The sensation of cold stone beneath his feet was his only anchor to remind him of where he stood, once again, face-to-face with the End
Before him lood an entity with galaxies for eyes, seated upon a throne of bones and skulls and adorned with a crown of ivory that spoke not of wealth but of sheer monarchy.
Its appearance was unchanged, as it always was. Colossal and all-encompassing, skeletal yet only vaguely humanoid, its form was draped in the remnants of countless souls, pitch black, writhing faintly, clinging like shadows that refused to fade. This was not an avatar or projection. This was inevitability given shape. The reaper of those who sought what should never be sought. For every man must taste death. And this was the one who ensured it.
The throne beneath Necros was studded with skulls beyond counting, trophies of innurable endings. Behind it flowed an intricate lattice of shimring, liquid-blue streams, rivers of spectral energy that never ceased. Within them drifted skull-shaped souls of every species imaginable, an endless procession with no beginning and no end.
Between Ludwig and Necros hovered two souls that stood apart from the rest.
One burned red as blood itself.
The other shimred purple, deeper than color had any right to be.
They twisted and shuddered, struggling against ethereal chains of ash and charcoal that bound them tightly, grinding softly as they resisted.
For the first ti, Necros himself moved, with both hands, he grabbed each of these souls. His bony hands, which ended in claws instead of fingertips, pierced right through the souls and turned them from nonphysical to physical. From souls, to what looked like Skulls.
He then simply placed both skulls on both handrests of his throne. Adding to what looked like a massive number of adornnts. A speck in the dust, a droplet in the sea. More skulls for the skull throne.
"You look more impressive than before... nice new eyes you got..." Ludwig couldn’t help but try and break the ice that way.
As if humor itself dared exist here, Death replied, "It is but you who have grown. For I am much more than what you see. And I am only what you can perceive."
Ludwig swallowed hard. The voice did not travel through the ears. It resonated through being. Each word felt less like speech and more like a law etched into existence.
"I’d like to know the reason for this... kind invitation. I don’t think I did anything to warrant being here right now. I haven’t finished my mission." Ludwig couldn’t help but wonder why he was once again invited.
"It is due to that that you have been invited, young one. You’re doing your mission at an incredibly rapid pace... far too fast for your own good..."
Ludwig frowned. Wasn’t it Necros who had forced the issue? Locked retreat. Sealed the field. Demanded Envy’s death imdiately?
Necros smiled.
"I can hear the gears in your tiny brain moving," it leaned forward, until Ludwig was staring directly into galaxies.
"It is your own strength that moves you, not my will. Had you chose not to go to the kingdom of the sand, I wouldn’t have forced your hands. Regardless, you’ve had good luck against these two..."
Wrath and Envy.
"But the rest are far more powerful than what you can handle."
"So... am I understanding things correctly? You want to take it easy and rest?"
"You rest only when you’re next to . Only when you are dead."
"Been trying to avoid that situation in case you haven’t been watching..." Ludwig replied.
"As you should and only when you are my apostle, but I invited you to talk about sothing else... that darkness in your heart, that uncertainty that’s been clouding your judgent..."
"Ah... I guess you would know."
"I always know..."
"So, what about it?"
"I’m not here to bend your will, nor am I here to force your hand. If what the treacherous council speaks of resounds with you, and if you feel that I am acting upon an agenda of my own, to use, confuse, and abuse you, then you have been given free will to refuse and recluse yourself from .""
"That would be quite unfair, wouldn’t it..."
"How co?" Necros asked.
"I wouldn’t have been able to do any of this without you to be honest," Ludwig replied a bit awkwardly at it too as he scratched the back of his head from embarrassnt.
The gesture felt absurdly human in a place that rejected such things. His fingers scraped lightly against his scalp, an old habit surfacing without permission, as if his body rembered how to act when words failed him. Standing before sothing that had witnessed the extinction of eras, Ludwig suddenly felt acutely aware of his own smallness, not in fear, but in honesty. This wasn’t reverence. It was acknowledgent.
"Not gonna lie, I’d be seven feet under if you didn’t give this quest.
The words left him plainly, without bravado. No attempt to polish them. He wasn’t bargaining, wasn’t flattering. He was stating a simple fact, one that had been carved into him through blood, death, and repeated proximity to the end.
"I don’t fully understand why these forr apostles want to stop , or why they didn’t simply continue their quest.
As he spoke, his gaze drifted, not away from Necros, but toward the throne itself. Toward the skulls. Toward the quiet testimony of failure and defiance layered one atop another.
"You’ve given them power and purpose and free will.
The phrase free will lingered heavier than the rest. In this place, it carried weight. Choice was rare here. Choice was dangerous.
"They still chose to betray you for their own good.
There was no accusation in his voice. Just confusion. Genuine, unguarded confusion.
"I don’t know man..." Ludwig said, the words trailing off slightly, his tone losing its edge. "It just doesn’t feel right, so far I haven’t seen you doing any disfavors."
Silence followed.
Not the absence of sound, but the presence of it. The kind that pressed inward, that made the concept of waiting feel deliberate. Necros did not respond. Did not shift. Did not loom closer or retreat. The vast form simply returned to its position, as if the conversation had never required motion in the first place.
The stillness felt like judgnt withheld.
"Not to ntion," Ludwig said after a mont, breaking the quiet himself, his eyes lifting once more to the throne, "You’ve been here for a very long ti..."
His voice was softer now, edged with sothing approaching awe, not worship, but recognition. The kind given to mountains or oceans. Things that simply are.
"The longest..." Necros replied.
The words did not echo. They settled. They did not boast. They did not need to.
"Yeah, I can see that," Ludwig said, nodding faintly as his gaze traced the shape of the throne again, lingering on its construction, on its history made manifest.
"I can see your throne; it ans that many opposed you before..."
The skulls seed to watch him back, empty sockets turned inward forever, frozen in the mont where opposition had ended.
"Far too many for a re mortal mind to comprehend or count."
Ludwig exhaled slowly through his nose.
"And I can see how they’re all adorning your throne..."
He didn’t sound horrified. He sounded... pragmatic. Observant. Like a man taking stock of a battlefield long after the fighting had stopped.
"But re trinkets of a ti that had gone by..."
The dismissal was absolute. Those who had defied Necros were not rembered as enemies. They were not rembered at all.
"And I’m a man who understands strength," Ludwig continued, rolling his shoulders slightly as if grounding himself, "I ain’t saying I’m a coward, but at the sa ti I’m not stupid enough to oppose soone who literally represents death."
The statent wasn’t defensive. It was final. A line drawn not in fear, but in reason.
"I am not its representation," Necros replied.
"I am... and simply Is...Death."
The space between the words mattered. Is. Not claims to be. Not embodies. Is.
"That’s fucking cool..."
The words escaped Ludwig before he could stop them, raw and unfiltered, reflexive rather than considered. His eyes widened instantly as the realization of where he was, and who he was speaking to, caught up with his mouth. He slapped both hands over his face, palms pressing hard against his cheeks.
Necros’s entire facial structure changed.
Bone shifted. Jaws twisted, not into a snarl, not into a threat, but into sothing that resembled amusent. Not human. Not kind. But unmistakably... a smirk.
"It is fucking cool is it not?"
The agreent landed heavier than any denial could have.
And imdiately Ludwig’s vision twisted back, the throne, the skulls, the rivers of souls collapsing inward as reality snapped around him. The pressure vanished all at once, and he found himself back among his peers, breath catching just slightly as the mortal world reclaid him.
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