Chapter 356: Peace, and After (4)

The man’s face tightened as if his own arrogance shocked him. “I do not need their authority for a mere barbarian. Die.”

He drew his sword in a single motion and rushed forward. Aura flooded the blade until the steel blurred, and the thrust carved a line through the air that few could hope to see, much less stop. By personal strength alone, he stood at the highest of the Transcendents, one of the rare beings in the Mortal Realm who could claim almost no equals.

Ketal grimaced and extended his hand. The driving edge halted in his grasp as if clamped in iron. The man’s eyes widened in disbelief. Ketal answered with his fist, and the man’s chest caved under the blow. The heart that drove blood through the body collapsed into pulp, and the body snapped backward as if flung, smashing into the floor hard enough to send cracks through stone. Ketal’s voice remained even.

“I see that your power is similar to that of those at the very top of the Transcendents,” Ketal said.

If this man truly was the highest-level Transcendent, he should have been there when the Mortal Realm struck at Hell. However, Ketal had never seen this one. The man, for his part, clearly did not know Ketal either.

“Where did you come from?” Ketal said.

A raw sound tore from the man’s throat as he forced himself out through a wall of withered wreckage. Despite the heart that had burst, his chest showed no injury, and not a mark remained on his body. He glared with an expression knotted by rage.

“I do not know what sort of barbarian you are,” he said. “You are strong. Good. I will show you a fragment of a great authority.”

He lifted the sword. The Aura sheathing the blade died away, and a different power settled in its place, strange in texture and wrong in tone.

“Receive this blessing!” the man cried.

He laughed aloud and rushed again. Ketal watched for the space of a breath and then stepped back, choosing to avoid rather than block. The blade plunged into the floor, and the ground twisted with a shriek.

The earth writhed as if a merciless hand wrung it dry; stone spiraled, dried, and seized into shrunken knots until what remained looked like ancient wood that had been left to parch for centuries. The street transformed into a corridor of petrified roots, the very image of what had ruined Magna Rain.

“Just as I thought,” Ketal said, and his gaze cooled.

That settled it. The man was wielding an authority that belonged to one of the Primarchs. Ketal knew which of the three. The Horrid, the Twisted, and the Hideous stood above most things like storm fronts above grass. This power belonged to the Twisted. Yet, Ketal did not know how this man was able to obtain such authority.

Ketal moved again, more curious than cautious, while the man stabbed down and forced new spirals into the stone. The wounds in the ground did not close. The Twisted Primarch’s authority warped all things. It bent force and concept alike and worried at the weave of the world itself. Its stature sat so high that most powers crumbled beneath it like dry wood under a press. By that alone, the master of Magna Rain, a Hero mage, had lost. The force here could kill a Hero.

The man threw his head back and laughed when he saw Ketal avoid another strike. “How long do you believe you can keep running?”

“I am not dodging because I cannot block,” Ketal replied.

He reached again and gripped the blade. The man sneered and drove the authority down in a hammering blow. Power rang and shook the air. The world at the edge of sight tilted. Even so, Ketal’s fingers did not shift, and not a single hair bent.

The authority had not failed to activate. The world was twisting where it touched. It simply could not invade Ketal’s body. Ketal tightened his grip. The sword fractured and powdered along the line of his hand. He caught the man by the head and slammed him into the stone. The corridor heaved, Magna Rain shuddered, and the coils of distortion vanished under a heavier weight.

“Unlucky for you,” Ketal said without heat. “That kind of authority does not work on me.”

The Primarchs’ higher rank, their affinity advantage, and the petty tyrannies they imposed on lesser forces meant nothing to him. He had avoided the first strikes to confirm which authority he faced, not because he lacked the strength to stop them.

“Judging by the stench of you,” Ketal added, “you sit at the bottom rung among that Primarch’s apostles. Where did something like you come from?”

The man spasmed and flung power like a torn net. The world buckled and tore under the spill alone, and pillars kinked as if they had turned soft. However, Ketal did not move.

“You are strong,” the man managed, his eyes trembling.

“I am stronger than you,” Ketal said.

“You cannot kill me,” the man cried. “I bear their authority! I do not die!”

He stated it like a challenge to the world, and he was not precisely wrong. With a fragment of a Primarch on him, ordinary means would fail. However, the word

ordinary

had never applied to Ketal.

“Is that what you think?” Ketal said as he drew his axe.

Aura rose over the edge and held there like a hard, clear light. The man’s face froze as understanding settled. The axe could end what wore his body, not only the flesh itself.

“Even the Primarch could fall to me. You are a leftover scrap, and you dare claim immortality in front of me? How ridiculous,” the Abomination spoke with an easy pride.

“I could kill you whenever I choose. But that is not what I want,” Ketal said, his gaze still on the man. He wanted information. “Where did you come from?”

The man only moaned. Ketal had not expected a clean answer. He looked the body over with a soldier’s eye.

“No sigils and no badge,” he said.

The brown leather carried no stamp. No clan stitch or guild plate showed on the belt or strap. The man had erased every mark that might name a patron or a place. That choice made one thing likely. He was not acting alone.

“Where would others like you gather?” Ketal said.

“Kill me!” the man answered.

“Well, it doesn’t matter whether you answer or not,” Ketal said.

Ketal opened his presence and let it drop, and the man’s color drained. Because the man carried that authority, he stood closer to a being of the Demon Realm than to anything mortal, and he understood the scale of what pressed on him now. His body shook like a leaf in high wind, and his eyes jittered as if they had forgotten how to hold still.

“The reaction is stronger than I expected,” Ketal said.

“He is already ruined,” the Abomination said with pleasure. “A broken mind sees the center of you more clearly.”

“That is fine,” Ketal said, and he closed his presence over the man like a mouth. “Where are you from?”

The man’s mind snapped again and sloughed away until the remains obeyed. He stood like a puppet waiting for a string to pull.

“I... I am...” he began.

Then, a mechanism triggered inside his flesh. The sound that broke from his throat was his last. His body distorted. It twisted in on itself, joints reversed, and bones cut the wrong way through muscle. Ketal recognized the shape of what would follow and stepped back to clear the radius. Spikes budded and extended from the contorting body. They hardened, then opened.

At the heart of Magna Rain, a single bloom rose and unfurled. As it opened, it dragged all things inward and twisted them as it fed. Stone slurred as if softened and pulled from the wrong end. Galleries folded inward as if the city tried to swallow itself whole. When the motion stopped, one flower had swallowed Magna Rain.

Ketal stood outside the range and watched the last ripples settle.

“The Flower of the Twisted,” he said.

It was one of the authorities of the Twisted Primarch. The authority compressed everything into a flower that warped the world as it bloomed. It was a final act that devoured what it touched. It seemed that authority was planted into the apostles as their last resort.

Ketal studied the bloom a moment longer and then left the corridor. Outside the broken tunnel, Cassan and Cassandra sat on the ground shaking.

“Ketal,” Cassan said.

“It is finished,” Ketal said. “No one will enter Magna Rain again.”

Cassan tried to answer and failed. Cassandra could not shape words and only stared at the floor where the city had been. Ketal made his decision without ceremony.

“For now, both of you will come to the Kingdom of Denian,” he said.

No Quest window appeared, which meant that something remained to be done. There was no doubt any longer. One of the Primarchs, the Twisted One, had reached into the Mortal Realm. Ketal let out a breath.

“One ends and another begins,” he said. “It is tiresome.”

***

Ketal brought the two back to Milayna. She had waited with her usual composure, but when she saw the two faces, she startled. In truth, one face fixed her attention.

“Cassandra,” she said.

“You know her?” Ketal said.

“How could I not?” Milayna answered.

Magna Rain, the city below the earth, had been divided among three factions. Cassandra was the daughter of one of their rulers. She loved the Mortal Realm, slipped out often, and left trouble wherever she passed. Ketal let out a quiet breath.

“That explains the escort that never left your side the first time we met,” he said.

“They are gone,” Cassandra said, and her voice fell flat.

“What happened?” Milayna asked Ketal, her expression tightening.

“Magna Rain fell,” Ketal said.

Milayna’s eyes opened wide at the simple answer.

“Take the details from these two,” Ketal said. “You will also need to inform the king. I will explain the rest after that.”

“Yes,” Milayna said, and she moved at once.

She listened to Cassan and Cassandra until she had the rough idea of the disaster and then sent the report to King Barbosa of Denian. Alarm shook the royal castle from gatehouse to keep. When she returned, Ketal was waiting.

“You heard,” he said.

“Yes,” she replied. “Something came and erased Magna Rain. Do you know what it was?”

“I do,” he said. “I know what it is, where it came from, and roughly how strong it is.”

“Is it a being of the Demon Realm?” she asked him.

“It is,” Ketal said, and he did not hesitate.

“Like Nano, the one that swallowed a kingdom,” Milayna murmured.

“It sits above that,” he said.

“Then like the Ugly Rat that ruined the North?” she asked him.

“It sits above that as well,” he said. “If it moves in earnest, it can collapse the Mortal Realm itself. Calling it equal to the Demon King would not be wrong.”

Milayna made a thin sound that was almost a scream. The war with Hell had barely stopped echoing, and now something equal to the Demon King had appeared.

“Even so,” Ketal said, “several questions remain.”

He considered the first. The Primarchs fought one another without end. and yet one had managed to extend its reach into the Mortal Realm. He considered the second. A being of the highest Transcendent rank had emerged from nowhere, as if born from the void itself. He considered the third. The assault had begun with Magna Rain, and that fact alone carried meaning. He needed information.

“Has the Tower Master returned?” he asked Milayna.

“Not yet,” Milayna said.

“Then there is no help for it. Where is Helia?” he asked her.

“She is in the Sun God’s holy land,” Milayna answered.

“Give me the location,” Ketal said. “I will go now.”

Milayna nodded. “I will prepare the route at once. The holy land does not admit outsiders, but there will be no problem for you. Even so, the approach is barred without the Sun God’s token.”

The barrier rejected and expelled anyone who lacked it. That was why even demons had never assaulted it.

Milayna continued, “We must unlock it with the Sun God’s token. His Majesty keeps one, so I will speak to him and—”

“I do not need it,” Ketal said. “Tell me where it is.”

“Excuse me?” she said.

“I do not have time for that process,” Ketal said. “I will handle the barrier. You do not need to worry.”

𝘧𝘳𝘦ℯ𝓌𝘦𝒷𝘯𝑜𝑣𝘦𝓁.𝒸𝘰𝓂

Milayna closed her mouth on the next thought and then nodded.