Deus Necros

Chapter 841: Authority of Inevitability

They did not attack. They didn’t fight each other, for a second the two looked at each other, with something almost akin to acknowledgement. Something that Ludwig himself believe to be a disgusting fleeting thought.They didn’t immediately fight not because they feared one another. Sloth simply hated action, and Ludwig had no desire to draw first blood before he understood what sort of death this thing required. Pride burned in him, Wrath coiled around him, Envy watched through his visor, and the Lantern waited in his soul with the newly marked Death Point behind him.

"You shall not pass," Ludwig said.

Sloth blinked once, slowly. "Why resist us so?"

His voice was quiet enough that it should not have carried across the field, yet it did. It seeped through the dead air and into every living ear. "Let go. Why cling to hope?"

Ludwig’s lips curled beneath the helm. "Hope? Don’t speak of things you know too little of. You’re already without a shred of it."

"Hope is for those who see that there is a tomorrow."

"Then why not end your life right here?" Ludwig asked. "One without hope should have no reason to remain."

"It is not that simple," Sloth said. "You who feed on hope."

Ludwig frowned.

Sloth’s gaze sharpened by the smallest measure.

"I can see it in you," he continued. "You have fed on the hope of others. You give them a future, then pull it from beneath them. You have done it many times. It empowers you. They believe us to be monstrous sins, but you..." His eyelids lowered again. "You are far too cruel."

"Says the one deciding others have no need to take another breath."

"What is the need in doing so when all ends?"

"It is because all ends that one needs to act."

"Action is meaningless."

"Stagnation is futile."

The words hung between them.

Sloth seemed almost tired by the need to respond. "A kingdom rises. It falls. A child learns to walk. Age bends the spine. A soldier survives one war and dies in the next. You call motion life because you fear stillness. I call stillness honest."

"You call it honest because it asks nothing from you," Ludwig said. "Convenient philosophy."

"Effort changes nothing."

"Effort changes the shape of the road before the end."

"The end remains."

"So does the road."

"A road walked into death."

"A road walked," Ludwig said. "That’s the part you keep missing."

Sloth’s gaze drifted past him, toward the Necropolitis, where the dead continued their work without doubt or exhaustion. "Even they move by command. Not meaning."

"And yet they move."

"They do not hope."

"They don’t need to."

"They do not care."

"Neither do I, sometimes," Ludwig replied. "Still here. Still alive, still fighting."

Sloth studied him for a long moment.

"Then you are closer to me than you wish to admit."

Ludwig laughed once. It was a harsh, ugly sound through Noctivex’s monstrous helm. "No. You stopped because you think nothing matters. I keep moving even when I know it might not. There’s a difference."

"A meaningless difference."

"A useful one."

"Utility ends."

"Everything ends. You really only have one argument, don’t you?"

For the first time, the faint distaste on Sloth’s face deepened.

Ludwig leaned slightly on Nightbreaker, the mace vibrating as if eager to interrupt philosophy with something simpler and more honest.

"If you wanted to move," Ludwig said, "why not head southwest? Desert Kingdom is right there from these peaks. Or are you worried Lust would kick your ass?"

The insult passed over the battlefield like a knife hidden in a joke.

Sloth did not get angry.

Of course he did not.

But his eyes narrowed.

"Lust pulls," he said. "Loudly. Tirelessly. It binds through desire and calls it devotion. Facing her would require noise."

"So yes," Ludwig said. "You’re worried she’d kick your ass."

"Your tongue moves too much."

"And yours barely moves at all, yet somehow you still manage to be annoying."

Titania, far behind them, looked up briefly while laying a hand over Celine’s wounds. Even under Sloth’s authority, even surrounded by the dead, even with a horde at Solania’s gate, the corner of her mouth twitched as if she had almost smiled and hated that she had.

Sloth ignored everything behind Ludwig.

"You cannot win," he said.

"Probably not cleanly."

"You cannot save them all."

"Never said I would."

"You cannot carry this forever."

"Good thing forever isn’t today."

"Rest," Sloth said.

The word was soft.

Gentle.

Almost kind.

It touched the living battlefield like warm water poured over tired bones. Several soldiers lowered their heads. A priest began to cry silently. Even some of the Tower Masters shivered under the invitation. Rest. Enough. You have done plenty. Lay it down. Let the inevitable arrive without all this pain in between.

Ludwig felt it too.

The word slipped through his Living Vessel, through old wounds, old deaths, old failures, and every burden he had strapped to himself because nobody else had been strong enough or foolish enough to take them. It would be so easy to rest. So easy to believe that moving changed nothing. So easy to let Sloth be right.

The Crown of Pride tightened.

I deny stillness.

Ludwig exhaled.

"No."

Sloth’s head tilted faintly.

"No," Ludwig repeated. "You don’t get to offer rest to the dead, and you don’t get to offer it to me. I’ll rest when I’m done."

"You will never be done. Servant of Necros"

"Then I guess I won’t rest."

The silence afterward was heavier than the clash of armies.

Then Sloth lifted one hand again.

"How troublesome," he said.

Ludwig raised Nightbreaker.

"How lazy."

For a heartbeat, neither moved.

Then Sloth sighed, a long and weary sound that seemed to make the living world bend lower.

"Very well."

Ludwig grinned beneath the helm.

The dead continued marching.

The living struggled to breathe.

And between the Necropolitis and the black water of Solania’s broken icefield, the Sin of Sloth finally chose effort.

Ludwig stepped first.

Sloth answered.