Chapter 299: The Dwarven Cave of Mantamia (1)

The result was everything Ketal had hoped for. The long detour to the East felt paid in full. However, a single problem remained.

“How am I supposed to actually absorb this?” Ketal muttered.

He turned the Dragon Bone over in his palm. He could feel Myst in it, dense and orderly, like light trapped inside a crystal. Yet, sensing power and consuming it were two different arts.

“Do I just... bite into it?”

The image came unbidden, beasts cracking marrow bones with their teeth, crunching through to the rich center. He almost laughed at himself, but the notion lingered. The Holy Sword sounded doubtful, then caught itself.

“That shouldn’t be... No, wait. If it is you, perhaps,” the sword said.

By name and nature, Dragon Bone was among the hardest substances in the world. This piece was not merely hard; it had been steeped in Myst until ordinary force could not even scratch its surface. The idea of breaking it with teeth would be ridiculous for anyone else.

For Ketal, the Holy Sword could not dismiss it out of hand. Still, it moved quickly to explain.

“Still, I don’t think that’s possible. You swallowed a fragment of a god once because it had been refined, which was made safe for use. But, this is not. What you hold is closer to a raw material than a catalyst.”

It would need to be tempered and reforged before Ketal could drink it down.

“And because the material stands so high on the ladder, ordinary methods will fail,” the sword continued.

“Which means non-ordinary methods will do,” Ketal said. “Where do I go?”

The Holy Sword stalled, as if a hand on its hilt had gone still. It did not want to answer. It tried not to answer. Ketal looked at it once, patient and unsmiling. At length, it surrendered.

“The Dwarven Cave of Mantamia. If anything can manage this, it is there,” the sword finally said.

Ketal’s eyes lit. “Dwarves!”

Where elves were the people of living green, dwarves were the people of earth and fire. They were the world’s smiths, the makers of weapons and wonders. If any hands could rework something like Dragon Bone into a proper catalyst, those hands would be dwarven.

“And their god,” Ketal added lightly, “is the one who forged you in the first place, isn’t it?”

“Yes. The God of the Forge made me.”

“Excellent. Two birds, then.”

He would bring the Dragon Bone to Mantamia and have it refined. While he was there, he would ask the God of the Forge about the sword’s fate; what should be done with an artifact whose plan had been broken, whose promised end had not come. If there was use for Whitie’s hide and the Ugly Rat’s forepaw, he would fold those into the work as well.

His hand brushed the axe at his waist, black as a starless cave.

“And I can finally ask about this,” he muttered.

While heading South, it might be nice to visit Arkemis or Karin again. It’s been a while.

Decision made, a grin flickered and settled on his face. The Holy Sword, by contrast, sounded like it had bitten a sour berry.

“There must be another place, someone besides dwarves, who can do this. Surely. I am not saying this because I fear meeting the one they serve.”

Ketal understood why the sword was behaving this way. The blade lay broken. It had failed to meet the end it had been made for. That failure had freed it for a time; if matters had gone as designed, it would have found its next master and then, a few months later, its identity would have been dissolved back into the god’s keeping.

For the Holy Sword as it was now, seeing its maker again was dangerous. Repairs might come with chains. A shrine could feel like a cell.

“Don’t worry. I’ll speak for you. What you fear won’t happen,” Ketal said, gently.

“Very well. Tell me when you’re ready. I’ll share Mantamia’s location. I should... prepare myself.”

It yielded with poor grace and better sense. Ketal moved at once. He found the Guildmaster and said, simply, that he would be departing for the South.

“You’re... leaving?” the Guildmaster blurted, then mastered himself with visible effort. “Of course. If you say you must, you must.”

“You look disappointed,” Ketal observed.

“Honestly? I thought you might stay.”

Of the four continents, the East was faring the worst. They lacked enough Heroes to flip battle lines with a word, and the supply of lesser strength could not make up the difference. With Ketal, tension had begun to ease. To have that ease vanish so quickly twisted the Guildmaster’s face.

Ketal had not intended to walk away without doing anything.

“I’ll break a few fronts on my way South,” he said. “That should be something.”

“That would be more than we could ask,” the Guildmaster said, seizing the lifeline at once.

Ketal unrolled a map. Several active lines lay directly between him and the sea. He tapped them with a finger.

“I’ll clear these as I go.”

***

Lines of mercenaries and mages wavered under a gray sky.

“

Ugh...

”

“I’m going to be sick.”

Hundreds stood in formation with white knuckles around their weapons. Bandages showed under collars. Splints were tied with frayed rope. Among the faces were Geinalt, Barak, and Marcy; the team that had raided a Dungeon beside Ketal in the Denian Kingdom

Across the flats, hundreds of monsters bore down on them. Their commander lifted his voice until it cracked. “Shields forward! Brace! This pass must not fall!”

Hands shook harder around spearshafts. This choke point fed half the region. If it went black under demon banners, supply would starve the East long before swords could finish the work. They had held here by inches, by hours bled out of nights. Today, the enemy had brought numbers that made death feel like the sensible bet.

Then, a hard wind punched down the road.

“

Uwah

!”

“Hold!”

The gust knocked men back a step and flung grit into their eyes. When it died, they blinked tears clear and looked past their own lines. A barbarian stood in front of their formation. He turned and smiled with honest pleasure.

“Geinalt! Barak! Marcy! You’re here too?”

“K-Ketal?”

Geinalt’s voice leaped. The mercenary from Denian, the one who had cleared a raid with them, had simply appeared.

“You’re... joining up?” Geinalt asked Ketal.

“Not exactly,” Ketal replied.

“Then why...?”

“I came to end it.”

He looked past them at the oncoming tide. The strongest of those monsters barely reached the Advanced level.

“They’re weak enough,” Ketal muttered. “No need for Myst.”

He planted his feet and drew a deep breath. His flesh protested as power far beyond what a body should bear surged into muscle and bone, pulling them taut until they creaked.

“Back!” someone shouted. “All of you! Back!”

Even in terror, they recognized what was about to happen. They stumbled away from the line.

Ketal punched. The sound was wrong, less like thunder and more like a seam in the world tearing from one end to the other. Mercenaries hunched instinctively, eyes screwed shut and hands clamped over their ears.

When the ringing eased, they looked up.

“Where... did they go?”

“The monsters... Where are they?”

The mass that had been charging to kill them was now gone—not dead, not scattered, simply gone. The rutted earth was gone as well. In its place, the ground lay smooth and level, as if some meticulous giant had passed through with a straightedge and declared the matter settled. Bricks could be set upon it, and the road would be perfect.

A dawning certainty passed from face to face. That barbarian’s punch had erased the enemy from the world. With one strike, every life meant to be spent in the next ten minutes had been returned.

“It’s done,” Ketal said, dusting his hands. “The rest is yours. Keep the road clean.”

“O-okay...?” Geinalt stammered.

Ketal was gone. His figure vanished from sight in an instant. For a long while, the people could do nothing but stare in the direction where he had disappeared.

***

He broke two more fronts on the way South. None of them required more than three blows. He did not linger to accept thanks; he did not stay to command the tidy-up. People watched him leave with the same expressions as the first pass.

At last, he arrived at his destination: the Schwarzwald, a forest vast enough to rival a nation, where the sacred ground of the elves lay hidden.

“Are you going to the elves first?” the Holy Sword asked him.

“I am,” Ketal said. “We are on good terms. Before I search for the dwarves, I want to gather information about what’s happening in the South.”

He knew almost nothing about the Dwarven Cave of Mantamia, other than an old report that, before the full-scale invasion of the demons, a fallen star had been stolen from it. The elves’ current knowledge would be far more reliable than rumors, and their sacred ground was the perfect place to begin his search.

He walked to the forest’s center and stopped. He knew where the sacred ground stood; he had been taken there once. He did not set foot on that path. Last time, he had needed a queen’s hand to guide him. Now, he had Myst.

Ketal closed his eyes. He did not use Myst to harden bone or thicken skin. He braided it into his senses and pushed outward.

“Wait!” the Holy Sword cried. “Don’t do that! That will—”

It was too late. His awareness descended over the trees like a second sky.

In the sacred ground, the elven guards were bored in the way that comes when vigilance had become a habit and nothing arrived to test it. Demons had not touched the sacred ground for months. After the first raid, the elves had built a defense with teeth, and if another attack came, it would not pass easily.

Besides, their enemies had already stolen a branch from the World Tree. There was nothing left here worth taking that they had the means to burn. That nightmare was still years away. It was hard to stay taut when every day ended with nothing on the rope.

Then, the weight fell. Elves buckled where they stood as if the air had turned to water and pressed them to their knees. Color left faces, fast.

“Report!”

The knight of the High Elves Parco sprinted for the outer ring. He threw his voice high and sharp. “What is it?”

“We don’t know! S-something is pressing on us!” the guard shouted.

“Is it the demons?” Parco ground his teeth and called the wind. “Answer me! Epic Spirit of the Win—Brunstad!”

“What is going on?” Brunstad asked Parco.

“An enemy attack! Please link with me and extend your senses!”

“Very well.” The spirit braided its perception with Parco’s. Together they cast outward across the skin of the world to catch what was coming.

“Parco... That is...,” the spirit murmured.

“No way...”

It had not been an attack. It was someone extending their perception, laying claim to the land the way a hunter lays a hand on a map and declares it theirs. The pressure felt like a blow because its scale was far beyond their ability to contain. The sacred ground lay within that vast radius, but so did everything else.

Schwarzwald was not merely touched, but the entire forest lay within the boundary of the extended perception. Whoever had come had put a nation-sized forest inside their field with the casualness of a man picking up a cup.

Parco went white to the lips. This was beyond the castes of demons who held titles, higher even than them.

A Lord of Hell?

Parco wondered, small and shaking.

Or is it one of the Four Pillars of Hell?

Even if such a creature bore down on the forest, it should not have been able to find the sanctuary, because the Spirit God’s curtain hid it from both sight and sense.

The hope lasted only a heartbeat before cracks spidered through the air. The sacred ground’s veil splintered and began to fail, and through those fractures, they felt the intruder’s weight clearly for the first time.

“No...,” Parco said.

Around him, the elves collapsed to the ground. They were the watch, soldiers sworn to die at the threshold, and they should have stood their ground, but they did not. No one grew angry at a landslide or roared at the sea to stop. Their helplessness was as absolute as gravity.

The barrier broke. Parco closed his eyes, unable to keep looking at his own death, a cruelty he needed to experience only once.

“Good,” a bright voice said, close enough to hear without effort. “Extending Myst through the senses does pierce barriers. I suspected as much, but confirmation is best.”

“Ketal...?” Parco said, opening his eyes.

Ketal stepped through the torn edges of the sacred ground’s curtain as if it were gauze.

“Parco!” he said, smiling like an old friend found at a crossroads. “It has been a while!”