Barbarian's Adventure in a Fantasy World-Chapter 244: The Blooming Flower of Malice (1)

The gate to the heavens slammed shut. Ferderica, too, was driven from the Mortal Realm, cast out as suddenly as they had appeared. The aftermath was a hush, a stunned stillness that hung over the land. For a while, not a soul dared to return to the holy land. However, as the silence lingered, as the echoes of the god’s departure finally faded, the faithful began to creep back, one by one, into what had once been their sanctuary.

However, what they found was not the sanctuary they remembered. What awaited them was ruin—utter, desolate, irreparable ruin.

The holy land had decayed so thoroughly that only a handful of seeds might ever take root in its soil again. The earth was gray and ashen, lifeless except for the faintest hint of potential. Yet that wasn’t the only thing that greeted them. A much greater horror awaited.

Screams tore through the air.

“Ahhhhhh!”

“Ferderica! Please, look down upon us!”

“Do not abandon us! Please, don’t leave us behind!”

The place where they stood, once Ferderica’s Holy Land and the center of their faith, where the power of the god had saturated the ground itself, was now nothing but a ruin. The divine energy that had once wrapped the soil, the stones, even the air in its embrace was simply gone. The ever-watchful gaze of the god, the comforting presence they had always felt upon them, had vanished without a trace.

Their holy land was no longer sacred. As that realization spread, the congregation plunged into despair. However, it didn’t end there.

“Ferderica! Ferderica, please!”

The faithful threw themselves into frantic prayer. In the past, even the simplest invocation would have been enough to stir a trickle of divine power, to let them wield some measure of Ferderica’s strength. Now, no matter how they prayed, no matter how they screamed the god’s name, nothing happened. Not a spark, not a whisper of power answered their pleas.

They had lost their divinity.

“Ferderica! Why have you abandoned us?!” People wailed, their grief spiraling into hysteria.

The Elders, men, and women who once wielded power equivalent to the greatest of mortals had lost everything. The strength that had defined them, the sacred light that set them above others, was gone overnight. One by one, they sank to their knees, blank-eyed, as if the world itself had come to an end.

“Saint! Saint, please! Show us the way!”

Desperate, some of them rushed to rouse Ferderica’s chosen vessel, the Saint.

However, the Saint only lay there, eyes rolled back, drool trickling from slack lips—a shell, utterly broken. Ferderica had borrowed his flesh to descend, and no mere mortal could withstand that. His mind, his body, had simply collapsed under the weight, overloaded until nothing remained.

The connection to their god was severed. Their only link to the heavens had been destroyed. The faithful lost their minds, some shrieking, some weeping, some running in wild circles as though hoping to outrun their own despair.

In all this chaos, only two figures remained composed: Ketal, and Riltara.

Ketal stood atop the ruined holy land, looking down over the devastation with cool detachment. Everywhere, the sounds of wailing and sobbing echoed off the broken stones. Behind him, Riltara watched with haunted eyes, her whole body trembling.

“What exactly happened...?” she asked him quietly.

“It’s nothing complicated. Ferderica tried to kill me, and I resisted,” Ketal replied, his tone almost breezy.

He explained what had happened: Ferderica had opened the very gate to heaven itself, wielding their full authority in an attempt to erase Ketal from existence. Ketal, for his part, had refused to go down quietly. In the final moments, he had hurled his axe with all his strength, shattering Ferderica’s assault, piercing the very gates of the heavens, and wounding even the god’s true form.

He now held a fragment of the god’s own body in his hand.

Riltara let out a long, pained sigh. “Did... Ferderica lose to you?”

“That’s a difficult thing to say,” he replied.

In truth, it hadn’t been a fight in the truest sense. Ferderica, even weakened, was a god, and Ketal had only managed to wound them thanks to a moment of reckless resolve and the peculiarities of his own existence. Ferderica had wielded power that could crush even his body.

However, Ketal hadn’t allowed himself to be overwhelmed. In the end, he had survived, and Ferderica had been forced to withdraw.

“It’s not really a victory or a defeat, not in any ordinary sense,” Ketal said, turning the fragment in his palm. “But in some ways, you could say Ferderica lost.”

The god’s purpose had been to erase Ketal. Ketal was still here. That was all that mattered.

Riltara laughed, hollow and helpless, the sound echoing off the ruins.

A god had lost. An absolute being, once thought omnipotent, had faltered. It was a blow to her mind and heart, one that left her dizzy with disbelief.

“We’ve lost our divinity, haven’t we?” She bit her lip, trembling.

“Looks that way. Ferderica overextended themselves, I think. Have you ever heard of a god manifesting directly since the Divine-Demonic War?”

“No... Never. Not since those days.”

“Then it makes sense. The demons said it best. They said that the world did not belong to the people. Even the gods can’t interfere here so easily anymore. Ferderica broke the rules to try to kill me. And it cost them. For a while, they won’t be able to return. Maybe not until after we’re all dead.”

Riltara trembled, a broken prayer on her lips. Her faith, her lifelong certainty, the sacred power she had clung to—all of it was gone. Her world had shattered.

Ketal glanced at her. “Do you blame me?”

“I’d be lying if I said I didn’t,” she admitted, voice choked.

He had destroyed everything she believed in. However, then she shook her head, forcing herself to look at him.

“But... in the end, I was the one who brought you here. I forced you to come, even though you told me you had other things to do.”

He’d refused her at first, saying he had his own path, his own destiny to pursue. She had insisted, dragging him into this disaster. In the end, she had been the one to destroy her home. Tears welled in her eyes as the full weight of her choices pressed down on her soul. This was the punishment for her pride, her certainty, her blind faith.

Ketal, watching her, offered a faint, knowing smile. “I’m not sure if it’s fair to call it an opportunity, but... let me make a proposal.”

“A proposal...?”

“I won’t tell anyone what really happened here. There’s no reason to. Only you know the truth of what happened between me and Ferderica.”

Riltara’s eyes widened in shock. The Saint was gone, a vegetable, and she was the only one left who understood the truth. Ketal added one more drop of poison to the wound.

“If you were to ask me to leave, I’d do it. No argument. I’d walk away from your order and never look back.”

She stared at him, speechless. She had the power to cast out the monster who had ruined her world. If she chose that path, the others would see her differently. She would take up absolute power and become the new leader in this time of crisis.

“Of course, it won’t be easy,” Ketal said. “People will doubt your loyalty, question our relationship. You’ll face every accusation imaginable. But if you survive all of that, you’ll have earned your place. You’ll have the right to lead this broken, lost faith to something better. You could be the one to rebuild, to set things right.”

Riltara wrapped her arms around her head, letting out a broken sob.

“You’re... so cruel,” she whispered.

Ketal only smiled, waiting. Whatever choice she made was hers alone. He’d given her a path, but it was up to her to walk it. Faith, belief, knowledge, and the very certainty of the divine had all been shattered.

Even so, Riltara remained a believer. She took a long, shuddering breath, eyes sharpening with resolve. She gave her answer in a voice just loud enough for Ketal to hear. He nodded in satisfaction.

***

Ketal studied the fragment in his hand, turning it this way and that. It shimmered, radiant with an otherworldly glow. It was a piece of a god. Even in this ruined land, it pulsed with a life that was not of this world.

“What could I do with something like this?” he mused, excitement creeping into his tone.

At first, the whole ordeal had annoyed him; he’d wanted nothing more than to spend time unraveling the Myst he had desperately craved, but was constantly harried by the interference of the god’s followers. He’d only come here out of irritation, intent on breaking everything apart. In the end, it had been worth it—a satisfying conclusion to an unforgettable encounter.

He looked up at the sky, high above.

“I don’t know if you’re still listening, but... thank you. I mean it,” he said, smiling.

Ferderica had tried to destroy him, had given everything to that task. However, Ketal, not once, had ever truly wished to kill the god. Their purposes, their outlooks, had been utterly different.

“But if you keep getting in my way...” His expression hardened. “I won’t have a choice. I’ll do whatever it takes. Fantasy or not, anyone who stands in my way is my enemy.”

That feeling, though, was fleeting. Ketal’s mood quickly lightened, and he grinned as he studied the god’s fragment, curiosity already sparking a dozen new ideas.

***

For Ketal, the whole affair had started in frustration but ended in delight. He had no reason to dwell on it further. However, for the world itself, things were far from over.

The gates of heaven had opened. A great god had looked down upon the earth. The shockwaves of that moment spread across the continent; an invisible wave of awe and terror, like the ripple of a stone thrown into the cosmic ocean.

Of course, most people felt nothing. The event was simply too vast, too incomprehensible, to register for ordinary souls—like a planet exploding in a distant galaxy, never noticed by those on Earth. However, those who were attuned, who had the qualifications to sense such things—those few who could project their will into the fabric of the world itself—felt it.

The Tower Master and his apprentice stared in shock.

“Good heavens.”

“What on earth...”

Somewhere else, the High Elf Queen tried to convince herself it was a false alarm, even as her senses screamed the truth.

“Oh, oh no... this is bad...”

The Saintess of the Sun God, always poised, found her hand shaking as she gripped her teacup.

“What... just happened?”

The King of all Barbarians, ruler of the north, groaned as realization dawned. And the Emperor frowned, perplexed. Every mighty figure on the continent, all the Heroes of the world, sensed it.

However, it was not only those on the Mortal Realm. Even the denizens of heaven, the divine themselves, realized what had happened. Also, in the depths of Hell, the demons, too, sensed the change.

***

“What the hell was that?”

At the far edge of Hell stood a dark castle, a place of power and secrets. Inside, four demons sat together in a somber gathering.

There was a woman, voluptuous and clad in a lavish dress, a demon formed from intricate machinery, wires and gears twisting over an inhuman form, a gaunt demon with pallid skin, a single long sword at their hip, and a shapeless, rippling thing, its form impossible to describe.

They sat at a long table, its head conspicuously empty, as though the true master had yet to arrive.

The demon woman was first to speak. “We all felt it, didn’t we?”

“How could we not?” the pale demon replied, his voice as faint and cold as his form.

“Ferderica opened the gates of heaven.”

“Was it to fight us?” the mechanical demon asked, gears clacking.

“No. None of us made a move.” The woman shook her head.

The machine demon tapped its metal limbs against the table. “The god descended, attacked someone—tried to kill them. And failed.”

The god was driven out, unable to achieve their purpose.

“For decades, Ferderica won’t be able to interfere in the mortal realm,” the mechanical demon continued.

“Serves them right. Although... it’s a shame. I’d have liked to tear them apart myself,” the woman said, voice tinged with regret. It was as if killing a god was something to look forward to.

The rippling, amorphous demon murmured, “So if it wasn’t us, who did Ferderica fight?”

“Probably that barbarian. There’s been a lot of noise about him lately,” the woman replied.

“Barbarian?” The pale demon tilted his head.

“Don’t you know? You’re always so obsessed with your sword, you never pay attention to the Mortal Realm. He’s the hottest topic in Hell right now.”

“I don’t have the luxury. I still haven’t reached my goal,” the pale demon replied. 𝑓𝘳𝑒𝑒𝓌𝘦𝘣𝘯ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝑚

“Ugh. You’re so persistent,” the woman sighed.

The formless demon said, “We’re here to share information anyway. Let’s talk.”

“How long has it been since the four of us were all together?” the woman asked them.

“Feels like a few thousand years.”

“That’s nothing. Feels more like ten thousand,” the woman retorted.

Unlike the humans who worshipped many gods, the demons served only one master: the Demon King. He was the supreme lord of Hell, the one all demons revered and obeyed. However, the Demon King was not merely a ruler of Hell. He was the lord of all things demonic—a concept, a principle, more than a mere being.

There were other rulers in Hell, the Demon Lords, each nearly as mighty, second only to the King.

Now, with Ferderica weakened, these Demon Lords were gathering once again.

“Let’s begin the meeting,” said the amorphous demon, voice echoing in the gloom.