Chapter 794: "Preparation
What are you saying, young mast-"
Ludwig cut the call before the voice could finish. The communication crystal went silent in his hand, the half-formed concern dying inside the faint glow. For a moment, only the wind remained, dragging itself through the ruined city while the sky groaned overhead, tearing apart like rotten cloth.
He didn’t have time to explain. Every second spent talking was another second the world spent breaking.
"Ludwig, what are you planning?" Gale asked. His voice was strained, and half his undead armor hung from him in twisted plates. The missing arm made his stance uneven despite his attempt to remain composed.
"I’m going to use rewind..."
The words fell heavily between them. Kaiser shifted where the undead supporting him held him upright, his ruined side leaking dark energy rather than blood.
"You’ll do the whole tower, again?"
"If I have to... I’ll do it alone this time..." I said. Ludwig kept his gaze on the tower, because looking at the two of them made the decision harder. Gale, half-broken. Kaiser, barely holding together. The city, gone. The sky opening like something vast was pushing through from the other side.
"You’ll need us, would you not?" Kaiser asked. The question was calm, but it carried weight.
"As much as I liked your company, things became much harder due to how strong we are..."
"So, you’ll be challenging the tower by yourself." Kaiser looked at the skies. "You better hurry then, this world is lost... the skies are breaking, it seems that whatever entity that took the skies hostage, is actually awakening."
Kaiser was right, the morphing skies began literally breaking, fissures and cracks, and what felt like tendrils of an ancient god were descending down. The darkness above was no longer spreading. It was splitting. Vast translucent shapes lowered themselves from the wounds in the sky, swaying through the air as if feeling for the world beneath.
Mot’s deity, the one he severs, the god of dreams. Needs not wake up. Ludwig understood that with cold certainty. Some threats could be fought, stalled, or tricked. A waking god was not one of them.
Ludwig took a deep breath, "Alright, here goes nothing," Ludwig grabbed the lantern, "Send me back. Death Point, In front of the Tower of Trials."
The Soul Letting Lantern pulsed in his grip, its familiar weight suddenly feeling much heavier. The world was ending around him, and he was about to gamble nearly everything on turning the clock back far enough to matter.
[Rewind has activated.]
[Termination has activated. You have lost 90% the souls in your lantern. You will be sent to your selected Death Point.]
’Damn the cost is hefty!’ Ninety percent. Not a payment, a gouge. Losing that much felt like having the ground cut from beneath him. But the sky was breaking. The world was dying. He had already arrived too late once.
[You Died]
Opening my eyes, I was right next to Gale and Kaiser. The city air was colder now, cleaner, untouched by the rot and burning that had filled Lufondal. For a heartbeat, Ludwig remained still, letting the sensation of death peel itself off his nerves. Stone beneath his feet. Tower ahead. Gale and Kaiser alive, or at least not yet broken by what was coming.
"Why am I having a sense of Déjà vu..." Kaiser muttered, one hand hovering near his side as though his instincts could feel something had been stolen from continuity.
"Because we did this before," Ludwig said. His eyes were already moving, checking the tower, checking the sky. It was not broken yet. That alone made the awful cost worth it.
Kaiser looked at Ludwig, at his lantern and said, "This return by death ability of yours, is a bit of a cheat... anyways, what’s the plan? How did you die?"
"I cleared the tower..." Ludwig said. Saying it out loud felt strange. He had won. He had killed Pride. And then the world had shown him what winning too late looked like.
"Oh, good. And what did you experience? I heard that you cannot remember what happened once you leave the tower."
"You can if you never entered it," Ludwig said. "Also you could if you clear it by dying multiple times..."
"How was Pride?" Gale asked.
"Strong, very..." Ludwig said as he noticed the lack of Pride’s soul inside his lantern. His gaze dropped to the Soul Letting Lantern, and the absence clicked into place.
’No wonder Necros didn’t take the soul. He knew I’ll rewind..." Of course he did. Necros had refused to meet him after Pride’s defeat, refused to claim the soul, and forced Ludwig to leave the tower first. At the time, it had felt like another divine inconvenience. Now it looked like preparation.
"Right, I’ll be going in, again. By the way, Kaiser, how good are you at camouflaging as a human?" I asked.
"Right now, as long as I’m not directly under a beaming ray of holy energy from someone like Titania, I won’t be exposed. Not much I can say about our friend here..." he said that while looking at Gale. "No offense."
"None taken."
"Good," Ludwig said, "I need you to do me a favor..." I said. He looked from Kaiser to Gale, then toward Solania’s direction. His mind replayed the corpses, the ruined city, the monsters crossing the mountain range. There was no time for delicate warnings.
"What is?"
"Head to Solania, shit is about to go down in the ugliest ways possible. The beasts beyond the borders of the mountain range will be crossing here. A lot of people will be dying..."
"Seems like it’s very serious, what should I do?"
"Protect the ones close to us."
"With all the eyes on me? I won’t be able to use a fraction of my powers... Dark Magic is banned here."
"After the shit that’ll happen there, it won’t be an issue. Trust me, just go." Ludwig said as he solemnly stared at the tower. Laws became flexible when monsters started eating the people who wrote them.
