Redd dragged his thumb under his neck, the gesture sharp and obvious enough that it needed no translation.

His eyes flicked toward the two figures posted near the corner, then back toward Ludwig, silently asking if they should take out the two of them before either guard had the chance to shout, run, or do whatever else useless people did when they noticed something they were not meant to see.

His hand had already shifted closer to his weapon, not fully drawing it, but close enough that violence had become more than a suggestion.

Kaiser noticed the motion and gave Redd the sort of exhausted look usually reserved for children who had brought a knife to solve a locked door.

"What brutish mind," Kaiser sighed and waved his hand ahead.

The gesture was so casual it barely looked like casting at all. There was no chant, no dramatic flare of mana, no carefully drawn circle, and no visible buildup of power that Ludwig could properly analyze. Kaiser simply raised his hand, moved his fingers as if brushing aside dust, and the air near the corner tightened.

Suddenly two loud thuds echoed from the corner, heavy enough to make the surrounding stone breathe the sound back at them. The bodies dropped almost at the same time, first one, then the other, both collapsing out of sight with the dull weight of men whose muscles had forgotten how to obey them.

The silence that followed was immediate, clean, and unsettling, because there had been no scream, no struggle, and no warning for the guards themselves. One moment they were obstacles. The next they were no longer part of the problem.

Kaiser walked up without hesitation, his robes brushing softly against the old stone floor. Ludwig almost grabbed him to stop him, because walking toward bodies that had dropped without confirmation felt like the sort of arrogance that got even powerful mages stabbed in the kidney.

Before Ludwig could act, Kaiser said, "They’re unconscious, let’s move." His tone carried no uncertainty, and that was somehow more irritating than reassuring.

Ludwig followed, glancing at the two fallen guards as they passed.

Their chests rose faintly, slow and strained, but not dead. Their eyes were rolled back, their mouths slightly open, bodies slack from a force that had stolen breath before thought could resist.

Ludwig looked from them to Kaiser, then back again, his curiosity sharpening despite the situation. "You have to teach me that," Ludwig said.

Kaiser turned his head slightly, as if Ludwig had just asked him to explain how to open a door. "Hah? This is third circle magic, asphyxia. You don’t know this?" There was genuine confusion in his voice, not mockery at first, which made it more painful.

The spell had not looked powerful enough to be impressive by Kaiser’s standards, but the application was absurdly clean. It was quiet, practical, and brutal without leaving a mess. In Ludwig’s experience, that made it more valuable than half the loud spells people liked to brag about.

"My magic training was rather... specialized." Ludwig answered with the sort of restraint that came from not wanting to explain that most of his magical education had involved absurd amounts of destruction, death, undeath, soul manipulation, and Bastos Van Dijk treating basic safety like a personal insult to research.

"I guess even Van Dijk forgets that even basics spells are worth learning, or maybe he didn’t see the need for you to use them. Let’s go, and see what we’re dealing with," Kaiser said, already moving ahead again. The words were not cruel, but they landed annoyingly well. Ludwig had learned things that should have made sane magicians vomit blood from fear, yet somehow had skipped over a third circle spell that could quietly disable guards. It was like knowing how to dissect a dragon’s soul but forgetting how to boil water. Useful in theory. Embarrassing in practice.

Redd looked at Ludwig, and for the first time since he met Ludwig he saw a smiling stumped expression on him. It was not quite shame and not quite amusement, but something caught in the middle, as if Ludwig himself had only now realized that his education had holes large enough for a man to fall through.

Redd’s mouth twitched, and the opportunity was too tempting for him to leave untouched. ’Mr know it all doesn’t know third circle magic, quite the shocker, it’ll take me years to forget that."

"Or one fist to the face, you choose," Ludwig smiled at Redd. The smile did not reach his eyes, but the warning did. Redd raised both hands slightly, though his grin only widened.

"I’d rather keep my handsome face intact."

"It’s fortunate that only you think that," Ludwig said, and there was just enough dryness in the delivery to make the jab land without breaking their pace. They continued forward through the passage, stepping around scattered debris, old stains, and the kind of dust that only gathered in places people avoided for good reasons.

Redd turned to the ghostly presence next to him, "I’m handsome right?" The ghostly presence drifted near him in silence, pale and indistinct, the faint shape of her face barely visible beneath the muted shimmer that clung to her form.

She looked at him for a second, then shook her head.

"Even your sister doesn’t think so, man what a sad thing, even an undead is better looking." Ludwig did not even bother hiding the satisfaction in his voice, and for a brief moment the darkness of the catacombs was pushed back by the kind of cheap banter people used when the alternative was thinking too hard about where they were going.

Redd brows curved, "You know at least I get some pussy," he snorted.

"What’s that supposed to mean?" Ludwig replied as the three of them headed deeper into the catacombs. His tone remained light enough, but the corridor ahead had already begun to swallow the humor.

The air was changing with every step. It had the stale pressure of a place sealed beneath layers of city and history, where stone drank sound and returned it warped. Their footsteps echoed too long, and the smell became worse as they descended, damp at first, then sour, then something thick and old that clung to the back of the throat.

His compass finally stopped moving and the shard of darkness dissipated. The last sliver of the dark fragment broke apart above the vestige in a faint scatter of black motes, each one fading before it could touch the ground.

The needle no longer pulled them forward. Whatever path it had been guiding them toward had ended here. They were now within the catacombs or at least reached the entrance of. The difference did not matter much to Ludwig, because everything ahead felt like a place that had been waiting beneath Solania’s polished holiness for far too long.

"Undead and all, you know, down there." Redd’s voice came from beside him, quieter now, the joke losing strength as the smell deepened and the shadows thickened.

The passage had narrowed, and the old stone walls were slick with moisture that did not quite look like water.

Rusted metal bars appeared along one side, then the other, forming cells that vanished into the gloom. Chains hung from some of the walls, and the faint scrape they made when stirred by the underground draft sounded too much like fingernails dragging over bone.

"Please be quiet," Kiser interrupted. "This isn’t time for banter." His voice did not rise, but it cut through both of them with the precision of a blade placed at the throat. Ludwig didn’t feel like replying that his thing was perfectly fine when he is in Living Vessel form, but Kaiser’s words brought their attention to something more important.

Bodies.

Too many bodies. To the point that it’s absurd. The first pile sat behind a half open cell door, stacked with the carelessness of discarded firewood and the cruelty of people who had stopped seeing flesh as anything meaningful.

Then there was another. Then another. Piled and stocked atop each other, torn twisted, and extracted. Bodies that were burnt, carved, ripped apart, and others that were simply skeletons and skin on bones. Some had limbs missing cleanly. Others looked as if pieces had been taken over time, with the kind of patience that suggested study rather than rage.

The smell should have been overwhelming. Rot should have filled the passage like a living thing. Flies should have swarmed. Fluid should have seeped across the floor and into the cracks between the stones.

Yet the most frustrating thing was... they didn’t rot or decay. They just remained like that. Or if they were rotting, they were at an incredibly slow rate. The bodies sat trapped in some horrible state between fresh death and old ruin, preserved badly enough to be monstrous and carefully enough to be intentional.

"Time magic, someone is stopping the decay forcefully, why do this? Why not get rid of these bodies?" Kaiser asked. He had stepped closer to one of the cells, though not close enough to touch anything.

The disgust in his voice was controlled, but Ludwig could hear the tension beneath it. Time magic was not something people used casually. Slowing decay was not impossible, but doing it across this many bodies, over this much space, implied resources, planning, and a reason ugly enough that none of them wanted to guess at it too soon.

"No..." Ludwig said as he looked up atop the bodies.

Something was different here.

Something so messed up that a notification soon appeared in front of him.

"What’s going on?" Kiser asked as he seemed to not be able to see what Ludwig just began seeing.

"For a former Necros servant... you don’t see it?"

"No, what are you talking about."

"Their souls..." Ludwig said, "They’re still here. Trapped with them... they never left this world."