1
“Our heart was pierced!”
”Shit”
”Lower our center of gravity, get our feet on the ground!”
”Can someone patch up the hole?”
”I…”
”Get on it, we’re losing blood, what do we see? anything other than the spear?”
”It’s laced, whatever is on it will infect our blood.”
”I’m cleansing it right now, focus on the enemy.”
”We aren’t breathing, someone get us breathing again!”
”The hole is closing but the heart stopped!”
”Heavenly thunder! I will not have us die to easily!”
”Puff out your chest ferryman, all of us are relying on you! SHOW. THEM. HOW. POWERFUL. YOU. ARE!”
”We’re alive!”
”Breathing and heartbeat confirmed, turn off pain inhibition the body will go into shock but we’ll wake up!”
”I thought you were supposed to be a doctor…”
”I’m just glad I could help……”
”It’s not over! while consciousness is returning someone get on making that sword!”
”It has a name haha.”
”Crownsplitter summoned! but our arms are bleeding!”
”Keep the blood in! we can’t lose more while we are cleansing!”
”I-I got it!”
”Numb the forearm! Flex it! Strengthen the bone too!”
”Sap the armor’s power! let loose!”
”Ferryman! Get up! C’mon I can’t lose this chance!”
”Why don’t we just pray?”
”A god is easy pickings, it’s time to hunt.”
”Maybe my death won’t be in vein…”
”Ferryman I swear I will get more souls together next time…”
”He’s awake!”
”And on the seventh second…”
2
Gasp
I sucked air into my lungs, heaving in and out, my eyes attempted to blink shut but I was still unable to control them “Can’t… lie down now.” I banged my fist on the floor, the momentary shock of pain got me motivated enough to stand back up, only to look the God right in the eye.
It now stood above me, the form of it’s body still obscured by the heavy cloak, but now spikes and limbs poked out all over, something not human was hidden under there it was clear, more like a mash up random animals and insects, they took shape almost like a warrior, using an overgrown spine as a spear, a grotesque and malformed bone, covered in a rancid toxin, it could only be a weapon for murder.
“I said we are meant to let humans thrive, that is the truth, meaning that I must kill you before you become their lord.” It’s eye squinted in a scowl, or at least the closest to that expression it could make, without a face.
“I’m not going to be anyone’s lord, I don’t know where you get your information from, but you’re mistaken, I need your power to save the world.” I already knew that was my goal, but it was strange to say it out loud, I doubted I could even do it, I knew I was probably going to die if I kept defying this God, and yet…
“And yet… there is one thing that is true, if I die, the souls of all those inside me will be lost forever, I already owe them more than I could give in my life, so for their sake… get out of my way or help me.” I couldn’t stop the trembling in my hands, maybe I was making it worse, maybe I would have had a better chance of living if I just ran away, but that wasn’t their wishes, and now, that wasn’t my wish either.
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“You should know how much words mean to me human, especially that word, True.” The God spoke with an otherworldly tone, Crownsplitter dragged itself up from the floor and returned to my side, I still felt the pain from waking up so violently, but it was starting to be consumed by the fighting spirt, I grabbed my sword, but bent my legs…
“The future is never True, nor is it a Lie, so back up your words with action, then we will see.” It grabbed a hold of my breastplate and thrust it’s spear into my stomach in an attempt to pierce me again, but… I jumped, the spear still hit, but it slid past my armor. More importantly, I have a horn like a beetle, I gritted my teeth and delivered a head-but right into the God’s eye, I could hear the ringing of metal scraping against something hard though.
It backed away, taking only two backwards leaps to clear the whole room and reach a wall, seemingly trying to recover from being stabbed somewhere sensitive, but that was wrong, I couldn’t pinpoint what exactly was wrong with it’s actions. I was sure I had done a reckless attack where we would both get hit, but I hadn’t been so much as scratched, even glancing down towards my stomach was no mark left by the spear, maybe it only excelled at underhanded sneak attacks, though I just attempted a sneak attack against a God of lies…
I tensed up and put Crownsplitter into a defensive stance, using the wide blade as more of a shield than a sword, I knew from the fight with Kensei that the base form of the blade was fragile, but would regrow stronger if it took damage, it was already mostly shattered, so I could only imagine it blocked a hit for me before I regained consciousness.
If I continued to defend, maybe it would be able to block a few more hits before breaking, once I was safe I could come up with a better plan. Though, I was up against a God, I shouldn’t have expected it to be that easy, the moment the sword began regrowing it’s blade it lunged, clearing the whole room in the blink of an eye, I couldn’t take a direct hit or I’d be run through and poisoned.
I couldn’t think of something I just swung, using the hilt of the sword as a makeshift club, I couldn’t even be sure it would do damage, I aimed at the eye again.
”What eye?” I couldn’t be sure if it was me or the God who spoke, but there defiantly wasn’t an eye there, it was the moon, but that wasn’t right, we were underground. I didn’t have the time to be confused, I missed the God completely even though I was right on target, and its spear pierced my heart a second time…
3
“I didn’t commit blasphemy for you to fall for silly tricks like that, Ferryman, if you would take a look at this thing’s body for a second…” A soul appeared beside me, it was hazy and barely there, but it was slowly gaining more form, it placed an amorphous arm on my shoulder. “And in my professional medical opinion…” his tone grew more grim. “You will not survive another hit like that, hell, it’s a miracle you survived this long.”
“I’ve had to learn the hard way that biology doesn’t really work the same way over hear, frankly your muscle structure is hard to believe, even if you were a genetic freak like Arnold Schwarzenegger, you should fell blessed you can hold your own against one they call a god, but that’s because it’s holding back on you, or at least I believe.” The name he said I didn’t recognize, but he came from a whole other world, perhaps they had great heros over there as well, but I understood what he meant…
I was strong, maybe I could harm this God if I swung my sword hard enough, but the problem was I didn’t know where to swing. ‘Truesight’ is meant to see everything, and past lies, did that mean that Gods were above magic?
“Thinking here is as good as talking, so I’ll try to explain it to the best of my ability, that god isn’t using magic or whatever to hide it’s form, it’s using plane old magic tricks… or… well you don’t know what that means…” The soul seemed to pause for a moment to think of his words, it really felt like I was talking to a genius, speaking in a way I couldn’t fully understand…
He had to dumb it down for me.
“When you see your reflection in the water, is that really you? that is what the god is doing, I don’t know if it’s my magic that is keeping him from using more advanced tactics, but all he is doing is tricking you, taking advantage of how you think you see things.” So my problem was found, but how would I change the fight by just knowing it was a trick? it still looked real, and having to discern what is and isn’t real in the heat of battle was even more of a time waster, it started to feel like I was completely outmatched…
“Hah! you are completely outmatched, no use avoiding that fact, the fact that you even have a fighting chance is insane I can’t stress that enough, I was never an emotions doctor so I not going to tell you it’s going to be okay.” The soul started to fade, in the distance I could see my surroundings, like a surreal form of waking up.
“Your left leg has nearly succumbed to that toxin, your heart is full of holes and your whole body is screaming at you to stop, the only reason you can keep fighting is those who you’ve picked up along the way, whatever this ‘magic’ is, they wouldn’t want you too, but if you don’t think you can win, run…”
With that, he disappeared fully, I don’t know if this was a dream but I did my best to repeat what he said to myself…
“If you don’t think you can win, run…”
4
“What am I putting myself through…”
“Want an answer to that?” The God of the Just stood over my body, a glowing white toothy grin emerged from the hood of its robe, it extended a hand to me as if to offer some help up.
“I have an idea already, plus… I don’t trust whatever you have to say.” at that the Gods grin turned into a smirk, but I still grabbed its hand.
It was an obvious trap, once I grabbed its hand it would use that as leverage to thrust its spear, I would be stabbed in the heart again, it was as simple as that. But… was it? My armor along with my wounds had been closed already, it was temporary, as soon as I lost consciousness all the wounds and gaps in my armor would reopen, I had to risk everything on a gamble… no, a plan, there was no risk if I did it right…
I didn’t let go of its hand, in fact I squeezed it, harder, and harder, until I was squeezing it as hard as I could, and then I tightened my grip. I held on tighter, until my grip was locked like that, one of the souls had strong bones… so make the bones in my hand bigger, make them oversized and bulky far too large to move…
And like that, we were inseparable, I felt my fingers malformed like claws dug into the hand of a God, there would now be no way to deceive me, maybe this is what Jupiter meant by that fist bump…
“Interesting human, but do you think you can outlast me as you are now? how will you even swing a sword like that with when we’re this close? is this one act of desperation good enough!?, TELL ME THE TRUTH.”
“We’ll see…”