Barbarian in a Failed Game

“What are you doing?!”

“For pain, a beating is the cure!”

“That’s not a cure; you practically set off a bomb!”

Why—!!

While the two bickered over the unexpected action, the Beast God, who had been trembling and headless, let out an almost agonizing roar. In that brief moment, her completely shattered head had fully regenerated.

“Hmm. It seems she needs more of the cure.”

“That’s exactly why you shouldn’t just punch her like that!”

“Such nonsense! It’s a proven method of discipline!!”

“Who exactly proved that…?!”

“Didn’t you grow up just fine?!”

Did I get hit too…? While clicking his tongue at the barbaric method of discipline, Khan noticed the increasingly abnormal state of the Beast God. It was even more grotesque than losing her head.

“I was kidnapped by the beastmen…! To survive, I had to become one of them…! I survived and became the God of the beastmen… But how could that be?! How could it be?!”

Boom!!

The Beast God’s figure vanished as she stomped the ground. She moved at a speed that even Karyan’s eyes couldn’t follow. The dark green hue of her madness lingered as an afterimage, and they locked eyes at a breath’s distance.

“Answer me—!”

“Why are you raging at me…?!”

Rip! Bang!!

Her emaciated fingertips ‘flew in’ on a straight path. By the time Khan noticed and reacted, the Beast God’s fingers had already struck his shoulder. It was a bizarre blow, as if the process of her attack was omitted, leaving only the impact.

‘Authority…?’

It was the same when he first faced the Beast God. He thought he had blocked her attack, yet his entire body was slashed by her claws. He hadn’t even detected the unique aura of authority.

Even the dark energy that covered him like armor peeled off under the impact that should have blown his shoulder apart. The Beast God’s eyes glistened with their characteristic madness. They were the eyes of a hunter who had found their prey’s weakness.

“Ah, yes! The ones who kidnapped me had those eyes! The eyes that look at prey!!”

The Beast God trembled violently, her hands shaking uncontrollably. Seeing her reflection in Khan’s eyes, she recalled a memory from her past. She wasn’t seeing Khan but someone from her memories.

And as if matching the past memory, her movements became rapidly clumsy. The sharpness of a beast’s instincts was gone. It was more like a child flailing against a rough hand. The axe and the magic sword came down to sever her arm.

“────!”

A scream that didn’t sound human escaped the Beast God’s mouth. In the next moment, her gaze changed as if she were placed in another scene from her memories.

“To survive, I had no choice!! I had no choice!! I am human… There was no other way to defeat the chieftain!”

“Damn it, seriously!”

Khan knew he had to attack before the severed arm regenerated. But the Beast God lunged at him first, attempting to bite his neck like a wild animal, despite having lost both arms.

Crunch!

Boom—!!

A chilling sensation brushed against his neck. The wound where the chunk had been torn out was fairly deep. If it had been just a bit deeper, his neck would have been severed. Even though Khan’s knee struck first before her teeth could sink in, it was a close call.

“Please…! Don’t hit me!! I don’t know anything….”

The Beast God, seemingly caught in another memory while enduring Khan’s attack, curled up on the ground, struggling. She spat blood and rolled on the ground as if she were being kicked around.

Yet, she had clearly stated that she was a manufactured God and that all her memories were fake. She had realized this from peering beyond the void.

So why was she still tormented by those memories?

Even knowing they were fake, why was she in agony as if they were real—

“I’ll become a beastman too…! I’ll betray humanity and tell you everything I know…!”

Chrrrk.

Khan’s gaze suddenly shifted to the Beast God’s flailing limbs. Her arms had regenerated, yet the chains around her limbs remained in place as if her arms had never been severed.

What did that signify?

‘That’s it.’

The reason the Beast God, having lost her divinity due to the laws and placed in a state between mortality and transcendence like Khan, could continuously regenerate her body.

The reason she was in such torment from fake memories, even while desperately trying to deny them. Those chains were the source of it all.

‘Then, the answer is clear.’

He had finally found the key to her downfall.

***

“Children, you must erase all humanity! That is my mission, and the reason you were born!”

The Beast God’s movements, recalling memories of when she became a God, became abruptly sharper. Utilizing her overwhelming physical abilities, even compared to the strongest of barbarian, she pressed down on the Great Warrior and Khan with such force that they couldn’t mount a proper offensive.

“Such a troubled child!”

“Dieee!”

Ignoring the pain, the Beast God took the Great Warrior’s fist, which was larger than her own head, head-on and plunged forward. It was a combat style unique to transcendents, treating the body merely as a shell.

The Great Warrior, struggling to properly throw a punch at close range, grabbed the Beast God’s wrist. With his other hand, he reached under her armpit and spun his body sharply.

It was a move from the close-quarters grappling techniques of the Hoarfrost Gorge warriors, known as Kartus.

Whirl!

The Beast God’s body, losing balance, flew through the air and crashed into the ground. Her entire body went limp after hitting the ground with her back. For an ordinary person, it would have been an instantly fatal or crippling blow.

But she didn’t care.

Crack.

The Beast God, with all her bones broken, stood up and slashed at the Great Warrior. He managed to block with crossed arms, but blood splattered from his body. As if to finish the job, the Beast God, like a beast, opened her mouth wide and her figure blurred.

“Ugh!”

In the next moment, moving like a possessed animal on all fours, she bit Khan’s ankle. Khan, who had been caught off guard while focusing on the Great Warrior, lifted his bitten ankle and slammed it down.

Crunch!

It was a powerful step, fully weighted. His half-torn ankle completely broke and bent at a right angle. But he achieved his goal.

Chrrrk.

Unable to withstand the shock, the Beast God’s body exploded. Khan reached out towards the chains left in place, trying to grasp the intangible ‘law’ itself.

“That can’t happen—!!”

At that moment. As if time reversed, the scattered fragments of the Beast God’s body reassembled at a speed unmatched by before.

Slash—

“Khan—!”

It was red. The whole world turned red as if soaked in blood. Then darkness fell, and his now acute hearing was overwhelmed by the Great Warrior’s roar. Temporary blindness. The Beast God’s claws had grazed both of his eyes. But Khan had another way of seeing.

Color returned soon enough.

The Beast God was screaming in pain. The emotion from her dark green aura was pure sorrow. And unlike the gray Khan carried, the Great Warrior, with his obnoxiously radiant golden holy power, was entangled with the Beast God, displaying intense emotion.

But soon, the Beast God repelled the golden brilliance. She then charged straight towards Khan.

‘Defense… is useless.’

Against the Beast God’s bizarre attacks, which rendered both defense and evasion futile, and with his proper vision lost, reacting was nearly impossible.

Whack! Boom—!!

Squelch! Crack!!

Attacks disregarding defense flew back and forth—each aimed solely at wounding the opponent. Each time the dark green claws of the Beast God scraped at Khan’s gray aura, the twin blades imbued with the gray essence hacked away significant chunks of the dark green mass.

However, the mass would soon regrow and press Khan even harder. Even without seeing it with his eyes, Khan knew. The destroyed body was being restored. But unlike before, Karyan noticed a pattern in the restoration process.

Chrrrk.

It was the chains. The chains of the law that stripped her of her divinity were keeping her at the boundary of transcendence. Each time Khan’s gray aura chipped away at her divinity, the chains would reinfuse her with what had been taken.

This was the crucial clue confirming his suspicion that the chains were the key to her defeat. The problem was—he had no way to break those chains. How does one break the law itself? How could he destroy chains that even the gray-imbued blades couldn’t penetrate?

Slash!

At that moment, the golden glow—the Great Warrior—stumbled as if gravely injured but then leapt onto the Beast God from behind. Using his massive body, he locked her neck and arms, shouting with a mighty roar.

“Karyaan—!!”

It was a battle cry loud enough to rupture eardrums. There was a sensation of blood bursting out from inside the Beast God’s head, like an explosion.

The Great Warrior’s body twisted her neck and tore it off, but then he was counterattacked and thrown far back, crashing into the ground.

“Why do you torment me? I only wanted to survive… Wait, is this really my memory? Was I truly human…?”

The detached head of the Beast God muttered, and her hand, moving at tremendous speed, pierced Khan’s abdomen. The dark green madness that invaded the gray domain brought forth terrible memories.

Khan, observing all this as if watching from a third-person perspective, reached out gently. He felt the bony shoulder flinch under his gentle touch. It seemed like an unfamiliar sensation to her, almost as if she were scared of it.

The head of the Beast God, which had been mumbling in the distance, fell silent, and the hand that pierced Khan’s abdomen hesitated.

“Yes, for a troubled child, a beating is the cure.”

“…!”

Surprised by the unexpected remark, the Beast God twisted and withdrew her hand. But Khan’s rough grip held onto her wrist, preventing her from pulling away. Was this really the right method?

Could it be that the laws intended this outcome from the beginning? Such thoughts sprouted in his mind.

‘No way.’

But he quickly dismissed them. That damned machine-like entity simply followed set rules. It couldn’t have foreseen this far. It wouldn’t have expected Khan to go this far just to save a mad God.

‘We’re all going to die if I do nothing. I have to try something.’

With that thought, a sense of certainty settled over him. This was the best way to defy the laws!

Flames of black energy began to dissipate from his body, and the gray aura that protected his flesh returned to its place. The Beast God, caught off guard by the sudden release of strength, hesitated, and Khan, with a clear laugh, drew out another hue.

One of the two colors he had always possessed but had kept in check.

Chaos.

***

The Beast God’s eyes wavered as she struggled to pull her arm out. The nature of Khan, who had been teetering on the boundary between transcendence and mortality, had suddenly changed.

Gritting his teeth, veins bulged across Khan’s entire body. His hand, trembling as if restraining something, slowly reached out toward the Beast God. Feeling the ominous change, she pulled back with the intention of tearing her arm off.

Chrrk!

“Huh?”

A dumbfounded sound escaped the Beast God’s lips. The chain… was caught? How?

The madness that filled her mind momentarily dissipated at the astonishing sight. The chain, which represented the laws of the world itself, was held in Khan’s grip.

And then.

Snap—!!

The chain that had bound the Beast God so easily broke. The voices and memories that had constantly tormented her began to fade, and as she regained her senses, she looked at her hands with a sense of wonder.

Snap! Snap!

Kneeling, Khan proceeded to break the chains around her ankles as well.

“My… divinity…?”

With the chains, which had both taken and maintained her divinity, gone, the Beast God felt herself entirely become a mortal. And with the realization of her divinity and the truth she glimpsed beyond the void, the madness that had corrupted her divinity also vanished.

“Ah. Ahhhh…!”

At last—tears of joy streamed from her eyes. She collapsed as if her legs gave out under her.

Thunk.

Leaning on Khan’s shoulder, who had been kneeling to break the chains, she wept for a long time. She finally regained her composure when she felt the urge to express her gratitude.

“Th-thank you… I… I…”

Her life had been dictated by the laws, blindly driven by the voice commanding her to destroy humanity. After glimpsing the truth beyond the void, she had been consumed by madness. Now, unexpectedly becoming a mortal and regaining her sanity, she found herself stammering, unable to form her words properly.

『─────.』

“W-what did you say?”

She saw Khan’s mouth move, but no sound came out. It looked like he was saying something, but she couldn’t hear it, so she knelt to face him.

“Say it again. I couldn’t hear you…”

Khan’s mouth opened as he lowered his head.

『─────.』

The Beast God tilted her head in confusion. He had clearly spoken, but she heard nothing. Was it because his voice was too soft? Or perhaps it was an issue of her not being used to mortal senses yet.

Thinking this, she leaned closer to Khan’s mouth—

『─────.』

Khan’s eyes, previously closed, now opened with a murky light flickering within them.