Chapter 318: The Four Pillars of Hell—Necrobix (7)

Ketal surged in without a heartbeat of hesitation, bracing his shoulders as he poured Aura into the axe until its edge sang with that cold, absolute authority which severed not only flesh but the tie that let a thing remain in the world. He brought the blade down in a clean, merciless line.

Necrobix gathered the dark energy and condensed it into a shield. The barrier fractured on contact, splintering like black glass, and the shock slammed it into the ground with enough force to buckle the plain. Soil heaved and cracked. The air rang with pressure.

A small sound slipped from within the crater. It was not fear, and it was not hurt; it was an acknowledgement that the blow had landed. The axe descended again, a verdict falling from the sky. Necrobix let its shape blur into darkness, slid through layered space, and stepped out beyond the stroke with a dry calm.

“You are stronger than I projected,” it said. “I did not account for the Abomination inside you. Many of our arrangements fail in light of that.”

Ketal clicked his tongue. He was the one pressing and winning the exchanges, yet the pleasure of it did not touch his eyes.

“You said you came to kill me,” he said. “If that is your purpose, then face me properly.”

“I would prefer it,” Necrobix replied with the faintest curl at the corner of its mouth. “Even then, you would not be simple. I am one of the Four Pillars of Hell. I have other work. I must foul the Mortal Realm and tilt it toward evil. I will kill you after that. Until then, rest.”

Ketal answered with motion. The ground thudded once beneath his heel before vanishing beneath him, and in an instant, the distance between them closed to nothing. His axe swept in a bright, precise arc, cleaving head from neck.

However, nothing changed. The cut met a body that had already fled. The instance before him had slipped free an instant earlier, like a candle snuffed between fingers.

Ketal exhaled through his nose and let his brows knit. The fight was over for now. Survivors who had clung to the edge of the field drifted closer, torn between reverence and disbelief, hope sparking in their eyes because the pressure that had crushed their chests had finally eased.

“You,” a man said, hushed as if the name might break if spoken too loud. “Are you Ketal?”

“The rumor traveled quickly,” Ketal said. “Yes.”

The caution broke into cheers that sounded more like sobs. Voices tumbled over one another, calling him the strongest barbarian the Mortal Realm had produced and a comet that had arrived when the sky was darkest. They reached for him with questions and thanks.

“I would like to answer,” he said, and he meant it, “but there is too much left to do. If there is a later day, we will talk.”

The air parted, and Ketal stepped through. On the other side, the Tower Master and Serena were waiting.

“You made it,” Serena said. Relief softened her shoulders.

“You arrive unmarked,” the Tower Master said. “Again.”

“Yet you don’t look to be in good shape yourself,” Ketal answered. He did not try to soften what he saw.

The lich’s robe hung in tatters. Fine cracks ran through his arm bones, his ribs, and his shins. Even a body that had discarded blood and breath would have struggled to stand under such strain. Serena’s wounds had closed with holy power, yet the light around her felt thinned by the effort.

“Necrobix appears every three days,” the Tower Master said. “It is stronger than I am, even when I am careful. Resting remains impossible. If Serena had not stood with me, the outcome would be worse.”

She offered no false modesty, only a brief nod. She had been the second shield every time the first had threatened to fail. Even so, the tally did not favor them.

“We still can’t change the count,” the Tower Master continued. “We can hold two places at once, but Necrobix manifests three. That leaves one unguarded.”

The list of broken fronts grew by the day. The fairy holy land had burned, and the Dragon Council of the South had been mauled in a way that would haunt its pride. Churches of the West had fallen out of sequence as well, broken by a pressure they could not measure. Since Raphael’s fall, the Mortal Realm had begun to push forward. In three returns, Necrobix had smothered that momentum.

“We do not have the gods,” the Tower Master said. “We cannot even send a word.”

“What of the Saintess of the Sun God?” Ketal asked him. “If anyone can take a place on the wall, it is her.”

“She could,” the Tower Master said, and there was no comfort in the admission. “But the demons are committing everything. They interfere with her wherever she steps. She has no room to raise a hand against Necrobix.”

However, they were not just standing idle and taking the hits. Even as they blocked Necrobix’s attacks, they struggled to find some way to fight back.

“Have you finished your analysis?” Ketal asked the Tower Master.

“I’ve done enough,” the Tower Master said. With a flick of his fingers, a seam split open in the fabric of space, and a body tumbled through, hitting the floor with a heavy thud.

Ketal studied the face. “Who is this?”

“It’s what was left behind when Necrobix departed. It shouldn’t have lingered, but I forced the residue to remain.” He spoke while Ketal examined the dead man’s hands. “A dark mage... By measure, he stood at the threshold of the Transcendent.”

Necrobix struck three places at once. In each location, if someone as intrusive as the Tower Master was present, they could snare something like this as it retreated.

“Is it like demonic possession?” Ketal asked him.

“It seems closer to borrowing a body and turning it into a puppet. That alone isn’t particularly special,” the Tower Master explained.

After all, even Materia had descended to the Mortal Realm by borrowing Floris’s body. Similarly, Ferderica had possessed the body of a Saint. Such acts were possible for any being of sufficiently high rank. However, the greatest difference with Necrobix was that it could control three such puppets simultaneously—and they weren’t mere avatars, but nearly identical to its true body.

The Tower Master spoke with a tone of exasperation. “How could something like that be possible with a dark mage? I cannot make any sense of it. Well, no matter. That’s not what’s important. What matters is figuring out how to counter it.”

The Tower Master had more or less suspected this from the start. For the past week, he had been analyzing ways to counter it.

“What do we do?” Ketal asked him.

“The simplest path follows the method,” the Tower Master said. “If Necrobix needs dark mages as vessels, then it cannot act without them. If there are none, there are no puppets.”

Ketal’s mouth tightened. “That is not possible.”

“Agreed,” the Tower Master said. “That is the problem.”

“Are there constraints?” Ketal asked him. “Anything that narrows the set?”

“There are,” the Tower Master said. “From what I can see, Necrobix can only inhabit those at or above the Transcendent threshold. That limits the pool. But, it does not make it small enough.”

“So, if we eliminate all the Transcendent dark mages, that would solve the problem?”

“It would,” the Tower Master replied, “but that’s easier said than done.”

Ever since Necrobix’s descent, the dark mages had vanished without a trace, hiding themselves perfectly. Even for the Tower Master, tracking each one down individually was no easy task—and there simply wasn’t enough time to do so.

“There aren’t that many above the Transcendent level,” the Tower Master went on, “but... if they wanted to, they could forcibly create more.”

Dark mages drew their power from demons. Since their strength was bestowed upon them rather than cultivated through their own effort, reaching higher realms was easier for them than for ordinary mages or swordsmen.

Of course, a realm reached by force would be warped and unstable, not a true level of mastery. However, as sacrifices for Necrobix to use, they would be more than sufficient.

Ketal looked at the corpse again and then backed up. “Is there any alternative?”

“There is none,” the Tower Master said. “I sought one, but every road curved back. Even if we besieged a puppet in perfect formation and bound it with every chain I know how to build, Necrobix would walk free. The only answer is to erase the base of the method.”

He rubbed at the bridge of his nose out of old habit. The gesture looked strange on a face made of bone.

“If we had one more person who could block Necrobix,” he said, and his voice caught on the cusp of a laugh that had no humor. “If we had one more, I could track the source. As it is, Necrobix reroutes strength from the third body at will. That flexibility defeats my marks.”

If they could pin down the third body, even for a moment, that flow would be cut off. The Tower Master could then trace the current back to its source. But even then, he wouldn’t be able to kill the being he found. The laws of the world drew that boundary: without a god, a demon could be banished back to its realm, but never truly destroyed.

Ketal’s answer came without flourish. “Do not concern yourself with that part. If we find the true body, I can kill it.”

The Tower Master looked at him. “What do you mean?”

“I have not shown you,” Ketal said. He lifted the axe. Aura rose along the blade like dawn turned inside out. The sound it made had no place in language.

The Tower Master’s instincts assembled before his intellect did. Ten spells braided themselves around him, and then ten more, each slid into the gaps left by the last. He also took a step back that carried him across a hundred paces without crossing the distance between.

“It is unsettling every time,” Serena said, trying to keep her voice even.

“What is that?” the Tower Master asked Ketal. He had never seen anything like it before. The moment his eyes fell on it, he understood instinctively: this thing could kill him. It could destroy him completely, in a way that bypassed his phylactery. It could discard the very rules that allowed a lich to return and impose a new rule in their place.

“Do not display me like a fairground show,” the Abomination muttered from where it lay inside the Aura like a judge within a robe.

“I assumed the Tower Master’s power would be enough to satisfy you,” Ketal said, almost to himself.

“You have no intention of killing him,” it replied. “If I can’t kill anyone, the display is meaningless.”

“You are difficult,” Ketal said, and the complaint was fond against his will.

The Tower Master studied the light that was not light. He felt the ugliness of envy and did not turn away from it.

“There is something inside you,” he said.

“Like a troublesome housemate,” Ketal said. “But enough about that. What I’m trying to say is that once we find the true body of Necrobix, killing it will not be a problem.”

Necrobix fled whenever the edge drew too close. It fled because the Abomination could reach it. It fled because what wrapped the axe was not imitation. The Tower Master laughed once and shook his head.

“You are extraordinary,” he said. “Also, the power you just displayed is akin to what Necrobix used.”

“I heard it tried to imitate this power. But in the end, it’s just an imitation. It poses no threat to me.”

The Tower Master had no words for the picture that rose when he set those two facts side by side. One of the Four Pillars had borrowed a barbarian’s trick. He would have called anyone a liar for less.

“Then the killing is answered,” he said finally. “We need only one more piece.”

They needed a way to hold a puppet in place, a way to keep the third body from moving freely so that the flow of strength could not wash from it into the other two. If such a card existed, the plan would stop being a hope and become a path. Yet, no such card currently lived upon the Mortal Realm.

“Such headaches...,” the Tower Master grumbled, clicking his tongue. “We will have to hunt them down one by one and break them by hand.”

***

Far to the East, beyond the last line of farms and ferries, the continent met an old sea. In ordinary seasons, that coastline glittered with little days, with market stalls and children and the iron ring of tools on wood. Now it lay still. The crisis had scoured it of visitors. The waves spoke to no one.

From the sea there, a group of figures emerged and made landfall.

The water split apart as a massive hand slammed down onto the shore, pressing against the earth. Then, a figure rose, his form towering and immense.

“Hahaha!” Laughter burst forth, booming and wild. Light flickered in his ashen-gray eyes. “At last, I’ve emerged! You feeble, pathetic people from the Outside! I have come to claim this land!”

“Be quiet,” said the second to step onto shore, and he frowned as if chastising an overeager child.

The third did not attend to either of them. She crouched with her palms pressed into the sand and let the grains run between her fingers. The ripple of wonder that crossed her face was disarming.

“What is this?” she asked. “It is soft.”

She scooped up a double handful and tipped it into her mouth. She chewed, considered, and nodded solemnly.

“It is edible. Outside is full of food.”

“Truly,” said the first, “but our king has said that sand is not food.”

“That may be true for him,” she replied. “His cooking is very good.”

“That is true,” the second conceded. “I want to taste his food again.”

“Then just ask him to make something for you,” she said with a tilt of her head. “We’ve finally come to the Outside! The world where our king resides!”

All three stood where the tide lapped at their toes. Their bodies were shaped like humans, yet their strength was not born of training or discipline. Beneath their skin, muscles shifted and flexed like ropes carefully coiled by a patient hand. The wind toyed with their ashen hair, and their eyes, the same pale gray, gazed out at the world—not with suspicion, but with a raw, unguarded curiosity.

One wore his hair short and had a face that looked as if it had been taught to scowl and never unlearned the lesson. The second looked more thoughtful, as if the muscles in his face preferred to arrange themselves into concentrated lines. The third was a woman. She was slimmer by comparison, but nothing about her frame suggested weakness. She watched the air like someone listening for a rhythm she knew by heart.

“It is warm,” she said. “It’s like standing inside a hut.”

“King!” the first shouted, and he pushed his voice across the water as if he could reach someone’s campfire with it. “We have come! We followed you Outside!”

“I want to see the things the king talked about,” the second said. “He said there are great villages.”

They started to chatter over each other, bright as children standing in front of a fair. The thoughtful one lifted a hand, and the others quieted with good grace.

“Do not become too happy,” he said. “Did you forget what they said? Our purpose is to find our king.”

“That is true,” the first said. “How do we find him?”

Silence took a small walk among them. They had not considered the question before stepping into the sea. The solution presented itself to the first with the absolute certainty of a creature who had never had to build a bridge before crossing a river.

“Why make it complicated?” he said, still palming sand into his mouth. “We walk where our feet point. We will find him.”

“As expected of our brilliant brain, the one the king personally trained and taught nonstop! You’re so smart!” the woman said.

It was the simplest approach imaginable. Neither of the others had landed on it before he said it, so it felt like a revelation.

“What if the people Outside try to stop us?” the woman asked. “Our king warned us, and he meant it. If we cause trouble, he’ll crack our skulls.”

“It is fine,” the thoughtful one said with an easy grin that looked out of place on him and therefore contained a charm of its own. “The king explained a principle to me. If they come to stop us, it is called self-defense when we kill them.”

“Oh!” the first said, enlightened. “That is right! That was exactly what he said!”

“As expected of our brilliant brain!” she said again with total conviction. “I am glad we came out together.”

“Let us go find the king,” they said together, because saying it together made it feel more true.

“He will be pleased to see us,” the first added, and he lengthened his stride as if the king might be waiting just beyond the first rise in the land. “He will be so pleased that he will praise us right away.”

“Do you think he will hug us?” the woman said, and for a second something young shone through the strength in her face. “He will, will he not?”

“Of course!” the thoughtful one said. “Now let’s go!”

They began to walk inland. They were the barbarians of the White Snowfield, and their steps pushed a new rhythm into the earth.