Gushing blood came from every one of the female Ōmeteōtl's orifices while their skin and hair fell off in chunks. Their body spasmed and they let out gurgly groans that completed a horrifying image, so much so that Ivan felt compelled to stop and see what was happening.
Audience members got sick, but they couldn't bring themselves to avert their eyes from the tense battle.
As the new malformations intensified, the bullet holes that riddled Ōmeteōtl actually healed. Cipactli's teeth felt repelled, the fangs getting pushed out of the dual god's body as the god regenerated further. The monster tried to bite back into Ōmeteōtl, only for the muscles of the skinless deity to be too tough to penetrate.
This was Ōmeteōtl's ultimate sacrificial ritual. They can slowly deplete their own life and cause themselves immense physical turmoil in exchange for massively enhanced physical abilities. It was a technique that could be survived if the user deactivated it before they perished, but it was such a risky ritual it wasn't normally worth attempting, unless death would be otherwise inevitable anyway.
Ivan let his bullets fly again, but when they touched the dual god, they flattened due to Ōmeteōtl's body refusing to yield.
Ōmeteōtl gripped a tooth from both Cipactli's upper and lower jaws respectively, jerking them apart with enough strength that it caused the monster to split in two. The god proceeded to gouge out hunks of Cipactli's flesh and tear off the beast's limbs with their bare hands along with swinging their arms with such power they caused parts of Cipactli's body to pop like balloons full of blood on impact.
A lake of blood was all that was left of the crocodilian monstrosity, an eye for an eye after Ōmeteōtl got turned to a puddle so many times.
Ivan looked at the red god and felt a twinge of fear, similar, yet definitely different from the fear he so loved to induce in others in his crusade.
Ōmeteōtl didn't have time to waste, so it was no surprise when they crossed over to Ivan so fast that the shaken sniper didn't see the god coming, nor their kick that hit Ivan's temple dead on. The hit would have knocked Ivan away, but Ōmeteōtl grabbed the human's ankle to keep him close.
Ivan was slammed into the ground like a gavel, the snow jumping high in the air as the ground below moved in waves like water. Like a small child whipping around a toy, Ōmeteōtl kept pummeling Ivan by hitting him into the ground, trees, and anything else to be found, though the damage mainly came from the godly whiplash. The sniper's ankle was juiced like an orange from Ōmeteōtl's grip and on the brink of snapping in two from the strain.
And it did snap, Ivan's body getting flung into the air, which was actually a blessing as it allowed the sniper to get away and have an instant to think. Ivan landed on his foot and stump, spinning around Tammuz to grip the barrel and wield it as a makeshift bludgeon.
Ōmeteōtl was already in front of him, but he responded by swinging his gun diagonally, but the dual god decided to take the hit, blocking with one arm, and punching at Ivan's throat with the other. The sniper kicked the side of Ōmeteōtl's knee mid-punch, the god falling to said knee and missing the strike.
The rifle swung like a baseball bat and hit Ōmeteōtl's head dead center, but the god was unharmed, or at least not harmed by the blow. Ōmeteōtl was still a bloody mess from their ritual.
The dual god hooked their arms around the human's legs and took him to the ground. Ōmeteōtl was on top of Ivan, hitting their fists into Ivan's face hard enough to slowly cave it in. The sniper tried to block with Tammuz, but the punches made the rifle dent each time, risking cracking the relic in half.
The man born to be the envoy of divine punishment, a man who struck fear into countless innocents, was now unable to process how helpless he was. He was facing a horrific looking humanoid that was simply too strong to even scratch. Ivan was supposed to be the embodiment of all that Ōmeteōtl had to fear, but that was the Ōmeteōtl of before. This Ōmeteōtl was stronger, only fearing leaving their children alone again, and the only thing that was stopping that reality was Ivan.
Every fist that came down was a mystery box, a question of whether or not it would be the strike that would break through Tammuz and come down on Ivan's head, making it burst.
Ivan was feeling for the first time the smallest tinge of the fear he caused others, and he didn't like it.
Ivan was empty. He was not sad, just empty. He could not share in the highs and lows of those around him, always detached. There was a vacancy inside him, as if he was waiting for something, but he didn't know what it was. He wished for the day where something would happen and he'd learn what it was like to feel.
And then, Yahweh spoke to him, and he learned why he was born, and he realized what he was waiting for. He existed to punish.
What did he need to punish? That didn't really matter. He just needed to find a reason, an excuse, so that he could punish, and thus feel, to have meaning.
He slaughtered people for things beyond their control, or for the most minor infractions. Even if he wasn't personally present, when Ivan knew his soldiers caused suffering, the world felt like it was shining, a heaven in and of itself merely by existing and facilitating the tyrant's judgement.
Morality was something Ivan pondered, but he was a construction of God, born to act in their name, so that meant he had to be validated in his actions, at least that's what he believed.
Ivan's crusade of judgment was one of rashness, leading the Tsar to even slay his own son. He felt no love, even for his blood, only for his self indulgent flagellation of any scapegoat to be found.
And thus, Ivan the Terrible was born.
Ivan slapped the ground next to himself with his palm, causing the sniper to bounce off the ground, Ōmeteōtl no longer mounted atop him and pinning him to the snowy ground.
The butt of the rifle crashed into Ōmeteōtl's head again and sent him flying into the distance. Ivan needed to keep his distance and wait for Ōmeteōtl's transformation to deplete their life. It was the only way left to win now that the dual god was too tough to injure.
Ivan repeatedly pulled the trigger of Tammuz as fast as he could, bullets flocking toward Ōmeteōtl, each bullet on a different path, changing trajectory wildly without any indicators of where they'd go next. They surrounded and assaulted the airborne Ōmeteōtl, not damaging them but knocking them around and keeping them in the air.
Ōmeteōtl kicked the air, a shockwave propelling the god towards Ivan and through the bullet barrage. Ivan jumped and propelled himself with a gunshot to get away. The fight became a chase. The dual god kicked off the air to follow the sniper who used his rifle shots for propulsion to fly around.
They rocketed through the snow, whipping the storm up into more of a frenzy than it already was. It made it more and more difficult for Ōmeteōtl to keep flying without accidentally crashing into something or losing track of the human, Ivan being fine thanks to his unique eyes.
The winds were so furious that the snow on the ground was getting picked up by the winds. Even the trees were ripped from the soil and sucked into the vortex. The snow was moving so quickly that it began to vaporize from the heat that was building. The battlefield became filled with steam that obscured Ōmeteōtl's vision even more. This was all according to Ivan's stratagem, to make as many obstacles as possible between himself and Ōmeteōtl to help stall until the clock on the dual god's life ran out.
Ōmeteōtl managed to catch up, despite the hindrances, the god right on Ivan's tail.
Switching to plan B, Ivan did a sudden U-turn and flew right past an unprepared Ōmeteōtl. The instantaneous, high-speed change in direction caused a change in airflow that sucked away all the air from the areas Ivan flew through, creating a vacuum.
All the fluids in Ōmeteōtl's body, including their eyes, vaporized, the god's body getting desiccated and scalded. The mummified deity felt their body try to explosively decompress, but they were too durable to break, but they were nonetheless disoriented and in pain, unable to stop themself from getting pulled along by the course of the wind that filled the vacuum and continued to rage around the battlefield, occasionally crashing through trees and into the barrier.
Although Ōmeteōtl was unable to physically think due to the lack of any chemicals in their brain, they were also still able to think due to their dualistic nature. They could think and couldn't think.
A kick returned Ōmeteōtl to his pursuit of Ivan, regaining control of their own trajectory.
The issue was that Ōmeteōtl didn't actually know where Ivan was. Ōmeteōtl's eyes had regenerated but all the snow, trees, and soil in the battlefield that were now mixed into the winds made it so all the god's senses were hindered in some way. It simply wasn't possible for the dual god to detect anything.
Bullets came from multiple directions through the obstructions, peppering Ōmeteōtl to knock the god around again and make it harder for them to focus.
This was the kind of fight Ivan excelled at, the type of fight that was the original plan before the temalactl got in the way. Keep Ōmeteōtl lost and confused and hit them from a safe distance and overwhelm them. This was Ivan's full potential, his sniper instincts on full display. Simo watched and knew he would have no chance in a battle of sniping, Ivan was in a whole different league.
All the effort to set up this perfect situation for Ivan was made meaningless when Ōmeteōtl punched with all their might, creating a shockwave that blew everything away from the dual god, the steam clearing and the dirt and tree fragments pinning to the barrier and the ground, as did Ivan who was stuck against the invisible wall.
Another kick made Ōmeteōtl shoot off and crash, elbow first into Ivan's gut, dodging around the holy relic the sniper used to guard his head and chest.
Out Ivan's mouth came mashed organs and blood.
Just as Ōmeteōtl was going to follow up with a punch to Ivan's throat, the strain of the god's transformation hit them. Death was near, and their body was falling apart, literally. Ōmeteōtl's left arm fell off as the sinew and muscles that once linked it to the god's shoulder snapped like frayed twine.
Both fighters were incapacitated by the pain they were feeling, falling back to the ground, dirt and wood chips landing on them, leaving them buried.
"The storm has cleared and my Sun shines again!" Apollo said.
"Both the fighters are buried like corpses, and from what we just saw, they both may actually be corpses! They've definitely got the look down!"
"Both of you shut up, Ōmeteōtl might be dead!" Tezcatlipoca's anger made Anansi and Apollo go quiet, afraid of incurring any further response from the distraught deity of the night.
All Four Tezcatlipocas were having panic attacks. Their parent just lost an arm and dropped from the sky. The transformation Ōmeteōtl was using was something well known in the Aztec pantheon, but it was one rarely used because its backlash was also well known. The four gods understood that their parent was risking it all for them once again, suffering to try and win the fight and return to them.
"Fucking shit. Now that Ivan's guts are goo, he's got a time limit until he dies too. He can't run out the clock now." Astaroth's droning voice made her frustration pellucid.
"But, Ōmeteōtl's about to die! They're literally falling apart! If Ivan can just hold out for a little longer, he'll win and we can save him!" Sin was as confident as she was at the fight's beginning.
"It's true that Ivan won't die immediately, but it's not like it'll be long."
"Mom, do you know how long it takes for Ōmeteōtl's transformation to kill them? You did research on everything the Aztec pantheon can do since we didn't know what Ōmeteōtl's move set was, so you'd know, yeah?"
"From what I understand, Ōmeteōtl can last for three minutes, it's been one since they transformed."
"How long can Ivan survive as he is?"
"Someone as superhumanly fit as him, ten minutes minimum, assuming there's no further interference."
"Then things are looking good for us, right?"
"But, Ōmeteōtl's far more likely to get up than Ivan is. Ōmeteōtl's stamina is their best quality. Ivan, not so much. He's a sniper, his endurance is for long periods of slowly getting whittled away at, not losing a foot and getting hit so hard in the gut his organs come out his mouth."
Ōmeteōtl burst from the dirt and readied their remaining fist to punch down and splatter the sniper that remained under the soil.
Ivan's remaining leg was like a bullet from a barrel, firing from the ground and clashing with Ōmeteōtl's shin, knocking the dual god's foot off the ground and making them fall to a knee. Ivan's torso rose up from the dirt like a zombie and punched the skinless god's throat, failing to do anything but hurt his own knuckles, but he punched again anyway. Fist after fist to random spots on Ōmeteōtl's form. Disorient the god. Distract the god. Don't give the god a chance. These were the things running through Ivan's mind as he desperately clinged to survival, even as his guts dribbled down his chin.
A fist crossed Ivan's, Ōmeteōtl striking back. Ivan's shoulder was hit and was pierced through. The fist ripped out and the arm that shoulder bore was useless, but not for a second did Ivan stop punching. More punches, more, never stop. He kept thinking how he couldn't stop. It seemed pointless, as his knuckles lost any skin, bone visible to all.
But, Ōmeteōtl's body was weakening, the fists making the once tightly knit muscles fray and loosen. They unraveled in spots. Ōmeteōtl looked like a doll that had seen years of wear and tear.
The dual god's remaining arm struggled to lift up, and their legs were becoming unravelled twine made of their body, piled on the ground.
The god's hand grabbed Ivan's throat and began squeezing like a boa constrictor. Normally, it would've taken a yocto-instant to crush the neck, but the arm powering that grip was losing more chunks of itself by the moment.
Ivan's face was red, eyes ready to pop out of their sockets, but he kept punching. He lost his gun in the fall and had no time to dig for it, he needed to act now, he needed to keep punching. It was the only thing keeping him alive.
Ivan started specifically targeting Ōmeteōtl's arm, each hit making the limb fall apart faster.
The god's pinky split open and fell off. Even their fingers were falling apart at the seams.
The fingers on the only hand Ivan could punch with were all broken, bones turned to splinters that stabbed out of bent fingers. The hand wasn't really in a fist anymore, the sniper was just slamming their deformed hand into Ōmeteōtl's arm.
The god's elbow bent backwards and the arm was dented like metal all over. It began unravelling and the pressure that constrained Ivan's neck let up, the hand falling to pieces.
Ivan's hand was just a mound of gore, but he kept punching at the now limbless deity.
Ōmeteōtl wasn't going to give up just because they lacked limbs, inhaling as much air as possible before blowing it at the sniper, the wind blast flininging the sniper away and into the barrier. The exhausted Ivan felt more of his bones crumble and his muscles tore apart.
Another inhale and Ōmeteōtl fired another air blast that pounded Ivan again. The process kept repeating, Ivan getting more and more mangled with each shockwave. Meanwhile Ōmeteōtl's own lungs were staining from the overuse, eventually both tearing open, leaving Ōmeteōtl unable to breathe.
Ivan had time while Ōmeteōtl figured out a new plan of attack to come up with his own strategy to turn the tables again. Ivan underhand punched the dirt, sending it flying at the god, crashing into them and making their body come apart further. They may have only been clods of dirt and wood chips, but at the speed they were flung, each had tremendous force behind them.
Ōmeteōtl decided to copy Ivan's idea, jamming their face into the ground and filling their mouth with dirt. They spit the dirt out, propelling it with their tongue. Ivan quickly launched more dirt of their own with another underhand punch. The dirt clods hit each other mid air, both fighters shooting out more. The grand battle between man and god became a game of throwing dirt at each other. It looked like kids playing, yet each collision made existence quake.
Thanks to the fight now being one of ranged combat, Ivan's sniping expertise could now be made good use of again. Ivan's precise eye let him know exactly where to send his dirt shots to block Ōmeteōtl's and where to send others to bypass Ōmeteōtl's and hit the dual god dead on.
The Aztec deity was practically just a pile of disassembled body parts, only the uppermost part of their torso and their head were still intact, relatively speaking.
Ōmeteōtl couldn't win as long as the fight was one decided by precision, so the god would try to turn it into one determined by power. They conjured a blowgun they held in their lip, their mouth already filled with dirt. They blew the muck through the blowgun to make the shot focused, faster, more piercing. The shot plowed right through Ivan's attempt at a counter shot, hitting the human in the chest and going right through him. A hole a fist could fit through was in the human's chest, even more blood coming out the sniper's mouth, all his teeth stained red.
Ivan was going into shock, his spectacular vision dulling, everything becoming a blur.
Ōmeteōtl created a blow dart inside their mouth next and fired it, but as they did, the tongue they had been using in place of blowing turned to mush next, meaning this was their last shot, it had to be the deciding hit.
The projectile flew while Ivan struggled to see where it even was. They could only see a mass of colors, and seeing one tiny dart was going to be the greatest challenge of the whole fight. Ivan was paying attention to any notable distortion in the colors, and spotted a tiny dark speck that was growing. It was getting closer, but he couldn't tell where it was heading. It would only be in the last moments before it hit, when it's closest and thus the most visibly defined, that Ivan would be able to figure out where it was aiming for and thus where to block or dodge.
The dart was nearing, it was time for Ivan to pick what to do. It was pointed at Ivan's head, it would destroy the sniper's skull if it hit. Ivan lifted his arm. He couldn't just try and block with his hand, it was too damaged, meaning it would just get shot through, so he also began moving his head to the side. The plan was for his hand to slow down the dart enough that he could move his head out of the way.
The dart hit Ivan's hand and began burrowing through, mangled flesh displacing, the effort making the projectile slow slightly. Bone fragmented and turned to dust and blood splattered outward. Ivan's head was tilting, such a simple action never feeling so slow before.
Everyone was watching desperately. The Four Tezcaltipocas were praying with all their heart that the dart finished off the human that was trying to kill their beloved parent, while humanity felt themselves wishing they could break all logic and just pull Ivan's head completely out of the way from where they were spectating.
The dart finished making its way through Ivan's hand, the missile slowed as much as it would ever be. The sniper's head wasn't completely out of the way yet, but it had moved enough that the dart would only graze Ivan's head.
It was all down to one question. Could Ivan's head withstand getting grazed by the dart?
Ivan's heart, if it were still in one piece, would be beating out of his chest. He was terrified. The thoughts currently running through his head could be his last and that was horrifying him. It reminded him of when he died for the first time from a heart attack. He thought he had gotten over the fear of death, but now he was facing a death that was far more complete. He thought about what he had to live for, and found all he had was to enact more judgement, to grant himself more pleasure. That was all it was, simple.
Ōmeteōtl was thinking of their children and of the Aztec pantheon. He had returned and they couldn't allow themself to go away again, especially because it would be forever this time. They felt as if the desires of their loved ones were powering their dart, propelling it forward.
The dart began to graze Ivan's cheek, the force causing the scaled skin around the man's head to be pulled and begin tearing off, like the skin of a fruit being peeled. The lower half of the sniper's face began breaking apart, cracks moving up to the bottoms of Ivan's eye sockets, one eye falling out. The dart flew past the Russian, the weapon having done all it would. The sniper's head was skinless like Ōmeteōtl, but the lower half of Ivan's head was gone, blood pouring down. An eyeball was dangling by a thread, waving back and forth like a pendulum, creating a rhythm like a ticking clock as everyone waited to see if the sniper was dead or not.
The pipe between Ōmeteōtl's teeth dropped, the teeth themselves crumbling. The god had given it their all. All they could do was wait.
The eye kept swinging, left, right, left, right. The repetition made the wait all the more agonizing. Seconds felt like aeons and every spectator wanted to know what was going to happen with a fervor that was among the greatest in the entire tournament so far.
Then, Ivan's body moved, their head lurched forward. Humanity screamed out with euphoric release.
And then the rest of Ivan's body leaned forward, and kept leaning until the man's head hit the ground.
Ivan's body began to break apart into particles of light. He was dead.
The revelry of humanity died, and it was replaced by the triumphant roars of the gods.
From under a pile of dirt, more light particles rose, Tammuz dying as well due to his pact with Ivan. The fallen angels were crying again, another friend lost, Yahweh enjoying their sadness.
Ōmeteōtl exhaled in relief, so much weight lifting off their shoulders. They deactivated with transformation, their form not changing but the god no longer disassembling.
The Four Tezcatlipocas were standing, clapping as they jumped around, unable to contain the energy filling them from knowing their parent would live.
"The winner of round eight of Revelations, Ōmeteōtl vs Ivan Mikhailovich Sidorenko, is Ōmeteōtl!"
Round 8
Ōmeteōtl vs Ivan Mikhailovich Sidorenko
Victor: Ōmeteōtl
Match Length: 8 minutes and 3 seconds
Deciding Move: a blowdart shot
Gods 5-3 Humans