Barbarian's Adventure in a Fantasy World-Chapter 325: Necrobix (2)

The world broke open again.

Explosions stampeded through the Mirror World as hellfire, dark magic, and the meteors of Hell scraped their claws across the ground. Space lifted and dipped as if it were a sheet being shaken, and the Tower Master’s stitched horizon quaked as though a single breath might shatter it.

He coughed twice into his sleeve and tasted iron.

Necrobix was not an ordinary foe. It was a being that moved like a god, a will that held its power with absolute control. Its spells did not wander or spill. Every surge sought Ketal alone, and whenever a stray echo brushed the barrier, it was only a ragged edge. Even that was almost more than the Mirror World could bear.

“If I were in there with them, I would be dead already,” the Tower Master murmured, tightening magic circle after magic circle with hands that would not stop trembling. “All those puppets were children’s toys compared to the original body.”

This was the true weight of Necrobix.

“I hope you win, Ketal,” he whispered to no one. “If you do not, the world ends.”

The Mirror World became Hell’s worst precinct. Heat thickened into a presence. The air reeked of iron and old smoke.

Inside that furnace, Ketal advanced without haste. He carved the smallest openings with his axe, wove his steps through the narrowest lanes, and slipped through spaces that did not truly exist until the instant he passed through them. Even so, not every threat could be avoided. Necrobix twisted the vectors of its sorcery, and one blade detonated at an angle, its splinters grazing Ketal’s thigh as they flew past.

A deep line split across his flesh, yet Ketal did not spare it a glance. He stepped forward again, and then once more, until he stood before Necrobix. The axe struck the cloak of darkness with a sharp metallic cry and rebounded. Necrobix spoke then, its voice soft and dry, like the turning of a page.

“Power explodes before me.”

The strike that followed would have killed Ketal outright. He gave himself the breadth of a heartbeat, slipped back, and let the blast eat empty air. He clicked his tongue as he watched the cloak.

“That cloak is pretty sturdy,” he said.

Even though Ketal used his Aura, he couldn’t break the cloak. A mesh of cracks spread across the dark surface like frost climbing glass. Yet the damage smoothed. The cloak began to heal as if the wound had been an untidy thought the wearer refused to keep.

Ketal slalomed between falling stars and curtains of shadow and spoke to the Abomination within him as he moved. “Your authority is not as absolute as it pretends.”

“My power kills all things,” the Abomination answered. Its authority was death. It gave the ordinary end to everything that lived. “But what is already dead cannot be killed.”

“So that is the law of your guard,” Ketal murmured.

“If I were as I once was, I would even kill the dead,” the Abomination continued, mild and terrible at once. “You do not yet wield my authority properly.”

Ketal had only dragged the Abomination’s law into the shape of Aura. The essence was larger than a blade, larger than a body. He was touching one part of a creature that had no edges.

“With what you are now, you cannot break Necrobix’s defense,” the Abomination said.

Ketal stroked his chin once as if the thought amused him.

“So I am going to help you,” the Abomination said.

“You intend to help me?” Ketal said.

“I do not enjoy watching the one who holds me struggle with a young one,” the Abomination’s voice breathed along his spine. “I want to tear that satisfied face in half.”

Myst crawled along his neck like cold fingers.

“Accept me,” it coaxed.

If he accepted, the Abomination’s power would surge through him and seize control. The rain of light would turn to darkness, the spells would wither, and the entire field would tilt in an instant. Victory would come swiftly. There was no real danger in taking the offer. The Abomination was his now. Its teeth were his teeth.

“No,” Ketal said, smiling. “I am fine.”

“You refuse?” the Abomination said, startled. “Is this a matter of pride?”

“It’s not that,” he answered. He rolled under a burning arc and let the tail of a hell star pass an inch from his shoulder. “It would be boring.”

The Abomination’s silence had weight.

“I can’t believe you are still thinking about your enjoyment, even in this dire situation. You are mad,” it finally answered.

“I won’t deny it,” Ketal replied. “But that doesn’t mean I’m without a plan.”

If he lost here, the cost would not be his to bear alone. The entire continent would suffer for it. The fantasy world he longed for would unravel, and he had no desire to live in a world that had forgotten what it once was. Even so, he refused—for a simple reason: he believed he could win without help.

“I have seen enough,” he said.

Necrobix had planted its feet when the cloak unfurled and had not taken a single step. That suggested it could not move while the guard remained intact. If this was its strongest shield, then the path was simple: he had to break it.

The problem was how to break it—but he had already figured that part out.

“Necrobix’s cloak does not yield to your authority,” Ketal said to the beast within him.

Physical force, however, did. Each clean strike drew fresh fractures. The cloak could heal, but not swiftly; if he stacked his blows without giving it time to mend, it would eventually break. He had also discerned the weak seams in Necrobix’s spellcraft—the patterns carried rhythm now, and the words revealed their tells.

“Shall we get started?” Ketal calmed the Aura and let Myst flood his muscles instead. Necrobix’s pupils narrowed.

“A correct judgment,” it said. “Did the Abomination advise you?”

Necrobix also understood that the Abomination’s authority could not pierce the cloak. If Ketal could only channel that power solely through his weapon, then fortifying himself and focusing on defense was, indeed, the correct response.

“But, you still cannot defeat me,” Necrobix said. “In the end, you are not the Abomination.”

The oldest butcher in existence bore a name that made both gods and demons flinch. To hear it was to feel the edge of the knife and the terror that followed in the same breath. Ketal was not that being. He was merely a man who had borrowed a fragment of its power, not the entirety.

“You are strong,” it told him. “I do not deny it. But even so, you do not reach me.”

“We will see,” Ketal said, and his smile showed the edge of his teeth, surging toward Necrobix

Hellfire rained down as the meteors of Hell fell and burst apart. Ketal moved as though the battlefield had been sketched in chalk long before his arrival, and all he needed to do was follow the lines. He could not avoid every tongue of flame—fire found him, bit into him, and gnawed. Blisters bloomed across his skin, and the faint scent of burnt flesh trailed in his wake.

Ketal reached Necrobix again. The axe fell, and a fresh spray of fractures ran through the cloak. 𝘧𝓇ℯ𝑒𝓌𝑒𝑏𝓃𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘭.𝒸ℴ𝓂

“Dark light pierces the front,” Necrobix chanted.

The beam that erased all it touched opened like a gate. Ketal gathered his strength in his legs, and in the next instant, the world folded. When it straightened again, he was already standing behind Necrobix.

“Demonic energy burst behind me,” Necrobix said at once.

The black tide surged in reverse, summoned by Necrobix’s words—not a prediction, but a verdict already made. It swept through the space behind, ready to consume the foe that had stood there. It would have taken Ketal as well, had he remained. But he planted his foot, and the world shifted. In the blink of an eye, he was in front of Necrobix once more. The demon’s spell faltered, stuttering like a sentence that had suddenly lost its subject.

Ketal’s axe came down, and the fractures widened.

“A thousand thorns rise ahead,” Necrobix said.

The air was packed edge to edge with spikes, forming a carpet rather than a rain. It didn’t matter. Ketal was already behind it again before the final syllable left Necrobix’s mouth. When his third strike landed and the cloak rang out in protest, Necrobix’s pupils trembled.

“You...,” it said.

Ketal’s movement had changed. He spoke as he moved, as if explaining a rule while he demonstrated it. “In the end, what you speak is the result.”

Necrobix’s power described the state of the world, then enforced it. Its words were a script, and the instant they were spoken, the ending was already written. Each result dictated the flow that followed. If Ketal could grasp the meaning woven into a phrase, he could move one step ahead of it.

“A vortex shakes everything in all directions,” Necrobix said.

The atmosphere turned and climbed. Anything in range would be drawn up and broken. Yet, it did not touch Ketal. The instant he heard the phrasing, he was already above Necrobix’s head.

“When you say all directions, you do not include the crown,” Ketal said.

The axe fell once more, and new cracks spread like spiderwebs across the surface. The cloak’s sound changed—it no longer rang true, but warped and uneven, like a bell with a fracture along its rim.

“The foe who targets me is hurled far away!” Necrobix said.

Ketal leaped back of his own accord, widening the gap as though he had obeyed the command before it could bind him. The clause shattered, and the outcome dissolved into nothing. Within him, the Abomination released a low, almost appreciative groan.

Necrobix’s gaze hardened. The truth was clear now—Ketal had deciphered the structure of its magic. The chill that crept down Necrobix’s spine was not born of fear before an equal, but of the quiet shock a predator feels when the prey it meant to devour begins studying it like a riddle to be solved.

“You, little...!” it said.

Ketal was not the Abomination. He had not yet learned to wield that authority of death as easily as breathing. Yet he possessed something the Abomination lacked—he had lived as a small thing in a vast and merciless world. He had nearly died to the Whitie in the White Snowfield and survived only because he kept learning, even as he bled.

“I was not born a monster with power,” he said. “I am just a barbarian.”

He had studied enemies whose rank stood above his head like a tower. He had found the weak plank and put his foot on it. He had won, and the power had come after.

Ketal drove his foot into the ground and shot forward in an instant. Necrobix’s head tilted sharply as it calculated. Power that worked by defining a range would not do. It had to designate its target directly.

“Tear my enemy apart!” Necrobix shouted.

“Come forth, my duplicate,” Ketal said, using his Dragon Tongue.

Ketal activated the invocation as though he had been waiting for that exact moment. A double took shape before him.

“You specified an enemy as your target,” he said. “But tell me—does that mean me, or the double I just created?”

The answer came immediately. The clone was ripped to shreds. And because of that, Ketal reached Necrobix without a single obstacle in his way.

He gathered strength in his arms and swung with everything he had.

A deep metallic boom rang out as cracks spread wider and wider across the cloak. Chunks of the black veil began to fall away. Ketal whistled under his breath.

“It really is stubborn,” Ketal said.

“Power overturns the earth!” Necrobix said.

Neither directional force nor direct targeting had worked, so Necrobix turned to sheer magnitude. The ground heaved, and waves of power swept through every corner of the field. Ketal braced his legs and drove his shoulder forward, taking the surge head-on.

“Unfocused power isn’t enough to break me!” he said.

He bared his teeth and swung again. The fractures spread farther, the veil now seconds from collapsing entirely. Necrobix’s face twisted.

“Die!” it said.

Pure killing authority surged toward Ketal. He didn’t dodge. He lifted the axe and brought it down to meet the force.

The world exploded. The barrier the Tower Master had woven finally shattered. Another wave followed, shaking everything for miles. Life within the blast simply ceased to exist. It was a mercy that the battle had taken place in a remote mountain range; anywhere else, the deaths would have numbered in the thousands.

Ketal spat blood and staggered, then set his feet. The final stroke Necrobix had thrown was ruinous. It had reached inside him and tried to take his shape apart. He laughed once, very softly.

“It’s been a long time since I’ve taken a wound like this. Not since the last monster I fought in there,” Ketal murmured.

However, it was not enough to keep him from fighting. He lifted the axe. The smoke thinned. Necrobix came back into view.

Necrobix swayed. The dark aura that cloaked its whole body hung in ragged strips. The cloak itself had failed and fallen away.

“Now that’s a sight worth seeing,” Ketal said, giving a low whistle.

“What are you...?” Necrobix asked him.

“That question has no use here,” he said.

“You are right,” it replied.

Only one thing mattered. They would kill and be killed until the sentence ended. Necrobix gathered what remained. The reservoir that had felt like it had no bottom showed stone. It raised the last structure it could afford.

“Armor clothes me, and a sword fills my hand,” it chanted.

Black plate rose like a tide and sealed over its torso and limbs. A sword settled into its grip, heavy and simple.

“A close-quarters combat, huh?” Ketal said.

“I have no room for anything else,” it answered. “This is the last.”

Ketal bared his teeth and launched himself forward, the ground cracking beneath his heel as he surged ahead. The axe met the black blade, and the clash rang through the valley like thunder. Necrobix did not yield; it let the armor absorb the first blow, then turned its sword inward, cutting straight for Ketal’s heart.

However, in the end, Necrobix was still a mage. Skill could not fill the gap. Ketal slid a hand’s breadth to the side, let the point pass, and split a breastplate seam. The armor shattered like pottery. Necrobix’s eyes steadied instead of widening. It dragged the last scrap of strength into its arm and thrust.

The slash ripped open the sky, leaving the air itself gashed and bleeding light. It never reached Ketal—he was already gone. In the next instant, he seized Necrobix by the head and slammed it into the ground, then lifted his axe high for the final strike.

“This was fun!” Ketal said, voice bright with something like gratitude, “I enjoyed this.”

“It was not bad,” Necrobix answered.

The axe broke the rest of the armor and bit into Necrobix’s chest. Demonic energy burst outward in all directions like a dozen storms trying to escape at once.