The Heroine is My Stepsister, and I'm her Final Boss
Chapter 190 - 191: Warrior’s Gambit

Chapter 190: Chapter 191: Warrior’s Gambit

Cling!

Clang!

The world rattled under the clash—not just of steel, but of legacies. The sky itself seemed to wince, scattering clouds as the titanic blows collided. A single shockwave rippled from their impact, throwing soldiers like rag dolls. Dust flared. Trees bent. Flags whipped and screamed.

And amid it—Denish Lon Vergus stood.

The field bled. Not red—black. The kind of blood that bubbled when magic clashed with flesh, when illusions failed to shield youth and inexperience. Naïve swords met death. The air reeked of ozone, scorched hair, and wet iron. Screams melted into the dirt. And at the center, like two mythic beasts summoned from rival myths, stood Denish and the man the world called a barbarian.

But calling him "man" stretched the truth.

He stood eight feet tall. Towering. Arms like tree trunks, bare save for the splintered gauntlets cracked by sheer momentum. His sword—if one could call that iron slab a sword—rested against his shoulder with ease. No inscriptions. No glow. Just raw, unenchanted steel. A hunk of metal so heavy few could lift it, yet he wielded it like a switch of bamboo.

No spells. No enchantments. No aura.

Just strength.

A different kind of miracle.

Denish had activated three warrior skills by now. And still, every blow from the Barbarian rattled his bones, numbed his wrists, and bled his palms through his gloves. His titanium blade—blessed and inscribed by the kingdom’s finest runesmith—was cracking. Cracking.

A part of Denish wanted to scream. Another part—older, quieter—whispered in awe.

"...What is your name, warrior?" Denish rasped. His shoulders rose with effort. The armor beneath his cape steamed with his sweat.

The barbarian grunted, the smirk on his scarred lips visible even beneath the cracked helm. "Barbarian," he said simply. "No noble name like yours, Denish Lon Vergus."

The name being spoken—his name—should have reassured him. But the way it echoed in the barbarian’s voice felt... intimate.

"You know me?" Denish asked, sword rising again.

"Of course," the man stepped forward, the dirt sinking beneath each footfall. "Peasant turned Vice Commander of Berkimhum’s military. The nomads sing songs of your valor. Of your rise."

Another step. The wind recoiled.

"I was one of those who sang."

Tang!

Another blow. Denish staggered back, skidding across scorched grass. His boots tore trenches into the earth.

Silence hung, broken only by distant roars of dragons and the shrieks of dying mages.

His ears rang.

He clenched his bleeding palm tighter.

"I see," Denish muttered, blinking through the sting of sweat and blood. "My fame reaches the Empire."

"...Who said I’m from the Empire?" the barbarian’s grin twisted. "I once was. A fellow citizen."

Denish’s heart sank.

He saw it then—not just the monster, not just the enemy—but a reflection. A phantom of who he might’ve been. The barbarian bore no enchantments because none had been gifted. No spell-formed armor because no one taught him. He forged his body when no one offered magic.

A different kind of royalty.

A crueler path.

"...Traitor," Denish whispered—not with hatred, but grief. "But a warrior nonetheless."

He paused. Memory licked at him. His teacher’s voice— Devid, storm-bringer, mentor and father when Denish had none—echoed in his bones.

’You fight with what you are. Not what they give you.’

Denish inhaled. Then exhaled.

His stance lowered.

"Focusmind... ..." he began to whisper. "Enhance sharpness. Heavy sword. ..."

He didn’t need all his skills. Just the right ones. Precision over spectacle.

He pointed his cracking sword at the giant.

His heel turned.

"Swift Legs."

He vanished.

The barbarian’s eyes widened as Denish appeared behind him—not teleportation, just sheer speed—bringing his sword down with a cry that shook marrow.

Clang!

But again, the barbarian blocked it. With a single swing. Metal screamed. Sparks burst.

Denish leapt back, heart thundering.

The barbarian’s laugh came deep, guttural.

"I envied men like you," he said. "You were chosen. I was... left."

His words struck deeper than his blade ever could.

For a heartbeat, Denish faltered.

But then he remembered the scout reports. The ones Claire delivered with trembling fingers. The coming airships.

This was no duel.

This was a wedge in the war.

And Denish didn’t have time to fall.

Denish gritted his teeth. Time was choking them.

A drop of blood slipped down his chin. Not from his enemy’s blade—but his own failing muscles.

He couldn’t outlast this man.

But maybe...

He didn’t have to.

"Tell me," Denish said suddenly, as he circled, "What made you turn?"

The barbarian’s eyes twitched.

"Nothing turned," he replied. "I saw the truth. We are the same. But you were blessed with a teacher. A sword. A rank. I had to become steel myself."

He lifted his sword.

Denish saw it now—his shoulder, dislocated. Muscles torn. Bones re-fused wrong. The barbarian had broken himself again and again to become this.

A body forged like a blade.

Denish surged forward again, and this time—he ducked the swing. He dropped low, raking his blade across the barbarian’s ankle.

A grunt. Not a cry. But blood.

Denish pivoted. "Swift legs!"

He spun again—this time striking at the wrist.

A clang.

A crack.

A flinch.

He saw it.

He saw pain.

"Focusmind!" Denish roared. "Sharpened edge! Intense body!"

He landed three strikes in rapid succession. The third dented the barbarian’s side armor. The fourth caused a spray of blood from his lip.

And for the first time—

The barbarian staggered.

But he didn’t fall.

Instead, he laughed.

"You learned... how to fight someone like me."

He took a breath in... and out.

’...this is gonna hurt later...’ Denish thought.

The world narrowed. The battlefield noise dulled into a muted thrum beneath his skin. His heart was no longer just beating—it was drumming, anchoring him to the now. Every inhale felt like swallowing steel; every exhale, a carving away of doubt.

He closed his eyes, just for a second, and sank inward.

"Focusmind," he whispered.

The word was more than magic, more than a skill. It was memory—of blood-soaked fields, of broken ribs wrapped in linen, of sparring with Kury under a collapsing dawn. It was the clarity of a man who had crawled through failure and made a home there.

"More focused mind," he continued, slower now, as if his tongue were chiseling each syllable into stone.

The air around him shifted. Not in temperature, but in weight. The silence thickened. He could feel his thoughts condensing like vapor under pressure, refined, sharpened.

"Sharper," he said.

His grip around the hilt of his sword tightened—not with panic, but intent. His blade responded. A faint hum vibrated through its edge, as if the steel itself recognized the solemnity of the invocation.

"Enhance sharpness."

He opened his eyes.

The enemy stood before him like a god born from ruin. That barbarian warlord—hulking, scarred, eyes like winter fire—had cleaved through three men today with a single roar. Every movement he made cracked the earth beneath his heels. And yet, Denish didn’t blink.

"Heavy sword."

A shimmer passed along the length of his weapon. The metal darkened, thickened, as though it remembered its origin as a mountain’s spine.

"Intense heaviness."

His arms ached instantly under the new density. But he welcomed it. Let the weight settle into his bones. Let it slow his movements. Let it punish his joints. Because only with burden could there be truth.

"Body core..."

His knees bent slightly, his breath shifted downward. He didn’t just feel his legs—he became his legs. Rooted. Spiraled. Centered. He was a tower of muscle and nerve, vibrating with stored potential.

"Intense body core."

The final skill locked in. He felt it click inside his body like a gear catching in divine machinery. His spine straightened, shoulders squared, and the battlefield returned to him.

And still, he stared at the enemy.

The warrior king was watching him too. A grin like cracked granite pulled across his face. He raised his own sword—jagged, ancient, slick with memory and murder.

Denish pointed his sword forward, the blade trembling slightly from the gravity compressed into it.

"......." he said, voice steady. "Hard work and strength... that is not the world."

He shifted his footing. Left forward, right back. His body aligned with death.

"Luck is as well," Denish said.

A ghost of a smile curved on his lips. Half-bitter. Half-belief. His father used to curse luck as a coward’s crutch. But Denish had survived ten years more than he should have. Seen too many blades swing wide. Too many arrows miss his heart by a breath.

"Luck which I had very much..."

He exhaled. The sword dropped by a single inch. Not weakness. Readiness. He saw it all now—his death, the warrior king’s swing, the rhythm of war threading through the grass and bones.

"Now..." he murmured.

His eyes flared—not magically, but fiercely. Like a man who had lived with pain long enough to make it holy.

"Die."