Chapter 29 Vada #2
Adaela used the satchel like a cheesecloth, throwing a bunch of the flowers into the bag, then squeezing the bag into the vial, producing a milky white substance from the flower.
When she was done, she looked up at me, and I put my hand out to help her up.
She shook her head, mouthing “poison,” at me.
I now understood why she had pushed me out of the way, but I didn’t understand how she could touch it, but not even the Stag could.
Adaela stood up and got as close as she dared, asking me to bend down so she could yell in my ear over Typhon’s raging snakes.
She told me what the Lus Mór was, and how she planned to use it.
My goal was to gather everyone else to combine power and strength to defeat him.
Typhon was a solo creature, and the only way to defeat individualism was by collective action.
This was a core tenet of the Pax, so I understood what she was saying, but I wasn’t sure how to do that when there was an active battle happening.
We’d make it work. We had to.
I ran toward the action, Vindicta in hand, anxiety thrumming through my system.
The illusion breaking meant that those who had been fighting with Typhon and Marung were now fighting Typhon, and it was a wonder to see.
I wasn’t sure if it was my influence on them that made them change sides, or if it was the illusion, but I didn’t care at that moment.
I ran up to the first being I saw, a Cryptid that I think was called a Yeti, and pulled on his hand.
He was confused for a moment before snarling in my face.
I backed up with my hands up, and he settled down.
He leaned down as I yelled directions in his ear, and he nodded before moving off to the next person.
Great, we were going to play a game of Telephone while Adaela and the Stag got into place.
I got the attention of several others, shouting the same thing in their ear as I fought my way to the front of the line with the Gods.
The storm Gods were fighting off Typhon’s storms as best they could, while those venerated for their strength in battle fought Typhon directly.
The ravens I’d seen so often at the Pax were circling his head as a distraction, and I wondered again, not for the first time, whose ravens these were.
Winged creatures were flying around his shoulders, cutting off the snake heads while ducking the fire coming out of their mouths.
It seemed like the collective action was already in place somewhat, but I could tell it was taking its toll.
Typhon was the monster nightmares were made of and was born to defeat beings stronger than us.
But if Zeus was able to defeat him before, then we’d be able to do so now, too.
I ambled my way toward his snakelike legs, intending to do the same thing I had done to his daughter and stab him with Vindicta to prevent him from being able to move about, but he was much bigger than Marung was, and I wasn’t sure only one blade would make a difference when he had two legs made out of the bodies of snakes.
I looked around, seeing folks beginning to gather after that game of telephone, and I saw Charlemagne nearest me.
I wasn’t a fan of Charlemagne, and I also wasn’t sure if he was originally on our side or on Typhon’s, but it didn’t matter right now.
He had Joyeuse on him, his legendary sword, and that was what I needed.
I dragged him over with me and pointed with Vindicta to show him what my intentions were.
He nodded, then proceeded to count with me before we stabbed our swords as hard as we could through the snake legs, pushing through so that the tip of our swords were embedded in the ground as far as we could get them.
A trickle of blood ran down my ears as the collective screaming got louder, and I stepped back quickly as Typhon’s arm with snake fingers swept down to grab at the swords.
His hands were so large, and those fingers weren’t designed for fine motor skills, that he could not pull the blades out of his legs.
However, those snakes could blow fire, and though Charlemagne and I couldn’t die, I wasn’t ready to try to heal from fire. That shit hurt. I knew from experience.
Suddenly, the world got quiet again, and I moved out of the way as the last snake head was torn away from Typhon’s body.
He was bloody and mutilated, and even after all the years of watching torture in Hell, and sometimes participating in it, I was sick to my stomach at the intensity of the damage.
Typhon was getting tired, likely from blood loss, and he swayed above us.
I yelled at everyone behind him in any proximity to run as I sprinted as fast as I could to move out of the way.
I felt a drop of blood hit me, and it was like having an anvil thrown atop me from a plane.
I went down hard, losing my breath for a moment, but I didn’t have time to catch it.
Typhon was coming down fast. I moved as quickly as I could as he hit the earth, barely missing part of his snake leg in the process.
The shockwave from his fall was devastating.
It was as if a nuclear bomb went off, and I was thrown by that initial shockwave straight into the side of a mountain.
I was convinced I was going to pass out from the pain of several broken bones, including my skull.
I lay there incapacitated for what could have been hours, but it was likely only minutes.
My skull was itchy as it knit itself back into place.
I was numb from the shock of being thrown into a mountain, but I couldn’t sit here any longer.
I loathed this curse, but I also was thankful for it at this moment. The Pax needed me.
I groaned as I crawled out of the me-shaped rubble torn into the side of this mountain.
Others around me hadn’t fared as I had. Dead bodies were strewn everywhere, but there were others who had made it out alive.
Some appeared to be entombed by rock. Everywhere I looked, I saw beings pulling others out of the rubble.
What once was a canyon in the Taurus Mountains had completely collapsed in on itself.
Not only could I see the entrances to the Cennet Cave’s entrance completely inaccessible from the rock coverage, the Cehennem Cave was filling fast with rocks and other debris.
The canyon no longer existed as it was. We were in a crater.
Beings were scrambling out of the way where they could, and I frantically searched for Adaela in the chaos.
I spotted my girl and the Stag standing in the same place they’d been in when this started, and I whooshed out a breath of relief.
My heart felt as if it were going to explode out of my chest as the adrenaline in my body caught up with the reality around me.
I rushed as quickly as I could to Adaela, stumbling on rocks along the way.
“Baby, I’m so glad you’re okay,” Adaela said. She was atop the Stag, who was weaving a complex spell using the delicate flowers she had picked along the mountainside.
“How are you faring?” I asked her, checking her and the Stag over for injury.
“I’m fine, but we need to get going on this.
The Gods are still working to subdue Typhon, but Underhill has informed me that my specific powers are going to be what ends this.
I’m waiting for it to complete its own spell before I try to do anything.
Typhon is too occupied to see what’s happening,” she said.
“What is the plan?” Typhon let out a deafening roar as Adaela went to respond, and I missed her reply, but I smiled as I reached my hand out to her once again in comfort.
She shook her head once more, showing me the colors from the picked flowers on her hand, and I understood.
I blew her a kiss, one she returned, then mouthed, “I love you” to her before we made our way back into the fray.
The Stag ran ahead of me, taking my girl with it.
I kept up as much as my healing body would let me, then resigned myself to watching Adaela do her thing.
She wasn’t known as an assassin for nothing, and whatever she chose to do in this moment was going to be devastating.
Medb had mentioned that she’d killed a lower-level god the day we’d first met, and hoped she’d be able to do it again.
Adaela’s shadows released in a burst of energy, and we’d need to try replicating what we had done with Marung.
I focused my energy on Typhon, weaving an intricate tale of seduction.
He wasn’t immune to seduction, because that fucker had more kids than probably anyone else in the realms. I wanted his focus on me, but I also needed his focus to change so that we could get Adaela in position.
The best bet would’ve been to knock him out so I could see if I could invade his dreams, but I wasn’t sure if that would work or not.
Poe and the Moirai were standing next to the rest of the seers, and within that crowd was Oneiroi.
They were a group of brothers who controlled sleep and were the children of Nyx.
I knew them well from my time in Hell, and I was happy they were here.
We’d worked together many times over the years to crack the most difficult shitheads who spent the rest of their worthless lives there.
I waved Phobetor over. He was the god of nightmares.
I wasn’t sure his particular brand of sleep would work on a creature who was designed to be a waking nightmare, but he was who I’d try to work with first. I told him my plan, and he waved his brothers over.
We’d decided that we’d need them all—Phobetor, Phantasos, and Morpheus.
Their triumvirate of power was woven around Typhon, and he was out in seconds. This allowed me to drop into his mind.
Typhon’s mind was a maze that I wished I could bring Daedalus in to help with, but I’d weaved my way through many in my time, too.
I dug in, rifling for the trail that would lead me to how he’d been able to get us to this point.
Once I found a thread, it was easy to find the rest. When Tartarus created Typhon, he’d buried his own DNA into Gaia without her consent.
This DNA was designed to kill the remainder of Cronos’s children—particularly Zeus.
The creation of Typhon was in retaliation for throwing part of the Titans into Tartarus in the first place.
All of this I already knew, of course, but what I hadn’t realized was that in their fight for justice, they’d also woven in a particular set of belief systems that directly fabricated truths about the Gods and what they stood for.
We all knew that Greek, Roman, and Norse mythology were full of toxicity.
I was sure Athena and Loki could attest to that and their own roles in it.
But what I hadn’t realized was that the worlds themselves were laid one on top of the other.
It wasn’t galaxies that separated the realms, but rather layers the Gods had put atop one another.
The worlds, as we knew them, would no longer exist once we destroyed Typhon.
The power structures, the lies, the intricate webs between all worlds, the portals…
none of it would exist, and we had to make our decision now about how we’d move forward.
Did we unmake the realms, forcing all beings across all realms to exist on one planet, or did we keep Typhon alive to continue existing as we currently did?
Could the Gods we had with us rebuild the worlds?
I’d never had an existential crisis before, but I wondered if this was it.
How did one make a huge decision like this without time on our side?
The answer was simple, really. Collective action. I couldn’t sit in Typhon’s mind any longer. I needed help, and there were plenty of people who could help me make this decision outside of his mind.