Chapter 18: The Lair of Godslayer
Godslayer roared and raised his hands. Knives formed out of nowhere and hurtled toward me. I dived to the ground and rolled aside. Godslayer raised his arms again, and fire roared to life in his hands. This time he didn't aim at me. He swung his right arm, and fire erupted all around the battlefield. Luckily, my heritage as a son of the sea saved me. Helgi was clearly dead, but fortunately, he was immortal so he would come back to life. Suddenly, the fire got extinguished all at once. "You wish to reach my lair at the heart of the Labyrinth? I am happy to comply," said Godslayer.
Godslayer and I disappeared with a bright flash of light. Suddenly, my ribs no longer hurt. I realized Godslayer had healed me to show that he didn't care whether I was injured or not. We were inside a large room - if you could call it that. It was nearly the size of Olympus's throne room. It was an elevated room within the Labyrinth, so we could see clouds outside. "Percy!" My mom exclaimed with clear relief. "We - we thought you were dead!"
"I did die, but I basically went to a Norse afterlife that enables you to live again. The people in their afterlife constantly prepare for Ragnarok, the end of the world."
Confused, my mom said awkwardly, "Oh."
Godslayer then tried his trick with the knives again. I pulled my mom down along with me, and Leo, Thalia, and Nico followed my example. I knew we couldn't win this way. Godslayer was someone who had managed to fight all of the gods together and win, along with killing Zeus, the most powerful god. I clutched my pendant, which I somehow still had after all I had been through since getting it. This was the time I needed help the most. I prayed to my dad, Poseidon, and to Chaos. The latter was the one to answer. "Are you sure you want my help, Percy? Help at such a desperate point requires sacrifice," Chaos spoke inside my head.
"Anything," I said desperately. "If I don't get help we're all going to die anyway."
"Alright." Chaos said. "Channel your power into your pendant. It will turn into a trident, the weapon of your father. It will be charged with the power of your will, and some power of mine, as long as you have enough strength left to support it."
I did as he said, and after a few unsuccessful tries, my pendant eventually turned into a trident. It clearly glowed with mine and Chaos's power. I pointed it at Godslayer, and thrust it forward. Seeing its aura of power, Godslayer swung his arm, and the trident flew away, as if deflected off an invisible shield. However, this trident had the power of Chaos in it. It wasn't going to be stopped by some cheap trick like that. It flew around the room and soon returned, on a direct path toward Godslayer. This time, he ducked, hoping it would go on to hit me. But again the trident turned around and aimed for Godslayer. Godslayer deflected it again, and I called the trident back to me. Going back and forth like that wasn't going to help me. Taking advantage of being free of the trident, Godslayer unleashed a barrage of ice toward us. But Leo was there with us. He stepped forward and raised his hand. Then, he single-handedly stopped all the ice by creating a shield of fire. The ice melted on contact with the shield. We then all charged together. My mom then pulled out a shotgun she had cleverly hidden in her pocket. She aimed quickly and fired. Her aim was true, but the bullet just bounced off Godslayer's body.
"Of course he's bulletproof," I muttered. I created some water from thin air, a handy trick I had learned from my dad when immortal, and unleashed it toward Godslayer. Godslayer raised an arm and vaporised all the water in one go. When Leo shot fire toward him, the same happened. Thalia raised her sword and concentrated. A lightning strike struck Godslayer directly, but he didn't even look surprised. He raised a hand, and a boulder appeared out of thin air. He baseball-style pitched it toward Thalia, and she dived aside. The boulder struck the wall in the back of the room. Meanwhile, Nico had raised an army of the dead. He looked ready to collapse, but again, Godslayer wasn't fazed. He concentrated, and all of the skeletons crumbled to dust. I was getting desperate at this point. None of our attacks had yielded anything against Godslayer. The trident was the only thing that had even had his attention for more than a few seconds.
"We all have to attack together," I said to Leo and Thalia. My mom had no powers, and Nico was too tired to do anything. Leo and Thalia nodded. I again flooded the floor to try and get Godslayer off balance, but it was useless. Thalia charged with her sword, and managed to hold her own for some time. Leo sneaked in blasts of fire whenever it seemed Godslayer would overpower her. But Godslayer was just playing around. We were tiring, and we needed a way to defeat him quickly. I charged with the trident, but he ducked. Then he kicked Thalia in the chest, hard. She flew backward, and the look of pain on her face was enough to tell me she would be of no more use in this battle. I quickly made a plan with Leo. He ran back and grabbed Thalia's sword. He wasn't too good with it, but combined with his fire it would be enough to hold Godslayer's attention for a couple of seconds. I grabbed Nico's Stygian Iron sword. Leo and I would attack at the same time. If he tried to freeze Leo's fire attacks, I would attack with the Stygian Iron sword. If he tried to melt the Stygian sword, Leo would attack with fire. This way, freezing or melting things would not work for Godslayer, ensuring it would take him more time to fight us.
We attacked as a team. The strategy was working! While Godslayer was still clearly winning, he was actually trying rather than playing around with us. At random intervals, I threw water at Godslayer to distract him so as to give time for us to recover, if only for a very short amount of time. Eventually, he started pushing us back. We wouldn't be able to hold out much longer. I ducked out of the fight as according to plan, and let Leo bear the brunt of the attack. He got pushed to the ground, and I couldn't watch anymore. I went against our original plan of doing this alternatively to recover, and snuck behind Godslayer. As he went for the killing blow, I called hellfire to aid me. I sent a stream of hellfire toward him, causing him to turn with a true expression of pain. Taking advantage, I stabbed him with my trident. The glow of the trident entered Godslayer's body, and he roared in pain. There was a huge explosion, causing us to fly into the air. We crashed into the ceiling at the same time, and fell to the floor, burnt and injured. Godslayer lay on the ground, bleeding ichor from hundreds of wounds. He transformed into a different man, more muscular and with long dark hair. "Ouranos," Thalia marveled with awe.
A/N: Please review, it gives me motivation to keep writing. Also, I was having some errors uploading this chapter. Please inform me if there are any errors with the formatting.