"You an?" Ludwig asked, his question hung in the air for a second.
"The Pope died of a heart attack, his death was natural, induced by the knowledge of the death of the Wrathful Death, the very entity that you’re using its heart...which by the way you should stop right now."
The words shifted the air, more than any spell. The phrase "your using its heart" crawled under Ludwig’s skin like cold water. His chest tightened in the sa instant his pride prickled. Mot knew, and if he did... so would others.
"What do you a, cough!" Ludwig coughed, his hand slapped right in front of his face, as he coughed again. Warm viscous substance sprayed and leaked out from between his gloved hands.
Blood, thick and startlingly hot against the frigid air, flecked his palm and spattered the do’s inner sheen. A copper taste rushed the back of his tongue. The cough wrung him again, deeper, dragging heat from a furnace he had not consented to stoke.
Which shouldn’t be possible...he was an Undead.
"What is going, cough, going on?!"
His voice scraped raw, shock snatching the ends of words. In his palm, the red looked too bright, too alive, to belong to him. Not to his nature, the blood should have been black and rotten... but this is a the signature of life itself.
The sphere was transparent, so for the people outside who saw Ludwig cough out blood they thought Mot had done sothing.
Faces pressed closer beyond the purple film, eyes widening, hands tensing on hilts. Suspicion flared the way fire takes to dry grass. The do kept them out and let their anger in.
Joana was seething as she drew her weapon however her body was imdiately wrapped with tentacles, and not only her, but every single person present, ally or enemy.
Coils erupted again, precise and pitiless, pinning wrists and knees where they stood. Joana’s blade flashed half an inch; then the dark band sealed her elbow to her side. The paladins choked curses behind gagging wraps. Even the onlookers were neatly folded into silence and stillness.
Then suddenly, the crystal that was inside Kassandra’s pocket, which had been recording the whole situation shone bright, and from around Kassandra’s feet a magic circle manifested.
Light gathered fast, runes stacking like gears. Kassandra staggered a half-step, surprise flickering across her face even as the orb over her palm steadied. The circle’s glow painted the underside of the do with sharp, rotating sigils.
Celine Bastos appeared out of nowhere, with one of her eyes turning completely red, though unlike before, this redness seed feral true, wrathful true, but sowhat controlled. She arrived on a breath of displaced air, coat edges lifting the line of her mouth was a blade left sheathed through discipline alone.
"UNHAND HIM!" Celine howled.
The sound cracked like a banner in a gale and hamred the do from within. The tentacles around the crowd tightened instinctively, then held.
But Ludwig who kept coughing blood raised on hand as to stop everyone from acting, especially his allies.
His palm, still stained, lifted in a small, commanding gesture. The motion cost him a breath; he took it and tasted iron. The restraint in his eyes steadied Celine the way a hand steadies a horse’s bit.
"What’s going on?" Ludwig asked.
His question landed heavy, too calm for the blood on his glove, too level for the alarm in the room. He watched Mot and waited, trusting the answer to arrive faster than another cough.
"Stop your aura right now, the more you use of it, the more the Heart of Wrath will eat away at you."
The warning was clinical and absolute. Mot’s gaze had none of the softness of pity, only the certainty of diagnosis.
Ludwig cald down, and stopped the Aura use. For now.
The red glow around him thinned, then guttered, leaving only the after-image on skin and snow. The air eased; the do seed to breathe with them.
He straightened slowly, each vertebra feeling counted. His lungs burned in small rings where the cough had scraped them.
"The hell was that?" Ludwig asked.
"Your body, it cannot handle that Heart, you will die if you keep using it..."
The certainty in Mot’s tone flattened anger before it could rise. The words struck bone. Ludwig’s jaw worked; an old stubbornness had to be put down and leashed.
Ludwig frowned, though Mot didn’t know, perhaps, But Ludwig was an Undead, his body shouldn’t be easily destroyed. But then, the [Living Vessel] he received was different. It basically gave him a ’living Body’ instead of an Undead Body. and a Living Body can be affected by so harmful effects.
The thought crawled through him, unwelco and precise. The Living Vessel, blessing, curse, bargain, had changed the arithtic. This was not cold bone laughing at holy fire anymore; this was flesh, and flesh pays.
"And how do you know all that?" Ludwig asked.
"The forr Pope wanted this heart, that’s why he sent us to the Dawn Islands five years ago, to capture the queen of thorns, and further weaken the Wrathful Death, once he obtained his heart and transplanted it onto himself he’ll be able to obtain eternal life. But ironically he died of a Heart attack when you obtained the Heart of Wrath."
"Still doesn’t explain why I’m dying..."
"I’m getting to that. Basically, your Existence is too weak. The Heart of Wrath needs a body with a higher level of existence, you’re a human but you haven’t broken through your worldly limitations."
The phrase "level of existence" hung in the do like a suspended blade. Ludwig felt its edge along every scar he’d thought proof enough. Strength, it seed, was not the only asure that mattered.
Ludwig thought for a second, "Soone like Titania?"
"To an extent, yes, she also broke through her worldly limitations. That’s why she can survive the Divine Possession of the gods. However, you’re far too young and inexperienced, you’ll only die if you keep using the Heart how you’re doing. Though you should have actually died the mont you used it... but no, you’re still alive."
Mot’s head tilted, the smallest concession to curiosity. The anomaly of Ludwig’s survival flickered across his features like a passing shadow. Celine’s crimson eye narrowed, protective ire held in restraint by the dical bluntness of the explanation.
Ludwig thought for a second. "I see, I’ll need to refrain from using the Heart now I suppose, I guess thanks? But why are you helping ?" Ludwig asked.
"You’re not a bad kid. You helped out a lot back then, even stood against foes of the empire and the Order. That’s sothing I respect. Even though you were weak. You still had heart and courage."
The complint was not warm; it was exact. Mot’s gaze held nothing of indulgence. He nad what he had seen and nothing more.
Ludwig snorted.
The sound carried both self-mockery and old annoyance. Praise, when shaped like a record of failures, never lands soft.
"You find it amusing..."
"Of course, I was basically a liability, I couldn’t even harm the lich, and you took it down in a second."
"And I couldn’t even stop the Wrathful Death, and you killed it."
"Yeah, took five damn years..."
"Still the end goal was achieved..."
For a heartbeat the do contained a strange calm, two victories set side by side, both costly, both inadequate to everything else they had lost.
"Why are you telling all this?" Ludwig asked.
"You need to leave Solania, this place is forfeit..." Mot said.
"What do you an?"
"The Holy Order will have a new Pope, and everyone already can guess who it will be."
"Clentine..."
"Even you who hasn’t been to the political scene for the last half decade know. Yes, he grew incredibly strong, and he’ll soon take the front seat of the Holy Order. Once that happens, not many can know what changes will occure."
"And you know?"
"To so extent, yes. And what I do know is, he will co after you."
"The heart?"
"Yes, although the forr pope wanted it, Clentine isn’t such a fool to let sothing this enticing at the hands of another person. Not to ntion," Mot looked up at the mountains of Solania. "These lands will soon be overrun with monsters of the Dark Continent. Solania will be a warzone, and the Empire cannot fight on two fronts right now."
"I see, the War will allow the Order to move as they please disregarding the Emperor."
"Yes, you can already tell what would Clentine’s goal be after he finalize amassing power."
"A Holy Empire..."
"Yes..."
The word carried both promise and threat, depending on whose lips spoke it. Here, in Mot’s mouth, it sounded like a lock clicking shut.
"I’m quite surprised, you seem quite against the idea, despite being a Holy Saint and all..."
"I don’t fully serve the Order, I serve Azathoth an Outer God, I’m not greedy for power, I have too much of it that it’s sickening. But I cannot just watch as the whole Empire be ruled by an eternal Pope who dictates laws and orders as they see fit. This is enough for our talk I suppose... Even Azathoth finds it displeasing."
"I understand... I’ll need to leave this region as fast as possible."
"Yes, before it’s too late, though Titania isn’t here not that she’ll even care if clentine orders your capture, and might even defend you, there are still other hidden monsters of the Order almost as powerful if not as capable as Titania is."
"I see..." Ludwig looked at Celine who was desperately holding in her anger.
"We’ll depart imdiately then..."
"A wise choice...Godspeed Ludwig..."
Ludwig’s eyes imdiately widened.
Mot smiled, "You thought I didn’t know," he laughed as he waved his hand and the do disappeared.
The purple film unstitched in silence, light falling away in clean petals until the world returned, wind, voices, the scuff of boots, the cold biting properly at skin. The tentacles loosened and withered back into the cracks they had claid. Outside, the crowd took a single, collective breath. Above them, the iron lid of sky held, and the mountain listened without comnt. But deep down they all realized, things were about to change. And definitely not for the better.
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