Chapter 377: The Story After (9) [Side Story, Part 9]

“I can still fight.” Bayern forced the words out as he tried to lift himself.

“You cannot,” Ketal said.

He cut the answer as sharply as a blade. Bayern’s spirit still burned, but simply standing on his feet already pushed his body past its limit. Blood soaked the sand beneath him. At a glance, it would not have been strange if he simply bled out and died where he lay.

Even for a Hero warrior, these wounds sat far too close to mortal. The fact that those wounds had been carved into him by the White Bear itself made them even more dangerous.

“Lie still and rest,” Ketal said.

His fist fell on Bayern’s head, not with killing intent but with ruthless practicality. Bayern’s eyes rolled back, and his body went limp as he collapsed. The Tower Master lunged forward and caught him before he hit the ground.

“You are as rough as ever,” the Tower Master muttered.

“If I do not go this far, he will keep trying to stand,” Ketal replied. “I leave him to you.”

“Understood. His wounds are severe. I will take him to Helia myself.”

The Tower Master rose into the air with Bayern in his arms. Ignisia followed, red hair and cloak snapping in the desert wind as she climbed after him.

Left alone, Ketal turned back toward the White Bear and smiled.

“Thank you for humoring him, Bear,” he said.

“

Grnn,

” the Bear rumbled.

The sound carried a strange weight, as if it acknowledged what Ketal had just said while also judging the power he had revealed earlier.

“This is the strength I learned Outside,” Ketal said. “The world out there is different from this one. It is far more entertaining. You should take a look someday.”

“

Grnn,

” the Bear answered.

It leaned its back against a shattered ice cliff as if that comment did not interest it at all, and it had no intention of leaving its domain. Ketal gave a quiet laugh and waved his hand.

“I thought you might say that,” he replied. “In any case, it was good to see you again. Let us meet another time.”

He turned and left the White Snowfield, walking out of that impossible landscape and back into the world he now called his own.

Soon afterward, he returned to the Tower Master.

“How is Bayern?” Ketal asked him.

“I took him to Helia,” the Tower Master replied. “She was shocked. The wounds are fatal in nature, but if it is her, she will cure him without much trouble.”

“Then that is enough,” Ketal said.

He spoke more to himself than to the lich. The Tower Master watched him in silence for a moment, as if weighing something in his mind, then finally spoke.

“Ketal,” he said. “I have a favor to ask.”

“A favor?” Ketal replied. “What kind of favor?”

The Tower Master laid out his proposal, and Ketal’s eyes widened before a burst of bright, unrestrained joy spread across his face. He nodded with such enthusiasm that it seemed his head might come loose.

***

A year passed.

The people of the Mortal Realm poured their strength into restoration. Broken roads were rebuilt, and shattered plains smoothed out. Those efforts bore fruit, and now the world stood in a far better state than it had a year earlier.

Flowers bloomed where scorched earth had once been. Ruined paths returned to their original form. In forests that had been torn up and overturned, the seeds scattered by careful hands sprouted and pushed tender green shoots through the soil.

From here onward, much of the work belonged to nature. Time would smooth the rest. The people, feeling that long-lost sense of breathing room, held festivals in the streets. Laughter and music returned to cities that had screamed under war.

Around that time, several Heroes gathered quietly in one place. Karin gazed at the sight and spoke under her breath.

“This really is a spectacle,” she said.

Helia, Saintess of the Sun God; Karin, High Elf Queen; Bayern, King of the North; Ignisia, the Red Dragon; and the Tower Master himself stood united, five Heroes gathered together.

Helia and the Tower Master, in particular, had been known as the two strongest lives on the continent before Ketal ever appeared. Even during the great war against Hell, such a gathering could be counted on one hand.

They had not gathered to confront a crisis or avert a world-ending threat. They had come for one reason alone, driven by nothing more than their own curiosity and desire.

“To be honest, I do not want this enough to insist on it,” Karin said.

“You are still curious, though,” the Tower Master replied. “That is why you accepted my proposal.”

Karin pursed her lips, then nodded. He was right. She was here because she had failed to resist the pull of that curiosity.

A short while later, Ketal appeared.

“I see everyone is here,” he said. “So there are five of you.”

“Five,” the Tower Master confirmed.

“In that case, we should move,” Ketal said.

The Tower Master snapped his fingers. Space folded like paper. The world twisted around them, and in the next instant, the scenery changed.

“Wow,” Ketal murmured.

They stood in the middle of a vast desert. Sand stretched out in every direction to the horizon, the dunes rising and falling like waves frozen in time.

“This is the Cassian Desert,” the Tower Master explained. “A massive desert with a radius of one thousand kilometers. No life exists here. It is so dry that an ordinary creature loses all its moisture within a day. Among the places on the Mortal Realm, this is one of those people call Demon Realms.”

“You really have all sorts of places,” Ketal said.

He crouched and scooped up a handful of sand, letting it spill through his fingers. He watched how it flowed between his knuckles and smiled, enjoying the simple sensation. Then he lifted his gaze and surveyed the endless dunes.

“In a place like this, the aftershocks will not spread anywhere important,” he said. “This will do.”

“It will,” the Tower Master replied.

The Heroes drew in slow breaths. Each of them reached for their weapons, their faces growing taut with focus.

***

On the day Bayern fought the White Bear, the Tower Master’s curiosity had finally outweighed his restraint. He had called Ketal aside and made a suggestion.

“I want to fight you properly,” he had said. “Just once.”

Ketal’s overwhelming strength, the foreign authority that belonged only to him, had never seriously turned against the lives of the Mortal Realm. There had been a handful of battles in which he fought sincerely, but even then, considering what he truly could do, those fights had been no more than play.

Now Ketal had grown even stronger than he had been in the White Snowfield, and the Tower Master found himself wondering where Ketal’s limits truly lay and how far the strongest beings in the Mortal Realm could push themselves in a battle against him.

“Of course, I will not stand before you alone,” he said. “I plan to ask several other Heroes to join. Those who accept will fight alongside me.”

In a one-on-one battle, there was no room for discussion. It was not simply that their chances of winning were low. The difference in level meant they could not even be called opponents. Only if several Heroes attacked together, using every advantage they possessed, would there be any meaning in the attempt at all.

Under that condition, the Tower Master had proposed a formal duel to Ketal. Ketal had accepted without a second of hesitation.

“Of course!” he had said. “That is perfect!”

Fighting the mightiest champions of this fantasy world, not one by one but all at once with everything they possessed, and standing as their single opponent in that clash became an offer he had no reason to refuse.

“Then we must set a date!” Ketal had said, enthusiastically. “Gathering that many strong people will not be simple. It ought to be after things calm down. How exactly do you plan to arrange the time?”

“Calm yourself first,” the Tower Master had replied.

He had expected Ketal to accept, but he had not expected him to look quite that happy about it.

After that conversation, a year had passed. The war’s scars had faded enough to grant them all some freedom. At last, the Tower Master’s idea had become reality. The ones who showed interest and agreed to stand against Ketal were Ignisia, Karin, Bayern, and Helia, four in total.

Now, in the Cassian Desert, Ketal raised his axe.

“Shall we start right away?” he asked them.

“Not yet,” the Tower Master said, shaking his head. “Give us one hour first. I am a mage. I need time to prepare. The same goes for Helia and Karin.”

The two women nodded, and Ketal accepted without complaint.

“Very well,” he said. “Then I will stay exactly where I am. When one hour passes, I will begin to move.”

“Understood,” the Tower Master replied. “In that case...”

“Let’s begin,” Ketal said as he laughed softly and closed his eyes.

The moment his gaze vanished, the Heroes scattered in all directions. They rapidly increased the distance between themselves and Ketal, each of them choosing their own way to prepare for the fight to come.

Ketal stood alone in the center of the desert. He listened to the wind and the faint movements of power in the distance. He could imagine the strategies they were building, the combinations they were planning, the traps they would attempt to set.

He wondered what they would show him and how far they could go to entertain him, and his heart began to beat faster from anticipation alone. Ketal closed his eyes more firmly and let time pass.

Exactly one hour later, a heavy voice pressed down over the desert.

“In that case, we begin,” the voice said.

Ketal opened his eyes. Bayern stood before him, close enough that the wind from his cloak stirred the sand at Ketal’s feet.

“You did not move,” Ketal noted.

“The others were planning something for the sake of victory. I have no interest in that,” Bayern said quietly. He looked straight at Ketal. “The only reason I accepted the Tower Master’s proposal is this.”

Ketal, the barbarian who had become something far beyond any barbarian the world had ever known, stood before him. To face that power alone and fight him one-on-one remained Bayern’s only goal.

“If anyone interferes in the fight between you and me,” Bayern said, “they will face my axe as their enemy.”

He bared his teeth and declared it. Somewhere, in the heat haze, Ketal thought he heard a distant sigh that might have belonged to one of the others.

“Enthusiastic!” Ketal said, laughing and raising his own axe. “I like it!”

Bayern charged, lifting his axe high before bringing it down with all his weight. Ketal met the attack head-on, and the two axes collided.

Sound and force exploded together. The sand around them erupted as if struck by a giant hammer. A pillar of dust shot upward, and the clouds overhead twisted, pulled by the pressure the two men unleashed.

Ketal moved inside the storm of metal and power, his eyes tracking every motion. He parried and matched Bayern’s swings, then smiled.

“You have grown stronger!” Ketal said.

Bayern’s strength had clearly risen since the last time they had fought. It did not feel like simple physical growth. The change was in how he handled Myst, how he directed it. Ketal watched him carefully, then understood.

“You are concentrating your Myst in bursts to strengthen yourself!” he said.

“I learned it from you,” Bayern answered.

Ketal had once used Myst to reinforce specific parts of his body, drawing out extreme strength for short moments. Bayern had seen that, studied it, and turned the idea into a technique of his own.

Ketal laughed, a sound rising from deep in his chest and ringing brightly across the desert, full of pure delight. He took endless satisfaction in knowing that his existence left its mark on this fantasy world and that his way of fighting had become a model others now followed.

Their axes met again. Force surged between them, and Ketal slid back across the sand. He stabilized his stance, eyes gleaming.

Bayern truly had grown. Using Myst to focus on his physical form, he had gained strength that even Ketal had no desire to face with an unreinforced body.

So Ketal, too, drew upon Myst. Aura rose from within his flesh. It flowed along his veins like liquid light, filled his muscles, and sank into his axe. He stepped once and swung.

The blow landed, and Bayern’s vision lurched. A single impact, nothing more, yet it sent shockwaves through his organs. He staggered, barely managing to keep his footing as his insides burned and tore, as though they had been struck by the hand of a god.

“Truly monstrous strength,” he said through gritted teeth. “All the better.”

If Ketal had been any weaker, there would have been no meaning in challenging him. Bayern roared as he stomped forward and swung his axe again and again, and the dunes shook while the air rippled violently, as if the desert itself attempted to flee from their strikes.

This power was the right of a Hero warrior, the power of one who could shake the world. Cracks ran through the blade of Bayern’s axe. The weapon could not withstand the force he poured into it. Still, he did not stop. He swung harder, faster, more desperately.

At last, the axe reached its limit. With a shattering cry, the blade broke apart. Steel fragments scattered like sparks and fell into the sand.

By ordinary logic, this moment marked defeat, yet Bayern had been waiting for exactly this. He seized the instant when his weapon failed and his force scattered.

He pushed in. Closing the distance in a heartbeat, he wrapped his arms around Ketal’s throat and waist. He hooked his leg behind Ketal’s and twisted his weight.

He had aimed for this from the beginning, knowing he would not win through strength but through technique, through grappling and leverage. He pulled with everything he had.

Ketal realized his intent a fraction too late.

“You prepared well,” Ketal said. “But unfortunately for you, I am no stranger to joint locks either.”

His hand darted like a viper, seizing Bayern’s wrist before he yanked with brutal precision. Bone slipped beneath the sudden force.

With a dull, ugly pop, the joint came out of place. Bayern’s fingers trembled and lost their strength. The control in his hand vanished, the hold on Ketal’s neck breaking for a brief instant.

That single heartbeat was all Ketal needed. Bayern tried to recover, shifting his grip with his remaining arm, but the opportunity had already vanished. Ketal caught his opposite arm and pulled while hooking his leg behind Bayern’s. He lifted him cleanly, then hurled him over his shoulder and slammed him into the ground.

The desert roared. Sand compressed under the impact, then burst outward. The force was so great that grains fused into smooth glass and shattered again, scattering sparkling fragments in all directions.

Ketal did not let the motion end there. He planted his foot on Bayern’s chest and drove it down where the heart beat.

“

Urgh!

” Bayern gasped.

Blood surged up his throat. He tried to force his body to move, but the internal damage was too heavy now. His will still raged, but his flesh refused to obey. Ketal grasped him by the neck and hauled him up as if he weighed nothing.

“That was entertaining,” Ketal said.

He spun once and flung Bayern. The King of the North shot across the sky like a thrown spear, shrinking to a speck in the distance and then disappearing beyond the dunes. Ketal exhaled, breath warm in the dry air, and laughed.

“In that case,” he shouted, “now it is your turn!”

A sigh reached him from the far side of the battlefield.

“Honestly...,” Helia said as she stepped into the open. Her shoulders rose and fell in a small, resigned motion.

“This outcome was obvious,” she said. “That’s why I suggested we fight together. And yet he insisted on going alone.”

“There is nothing to be done,” Karin said with a wry smile. “If that is what he wants, we can only respect it.”

Bayern was out, and it was their turn. Helia lifted her head and looked up into the sky.

“In that case, I will leave it to you, Ignisia,” she said.

A shadow spread across the desert. The light dimmed as something enormous crossed the sun. High above, wings unfolded, vast and crimson, scales glinting like molten metal. Ketal looked up and let out a delighted exclamation.

“A dragon?” he said. “Is that Ignisia?”

The Red Dragon answered with action rather than words. She drew in a deep breath as the air around her chest twisted and burned, and her throat filled with roaring light. Then she opened her jaws and released it all, unleashing a river of red-gold flame that poured down upon him, a torrent that sought to swallow Ketal and the desert itself.