Chapter 349: Champion (5)

A deep concussion boomed through the void and rattled the Demon King’s skull. For an instant, he nearly blacked out; the blow was that heavy. He clenched his teeth, forced himself steady, and threw a punch.

The Demon King’s fist carried the power to kill gods and lance through creation. Even Ketal would be left with a hole through his body if it landed clean. A single mistake would not be forgiven.

For Ketal, that had always been ordinary life. He slipped his head past the blow with a breath to spare. Cold prickled his nape, and he savored it as he brought the axe down. The Demon King caught Ketal’s striking wrist with his free hand and squeezed to crush bone.

Ketal answered by driving his forehead forward. A thunderclap cracked the air and pushed the Demon King back. The exchange was crude, brutish, the sort of brawl street thugs would admire, yet every motion carried a tier of strength that could rip a world.

Ketal laughed aloud and rushed in again. His skull throbbed where bone had met bone, but he did not care. He had never intended to win without taking damage. The Demon King’s fist howled forward again. Ketal raised the axe. In technique, he stood above the Demon King, and that edge was why he had been tilting the fight in his favor.

“I cannot beat you with technique alone,” the Demon King said, and even as he admitted it, his eyes hardened. “But in handling demonic energy and force, I am the master.”

Ketal had not yet spent a full year learning to handle Myst and its kin. The Demon King had shaped demonic energy since the moment of his birth. In that domain, he held a vast advantage.

Demonic energy rolled from his knuckles and spiraled like a storm, catching the axe’s line and wrenching it off course. Ketal locked his grip and fought the twist. The axe skipped and shook, but he kept it close.

The Demon King drove his strike straight through the opening. Ketal couldn’t slip away or deflect it entirely, so he crossed his forearms over his body and braced for the impact. The collision made bone shriek beneath his skin, a sickening creak echoing through his wrists as pain surged up his arms. In a single devastating blow, a fracture spidered along his radius like a pale crack crawling through obsidian.

Ketal did not accept pain for free. He hauled the axe through the turbulence and hacked. Steel kissed the Demon King’s shoulder. It did not bite to the bone, but it was not a shallow mark. The Demon King shifted his feet and slid out before Ketal could cut again, buying distance with clean efficiency.

The axe tore free with a wet sound. A thick sheet of black blood poured down his chest.

“Even your blood is black. Fitting for a Demon King!” Ketal said, grinning. He closed once more, raised the axe, and cleaved.

Hell’s crust took the blow. The ground split down the seam and a continent-sized hunk of stone sheared in two like a loaf of bread. The Demon King had evaded the blade itself, but the afterimage of AAura that trailed the strike drew a line across his chest and spat a spray of midnight.

He responded without hesitation, stepping through the opening and driving a brutal kick toward Ketal’s ribs. Ketal twisted with the motion, absorbing as much of the impact as he could, yet the force still tore through his body. His insides churned from the shock, and a metallic taste filled his mouth as blood surged up his throat, which he forced himself to swallow.

Ketal only laughed—brightly and breathlessly, as though something deep within him had finally been repaid in full. It had been so long since he had taken this much damage, so long since an opponent had pushed him to such a brink. And that opponent was none other than the Demon King himself, a being of pure legend. If this could not draw laughter from him, nothing ever would. A wild grin tore across his face as he swung with unrestrained delight.

Force clashed against force, each impact carving new wounds into both combatants. Ketal’s body began to protest in earnest—no matter how tempered or remade it was, even he could not wield power of this magnitude without paying a price. His joints ground under the pressure, and his muscles trembled with strain, each fiber singing in pain as the battle raged on.

The Demon King was no different. In the end, it would come down to which one broke first. And it became clear that the Demon King would meet that limit before Ketal did. A low sound rolled from the Demon King’s throat. He had never touched a limit in all his ages. He had never needed to fight with everything he had; nothing had ever asked that price.

For the Demon King, this kind of pressure was a first, but for Ketal, it was the very air he had always breathed. The difference between them was undeniable. Realizing it, the Demon King made his choice—he would end the battle before time could wear him down. His gaze sharpened, cold and lethal, like the edge of a freshly drawn blade.

“Kill the enemy,” he commanded.

Hell obeyed. All across the broken sky, the scattered asteroids that had been a world a short time ago shifted at once and rushed Ketal like a stone storm.

“A grand sight,” Ketal said, and the admiration in his laugh was genuine.

He understood the message clearly; the Demon King had reached his limit and was pouring out the last of his strength to end it in this moment. If Ketal could withstand what was coming, victory would be his. Steeling himself, he drove his feet into the ground and braced for the storm.

He smashed through the oncoming stone, broke slabs to dust, and drove forward. Shrapnel fanned him and cut at his flesh from every angle. However, he did not waste time on each piece. He bull-rushed through and took the shards in his skin and muscle.

Ketal closed the distance, his body marked with cuts and gouges, his breath ragged but steady. The Demon King stood waiting for him, calm amid the ruin, and slowly raised a single finger.

“Die,” he said.

A line of black, thick and absolute, whipped through the air like a judgment from the void. Ketal moved on instinct alone, raising his axe just in time to meet it. The moment edge met line, a violent shock surged up his arms, threatening to tear them apart. This was no mere beam of dark energy like the ones the Demon King had unleashed before; it was something purer, heavier, a force that felt less like power and more like the embodiment of a law that governed all things.

The axe screamed as its edge met the impossible force, the blade grinding away as if the metal itself were being erased from existence. The monstrous iron began to melt under that singular stroke, yet Ketal refused to yield. Planting his feet with unshakable resolve, he drove every ounce of strength through his legs, twisted his wrists, and forced the weapon to turn, channeling his defiance into motion.

The black line bent like a beam of light refracted through glass, veering just a fraction off its course. It carved downward, slicing through the shattered ruins of Hell before continuing its path toward the Mortal Realm’s sky. A heartbeat later, far across the world, a spear of darkness burst from the heavens, drove deep into the earth like a colossal pillar, and then tore straight through to the opposite side of the planet.

It was fortunate that no one had stood in the path of that trajectory. Even the Tower Master or the Saintess of the Sun God would have been struck through before they had a chance to react. It was a stroke that pierced stars, and Ketal had turned it aside.

Ketal was already upon the Demon King, who had exhausted every last reserve and stood completely exposed in the aftermath of his final attack. Seizing that instant, Ketal brought his axe down with all his might, and the blade sank deep into the Demon King’s chest.

The kick came an instant later, the Demon King’s heel driving into Ketal’s abdomen with the force of a battering ram. The strike came from an angle he hadn’t anticipated, and for a moment, the world around him seemed to flicker out of focus. He kept his feet by will and reflex alone, but the blow tore the axe from his hand.

He caught sight of the axe handle protruding from the Demon King’s chest, then shifted his gaze to the artifact coiled around his wrist. For an instant, he considered recalling the weapon through it—but dismissed the thought just as quickly. The axe was buried too deep to move, and even if the relic could pull it free, there was no reason to summon it now.

So he moved forward instead. The Demon King swung his fist, the axe still embedded in his chest, driving the strike with desperate force. Ketal raised his fractured arm to block, and the bone finally gave way with a sharp crack. It didn’t matter. The fight had reached its final act, and neither of them intended to step back.

He deflected the Demon King’s punch with his shattered arm, forcing it off course, then drove a brutal, compact strike into the back of the axe head. The blade sank deeper into flesh, but it still wasn’t enough. Gritting his teeth, Ketal brought his uninjured hand over the broken one, gathering every last fragment of strength left in his body. He slammed the heel of his palm against the back of the embedded axe, again and again, as if he were driving a screw straight through the heart of the world.

The world cracked with the sound. Steel pushed through flesh and out the far side of the Demon King’s back. In the same instant, the demonic energy packed inside that body could no longer hold to a vessel. It blew free, raced up to the high dark, and burst.

Black fireworks erupted across the shattered sky of Hell, bursting like dying stars over a world consumed by ruin. Their radiance pierced the veil between realms, and every living being in the Mortal Realm looked up to witness the bloom. In that instant, all who saw it understood—the battle in Hell had come to its end.

Ketal let out a ragged laugh, the sound half-breath and half-defiance. His body was in ruins—his skull throbbed with pain, his skin was pierced with shards of Hell’s debris, and one arm hung limp at his side, the bone ground to powder. He hadn’t been pushed this far since the day he clawed his way out of the White Snowfield, when the ancient and merciless being had tried to keep him there. But none of it mattered. He had prevailed back then, and he had prevailed now.

“A good fight,” Ketal said, delighted. The axe had pinned the Demon King through the chest. The power stored in that body had spilled and fled. There was nothing left to shore him up.

The Demon King was dying.

“You pushed yourself too hard at the end,” Ketal added, not unkindly.

The Demon King had never known the meaning of a limit—he had been born into power, strength woven into his very existence. Ketal, on the other hand, had clawed his way up from weakness, facing his limits more times than he could ever remember. In the end, that difference was what decided the battle.

“I have lost,” the Demon King said, and accepted it without spin. “A perfect defeat. I have no excuse. You did not even use the other power you carry.”

Ketal had fought to the last and never once touched that other power. There was nothing to argue.

“I knew this day would come,” the Demon King went on. “I thought it would be gods who dealt it, or one of the mortal Heroes. I did not imagine an Anomaly like you would be the one to kill me.”

His voice held, of all things, a concern for the world.

“For the world’s sake, I should have killed you,” he said. “I failed. Anomaly, you will kill me, topple Hell, and after that—what will you do?”

“No need to worry,” Ketal said as he worked shards from his shoulders and ribs. “My wish is not the thing you fear.”

“You wish to rule the world,” the Demon King said. “How revolting.”

“No,” Ketal said, and shook his head. “I want to travel this world.”

He would break whatever tried to ruin the journey. That was the entire truth of him.

“So die without fear,” he said. “I do not intend to destroy what I love.”

“I cannot trust you,” the Demon King answered. “But I am the defeated. Begging for mercy would only be vile.”

His body faded grain by grain in the air.

“You are the victor. Stain the world and ruin it as you please, Anomaly.”

With those last words, the Demon King became ash and went out. Since order had settled over the universe, he had borne almost all the weight of demonic energy, evil, and shadow and colored the world with it. Here and now, he was gone.

Ketal watched the place where his foe had fallen, then spoke under his breath. “Even at the end, you would not accept me.”

The Demon King had denied the fact of Ketal’s being to the last. Ketal gave the empty air a small, rueful shake of his head.

“It does not matter.”

The thing inside Ketal stirred and spoke in a tone that still held wonder.

“You truly won,” it whispered. “You truly defeated the Demon King.”

Stronger than the Primarchs, unmatched among all beings of the current age—such was the Demon King. And yet, Ketal had triumphed. Even the monster that lurked within him could not help but regard the moment as something wondrous, a marvel born of struggle and defiance.

“It was not easy,” Ketal said. “I want to rest, but first we go back.”

He stepped across shattered islets of Hell and returned to the Mortal Realm. People had been holding their breath and watching the sky. When Ketal came back, eyes widened everywhere.

“H-how did it go?”

“We won,” Ketal said simply. “The Demon King has been extinguished.”

“Oh,” someone breathed.

Another voice broke on their own breath. “O-oh.”

At first, they simply stared, as though the meaning of the moment had yet to sink in. Then, slowly, joy broke across their faces, and a thunderous cheer swept over the continent like the rising roar of the sea. The great war had finally come to its end, and it was not only the Mortal Realm that felt the weight of that conclusion descending.

In a realm beyond the reach of the living world, sealed away and forgotten by time, the echoes of another struggle stirred. There, too, the battle that had seemed eternal was at last drawing toward its end.