"H-how! How did you do that?" the Lich’s words ca out from the lantern, strained and skeptical with a touch of disbelief in them.
The voice rattled the brass as if the syllables had weight. A fine mist fogged the inner glass for an instant, then cleared, leaving only the faint, sullen glow that nested in the corners like banked coals. The lantern felt heavier in Ludwig’s hand, as though the spirit inside had leaned his entire being against the walls.
Ludwig grinned, "You thought that I’d be unable to realize it didn’t you?" Ludwig laughed, "I an sure, not many would be able to replicate this spell, or most of the stuff that’s in the Codex. After all, no one knows the cost of the sacrifice or tribute needed, nor to which you should do said sacrifice to."
He let the laughter co easy, not loud, more the warm exhale of a puzzle finally sliding into place. The Codex lay open on his knee, its inked diagrams shivering faintly as if deciding what shape to hold for him. Salem’s tail tapped once against the margin; the cat’s golden eyes never blinked. Ludwig’s thumb trailed the edge of a page. The truth of it, equivalentexchange, sat steady behind his ribs like an extra heartbeat. The Lich’s disbelief tasted sweet, and he allowed himself that private satisfaction.
"Then how did you do it? The Umbral Rupture is a fifth tier magic spell, you need to sacrifice a human life to even begin the bargain with a dark entity to lend you the power needed for that spell!"
The pitch of the Lich’s voice rose and thinned. A faint keening seed to travel the tal, as though old pride objected to the arithtic being rewritten in front of it. The training chamber’s lamps humd; dust motes turned slow in the light and settled again on stone scored by a hundred tests.
"Well," Ludwig said, "Why would I ask a subpar being to give power when in can just give Necros the Soul and he’ll lend the equivalent power in exchange." Ludwig smiled.
He said it lightly, as though explaining a market trick to a dense apprentice. The na Necros made the air stir, a chill that wasn’t temperature, a hush that belonged to halls with altars. Ludwig’s smile did not show teeth now; it was the small curve of a man pleased with the neatness of his own mathematics.
"But Necros isn’t a dark being!" the Lich protested.
The protest knocked around in the brass and ca back to itself, diminished. Salem’s ear turned toward the sound and flattened, unimpressed.
"You’re right, he isn’t, but what he is, is the god of death, and frankly speaking, I’d rather bet on the deity than so random demon. At least Necros is fair in his trades." Ludwig laughed as he scrolled through the rest of the codex. There were many spells he could test and try, and thanks to having access to souls and the power from Necros, all that’s stopping him is his own imagination and ability from master the lifeti work of the forr Apostle of Necros.
His fingers moved across vellum with a gambler’s calm, pausing where notation tightened into sothing almost elegant. The laugh ca softer now, a low ripple as he marked a page with the edge of a nail. Fair trades, he had learned to love those words for how cold and clean they were. With souls owed and souls earned, the ledger balanced in a way that demons never allowed. The thought of application ran ahead of him: corridors of shadow opening, seams in stone, edges of reality catching at his touch. The lantern fell silent. Even its contempt seed to consider.
***
The doors to the room struggled as they opened. Its hinges complained and then resigned themselves. Van Dijk stepped into a room that looked as if a quiet siege had been waged within it. Cracks spidered out from impact points in pale fans; fine dust drifted each ti a ward flexed and held the ceiling in its invisible hands. The floor was a torn map, rifts, scorches, crescent gouges, each mark a footnote to an experint that had nearly gone too far. The odor of hot stone and spent spell-smoke lingered, sharp as struck flint.
Ludwig, on the other hand, was sitting with his back to the door, fully absorbed in what he was reading while a mass of dark energy was swirling around him.
He sat cross-legged amid the wreckage, posture loose but anchored, the Codex propped open against his thigh. Around him the air had a texture, as if it were water running in slow eddies, dark currents tugging at ash and scrap. Threads of shadow licked along his forearms and then withdrew, like cats testing a hand.
He muttered, "So you do it like this," as he pointed a finger forward. "Graviol, plus Tenebris..."
The words slid out under his breath but carried weight enough to notch in the ear. His finger described the smallest circle; intent gathered to that point like iron filings drawing to a lodestone. The nas paired cleanly in his mouth, gravity and night, principles braided into a new rope.
A small orb of pitch black wobbly looking magic shot out, built the way a hunger build. At first the orb’s edge shivered, fighting itself to exist, then steadied as dust curled toward it in thin threads. Pebbles clicked up and spun, then leapt inward and vanished without sound. The pull strengthened; chips tore from the floor, chalk lines skated, a loose tool slid a hand’s breadth and then was simply gone. A slab-corner groaned as it lifted against its own weight. The chamber’s wards humd a warning note, as if clearing their throat before an intervention.
The spell continued absorbing everything in its surrounding until even Van Dijk thought that it might go out of control and was about to jump in to stop his disciple from completely destroying the Black Tower.
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