Novels2Search
The Thaumaturge
Chapter 40 - Olympus

Chapter 40 - Olympus

I stare down at the three corpses before returning to my tower. As I enter, Leviticus says, "Well done, my lord."

"No need to praise me. Any of you would have done the same had I asked you to." As I return to my study and don my gear once again, Gustavo enters my room.

"Hello," he says. "Sorry to intrude, but I don’t think this is the right place for me. I’ve been thinking it over. Everyone else here has some mastery over weapons, and you yourself are far more powerful and intelligent than I could ever be. I think it’s best if I just leave."

"I know how you feel. If you truly wish to leave, I can help you. You are lucky that I have this device." I pick up my scrying mirror and give it to him. "In an infinite multiverse, there exists a world identical to your previous world, just without the extinction event. Now I’m not going to send you back to our home world because of the difference in time periods, but this should at least be close to that." As I talk, Gustavo looks surprised to see a spectral image of a street. I conjure a flux rift to that location in front of him. "Whenever you’re ready." He smiles and nods gratefully as he walks through.

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

The praetors and I prepare for our sixth excursion. By this point, most of the new recruits have had their original bodies restored. The curative vat truly is one of my most wondrous creations. This time, everyone elects to come on the journey.

I lead the praetors and my companions to the next sealed flux rift. I open it and we walk through to the other side.

When we walk through, we emerge next to a fairly large wall. "You all know the drill. Group A will go East, Group B West, Group C North, and I will go South."

Going South from here means we must explore what I suppose is a city behind this wall. Jack says, "Looks like you were right. I can’t use any of my skills here."

"You should still be able to use skills that could reasonably be explained by your physique rather than magic." As we round the wall, Julius notices something.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

"I see people up there!" She says. I look around the bend of the wall and see that she is correct. There is a line up people waiting to enter the city, and a similar number exiting, all through a large gate. This is similar to the other walled cities we’ve been to, only… this time, I only see humans. No demi-humans in sight here.

As we get in line, a carriage passes us. Its driver says to me, "Hey, buddy, that’s some nice armor. How much do you want for it?"

"Not for sale." He frowns and rides past us. Jack, Ican, Julius, and Winter all look confused.

"What the hell did that guy just say?" Ican asks.

"What do you mean?"

"He just spoke gibberish and rode off!" Jack says. Interesting. If he spoke another language, my Desidirium (Desire) to Sensus (Senses) converter I added to my grinning mask seems to work. Glad I could figure that out. As we approach the gate, we are not met by a toll booth this time. When we enter the city, my heart drops ten thousand feet into my chest.

Holy shit. This can’t be. The source of my horror comes from a giant statue in the city square. I run up to it and examine it. My head begins to spin as I contemplate what to do next. My group runs to catch up with me. "Hey! Are you alright?" Asks Julius. I slowly turn to look at them.

"See this statue? If you know who this is, you should be well aware of why this is a horrible place to be." They all look at the statue, but only Julius seems to realize what this means. "Welcome to Crete."

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

"The statue here is of Crete’s ruler, King Minos. This means this is a time period where the Greek gods are said to have lived. In our home dimension, of course, they weren’t real. But here…"

"So what?" Asks Winter. "You’ve killed plenty of gods before."

"The Greek gods are different, Winter. They are Olympians. They are functionally immortal. I’m not sure if anything I could do would kill one. More than that, their power levels are absurd. My guess is that the only reason we’re not dead right now is that they’re not omniscient. Their information network is very poor." My group looks at me, and for the first time ever, they see me truly afraid. "More than that, they are ruthless and cunning. If one caught us, death would probably be the best outcome for us."

They look around nervously. "Just use that hammer thing you were working on," says Ican.

"That won’t work here. They reside in this plane, atop Mount Olympus. On the upside, most of them are such horrible people that I have no qualms killing them. If our mission is to be successful, we must use every tactic and power we have acquired to defeat them." I could use Nefarium, but I’m not even sure that could kill them…