"If you’re perfect," Ludwig said, "why am I still here?"
The question was simple. Almost stupidly simple.
That was what made it effective. Complex argunts gave Pride space to stand above them. Simple questions left less room to hide. Ludwig watched Pride carefully. Not his hands. Not his stance. His face.
And there it was. A frown. Small. Barely visible. A tightening around the eyes so minor that another person might have dismissed it as imagined. Ludwig nearly laughed out loud, but he held it in, savoring the discovery instead.
That should not exist.
A frown implied dissatisfaction.
Dissatisfaction implied sothing had failed to align with expectation.
Expectation implied model.
Model implied thought.
And thought ant Pride was no longer simply existing as so untouchable absolute.
He was processing. A crack, tiny but real, had ford where perfection claid there could be none. Ludwig felt heat surge through his chest as excitent overpowered pain. His shoulder still throbbed. His blood still ran hot beneath the armor. His body still carried the accumulated cost of staying alive in this exchange. None of that mattered nearly as much as the faint tightening around Pride’s eyes.
He stepped closer. "Aloof. Untouchable. Above all creation," Ludwig said, voice low and amused. "That’s the whole thing, right?"
No response.
"You stand here naked because armor would imply vulnerability. You refuse inspection because being understood would imply equivalence. You call yourself complete because admitting otherwise would an there’s sowhere left to go."
Still nothing. Pride’s silence had beco dense now, not empty.
Ludwig could almost feel the thought working behind it, the pressure of sothing trying to reject the premise without giving the premise the dignity of response.
Ludwig pointed Nightbreaker at him.
"But if that’s all true, then why are we still doing this?"
Pride’s golden eyes narrowed slightly. Another tiny shift. Another confirmation. Ludwig held onto it like a knife. The golden being did not move, did not speak, but the mask had twitched again. That was enough.
"Every challenger before probably died the mont they walked in," Ludwig continued. "One command. Maybe less." Ludwig said, waiting for Pride’s Reply.
"I require nothing from the unworthy," Pride spoke as if all things were beneath his notice and concern.
"Exactly."
Ludwig barked out a laugh. It scraped through the helm, rough and tallic, bouncing across the hall with the kind of ugly satisfaction that did not belong in a palace made to worship itself.
"That’s the problem," Ludwig said, pausing.
He spread his arms slightly, Nightbreaker balanced in one hand and Noctivex flexing across his repaired shoulder.
"I’m still here."
His grin widened further.
"I walked in unfinished."
He tapped his own chest, the sound dull against the black plates.
"I’m still standing!" He roared out.
"And now?"
Ludwig lifted Nightbreaker free from the marble. The weapon rose with a deep scrape, pulling stone dust with it, and Wrath crackled visibly around the weapon. Red threads of force crawled across its surface, gathering along the edges like embers fed by breath.
"Now I know more than I did when this started."
Wrath crackled visibly around the weapon.
"I’ve adapted. I’ve learned that while you remain stagnant, how long do you think it will take before I end you? Not much I can assure you that! Eventually, I’ll surpass you."
The words made sothing flash behind Pride’s eyes. Fast. Violent. Gone. It was not enough to na. Not enough to call fear or anger or disgust with certainty. But it was there, and Ludwig saw it anyway. That was enough.
"Perish."
Pride moved. The word itself felt like law. Pressure slamd into Ludwig from all directions at once, and this ti there was no slow buildup, no ceremonial warning.
It ca down as an imdiate correction, crushing against the armor, forcing the plates of Noctivex to scream against one another. Weapons hanging overhead ca alive again, descending in murderous synchrony. Ludwig ducked beneath one blade, side-stepped another, summoned Black Mirror beneath a falling spear barrage, and redirected a cluster of weapons behind Pride.
The blades stopped inches from his body. Rejected. Of course. Ludwig clicked his tongue and surged forward anyway. The rejection was annoying, but not surprising. If sothing happened exactly as expected, it could at least be filed away and ignored for now.
Bone spears erupted from the marble beneath Pride. Shattered against his skin uselessly.
Binding chains followed. They snapped when they ca in contact and turned to cinder.
Exhaustion curses. All futile, dissipated on first contact.
Gravity distortions with Graviol. inconsequential.
Every spell Ludwig had left was thrown forward in rapid sequence, less as serious kill attempts and more as stress tests. Each one left his body feeling thinner, his mind sharper and more strained, but he kept firing them off.
Pride denied all of it. Not effortlessly. Automatically. Like the world itself was embarrassed, these things had been attempted and corrected them out of existence before they could beco aningful.
Ludwig reached him anyway. Nightbreaker ca down in a brutal arc aid directly at Pride’s temple. The swing had more timing than hope behind it, more stubbornness than expectation. Ludwig knew Pride would answer. He wanted to see how. The impact never landed properly. Pride caught the weapon.
The returning force shattered Ludwig’s shoulder instantly. Bone ruptured. Blood sprayed. Nightbreaker slipped from his grasp. The pain was enormous, bright enough to wipe thought from his mind for half a breath. Noctivex tried to reinforce the injury, but the force had already torn through the joint, through the tal supports, through every clever little repair Ludwig had forced into himself. Before Ludwig could react, Pride’s hand shot forward and closed around his neck.
There was no flourish. No anger. Just efficient correction. A twist. Darkness.
[You Died.]
Cold air filled Ludwig’s lungs. His eyes snapped open at the staircase outside the palace gates.
For a mont he remained seated, staring upward while his body recalibrated around renewed life. The transition always felt wrong, like being yanked backward through a needle and dumped into a body that had not yet received the ssage that it was alive.
His neck rembered the twist. His shoulder rembered shattering. His missing breath returned in one sharp inhale that tasted of stone, cold air, and the stale bitterness of another failed attempt.
Sotis Living Vessel was worse than Undeath. But it ca with its boons. At least he didn’t pay the cost of souls this ti.
Then he started laughing.
The sound echoed strangely against the mountain stone, bouncing off the steps and the closed palace gates like the tower itself was forced to hear it. His body still trembled from the return, but the laughter only grew, rough and uneven, half relief and half triumph. He had died again. Obviously. Dying was practically the routine now. But the attempt had not been wasted.
He now had a plan, no, planted a seed, a small one, and is willing to risk a life to see if that seed would grow. That’s all he needed, a tiny change in Pride’s reasoning. If it works... then he could see himself winning this fight.
"Alright then," Ludwig muttered.
He pushed himself upright, still grinning. His hands flexed once, confirming that they were attached, whole, and temporarily free of being pinned together by living tal. Good. Always nice to start a new death with the full set.
"Let’s see if it worked."
He approached the gate and pressed both hands against the tal. The doors groaned open. Heat spilled outward, carrying the scent of polished tal, old magic, and violence waiting politely for permission. Ludwig stepped inside.
Then stopped.
Hundreds of weapons floated in the air. Already active. Already positioned. Already waiting. The entire tallic storm was prepared before Ludwig had taken even a single step into the arena.
Swords hung in layered arcs.
Spears pointed down from above like golden rain paused midfall. Axes rotated slowly in place, their edges gleaming. Armors stood arranged around Pride in protective formation, shields raised and blades drawn.
The opening had changed.
For a mont, the only sound in the chamber was the soft hum of suspended steel. Any sane person would have frozen. Any sane person would have understood imdiately what this ant and felt terror. Ludwig only laughed harder. The sound ca out wild and triumphant as he pointed directly at Pride.
"YOU LEARNED!"
His voice thundered through the amphitheater. The accusation hit harder than any weapon Ludwig had managed to swing, because this ti the proof was not hidden in a twitch, not buried in a pause, not guessed from a shift in tone. It was hanging above the arena in hundreds of sharpened pieces.
"You prepared for before I moved," Ludwig shouted, his grin stretching so wide it warped the tal of his helm. "You changed your opening. You anticipated behavior. You adapted."
He took a single step forward.
"That ans you rembered."
Another step.
"That ans you accounted for a future variable."
Another.
"That ans you learned."
Pride stood motionless in the center of the arena. Still perfect in posture. Still immaculate. Still silent. But now the evidence was hanging visibly all around him. Not taphorically. Literally. A sky made of contradiction. The golden vault, prepared in advance, floated over them like the world’s most expensive confession.
Ludwig raised both arms toward the suspended arsenal like a preacher revealing scripture.
"There it is," he said, voice thick with delight. "Proof."
The grin beneath his helm turned savage.
"You were perfect yesterday." Ludwig tilted his head. "So why’d you need to improve today?"
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