Ludwig took another glance at the area, inspecting the aftermath.
Only a few Reaver bodies remained—ones that had died before the King’s descent. Their corpses rotted quietly, their purpose voided.
Ludwig gripped Oathcarver and pulled it free from the earth, flicking off what ash and gore still clung to its haft.
His shoulder rose and fell with steady breaths—calculated, even if breath itself was no longer necessary.
“That was… pretty good,” Thomas’s ghostly form shimmered into view, arms crossed over his chest, hair billowing gently in the spiritual breeze.
“I’ll admit it,” came another voice—lower, richer, older.
The Knight King emerged beside him, spectral armor glinting with faded glory. His eyes were all you could see from the darkened helmet, eyes of cold fire. “Even I never imagined I’d see my blade style mingled with magic. You did well, lad.”
Ludwig stared out over the carnage. His gaze was distant—not from exhaustion, but reflection.
“It’s a shame, though,” he murmured.
The Knight King’s brow furrowed. “What is there to be ashamed of? You’ve done what no mortal, no undead, no cursed noble has done in centuries.”
“I didn’t reach Intermediate,” Ludwig replied simply, a sigh escaping as he rolled his shoulders.
“Hah.” The Knight King chuckled—not mockingly, but with earned respect. “When I forged that pact, I assumed it’d take you years to even approach Intermediate.”
He stepped forward, hands behind his back. “But in one night, you’ve carved your way through nine-tenths of it. Most of that was thanks to your creativity—adding spellcraft to a style that’s always worshipped physical dominance. And you still respected its rules: brutality, precision, ruthlessness.”
He looked at Ludwig with something almost like pride.
“What would’ve taken prodigies decades, you’ve done in a single dusk.”
Ludwig nodded once. He was about to respond—then paused.
A breeze carried a scent to him.
Burnt flesh. Old blood. Scorched viscera.
It coated him, still clinging to every inch of cloth and skin. His regalia was soaked in black ichor and soot.
And just as he went to clean himself—
A voice rang out.
“DAVON!”
Timur’s shout echoed through the clearing like a horn blast, cutting through the silence.
Ludwig turned toward the manor, eyes narrowing.
The adventurers had emerged—surprisingly, all alive.
They were injured, bloodied. Gorak’s entire right side was torn and bleeding; Timur’s armor was cracked down the chest, and one of his swords looked like it had been dragged through a rockslide. Melisande followed after them, eyes wide with concern, staff clutched tightly in her hands.
“Hold on!” she called, voice high and urgent. “I finally got access to my divine powers—let me heal you!”
Ludwig froze.
Undead. Holy magic.
Bad combination.
Ludwig froze.
Melisande’s voice had been sweet, but her power was anything but. She raised her staff, light already coalescing at the tip—divine, warm, pure.
It would kill him. No hesitation. No delay. Her holy magic, focused even for healing, would burn through his already low health like a flamethrower through paper. Especially in his current state, still smoldering from Explosive Surging Slam, every bone in his body ringing with post-combat ache and residual spell backlash.
Even if she meant good, for Ludwig that ‘Good’ will be the end of him.
She took another step, lifting her staff. “Hold on, I have to heal you first, you’re barely standing! You’re covered in blood—”
“Hold.” Ludwig raised a hand quickly, voice calm but firm. Controlled. “I’m not injured.”
Melisande blinked. “What?”
“There’s no way—look at you!” she insisted, eyebrows narrowing as she gestured at the mess that was Ludwig’s body. Burnt cloth. Ichor-splattered leather. Chunks of what may have once been Reaver still clinging to his sleeves. “No one walks out of that without a scratch.”
Ludwig gave a tired smile. A charming, bastardly grin he’d used so many times to talk his way out of worse situations.
He raised a single finger.
“[Cleanse].”
The spell activated without flair—just efficiency.
And in a smooth wave of anti-filth magic, the blood, soot, gore, and stink that had soaked into every fiber of his being were simply… gone. Expelled into nothing. The transformation was instantaneous. His scorched robes were restored to regal precision, crimson trim gleaming once again. His hair, once matted and streaked with blood, now lay perfectly combed back, wind-swept but elegant. Even his boots gleamed.
A noble reborn from ruin.
The Manticore leather of his Regalia, which had been hanging by threads, healed—reweaving itself with quiet whispers of self-restoration magic, until it looked as if it had never seen battle.
Melisande just stood there, eyes wide, jaw open slightly.
“Oi…” she whispered. “I need to learn that.” She blinked. “I’ll give you anything.”
Ludwig raised an eyebrow. “Anything?”
“Anything.” Her tone didn’t flinch. She was dead serious.
He chuckled, that low amused hum of someone who’d dodged a very close bullet. “We’ll talk.”
Beside her, Timur was still grinning like a madman. “You absolute bastard,” he said, stepping forward and giving Ludwig a slap on the back that would’ve dislocated a lesser man’s shoulder. “How the hell did you pull this off?” He looked around at the empty battlefield—blackened earth, shattered trees, a still-settling mist where once stood the avatar of a death god.
“You look like you crawled out of every circle of the Underworld at once,” Gorak added, voice dry but impressed. He was nursing a wound along his bicep, clearly exhausted but alert.
“Don’t sweat the details,” Ludwig replied with a shrug, trying to keep his voice as casual as the moment allowed. “You all look like you got run over by an angry god. Where’s Robin?”
“He went to scout the manor interior,” Melisande said, stepping to the side as she gestured vaguely over her shoulder. “Didn’t want to leave anything unsearched. But… honestly, we were going to die in there. We were done. Whatever you did out here saved us.”
Timur nodded solemnly. “I’d lost track of how many of those red-eyed freaks were in that dungeon.” He flexed his injured wrist with a wince. “If you hadn’t drawn the King away—”
“You’d be eating dirt.” Ludwig finished for him, voice flat but knowing.
Timur grinned again. “Exactly.”
Melisande stepped forward once more, still slightly incredulous. “You really aren’t wounded at all?”
Ludwig tilted his head slightly and gestured to himself. Spotless. Unburned. Regalia intact. Even his gauntlets gleamed like polished silver.
“Picture of health,” he said dryly.
She eyed him suspiciously. “Right. Sure.”
The moment passed.
And above them, the sky shifted.
The red hue that had dominated the moon since the King’s descent faded slowly, the mist curling upward into nothingness like breath sucked back into the lungs of the world. The stars—obscured for days—reappeared, first in twos and threes, then in droves, scattered like diamonds.
The moon… was no longer red.
It wasn’t there at all.
Where the cursed moon once hung above the Bastos March, there was now only a hollow gap, a void slowly filling with real light. The march had been released.
Freed.
The land let out its first unburdened breath in centuries.
Ludwig turned, raising his gaze to the clearing sky.
His voice was quiet now. Measured.
“How about we leave this land?”
No one argued.