"Regalis... NO!" Ian shouts. The man with the rapier pulls it out of Regalis's now lifeless body as the man with the tomahawks and the woman with the broadsword burst through the shrine's door.
"You're fucked this time. We've got you cornered!" Shouts the warrior with the tomahawks. The three of them start charging, which prompts Ian, Duke, and Layla to hold their ground. However, something stops them dead in their tracks. "Is that..."
The three are mortified by the visage of Rhea standing over them. "Impossible! That's impossible! Rhea has never manifested in our world before!" Shouts the woman with the broadsword.
"She's here now, though! If we kill her, Horus won't care about these three hacks anymore! Rhea's been pestering him for years! Focus your attacks on her!" Before Duke and Ian can stop him, the man with the tomahawks throws one of his hatchets at Rhea's head.
"NO!" Shouts Duke, but his cry is cut off when he sees the result of the attack.
"My tomahawk... bounced right off of her?" Rhea smiles.
"No weapon in this world can kill me. You are a fool." Says Rhea. Ian throws a kunai at the now distracted warrior, cutting clean through his hand and forcing him to drop his weapon. He grasps it in pain, and Duke cuts the man's head off him with the new weapon they picked up on their way to the shrine: a halberd.
"What kind of people kill a priest?" Duke asks angrily. The man with the rapier, also stunned at Rhea's presence, is thrown off of his game by the flurry of events happening around them. He rushes to stab Duke, but Layla jumps in the way and gets impaled, falling to the floor limp. That's inconvenient. With the split second Layla has provided, Ian throws the primal cutter at the man and watches as it pierces straight through his heart and into the opposite wall. Duke turns around quickly and realizes how close he was to death. "Fuck me..."
The last warrior, the woman with the broadsword, makes a split second decision to grab Ian while he's thrown off-balance from throwing the spear and grabs his neck, holding her blade to it. Duke points his halberd at her. "Drop your weapon!" She shouts. "Or he dies." Ian winks to Duke, and he slowly puts down his halberd. The woman smirks. "It's been annoying knowing you two. See you never." Just before she slits Ian's throat, he wills the spear to return to his hand, which he has slowly positioned behind the woman's skull. Seeing the spear rapidly fly towards her face, she screams in panic, but the scream is cut off when the primal cutter demolishes her skull, causing bits of brain matter to be splattered across the shrine floor. Ian and Duke, their opponents now defeated for a second time, sit down and take a moment to breathe.
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"Holy fuck... that was... close..." Says Duke. "Those fuckers... I'll make Horus pay for that priest. Layla will be fine, right? She'll come back. Ian?" He turns to Ian, who is too stunned to respond. Duke looks over towards the source of Ian's shock, and when he sees what lay in front of him, it's nearly enough to make him puke.
There sits Rhea, bloodied on the floor, pierced by the very same spear meant to kill Horus forever.
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Layla finds her way back into the shrine surprisingly quickly. She runs back, hoping she is not too late to help Duke and Ian. She bursts into the room, her now-white fur standing out against the reds and yellows of the carpet. "Oh, you guys already beat them. Did Rhea tell us which way Horus went? That bastard will pay for killing... guys?" She looks over to Ian, who has his head hung in utter horror. "What happened here? Ian?" He does not respond. She looks around the room, and sees the cause of their utter dejection. "What... is that... how can this be?" She shouts. "Ian? Did you kill her!? Ian answer me you fucking asshole! What happened?" She scratches and bites at him, but he does not move or speak; he only responds with his jagged breathing and clenched teeth.
"This isn't possible! How can a god die!?" Ian remains silent. Layla turns to Duke. "Duke! Look at me! How is this possible!?" Layla is crying now. She howls at the now-dead visage of Rhea, the creator goddess of the world. The trio sits there for hours with nothing but the sound of Layla crying filling the air.
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Ian stands. Duke and Layla look at him through strained tears. "With her last breath... she told us where he was. I don't want to touch that... thing... again. But I don't think we have a choice. That fucking spear... it's been speaking to me. I don't know who made it. I don't know why it picked me as its wielder. But it's our last hope."
Duke stands now. "When this thing is over," says Duke, "I'm breaking that thing in half." Ian nods. He picks up the still-sobbing Layla and slings her over his shoulder as he walks out of the shrine with Duke. He looks up at the sky, which has become a swirling vortex of clouds. The eye of the storm stays positioned on the shrine as they walk out of the village, the denizens still too scared to leave their homes after the attack.
"Next stop... the Fossil Obelisk."
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Horus writhes on the floor in pain. "Horus, what's wrong?" Asks his guests. He is in the middle of a dinner with some of his vassals.
What the hell is happening to me? What is this? He screams in agony as he receives another vision. This time, he sees the purple spear that cut him all those years ago. Why am I seeing this? He receives a glimpse of Rhea's bloodied corpse sitting in a shrine. The spear... it killed Rhea? Impossible! Gods cannot die! He hears a voice through his vision now. Horus. The time is fast approaching. Your own fate and the boy's are intertwined. The Ancient Servant and the Invincible Guardian wait for the right moment to revive their master. You cannot escape. Prepare yourself.
"Horus? Horus!" Horus is jolted awake by the shaking of one of his governors in a cold sweat. "Oh thank goodness you're alright. As I was saying, the tax collected from the Empire is plentiful this year..."