Ludwig's weapon quivered as it rose over his shoulder. Oathcarver glead in the bloody hue of the moonlight, its curved edge soaked in the dim reflection of marrow-white sand. In his left hand, Durandal had taken its compact scythe form again, flickering like the final breath of a torch before extinguishnt. Both weapons pulsed faintly with power. Not just mana, not just wrath, but purpose.
The cocoon before him shifted, a tremble that was almost subtle, almost imperceptible, but not quite. It seed to breathe in defiance, as if to whisper through every vein and seam that he could try, could dare, but it would not break. Its surface shimred faintly with the mbrane of sothing not quite flesh, not quite wood. Sothing ancient, clinging to life like a second skin.
But Ludwig had changed. Not just in strength. In conviction.
"You see," he began, stepping forward slowly, boots crunching over powdered bone and glassy resin. The ground responded to each movent with a gritty hush, as if even the earth feared to echo him now. "If you still had the ability to fight back…"
His voice dropped slightly, more a murmur than a taunt. His fingers tightened around the hilt of Oathcarver.
"[Galvanize]."
The spell released with no chant, no flourish, just pure activation. Blue energy enveloped him, racing down his arms and across his back like oil igniting on still water. His muscles swelled with condensed mana, bones creaked with forced expansion, tendons pulled taut with divine focus. He felt every inch of his undead body snap into sharper form, as if forged anew in a crucible of purpose.
"If you could still attack . Still hamper . Still slow ."
He lifted his left hand, veins glowing like coiled serpents beneath his skin.
"[Vengeance]."
The red hue ca roaring out. It didn't swirl, it surged, like a scream let loose in color. Wrath bled through him, not uncontrolled, but welcod. It coiled up around his ribs, his spine, his collar, as if kissing every scar with purpose. He could feel it grip his thoughts, fuel his will, temper his blade.
"And if you could've even, just once, not been a sitting duck."
He stepped even closer now. The cocoon lood over him like a cathedral grown from bark and birth fluid. Each breath he took ca with the taste of sap and char. He paused only long enough to raise his hand again.
"[Limit Break. Triple Stack]."
Three dark pulses ripped out of him like aftershocks, black and heavy and vast. They echoed not in sound, but in pressure. The air bent slightly. Dust flared around his boots. The power surged into his joints, his muscles, his gaze.
"Maybe," he said at last, with sothing cold and thin riding just beneath his tone, "just maybe, you could've stalled . Maybe even won."
He now stood just inches from the cocoon. From the womb. From the cradle of horror. His grip on Oathcarver shifted.
"But now…"
He lifted the blade high, its edge catching the last breath of moonlight.
"You're nothing but at on the chopping block."
His voice was a blade now. The words ca with the weight of verdict, not violence.
"REND!"
Oathcarver struck downward, and the sound it made was not steel-on-flesh. It was more brittle. Like chalk cracking beneath a hamr. Like bone drying too long under sun and finally giving in. The blade didn't slice, didn't cut, it shattered. It crashed through the upper shell of the cocoon as though it were layered in ancient dust and false armor.
And yet, even then, it resisted.
Beneath the broken outer layer was another. A softer mbrane. Thicker. Pulsing. Alive. And even as Oathcarver passed through, the edges began to stitch themselves. Like scabbed tissue drawn together by instinct.
But Ludwig had not co with one blade alone.
He roared as he raised Durandal with his other arm. It shimred with ghostlight, the edges trailing phantom mist. With precision honed through fury, he brought it down into the rupture created by Oathcarver. The scythe tore into the next layer, slicing through what looked like tendons made from tree-sinew and coiled bloodvines. The tendrils recoiled, screaming with no mouths.
The opening widened.
And inside it, her.
Celine.
Barely conscious. Her body drenched in sothing between afterbirth and rot. Her form looked different. Smoother. Stronger. Her skin bore a sheen that no longer mirrored decay, but sothing far more alien. Not healed. Not corrupted. Transford.
Ludwig hissed through his teeth. He forced Oathcarver down further into the gash and wedged it deep, holding the cocoon wide like the jaws of a beast forcibly opened.
"This is what we call a C-section," he growled, the words seething with venom and exhaustion.
He reached in, ignoring the grasping tendrils that snapped at his forearms. One curled around his wrist. Another lanced toward his face. He didn't stop. He grabbed Celine's arm, slippery with fluid and twitching with latent magic, and pulled.
He pulled like he was tearing a nail from flesh.
He pulled like the child of a god was resisting him with every fiber of the womb.
The cocoon shuddered, shrieked, scread. A sound like nothing organic. Like an entire cathedral cracking apart in slow-motion. But it was too late. Ludwig had her. She slid from the Queen's hollow like a stolen ember from the hearth.
He fell backward with her weight, cradling her close. Her hair clung to his neck, wet and warm. Her breath was shallow. Her body limp. But she was out.
The tendrils recoiled as if burned.
Ludwig set her down carefully, reverently, to one side.
And then, he turned.
Oathcarver was already back in his grip. His stance widened.
He prepared to end it.
But before he could, sothing flashed in the corner of his vision.
A notification.
He blinked.
[You have successfully slain the Thorn-Wombed Queen.]
"What?"
The word ca like a crack in a frozen lake.
He stared at the notification.
Then at the body in front of him.
The Queen's form now hollow, cracked open like an overripe fruit, still slumped before him. It hadn't disappeared. Hadn't turned to mist. But the ssage had co. She was dead.
And the rewards followed.
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