will. But she did not die in the way most living things would. Instead, the mass of her body sagged backward and began to change. The bark that made up her outer shell hardened, darkening into brittle gray. Her wounds did not bleed. They crusted. Her massive form began to disintegrate, not rapidly, but like leaves curling under desert sun, cracking, shrinking, curling inward around the center.
It was then Ludwig realized what she was doing.
She wasn't collapsing in defeat. She was folding herself inward, wrapping the last shreds of her body around the thing she had so desperately tried to birth. Roots curled and clasped around the cocoon in the heart of her torso, not to eject it, but to shield it. Her form beca scaffolding, her insides transford into armor. The face she had once worn, twisted, feminine, hideous, took shape again in root and mold across the front of the encased sac. It stared outward, unmoving, like a sculpture half-buried in rot. And it smiled.
The grin was a mockery. Not of triumph, but of sacrifice. A declaration. She had not failed. She had succeeded enough to matter.
Ludwig dropped from her spine, landing with a heavy thud before the now still mound. Dust and loose ash rose in a soft ring around his boots, disturbed by his motion, then settled again just as gently. His breath, if it could still be called that, ca slow and soundless. He did not speak. Not yet.
A flicker of light crossed his vision.
The air shimred faintly as the notification blood before his eyes in a quiet ripple of pale blue and soft white. Its presence was surreal amidst the carnage. Clean, orderly, inhuman. A reminder of the systems at play behind the blood. He blinked, eyes narrowing, then read.
His gaze shifted downward to the now-defenseless cocoon. It rested at the center of the Queen's remains like a pearl inside a cracked shell. The sac glistened, too smooth to be bark, too veined to be flesh. It pulsed softly with an inner heat, steady and content, like sothing dreaming.
Ludwig stared long, and his voice ca with the drag of ntal weariness behind it, low and sharp-edged. "You see… I thought I wasn't going to win this," he said, his tone a whisper more than a claim. "I might have to kill myself a few more tis to find a better loop…" He paused, then exhaled, though there was no steam in the air. "But thanks to you being so defensive in protecting your womb… you gave what I needed the most…"
He looked again at the screen, this ti without blinking. "It's alright now, right? Knight King?" he asked, not as a question to a companion, but as one speaks to a truth they've been waiting for far too long to hear.
"Indeed," the voice of the Knight King replied, distant yet imdiate, carrying with it the authority of ancient stone.
A soundless chi rang through Ludwig's vision.
[Necros's Pact Quest has been fulfilled]
The ssage settled over his awareness like velvet. For a heartbeat, nothing moved. No roots twitched. No breath stirred. And then more followed, the cascade of system events spilling into being, one after the other in solemn procession.
You have achieved [Interdiate Tyrant Blade Technique.]
You have unlocked new Skills from the Tyrant Blade Technique:
[Spinning Slash]
[Thrusting Force]
You have unlocked a new Tyrant Blade Passive!
[Mark of the Tyrant]
The ban on your soul level upgrade has been removed!
You're now able to level up your stats!
You have earned a new title: Pledge Keeper. 20 charisma.
Ludwig did not flinch as the new power swept through him. It rose up from beneath his skin like heat from a kiln, reforming what could not be seen. His hands tingled. His back burned. But it was a welco pain. A pain that confird change.
He lifted his gaze, still watching the unmoving egg.
He didn't need to ask the next question aloud.
"Use all brave souls," he said, and the words tasted like tal.
[You have used 7 Brave Souls]
-5 from sacrificing the first Wrath Core to Necros
-2 from killing the sired Wolf
[You have obtained 70,000 souls!]
"Bump every stat by 100…"
[64,980 souls have been used!]
[Error! Error! You have exceeded Soul Level 100 without the prerequisite Quest!]
[Necros Blessing is interfering!]
[Adjusting…]
[You are temporarily allowed to bypass Soul Level 100 and keep your stats for the next 5 minutes! After that you will have to clear an Existence Quest so you can go beyond level 100!]
"Well, this is a good surprise,"
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