Adventures of John: Ravages of War
Chapter 9: The Godslayer
A great battle was about to take place. After all this preparation, the forces of Order and Chaos were finally ready to battle in a manner, one might say, worthy of the gods. A statement that works incredibly well when you realize that the battle was to take between beings who considered themselves gods. Millions of minions stood beneath them, but all knew that the only ones that mattered were the commanders. The greatest warriors and military leaders of the various pantheons led the battle, animal-headed men and women with dark skin standing alongside and against white-skinned men and women in togas and bearskins.
Thor rode into battle on his chariot pulled by two rams, shield in one hand and hammer in the other. Thunder clouds followed him, lightning crackling across the sky. Across the field from him stood Mars, dressed in a flawlessly white toga, a golden gladius in hand. Before Thor a raging horde of Norse berserkers banged their weapons against their shields, while before Mars stood a Roman legion standing silently and sternly with perfect discipline. Minions stretched out in the millions, raging and wild on one side, silent and still on the other.
More gods stood behind their leaders. On the side of Order, Athena watched the enemy warily, while Odin stood proudly, his two ravens flying above him. Behind them were lesser gods I didn't recognize, standing as still and silent as the legions below. Behind Thor stood Sekhmet and Kali, both of them looking incredibly bloodthirsty despite the state I had left them in previously. At some unspoken command the forces of Chaos raged forward, the legions of Order marching to meet them. They clashed together in the center, but the moment they did there was a massive explosion of light and flame, and for a moment as the smoke cleared everything was still.
"Glad I wasn't late to the party," I said, my voice echoing out of the crater I had created, anger showing on the faces of the gathered "gods". I smirked at them, eyes glowing fiercely. "I wouldn't want to miss this." I reached my hand out towards the legionaries and they disintegrated, leaving only the metal from their weapons and armor remaining. With a gesture I sent those pieces of metal flying, hurtling into the mass of unarmored berserkers. "Come on then!" I shouted. "Give me a real challenge!"
Across the rest of the battlefield the remaining minions battled, but any of those that came near me were instantly incinerated. I marched towards Thor, death in my eyes. He smiled cruelly and gestured for Sekhmet to attack. "Do you think this will go any better than the last time?" I asked them. "Because I remember defeating all of you relatively easily the last time."
"You faced us one on one last time," Kali replied. "And you had Mars helping you that final time. I think this time your Roman friend will be a little preoccupied." I turned around and saw that a sandstorm had picked up in the middle of the armies of Order, throwing them across the battlefield. Inside the storm was a massive chocolate-skinned man with the head of a strange creature that I had only seen in pictures. Set, the Egyptian god of Chaos, had arrived. Mars and Odin both turned their attentions to the Egyptian, Athena taking command of the soldiers.
I turned back to see Thor and his goddess friends charging towards me, Thor in the lead with his chariot. Concentrating, I sent a blast of force toward them, shattering the chariot and ripping his rams to bloody pieces. Sekhmet leaped to the forefront, claws extended outwards. I sidestepped her attack easily, reaching through her memory to the pain of my magical spears ripping through her flesh. She roared in pain, falling to the side as Kali came up, blades in hand. A blast of creation energy sent her spinning just as Thor rammed his shield at my face.
The shield met a field of energy, the force from the attack redirected toward its source, shattering the shield and sending the false god flying. "I told you!" I exclaimed as I walked toward him, blasting Kali back down with another burst of creation energy. "You call yourselves gods, but you are nothing! Idiots who sold their souls for a bit of power and false immortality. Well guess what!?" I sent a blast of energy at Thor, sending him flying again. "You lose!"
"Wrong," he replied, standing back up. He began spinning his hammer, thunderclouds gathering again. "You do not understand my power, mortal. Today you die." Lightning struck where I stood, but I was no longer there.
"You'll have to do better than that," I told him. Lightning struck and I teleported again, vanishing and reappearing on the other side of him. He shouted in rage, lightning striking again and again, and each time I was gone before the lightning could hit. One bolt struck, and this time I was there, a blade in hand. The lightning went down the blade and back up, shooting out and blasting the thunder god off his feet.
"You insolent pup!" he exclaimed. "You think to use my own element against me?" He threw his hammer and it flew towards my face, a simple gesture brushing it a few inches to the side. It came back towards the back of my head and I ducked, the weapon flying back towards his hand. I grinned and he ran towards me, shrieking in berserker rage. He struck with his hammer and the force was deflected, sending him stumbling backwards.
"Again with the smashing!" I laughed. "One might think you're the Hulk, the way you stupidly insist on attacking the same useless way. Remember, I developed this technique to work against Superman. Your comic book self wasn't even as strong as him, and to be honest they exaggerate your abilities a bit in the comics."
"You're words mean nothing," he scoffed, confusion evident in his tone.
"Really?" I inquired. "Then let me put it in words you'll understand!" I summoned a blade and leaped at him. He raised his hammer to block, but I wasn't there. For a moment he stood still, then his head slowly slid off, his neck gushing glistening red blood. I stood behind him, his blood staining my blade. His lifeless body fell to the ground and I picked up his head, shouting for all on the battlefield to hear. "The thunder god is dead!"
Murmurs swept through the warring armies as all eyes looked towards me. One word kept on repeating: Godslayer. Odin reached out his hand to call Mjolnir, but I grabbed the hammer myself, and taking it in my hands I broke it in two. The hammer's stone head crumbled to dust and the wooden hilt disintegrated. Lightning surged through my body and I channeled it into the blade I used to kill Thor. I felt a massive amount of power in that sword, the power of all the prayers that had been given to this false god. All of his power, now inside my weapon.
Sekhmet leaped at me and I turned swiftly, slicing her head off as well. Power flowed from her corpse into my blade, filling it with the strength of yet another deity. The forces of Chaos for a moment were completely still, then all together, as if moved by some unseen hand, they fled. Kali and Set vanished, having no desire to face both me and the gods of Order on their own. I simply stood there, basking in the power I could feel pouring from my blade in waves.
"The battle is over," Mars told me, suddenly right next to me. "Order has won the day. Give me the-" his voice cut off as I impaled him, not thinking about the consequences. He looked down at the blade in confusion, golden ichor dripping from the wound. He twitched and for a moment the toga changed into black armor, his eyes becoming red, and then he switched back again. Almost as if he was a faulty computer program, he continued to switch from Ares to Mars, both obviously in pain. "Impossible!" he gasped, falling to the ground. The energy filling him faded, spiraling out from his limp form into my blade.
I had never truly considered it a possibility, but it made sense. The Olympians became immortal because those that worshiped them believed them to be immortal. If anything could kill them, it would be the power provided by worship. Of course something like this would never have worked in the days when they were worshipped by entire civilizations, but now with their power dying out they are weakened. It is funny to think that all this time the Olympians actually had a way to kill each other, and they managed to control themselves enough not to use it in order to keep others from discovering the secret.
Once Ares/Mars ceased to be I was surrounded by lesser gods, Athena and Odin behind them. I knew that even with the power gained from the blade I knew too little about it to defeat all of them, so I sent the blade somewhere I knew it would be safe.
"Where is it?!" Athena exclaimed, her heel pressed against my throat. "Where did you send that blade?!"
"I've sent it off I know not where," I gasped, managing to chuckle at the reference.
"We will discover its location," she warned. "But you have committed crimes against Order, and must be taken for trial. Once your sentence has been decreed, then we will see if we can make you talk. And the answer to that, young Godslayer, is a definite yes."
And so I found my way into the cleanest and yet most frightening prison I have seen: the Dungeons of Order.