Gorgons are creatures that spend their whole lives underground. They hide in caves, tombs, ruins, anywhere that the sun never reaches. Which indicates that they've adapted themselves to the dark. Better night vision, enhanced hearing, the whole nine yards.

So what would happen if someone set off say, a flashbang, right in front of one. Their eyes long accustomed to the darkness would likely be ruined beyond repair. Perhaps they'd even go blind.

Which is all well and good, but who knows if their power still worked once they were blind.

But that's the fun in it. It doesn't matter.

I opened my eyes and aimed my pistol. The Gorgon was covering her eyes as she screamed in pain. An entirely natural reaction to getting flashbanged. I would know.

Her body looked like an uglier, more snakelike version of medusa. From torso up she was human with random patches of scales covering her skin and her bottom half was a snake tail that stretched off into the darkness. Her head was somewhere between snake and human with tiny snakes replacing her hair.

She thrashed throughout her surroundings, ripping stone from the floor and taking wild swings with her clawed hands.

I didn't wait for her to recover and fired the first shot into her stomach. She recoiled, clearly shocked I'd actually managed to hurt her.

But that shot seemed to have given her direction, and she rushed towards me ignoring the following bullets that ripped through her body.

Green blood splattered out of the monster as bullet after bullet ripped into her, but she didn't yield and reached my moments later.

My back was up against the wall, I had nowhere to go. I had no room to dodge, no room to escape and no time to plan, but I don't need those things.

I was immortal after all.

Her claws ripped into my left leg, piercing deep into it as I squared my pistol against her forehead and pulled the trigger.

Her head shot back as she crumpled to the ground and her claws were ripped from my thigh. I fell to the ground soon after, blood spilling from my leg at an alarming rate.

I cursed to myself.

She'd hit an artery, and as of three months ago I didn't have any surgeons lying around waiting to patch me up. I leaned back against the wall and took a moment to catch my breath before I turned towards the Gorgon. Her body laid still on the ground, blood oozing from the dozen or so gunshot wounds covering her body.

My smile faltered for only a moment, "Well congratulations, you actually managed to kill me! I'm sure you're bragging to all of your friends in hell right now that you actually managed to kill the future god slayer. You should be proud to be among the likes of tree mold and mushrooms."

I chuckled and turned towards David's statue.

"It was a good run, wouldn't you say? Probably the best one I've had yet. Sorry I made you come down here though, not that we really had much of a choice."

With that, I sat up and moved towards the Gorgon's corpse. A monster corpse of this caliber had value, but honestly I only knew how to process part of it, and I didn't exactly have a knife to remove it.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

I scanned the ground and eventually found what I was looking for, a durable looking piece of stone with a sharp edge.

Then I moved back towards the Gorgon and sighed.

"Sorry about doing this, but you know how it is, and you did kill me soo~"

I brought the stone down on her neck, splattering green blood all throughout my surroundings.

"Hmm, you're rather durable."

I brought the stone down again.

And again.

And again.

And then with one final strike her head was freed from her body.

At this point I'd begun to feel woozy as the blood loss got to me. Then, with shaky hands I took out a small opaque bag and stuffed the head into it before leaning back against the wall.

That wasn't the first time I'd had to behead somebody, but it was certainly the first time I'd done so without tools. I'd honestly never thought I'd be doing this kind of thing again, but here I was anyways doing the grunt work.

With a sigh I wiped the Gorgon's blood covering my hands off onto my shirt and reloaded my pistol.

I did some quick mental math and figured that the sun should have risen by now, which meant there's no reason to wait until I bled out.

I didn't hesitate. I simply placed the gun against my head and pulled the trigger.

Afterall, I'm immortal aren't I?

----------------------------------------------

I awoke to the sound of birds flying overhead. Which woke me up right away and caused me to jump to my feet and look around frantically.

Birds in this world have a nasty tendency to divebomb and burrow into your skin. Which isn't something I was keen to re-experience.

I was standing on a path of stone in the middle of the woods. I could see no end to the path as it stretched off into the distance, but what I could see was David on the ground rubbing his head clearly confused as all hell.

I smiled, "You're alive, that's great! This just got so much easier on me, you have absolutely no idea."

The Wendigo had a distant look in his eyes as he muttered to himself, "H-how?"

"Oh, it's part of my power. I told you I made a deal with a demon. Don't you remember?"

"You said he made you immortal."

"Well yes, but what does it mean to be immortal?"

"Get to the point."

"Oh, you're no fun. I'm saying that being extremely clear when making a deal is important, such as what state I'd get revived in. Of course, I could leave it up to the demon to pick and choose what he thinks is fair for that ruling, but that'd be idiotic. Of course I'd want to be revived in my best state, but what is that?"

"Hurry it along."

I grinned, "My power considers every state I've ever been in in my past and mixes and matches them into the most optimal form upon my revival."

I lifted the bag holding the Gorgon's head up, "Hence why this lovely lady is here, why my gun still has ammo and why you're still alive."

"...that's insane. Who can even grant such a power?"

"Well I'm pretty sure he's a fallen god or something, but that's not important. What's important is this."

I gestured to the road.

"We're finally on the path to civilization! What a lucky place to revive at. Although I would have preferred appearing here before I'd died eighty-six times, but hey, beggars can't be choosers."

I began walking down the path in a rather good mood only to realize David wasn't following.

I turned my head, "You coming?"

"I just died. I was alive, and then I was enveloped by darkness. Even if I'm alive now...just give me a moment to process it."

With a sigh I crouched down beside the monster and flicked him in the ear.

"Ouch, what the fuck was that for?"

"Quite being all mopey. You were dead, and now you're not. Sitting here and crying about it isn't going to make any of that change."

"You wouldn't understand, human."

I raised an eyebrow, "Actually, Wendigo, I'm the only one who could understand. I've died eighty-six times since coming to this world. It's unpleasant, sure, but it's temporary, and so long as we keep working together it'll be temporary for you as well."

He sighed, "You really like giving speeches huh."

I shrugged, "If you have a gift you use it."

David stood up and stretched his limbs before beginning to walk down the path. I quickly placed my hand on his shoulder and stopped him.

"We shouldn't walk down the road."

"...didn't you just give me a speech with the sole purpose of getting me to walk down the road? You send a lot of mixed messages."

"No you misunderstand, we're going to travel alongside the road in the woods. It'll be slower, sure, but animals can recognize a well-traveled path and set up ambushes on them, and quite frankly I don't feel like dealing with that."

David eyed the path, "Good point."

With that we set off.