Deus Necros-Chapter 723: Secret of The Torch

"Shit!" the Lizardman said as he held his hands up, weaponless, but still he wanted to fight.

"You... are you friends of the other ogres and lizardmen?" one of the Ogres asked.

"Yes," Ludwig said as he noted the horns on their forehead. "Tell me, though," Ludwig asked.

"What’s the purpose of those torches? I doubt anyone would be stupid enough to invade a tribe of powerful ogres at night."

He asked it like a simple question, but his eyes never left the torches. Blue light barrier. Blue light, control. Blue light, truth.

"You never know how foolish others can get, also that blue light stops Soothsayers from invading," the ogre said as he looked at the wounded lizardman.

The line landed with a quiet weight. Stops Soothsayers. The lizardman beside Ludwig had just tried to convince him to extinguish those very torches. Ludwig didn’t need more evidence.

He just needed timing.

"What happened to that friend of yours?" the ogre asked.

"Got hit by a monster, cheap shot."

"You saw it happen?" The Ogre asked as he raised his sword just a bit, pressuring but not enough to pose a threat.

"That’s why I’m here." Ludwig grabbed the lizardman by the scruff of the neck and hurled him forward.

He didn’t throw him gently. He threw him like a sack of lies. The motion was fast enough that the lizardman’s feet left the ground before it could react, and the "injured" body sailed cleanly through the blue-lit air toward the torches at the gate.

The lizardman couldn’t even react as the orcish strength of Ludwig sent him, without any will of his own, to his own demise.

His body began burning as he screamed, an echo that sounded like a squeal and the cries of little children. The scream hit wrong, too high, too familiar, like the laughter had simply changed costume again. The blue flames licked at its skin, and the body twisted in place as if the light itself was peeling away whatever disguise had been stitched onto it.

Its body began morphing against its will as it transformed into that of a young soothsayer.

Smaller than the adult ones Ludwig had seen, less mass, less grotesque weight, but the same black curtain of hair, the same wrong flexibility in the limbs, the same sense that it wasn’t a creature so much as a symptom given flesh.

One of the ogres immediately placed his weapon next to Ludwig’s neck. "You brought that thing here!"

The blade’s edge kissed close enough that Ludwig could feel the air change beside his throat. It wasn’t cutting him yet, but the intent was there, raw anger, betrayal, the reflex to eliminate the person nearest when fear hits.

"I wouldn’t be too eager to do what you’re doing."

"What do you mean, stranger?" the Ogre asked.

"You’re aiming your weapon at the wrong guy," Ludwig said and immediately dove forward.

He moved under the line of the blade, dropping his weight and sliding in close where long weapons became awkward. The ogre’s swing would have had power, but power needed space. Ludwig denied it space.

He dodged past the sword and shoved the ogre that was aiming his weapon at him. Immediately, he sent a kick right into the chest of the second ogre.

The kick landed with a dull, heavy impact. The ogre’s ribs didn’t crack; ogres were built for punishment, but the breath in his lungs did. Air escaped in a rasping scream as he tumbled down the forest floor, boots skidding through dirt and dead leaves. 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝐰𝚎𝕓𝐧𝚘𝘃𝗲𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝕞

"What the fuck are you doing!"

"That was a soothsayer," Ludwig said.

The words were clipped. Functional. Ludwig kept his blade between himself and both ogres, feet planted, shoulders squared, ready for the next swing.

"No, it wasn’t! That was Gdal! My own brother! Stranger! You shall die today for attacking the ogres of the mountain!"

The accusation emerged as grief and rage were welded together. The ogre’s knuckles whitened on the weapon hilt. The ogre, Gdal’s "brother", stared at the burning, morphing thing near the torches with a look that couldn’t decide whether to be horror or denial.

"Sorry to tell you," Ludwig said as a blue light had crossed his eyes, "But I think the one you call Gdal, your brother, is long since dead... after all, did you not separate from him some time ago?" Ludwig asked.

"I didn’t! We were together the whole day..."

There was hesitation at the end.

And Ludwig heard it. That tiny stumble. That microscopic pause where certainty failed. People didn’t hesitate when they were telling the truth they’d lived. They hesitated when memory didn’t line up cleanly with reality.

"How could you even tell?!"

"When I threw that fucker into the torches," Ludwig said as he pointed at the squirming Lizardman, "He got angry, and I saw it. Would an ogre ever get angry for a lizardman’s pain?"

"That..."

"Look, he’s coming back," Ludwig said as he heard the rushing sound of the other ogre.

The kicked ogre had recovered fast, too fast for someone who’d truly been stunned. Ludwig’s instincts tightened. He didn’t wait for the arc to finish forming.

With one flick of Ludwig’s left hand, the Soul Chain part of his Scyth shot toward the camp, wrapped around the base of one of the blue torches, and tightened around its base. The chain snapped taut with a metallic hiss, and the torch tore free with a grinding crack that sprayed dirt and splinters. The blue light swung in the air like a lantern ripped from a wall in a storm, trailing that cold glow as it flew back toward Ludwig’s hand.

"You bastard!" the ogre that got kicked howled as he reached Ludwig, his weapon ready to come down in an arc.

But that was just in time for the chains to return to Ludwig’s hand, who grabbed and shoved the torch up toward the ogre’s face.

"Show me your true self," Ludwig said as the ogre’s face immediately contorted and began burning up, howling a scream as the other ogre watched his brother turn from family to foe.