21. The End of the World #4
“NICODEMUS!” Odysseus screamed my name when Death brought his hand down on me, smashing me to pieces under his oppressive strength. I felt the bones in my body crunch and wheeze under his fist, like he had broken every bone in my body, and could only gasp for air and wiggle to try and free myself.
Death chuckled in delight. “Look at the little worm wiggle beneath me.”
“Hey asshole! Why don’t you pick on someone your own size!” Odysseus yelled as he pulled his massive sword around, his eyes ablaze with fury.
Death titled his head at him. “Another false God looking to be slaughtered?”
“Atlas, this isn’t you! You’re literally killing your own son! How can you not realize this?” Odysseus tried to reason with him.
“He is nothing but a false God! I am the true God of Death!”
“THAT IS YOUR SON! YOUR CHILD! KNOCK SOME SENS INTO YOURSELF YOU BONY ASSHOLE!”
For a moment, a split second, Death looked back down to me as if something Odysseus said had truly struck a chord with him.
His soulless eyes bore into mine, watching blood spill down my nose and the corners of my mouth as I wheezed painful breaths.
My struggling was growing weak; my hands slipped down the sides of the one he pinned me down with before I slumped, unable to continue fighting.
Death lifted his hand carefully and continued to stare at me as realization took over his senses for a brief moment. “Nick…?” he murmured.
Odysseus lit up. “Yes, that’s Nick you’re trying to kill, idiot! Your Nick! Your son!”
Death paused before shaking his head rapidly.
His hands flung up to grip the sides of his skull as he writhed wildly, fighting back against the monster within him.
He stumbled in circles, crying out as he tried to bring back any semblance of his mind.
Famine caught sight of this happening and hissed, flashing forward to wrap her hands around his face.
“No, stop it! You bitch!” Odysseus tried to uppercut against her arms, but whatever she did to Death was enough to snap him back into his murderous state.
Death plucked me from the ground and held me in the palm of his hand, surveying the damage he had done through the long battle.
Abruptly, he raised his other hand and smashed it down on me, making everyone watching cry out.
I spat a thick spray of blood over his bone fingers, coughing harshly amongst broken ribs.
“You, fucking, asshole…! Stop fighting dirty and face me like a man!” I gurgled out delusionally.
He chuckled, a long, drowned out sound, before flicking his wrist. With that flick, I rocketed through the air and into a boulder, where my body hung like a broken jack-in-the-box.
Death raised his hands. “You want to fight like men against a being that is not man or woman, but everything and anyone? I shall meet you on your own playing field.” He began to shrink from his massive form to a regular-sized Grim Reaper, but his scythe still held his dozen-blade form.
He poised himself like a cat ready to strike. “Get up, false God, and fight!”
“We have to help Nick! He’s going to get fried if we don’t do something!” Sebastian called down to the Life Elementals.
“We found him!” Geneva cried as she appeared before Mom and Odysseus. Her eyes fell on the devastated state I was in and made her throw her hands over her mouth. “Dear Gods, what has he done to Nick?”
“Let’s worry about that later! Where is Ambermourn?” Odysseus said as he shook her back to reality.
She stammered wildly before handing him coordinates. “The Everglades. He has a home there, under a tree grove. His Shadows are there protecting him.”
“Go, Odysseus…” I wheezed.
He gave me one solid nod before waving Soren and Griffin on. “Guys, you’re with me. We need to get to Ambermourn and end this craziness.”
“Nick, can you hold him off for us?” Griffin begged.
“Trying…!” I dragged myself upright and hastily healed my broken ribs, as they were the biggest issue for me currently, while the three disappeared through a portal. I stood, wobbling to and fro, and held two hands up. “Come on, you son of a bitch; hit me with your best shot.”
Death crossed the field and swung his scythe, which I ducked under before grabbing his neck and wrenching him backwards.
I smashed a hand down on his face and flooded it with that black tar to try and pin him to the ground, but the tar melted off his bones and seeped right through his cloak.
He took hold of my waist and whipped me around to smash his scythe handle down on the back of my neck.
When I went down, he came up, the blade of his scythe meeting me halfway.
Claude gasped and launched himself towards us, but before he had a chance to pull me away, Death’s scythe pierced my abdomen and cut right through my body, the tip breaking through the other side.
A hollow croak escaped my lips from the impact, as well as a stream of dense blood that spilled across Death’s shoulder.
1. Cades verberatus, false deus: You will fall beneath us, false God