An Imperceptible Ruse Indeed (The Gods' Executioner Series)

by A. L. Bridges

  I get within a half a mile from the palace before I run into my first group of enemies: a medley of shades and mummy soldiers armed with Kalashnikov PKM machine guns. With 200-round box magazines loaded with 7.62mm rounds, those PKMs will slow me down at the very least. The shades advance toward me with their usual melee weapons as the mummies open up on me with complete disregard for friendly fire; I guess they got the memo that the shades can’t be killed.

  This confirms that Osiris is working with Loki and Sydney… So that’s how Sydney got out undetected; with her speed, she could have made it to the gate that leads to Duat in the three or so minutes that she had before Niflheim was locked down. Once there, she could just port out without the threat of detection since only Osiris would detect porting in all of Duat and he was on her side…

  Void tendrils jettison out of my right leg and break down the shades while I use my clawed left hand to tear through a couple mummies. Strips of flesh and bandages weave in between my fingers like cheese through a grater, which gives me a strangely satisfying feeling. One mummy moves its PKM up to block a downward slash from my claw; five clinks ring out as the metal of the barrel hits the ground in pieces. I really wish that these mummies were… well, not mummies because the lack of blood is really make this whole thing less enjoyable. The screams that are emitted from the mummies when I disembowel them or cut off their limbs does amp up the enjoyment, however.

  After a last look around at the ribbons of flesh and cloth, I continue towards the palace; the top of the black pyramid now in sight. I turn a corner and walk into a blockade of three .50 caliber machine guns. The mummies manning the turrets get out about five rounds each before full sized tendrils strike both the turrets and the mummies, sending chunks of each to the Void.

  “AUGH!” I yelp and grab my chest at the pain that has suddenly beset me. I look down and see that I wasn’t hit, so this pain in my chest can only mean one thing… I need to hurry.

  I sprint forward with a sense of urgency and make it to the entryway of the black sandstone pyramid that is Duat’s palace. I’m met by several hundred shades, which do little to slow me down as my tendrils slice through and vaporize them. The pain in my chest intensifies as the dust settles and I see a dozen golden auras standing in front of the entrance to the black pyramid. The auras belong to minor gods armed with khopesh sickle swords.

  “Where’s Osiris?” I inquire, but the gods remain silent.

  “Fine, if that’s the way you want to play it.” I reply and the gods charge.

  I duck under a khopesh and stab my left hand into the god’s chest. His core starts being absorbed as I spin to the left and use his body to block another khopesh. I laugh as I hurl the husk of the god to my right, hitting an attacking god as I slam my claw into the chest of another god.

  “You know, it’s times like these that I wish I had a second Void claw!” I announce while absorbing the core of the second god.

  My chest and right arm start tingling as I feel the Void crawling down my right arm, which distracts me long enough for three gods to hit me from the front, sending me flying back. I hit the black sandstone fence with a crunch. My right hand turns black and my fingers elongate into wicked-looking bladed claws, the sound of bones cracking reaching my ears as they do so. When it’s finished, I notice that I no longer have a sense of touch with my right hand, but something tells me that it still isn’t as hardy as my left. As I pry myself out of the stone fence, I look up at the gods with a smile behind my helmet.

  “Hey Airi, does absorbing the cores of these gods do anything for me?”

  (Since they are minor gods, not really)

  With that, I flash towards the gods with both claws crossed at shoulder level. One god meets my charge and I rip my claws outward, tearing through his khopesh and shredding his core. I roll to the side to avoid the aerial down slash from another khopesh while I rip through the ankles of another god. After coming out of the roll, I tear through another god’s core before flipping back and landing with my left claw slamming through the core of the downed god that is missing his ankles. The god behind me must think that I don’t see him coming; he certainly doesn’t expect me to spin on my knees and slam my right claw through his chest.

  The remaining six gods surround me and slowly close in. The key to getting out of a situation like this is to pick the weakest link in the circle and charge, so that’s what I do. The surprise on the god’s face is priceless when he realizes that I’m heading for him, shortly followed by beheading him. Now that the chain is broken and I’m out of the circle, I focus my efforts on speed as I spin around while throwing a smoke bomb. With their vision obstructed to the point that they can only see my aura, I charge forward and spear each claw through a chest as I run through the grouping, breaking the circle once again. I fling my arms out, sending the bodies of the two gods flying into the fence, and turn around for another go.

  The last three gods have regrouped as I advance towards them. I start running circles around them, herding them inward until they’re back to back as I get closer. They keep trying to hit me with the khopeshes, but they aren’t quick enough. Once I get sick of playing with them, I give three run-by stabs into each of their cores. They crumple to the ground, moaning in agony as they live out their final moments with the other gods that are nearing death now that their cores have been destroyed.

  With the small fries taken care of, now the real fun can begin! I walk through the front doors to the lobby of the pyramid palace expecting to see some opposition, but instead I see nobody. Where are all of the gods!? Speaking of gods, where is Isis in all of this? Ryuji and Naia too…

  (Based on the location of your blood, I’d say that they’re downstairs)

  Since the only way out of the lobby is to go up, I head up the left staircase to the balcony that overlooks the lobby. I walk down the hall, passing by Isis’s room, and continue until I find a staircase at the end that leads both up and down. I take the stairs down two at a time and find that they continue past the distance to the first floor. The staircase winds back and forth seven times before I finally reach the bottom and see a brick wall. Obviously it’s a feint and I should just look for the brick that opens the wall; however, having had enough of this Scooby-Doo shit, I place my left hand on the wall.

  “Erase.” I command and the wall blows away like dust.

  I step through the newly made hole into what is obviously a dungeon. Isis, Ryuji, and Naia are chained to the wall on the far side of the dungeon, about fifty feet away. The ceiling starts rumbling as a brick falls down on my left… are you fucking kidding me? Fucking Scooby-Doo! I try to ignore that bullshit and bypass the mystery wall only to have the place act like I just fucked up the laws of the universe so it has decided to just collapse! I flash across the room and use my tendrils to slice through the chains binding Isis, Ryuji, and Naia.

  After picking the three of them up with my tendrils, I touch my Haglaz to port to Jason’s house, the blades in my hands sinking into my shoulder; that’s a fact I should keep in mind. We land on the floor in the living room and I take a knee, my bladed hands cutting into the carpet.

  “Cole!” somebody exclaims, but I can’t differentiate who the voice belongs to.

  “Where’s Alice?” I grunt out as I turn to look at Isis.

  “Osiris took her to Heliopolis.” Isis replies, but I wouldn’t be able to tell it was her judging by the sound of her voice alone; it’s like I’m hearing it for the first time and the sound is completely unfamiliar to me.

  “He’s taken over the entire pantheon now that he’s the only head and he’s obsessed with getting revenge for Horus.” Isis tells me. I feel the worth she has as a person slipping away with the familiarity of her voice.

  “What’s Heliopolis?” I ask while trying to ignore the burning in my chest.

  “It’s the plane where the majority of the Egyptian pantheon resides.” Isis answers.

  Alright, porting there should be doable since I have all of
Horus’s power. Isis is no longer needed… I should just end her. After all, she most likely had some part to play in this… it’d be safer to just kill her and be done with it.

  She had some part to play in this and decided that she’d chain herself up in the dungeon? Highly unlikely.

  But not impossible.

  I can’t take the only family Naia has left.

  Then kill her too. She did take Addie from me.

  No, that was Horus; Naia was told that nothing bad would happen to her.

  I need to get out of here.

  “You guys should go get Cheza… when I come back with Alice, there’s a good chance that I won’t be myself.” I announce as I stand up, keeping my eyes closed.

  “Heliopolis.”

  Chapter 24: Heliopolis

  I arrive in a gold-plated limestone gazebo to blue skies and a large sun. The hot, dry air fills my lungs as I look forward at a column-lined limestone path the width of a football field in front of me, leading to a massive, gold-plated pyramid that makes the ones in Giza look like stepping stones. I advance down the path unopposed, feeling no enemies nearby.

  “Welcome Feros!” Osiris’s voice booms across the sky when I’m roughly halfway to the pyramid.

  “Under the basis of Maat, I condemn you to death for upsetting the balance of this pantheon!” Osiris calls out.

  “Maat? You want to discuss Maat right now? You are siding with Loki, who is bent on destroying the world and all of the gods for the sake of petty jealousy and revenge, and you’re talking to me about a concept that is based on balance and order?” I reply.

  “Silence! You have no say in this, monster!” Osiris exclaims in fury.

  “Come Feros. I’ll be waiting for you at the top of the pyramid.” Osiris informs me in a more calm tone.

  “Aw, but I hate dungeon-crawlers!” I exclaim.

  “Or should I say that we’ll be waiting for you.” Osiris adds.

  “Uncle Cole!” Alice cries out in the background and I get serious.

  I sprint towards the base of the pyramid as it towers over me. I see an opening to the pyramid at the end of the path, so I enter it. The tunnel I enter has torches lighting each wall that continue down as far as I can see. I speed down the tunnel and reach a dead end with a brick wall. I’m not falling for the collapsible ceiling twice; I’ll just search for the brick.

  I touch the wall and my hand sinks through, causing a ripple like when you jump through a painting in that Mario game for Nintendo 64. The wall leads out into a well-lit room with a sand floor that is the size of a stadium, and at the other end is a twenty foot tall lion with a man’s head and white wings on its back; a sphinx?

  “Answer my riddle, and you may pass. Fail to answer, and you will be killed.” The sphinx tells me as I approach.

  “Great… more bullshit.” I reply.

  “Let’s play.” The sphinx responds and the light in the room dims as spot lights flood the area around the two of us and the music from Who Wants to be a Millionaire plays.

  “The man who invented it doesn't want it. The man who buys it doesn't need it. The man who needs it doesn't know it. What is it?” The sphinx asks.

  I think for all of ten seconds before Void tendrils seep out of my left hand. I jump into the air, cast my left arm forward, and the tendrils wrap around the sphinx’s neck.

  “C: A coffin. Final answer, bitch.” I reply and rip my left arm back.

  The tendrils tighten around the sphinx’s neck and slice through it. Its head comes flying off as the music plays again, notifying me that I got the answer correct. Blood showers down from its neck and soaks the sand. I walk around the sphinx’s decapitated body as the blood hits me like rain drops, and I find the door out of this place.

  I walk through the doorway and into another tunnel; this tunnel leads to… surprise! Another dead end wall! Knowing the drill, I jump into the wall.

  Discovering that it’s solid, I rebound off of the wall and fall on my ass. I stand up and take a long, hard look at the wall, like a drunk who has just fallen off of his bar stool.

  (Master… take a few steps back)

  I do as Airi instructs and take three steps back.

  (Now look right)

  I do so and see a staircase leading up.

  “Thank you, Airi.”

  I head up the stairs that seem to go up for an absurdly long time. After finally reaching the top, I find myself in another tunnel. At the end of this tunnel is another wall, which I approach with caution instead of trying to be Super Mario. My hand sinks through the wall with a ripple and I walk through it.

  I find myself in the middle of a desert, nothing but sand for miles in each direction. All that is present is a brick wall behind me that is exactly the same as the wall I walked through; nothing but desert is behind the wall. Well, it looks like the best way to go is probably straight. I walk for close to half of a mile when I see another brick wall like the one I just came through.

  Oh, don’t tell me…

  I look over my shoulder and see the brick wall I came through off in the distance. Why do I always assume the worst in situations like these? The ground starts to rumble and I remember the answer to my question: expect the worst, and you won’t be disappointed when it happens, but you will be pleasantly surprised if it doesn’t. I see a dot on the horizon to my left as it comes towards me. The dot quickly becomes the size of a dog, then a car, then a house, then a HOLY SHIT WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT!

  I start to lose my cool as the gargantuan beast with the hind legs of a hippo, the torso of a lion, and the head of a crocodile comes to a stop roughly two hundred feet from my position and takes a seat.

  “Ammit, I presume?” I ask as I start shaking with excitement.

  “I have not come here to talk, Feros.” Ammit replies, towering over me with her crocodile mouth the size of a semi-truck hanging open as words flow out in a volume that is much softer than I was expecting.

  “Oh, yay!” I respond, completely giddy. “You know, I honestly never expected a fight like this outside of video games like God of War or Shadows of Colossus; definitely never anything real!”

  Ammit appears to have had enough conversation and tries to smash me with one of her massive paws, which she manages to move much more quickly than I was expecting given the sheer size. After narrowly avoiding her paw, the force causes a large cloud of dust and sends me flying. While tumbling through the air, I hold my left hand out and send a dozen Void tendrils at Ammit. When the tendrils break the edge of the dust cloud, Ammit quickly jumps back to dodge them, easily putting half a mile between us. I look to my right and see that the wall is only about a quarter of a mile away so I make a break for it. The ground quakes as Ammit quickly runs and intercepts my path.

  Thinking back now, I’ve never understood why giants in video games and movies are supposed to move slowly… maybe it goes off the basis of overall wind resistance, but if you somehow find a cheetah that is twenty times its normal size, why would that cheetah go less than 60mph when its muscles and stride are now twenty times their original size? The answer: because they would otherwise be too damn difficult to beat.

  “The clock is ticking, Feros.” Osiris’s voice booms as I hear Alice scream out in pain.

  “You’re a dead man, Osiris!” I shout towards the sky.

  “Ammit, either move out of the way, or I’ll kill you too.” I inform her.

  Ammit responds by lifting her massive paw into the air. No longer having time to mess around, Void tendrils leak out of my arm and leg and I start up the gyroscope. Ammit’s paw comes flying down and I get to see what the inside a giant lion’s paw looks like. Ammit roars out in pain as the paw goes flying back on reflex, her demon blood drenching the sand around me. I fly up and land on Ammit’s back as she’s trying to deal with pain on a level that I imagine she has never felt before, especially considering that her kids are the size of tadpoles in comparison.

  Since Ammit’s gargantuan mouth is still open, I take
advantage of this; six Void tendrils shoot out of my left arm, go around Ammit’s head, through the sides of her open mouth, and back to me where I grab them with the bladed Void claw that is currently my right hand.

  “I warned you, Ammit.” I say as I rotate my wrist and wrap my left hand around the tendrils while doing the same with my right to ensure that I have a good grip.

  With my hands held behind my head, I run down Ammit’s back. When I’ve run about twenty feet, I kneel down and give a final tug, throwing my hands over my head. I retract the tendrils back into my left arm as the upper portion of Ammit’s crocodile head slides free from her body, leaving the mandible to fall down and dangle by the skin. Gallons upon gallons of blood spill from Ammit’s neck as I hover so I don’t fall with the body.

  Now it’s time to go get Alice.

  (Just thought I’d let you know that this area isn’t an open plane)

  “What do you mean?”

  (This room is still a part of the pyramid, not a separate plane. The sky is just an illusion on the rather high ceiling)

  “I see where you’re going with this.”

  I start up the gyroscope again and fly towards the sky. Once I’m about half a mile up, I reach the ceiling and slice my way through it to the floor above. I see that this floor contains a river and plants for a split second before I go crashing through the ceiling to the next floor: a torch-lit passageway. Next floor:

  Sand and lake of fire.

  Torch-lit passageway.

  Limestone-brick chamber.

  Torch-lit passageway.

  Massive library.

  In my blur through the floors, I notice several gods before I hit open air and blue skies. The massive circular limestone-brick platform that I land on is ringed by giant columns, each several hundred yards from my position.

  “You just had to come crashing through the ground, didn’t you? Couldn’t you just use the stairs?” Osiris rhetorically asks behind me.

  I turn around and see him standing on a tall circular pedestal that is about a hundred yards from my position, wearing white robes. Chained to the base of that pedestal, is Alice; she has cuts on her face and a white stuffed rabbit that’s been torn to shreds lying next to her.