NOVEL NEXT Chapter 360: To the Empire (4)
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Chapter 360: To the Empire (4)
BOOOOM!
A massive collision erupted.
The twisted entity's body creaked and wavered.
Ketal, too, wasn’t spared.
The fierce impact sent his body skidding backward.
Quickly regaining his footing, Ketal scanned for Helia’s location.
‘She fled already.’
Helia had already escaped far away.
Her speed of retreat was impressive, and it was the right decision.
Protecting her amidst a battle with the Old One would have been impossible.
Ketal narrowed his eyes.
“How did you escape?”
[You dare ask me that?]
The twisted one chuckled.
[It was none other than you who let me out.]
“…So that’s how it is.”
The twisted one had broken free.
And the reason was simple.
Ketal had killed something that had been sealing the White Snowfield.
As a result, the barrier had begun to crumble, allowing the Old One to burst forth.
‘So, this is my doing.’
A bitter taste lingered in Ketal’s mouth.
However, there was one thing he couldn’t understand.
“You were fighting the other Old Ones. How did you come out alone?”
The three Old Ones had been fighting each other since the beginning of creation.
That battle continued even when Ketal emerged.
If one of them escaped, it stood to reason that all three would.
The twisted one laughed with satisfaction.
[That, too, is thanks to you. Or rather, your subordinates. They interfered in our battle. It was magnificent.]
“……”
Ketal grimaced.
Before entering, he had given orders to the Barbarians:
Do not follow me.
If you must, kill one of the Old Ones.
It had been a veiled way of telling them to stay put.
Yet the Barbarians had taken his words literally.
They fought with everything they had, attacking an Old One, and suffered devastating losses.
But in the process, they succeeded in gravely wounding one of them.
Their interference shifted the balance of the eternal battle.
Even the twisted one seemed surprised, murmuring with curiosity.
[For mere mortals from outside to affect our fight... astonishing. It made things very entertaining.]
“I see.”
Ketal clicked his tongue.
“So, you’re the victor among the three Old Ones.”
The monstrous.
The twisted.
The grotesque.
Among them, the victor was the twisted one.
It laughed darkly.
[All thanks to you. I should reward you for this.]
“Then die.”
Ketal unleashed his aura and lunged at the twisted one, wielding his axe imbued with the power of monstrosity.
The twisted one responded immediately.
One of its warped spikes shot forward, producing a sharp, rending sound as it hurtled toward Ketal.
It was distortion incarnate.
Anything it touched would be torn apart, obliterated.
Ketal had faced the twisted one before, losing limbs in the process—irreparable damage.
It was an attack that couldn’t be blocked, only evaded.
But not this time.
CRACK!
The axe clashed with the twisted spike.
The power of distortion tore through everything, attempting to destroy the axe in Ketal’s grasp.
CLANG!
But the axe held firm.
The aura surrounding it violently resisted the distortion’s power.
Ketal pushed with all his might and deflected it.
BOOM!
The spike embedded itself into a wall, twisting it until it caved in, leaving a massive, warped hole.
[…The power of monstrosity. I see now. It resides within you. You’ve learned to wield it.]
The twisted one spoke in an unexpectedly surprised tone.
[Curious. Someone like you should not have access to such power. Or is that part of your abilities as well?]
“Shut up.”
Ketal, uninterested in idle talk, charged forward.
The twisted one retaliated with a rain of spikes.
Each spike carried the power to warp the world itself.
Even a group of heroes would be helpless against such an assault.
CLANG CLANG CLANG!
Ketal dodged some and deflected others with his axe.
The twisted one’s voice carried power as it spoke again.
[Twist and distort.]
CRUNCH.
With those words, the world around Ketal bent and twisted.
It wasn’t just space; even the concept of time itself was distorted, creating something akin to a small black hole.
Ketal invoked his mystery to shield his body and gripped his axe tighter.
CRACK!
Breaking through the twisted world, Ketal emerged.
The strain on his body made him wince.
‘He’s strong.’
This wasn’t a fragment or an avatar.
It was the true form.
What’s more, it seemed the twisted one had absorbed some of the power of the other two Old Ones it had defeated.
Its strength was far beyond what it had been before.
The twisted one’s true form had manifested on the continent.
It was a nightmare.
The power of an Old One was immense.
Unlike the Demon King, this creature was entirely alien, its very existence tailored to corrupt and defile the world.
But,
At the same time, it was lacking.
BOOM!
Blocking the storm of power, Ketal retreated.
He swung his axe at an incoming spike, deflecting it with a deafening sound.
The White Snowfield.
Compared to the power Ketal had witnessed within that place, the twisted one’s strength had noticeably diminished.
It was manageable—Ketal could hold his own.
There had to be a reason for this.
As he fended off the attacks, Ketal began to piece things together.
CLANG!
A deflected spike shot into the sky, heading beyond the capital.
If it struck the ground, it would leave a distortion that would persist for millennia, irreparable.
But—
WHIRRR!
Ketal found himself rebounding back into the imperial capital as though he had collided with an invisible wall.
His eyes darkened.
‘Is it bound here?’
It seemed that the distortion was tied to the location of the empire's capital.
But there was something puzzling.
Why the empire?
This place was far from the White Snowfield.
If the twisted one had truly won the war, shattered the barriers, and emerged, it should have consumed a location near the White Snowfield, not the empire.
Moreover, the ease with which it had emerged was strange.
Back in the north, even the rat he had faced had said that coming outside required tremendous effort, claiming that it was at its limit and that the elder one could never leave.
Something else was at play.
Ketal extended his senses, taking in everything within the capital.
As a result, he was able to pinpoint it.
Beneath the imperial palace.
Something peculiar lay there.
Ketal kicked off the ground immediately, shrouding himself in mystery.
He twisted his body to narrowly avoid the flying spikes, deflecting their trajectory.
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Then he charged forward and struck the distorted entity.
BOOOOOOM!
[Ugh.]
The distorted entity groaned softly as its spiked, spherical body was flung away and crashed into the ground.
Though Ketal had expended a considerable amount of energy, he managed to buy some time.
He stomped on the palace floor.
CRASH!
The ground shattered and broke as he rapidly descended into the depths.
And there, Ketal saw it.
Beyond a translucent veil.
A writhing, alien presence.
“What is this?”
Ketal frowned.
It was something alien—utterly unfamiliar—yet strangely familiar.
As he observed it, Ketal realized.
“…Is that the White Snowfield?”
The presence seemed to mirror the image of the White Snowfield.
The monstrosity muttered.
[A passage, perhaps.]
“A passage?”
[You might also call it a remnant. Once, this world belonged to us.]
Before the gods and demons joined forces to seal them, the world had been ruled by the oldest beings.
[It's natural for traces of us to remain. It seems they cleaned up after the war, but… apparently, something was overlooked.]
“You used this passage to interfere outside?”
The distortion had burst forth through the passage, though at the cost of being unable to leave a certain range around it.
The monstrosity muttered curiously as it examined the surroundings.
[But why… why do I see my remnants here?]
“Remnants? You mean those patterns?”
Decorative artifacts bearing a singular pattern surrounded the passage.
The monstrosity affirmed.
[Those were the symbols used by the mortals who once served me. Why are they here?]
[Because these people originally worshiped you.]
A chilling sensation crept over Ketal’s back as a voice rang out behind him.
He immediately swung his axe.
BOOM!
Ketal was flung backward as the distorted figure smashed through the buildings, laughing mockingly.
[They thought the entity beyond the passage was you, offering tributes and prayers with fervor. How amusing.]
[You imitated me?]
The monstrosity spoke with a voice filled with displeasure.
Ketal murmured in understanding.
“So the empire originally worshiped the Monstrosity?”
If so, their inaction during the war against the Demon King made sense.
They served neither gods nor demons, so they had no reason to oppose the Demon King.
Similarly, their active efforts against the distortion could have been an attempt to find the monstrosity.
With this in mind, Ketal deflected the incoming spikes.
CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!
‘At this level…’
It was manageable.
If he fought with all his might, risking his life, he could kill it.
Eliminating the distortion as quickly as possible was the most beneficial course for the world he wished for.
But Ketal frowned.
Something was off.
‘Why…?’
Why were there no people in the empire?
And why was the distortion quietly waiting here?
Considering how its apostle attacked Magnarein, it was clear it could interfere with the outside world.
Yet its behavior was far too subdued.
A sensation he couldn’t put into words gnawed at him.
Ketal didn’t ignore that feeling.
CLANG!
Deflecting the spikes, he expanded his senses again.
This time, he didn’t just scan the capital superficially—he comprehended everything in minute detail.
The number of tiles on the streets.
Two apples lying on a dining table.
A fork dropped on the floor.
A mold-covered stew that had long gone bad.
And in the deepest part of the capital’s underground…
Ketal sensed them.
Hundreds of people, likely the capital’s citizens.
But they were no longer human.
They had been twisted and transformed into something grotesque.
They had become the apostles of the twisted one.
Each of them alone could shake the continent, and there were hundreds waiting silently underground.
Only then did Ketal grasp the twisted one’s true intent.
“You…”
[So, you’ve realized. I could force my way out, expending some power in the process. But what would that achieve? It’s better to think bigger.]
The twisted one chuckled.
[What I desire is the world.]
In the distant past, this universe had belonged to the oldest beings.
The twisted one sought to reclaim that glory.
[This place is merely a foothold. The universe will be mine. I will defile everything. And you, an outsider… you are the first stepping stone.]
CLANG!
Hundreds of spikes launched simultaneously, surrounding and closing in on Ketal to crush him.
Ketal’s lips twisted into a cold sneer.
“Who said you could?”
His voice was frigid enough to send chills down the monstrosity’s spine.
[Ugh.]
The monstrosity groaned.
Ketal’s aura surged, pulled forcibly from within by the entity dwelling inside him—and something else entirely foreign stirred to life.
SHRRRK.
The world seemed to vanish.
The spikes disintegrated all at once.
Ketal stepped forward, piercing through every defense and landing a blow on the distorted entity.
BOOOOOOM!
The twisted one was driven deep into the ground, a massive scar etched across its form.
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