Chapter 287: The Ugly Rat that Polluted the Sea (4)

“Then the White Snowfield, the Demon Realms... What are they, exactly?” Ketal asked the Holy Sword.

“The places you call the Demon Realms, the region you name the White Snowfield... The creatures there were born in a remote past, first to appear in a universe of chaos and the first to rule it. They are older than the gods and older than the demons. The Demon Realms are prisons where they were confined after losing the war.”

“Hmm...” Ketal stroked his chin. Outwardly, he showed little change, yet the words struck deep. He pictured a time when there were no planets, no seas, no light, only a black age without structure. To think that life had arisen in that darkness, and that he had lived in the same place as such beings, was an idea that even he had not fully grasped.

So that is why the rat kept calling me a child,

he thought. To something that had endured since those days, he would indeed be little more than an infant.

“Did they feel very alien to you when you looked at them? I imagine they did not obey the ordinary rules of living things,” the sword asked him.

“They did not,” he said. “Take the rat as the simplest example. A body that rotten should not be able to function at all. Decay is death. Yet it moved as if nothing were wrong, and the stench that leaked from its wounds spread more rot wherever it went.”

The same was true of many creatures that lurked in the Demon Realms. Primates breathe with lungs and mouths and did not live underwater. Yet in the Deep Sea, there were primates with a monkey’s form that swam and breathed in a pressure that should have crushed them flat. Those were still the close cousins to life as the world understood it. Many others did not even pretend to follow such rules.

“Of course. They were born and lived before the present laws of the universe existed. They have no reason to honor those laws now,” the sword explained.

“So Nano, and Whitie, and the primate that breathes in the abyss, all of them are that kind.”

“Yes. Everything in the Demon Realms existed before us.”

Before the universe cooled into the shape people know, before order settled, there had been a world packed with chaos. The beings of that era were the residents of a ruleless time.

Ketal thought for a while and then asked, “You said they lost a war.”

If the Demon Realms were the prisons of the first beings, then someone had beaten them. The answer was not hard to guess.

“The gods and the demons must have joined forces and fought the Oldest Ones,” Ketal said.

“That is what I know. The gods and the demons came after those beings. Their relationship is never good, yet the Oldest Ones were a common enemy neither side could allow to roam free. Long ago, they joined hands and fought,” the sword explained.

The gods and the demons won. They tore the right to rule the world from the Oldest Ones and drove them into a cage. It was not a hard idea to accept. Even old tales from Earth told versions of it. The Titans had once ruled, and then Zeus and the gods of Olympus overthrew them and took the throne. Think of it like that, and the shape became clear.

“After a long struggle, the gods and the demons barely won. The price was heavy. Because the Oldest Ones were so alien, there was no way to end them cleanly. Confinement was the only answer,” the sword said. Those prisons were the Demon Realms. “What exactly lies inside, I do not know. In truth... you would know better.”

The Holy Sword spoke the words gently. Gods and demons had joined forces to fight such monsters. In that wretched prison of place, the sword’s current master had lived. He had fought against such beings and had survived to stand here. The Holy Sword gulped despite having no throat.

Ketal let silence sit for a moment, then spoke. “In that case, I have a question.”

“What is it?”

“What am I?” He narrowed his eyes. “What are my people?”

“A-ah... that...” The Holy Sword faltered. It had spoken carelessly once before and paid dearly for it, and it would not make the same mistake. The pause stretched until Ketal nodded.

“Say it plainly. Now is fine. The gods and the demons called me a traitor to this world.”

He remembered the words. They said that though he belonged to this world, he had been enthralled by the beings beyond, had walked into the White Snowfield of his own will. They called him a traitor who had turned his back on the world.

“I know,” the Sword said. Permission given, it answered at once. “It is exactly what it sounds like. The ones called barbarians of the White Snowfield are not the Oldest Ones. They are human.”

Long ago, there had been those who were fascinated by the power and strangeness of the Oldest Ones. They admired the beings of the Demon Realms and wished to become like them. At the end of that longing, they rejected the world and stepped into that prison. Those became the barbarians of the White Snowfield.

“Foolish ancestors. I find them disgusting,” Ketal said, clicking his tongue.

“A-ah... yes. I cannot say I understand them, yet I suppose there are people who would desire something like that.” The Holy Sword stumbled between agreement and defense, uncertain which would anger him. It rallied and went on. “But that is not the part that puzzles me.”

“What, then?”

“Your ancestors admired the Oldest Ones and chose to lock themselves away. They were human.”

They possessed no special power at the start. They were the same as any other people.

“The White Snowfield is full of beings that are both alien and strong. Many of them treat you and me as toys. Yet your people survived there,” the Holy Sword continued.

As the sword understood it, the barbarians had stepped into the White Snowfield in a time so long past that even gods had trouble counting it. Through all that time, they had rubbed shoulders with the Oldest Ones and somehow endured.

“How did you survive?” the sword asked him. And another question moved behind the first. “How did you come to hold power like that?”

***

Ketal rubbed his jaw, trying to answer those questions.

“I do not know,” he said at last. “When I was there, they were already alive and holding on. When I joined them, the tribe grew and our territory expanded, yet even before that, survival itself was not a question.”

“But once you arrived, the tribe grew quickly.”

“If you want only the end of the answer, then yes.”

The barbarians had been prey. With Ketal under their roof, they began to claim ground in the White Snowfield openly. Under the shelter of his strength, others grew strong enough to face the White Bear. One man had twisted the balance by his presence alone.

“From the sound of it, they must have treated you like a living banner. Did you not lead the tribe by yourself? Did they not try to stop you when you left?” the sword asked him.

“They tried to stop me as if they meant to kill me. It annoyed me, so I broke their bones until they could not move for a week. When even that did not change their minds, I had to give a direct order as chieftain. Only then did I get out.”

“I... see.”

Ketal shook his head. The persistence of his people had been impressive in its own way. Getting them to stand down had been more tiresome than finishing the last Quest in the White Snowfield.

“In any case, my answer stands. I do not know,” Ketal said.

Before he came to this world, the survival of the barbarians remained uncertain. He could guess, but the guess did not matter

“They must have found a way to be small and quiet and live between the gazes of bigger things,” he said. “I do not care what the damned ancestors did. It does not interest me.”

The distant past of the tribe had little weight for him. People had spoken to him about it often enough, but he had not listened closely. What mattered was leaving the White Snowfield and stepping into the Outside. Nothing else had carried meaning.

“As for your second question,” he said, “I have this strength because I had to survive, and because I needed to get out. I did not become strong for the sake of being strong.”

“A-are you sure?” The Holy Sword found that hard to accept. The power Ketal had shown against the Ugly Rat had been monstrous.

From the perspective of the Mortal Realm, few things could bear it for long. He had even defied the rules the gods of the Hall had set, and he had done it with force alone. The sword could not see the top of his limit. To claim that such might had been gathered merely to live and to escape sounded like a poor joke.

“If the words were true, then there were only two possibilities: either living in that place was unbearably difficult, or leaving it required power of that order. The Holy Sword found itself staring into a well of unspoken doubts.

To get out of there, it wondered what had been done, who had been fought, and what had stood in the way. It wanted to ask but could not. Ketal’s mood had not yet steadied, and it feared the answer. Silence crept in, and Ketal felt the unspoken weight on his skin like the heat of a nearby fire

“Hm,” he murmured, and stroked his jaw again.

***

The talk with the Holy Sword had answered one group of questions and opened another. The next day, Ketal went to see Bayern.

“How are you feeling?” Ketal asked him.

“Well enough...” Some color had returned to Bayern’s face, though the arm was still bad. He pressed the wound with his good hand and said, “You called that thing the Ugly Rat that pollutes the sea. What rank does it hold Inside?”

“It is a great creature of the White Snowfield, like the White Serpent and the White Bear, one of the few that stake out vast domains,” Ketal replied. “Even in there, its strength stands apart.”

Any being that carved out a territory for itself in that measureless expanse could not be ordinary. The rat was as formidable among the Oldest Ones as it was Outside.

“So it is strong. I worried for a moment that I had lost to something lesser. I am relieved that is not the case,” Bayern muttered.

Long ago, when the Emperor sent an army to conquer the White Snowfield, he had included several Heroes. None had returned, which meant the rat could not be weak. Even so, a loss was a loss, and Bayern tasted bitterness. Ketal offered a small comfort.

“That ground is already the rat’s domain. Even if the outskirts are less tainted, fighting there is no easy task.”

To be honest, even Ketal found the outcome of Bayern’s battle against the rat surprising. That rat’s authority, its filth, had proven strong enough to affect even a powerhouse from the Outside.

Maybe I need to raise my estimation a bit,

Ketal thought. In his mind, he reevaluated the strength of the monsters of the White Snowfield, setting their power even higher.

“You must have fought the White Snowfield’s creatures often. You must have crossed claws with the rat as well,” Bayern said.

“We fought for territory often enough.”

“Then, do you know how to prepare for it?”

“Hm.” Ketal considered for a moment, then explained. “You felt it already. Its authority is filth. It stains the world and turns what it stains into its own ground.”

The broader the stain spread, the stronger the rat became. It obsessed over extending its territory because power pooled in the corruption.

“It can also move freely inside what it has tainted,” Ketal explained.

The stain sank to the roots of the land. Within it, the rat traveled like a mole in soil, surfacing where it pleased. It had burst from the earth to catch Bayern off guard and had slid into the ground to flee Ketal. Both acts proved the point.

“Then we have to remove the domain,” Bayern said, his face tightening. If the rat drew strength from the stain, the best answer was to erase the stain. He glanced at Ketal. “How do we do that?”

“To be honest, I do not know.”

Ketal could drive the rat back before it spread the stain, but once the land had been claimed, he could not scrub it clean.

“Then how did you fight it? If we cannot cleanse the taint, it will keep widening the ground,” Bayern said.

“In time, the land purifies itself. I waited for that window and pressed the rat when its hold loosened.”

“So we have to wait...,” Bayern murmured, clicking his tongue. It was not good news that they had no active method, yet waiting offered a path that was not closed. It was not the worst thing. “Do you know how long?”

“Inside, time is not something you can measure cleanly,” Ketal said. He thought for a space and then said, “Roughly... a hundred years, perhaps.”

“What?” Bayern froze.

“No, sorry. Not a hundred years.”

“Ah. I thought so. It could not possibly be that long—”

“Three hundred. Or was it five hundred? It was very long, I know that much. I cannot put a number on it.”

“What...?” Bayern stared at him, expression gone perfectly blank.