From atop the Great Pyramid, the group was captivated by the grandeur of the landscape. To the east, Cairo dissolved into a diffuse blur beneath a thin haze of dust, its lights beginning to twinkle like fireflies in the twilight. To the west, the desert resembled a living painting, tinged crimson by the setting sun. The dunes shimmered under the intense gold, while sinuous shadows stretched out, giving the impression that the sand itself was moving. The sky was a spectacle of its own, a hypnotic fusion of orange, violet, and deep blue, punctuated by the first star of the night.
Ikki observed the scene for a moment, appreciating the touristy side of the trip. But he didn't want to waste time. The real reason they were there was another, and if Sadie and Carter needed to enter the Duat, why not make things a little more... efficient?
While the group was still recovering from the climb propelled by the liquid wind, Ikki decided to test something on his own.
Without warning, he raised his hand. The air around him stirred. His power flowed naturally, merging with the Egyptian magic present in the place. A golden glow pulsed around him as his [Authority of Magic] manifested, and the atmosphere seemed to shift.
Then, before the group's eyes, a portal opened.
But it wasn't an ordinary portal.
Instead of the typical swirling sand that led to the Duat, this one pulsed with an intense purple light, a shimmering tear in reality. The space around it vibrated subtly, like a distorted reflection on water.
It was direct access to the Duat.
The silence that followed was almost palpable.
Carter blinked, incredulous. Sadie, who was rarely speechless, looked at the portal, then at Ikki, then back at the portal. Walt frowned, trying to absorb what had just happened. Even Bes, an experienced god, raised his eyebrows, impressed.
It was a known fact among magicians that opening a portal to the Duat required concentration, incantations, and a proper ritual. Even the most talented needed time and precision. And Ikki... simply raised his hand and opened a direct path? As if it were the most trivial thing in the world?
They already knew Ikki was powerful, but this? This was something else.
Sadie finally broke the silence. "Right. So that's how you do it?"
Ikki just shrugged, as if it were no big deal. "It was a test."
Carter blinked, still trying to process. "A test?"
Walt crossed his arms, observing Ikki with renewed attention. "The difference between a magician capable of facing a god without needing the Path of the Gods... and the rest of us."
Bes let out a low whistle. "I have to admit, kid, that was impressive. Normally I'd do something like that with divine magic, but you? You just... did."
Ikki looked at the portal, assessing its stability. "I think it will do."
Sadie exchanged a look with Carter before turning to Ikki with a half-smile. "This one's for us. Are you coming?"
Zia, who had remained silent until then, touched Ikki's arm with a brief, almost imperceptible gesture. "Be careful."
Ikki smirked, unconcerned. "Relax. With me here, everything will be fine."
Carter, who didn't appreciate the interaction one bit, took a deep breath before interjecting. "Yeah. I'm here too, after all."
Sadie, ignoring his tone, pulled Walt aside and whispered something. Walt nodded.
"I'm going," said Walt, taking a step back.
Before Carter could ask what was happening, Sadie turned to Bes. "Ready?"
The dwarf god was still analyzing Ikki's portal with an evaluating gaze.
"I'll follow you as soon as I take Walt and Zia through their portal. I'll meet you at the River of Night, in the Fourth House."
Carter frowned. "Fourth what?"
Bes laughed. "You'll see. Now, go!"
Carter cast a final glance at Zia, trying to engrave her image in his mind in case that was the last time he saw her. But she was looking at Ikki, who seemed calm with the whole situation.
With a resigned sigh, Carter looked away.
Then, without further hesitation, Ikki, Sadie, and Carter plunged into the purple portal.
The first sensation upon crossing was strangeness.
The Duat was a place where reality molded itself to thoughts, where the currents of the spiritual world intertwined with the visitors' perception. Thus, despite having crossed to another level of existence, the surrounding scenery seemed familiar—or at least it tried to be.
For Carter and Sadie, the environment resembled the Thames river docks, just below their grandparents' apartment in London. For Ikki, at first, the docks reminded him of the piers of San Francisco: the sound of water lapping against the wood, the slightly salty smell in the air. But he quickly adjusted his perception, allowing his vision to align with the Kane siblings'. An easy trick for someone who understood how malleable the Duat was.
The river ahead of them was covered in a thick, ghostly mist. There was no vibrant glow of the city, only an ethereal luminescence in the sky, oscillating between strange shades of gold and violet. The London skyline was unstable, buildings shifting, distorting, and melting as if made of warm wax, unable to maintain a definitive shape. The visual displacement was hypnotic, as if at any moment they could get lost in the mirage of their own minds.
The mist below them retreated from the docks.
"Sadie, Ikki..." Carter murmured, his voice slightly hesitant, "Look..."
The three followed his gaze.
At the bottom of the staircase leading down to the water, a boat was moored. Or at least what was left of it.
The sun god's barque, once a majestic vessel capable of carrying an entire crew, was now nothing more than a decaying hulk. Its sail was in tatters, the oars broken, and the rigging covered in cobwebs that trembled with the otherworldly wind. The hull itself seemed rotten, on the verge of falling apart.
But what really caught their attention was not the deplorable state of the boat.
In the middle of the staircase, blocking the way, were Carter and Sadie's grandparents.
"Oh, no..." Sadie grumbled, rolling her eyes. "Them again?"
Without patience, she marched toward the steps until she was face to face with the shimmering images of her grandparents. Ikki accompanied her calmly, observing the surrounding Duat, analyzing every detail.
As soon as they got close, Sadie crossed her arms and snapped, "Get out of the way."
The Kane siblings' grandmother smiled, her eyes gleaming in a way that shouldn't be possible.
"My dear..." she said, with a forced sweetness, "Is that any way to address your grandmother?"
"Oh, forgive me!" Sadie retorted sarcastically, feigning innocence. "Is this the part where I say, 'My, what big teeth you have'? Spare me, Nekhbet. You're not my grandmother. Now, get out of the way!"
The illusion shattered. The grandmother's floral robe dissolved, transforming into a cloak of black, oily feathers. Her face withered until it became a flaccid, wrinkled mask, and a good portion of her hair fell out, putting her on a very high level on the ugliness scale right next to Bes.
"Show me more respect, love..." the goddess crooned, her voice distorted. "We're just here to give you a friendly warning. You're about to pass the Point of No Return. If you step on that boat, there's no turning back, no stops until you've crossed all Twelve Houses of Night... or until you die..."
The Kane siblings' grandfather barked, "Aghh!"
Then, he started scratching his armpit. Which could mean he was possessed by the baboon god Babi... or simply being himself. Hard to tell.
Ikki raised an eyebrow, assessing the scene with a certain disdain.
"Should I take this seriously?" he murmured, crossing his arms.
"Listen to Babi..." Nekhbet insisted, her eyes sparking. "You have no idea what awaits you on the river. You barely managed to push us away in London, girl. The armies of Chaos are much worse!"
Ikki sighed.
"Ah, yes. The classic intimidation tactic." He cast a carefree glance at Carter and Sadie. "Honestly, I expected something more theatrical. I don't know, maybe a dramatic thunderclap, a somber soundtrack in the background... But all we have is an old crow and a baboon with an itch..."
Nekhbet narrowed her bright eyes at him.
"You underestimate what you do not understand, outsider."
"And you overestimate your own importance." Ikki replied calmly. "If you wanted to scare us, try again. If you want to stop us... well, you'll have to do something more than talk..."
Sadie grinned, clearly satisfied. Carter, on the other hand, seemed less convinced, but didn't intervene.
The tension in the air intensified.
Ikki didn't wait. He just pointed a finger at them.
Nekhbet and Babi barely had time to react. Ikki's energy enveloped them in an instant, dissolving the fragile illusions. When the light vanished, the gods' true forms were revealed.
Nekhbet now hovered above them, a colossal vulture with a gleaming golden crown on her head. Her jeweled necklace glittered in the strange light of the Duat, and her black, oily wings trembled, speckled with gold. Beside her, Babi roared: a gigantic baboon with gray fur, his eyes burning with red flames. His scimitar-curved canines gleamed menacingly, while his enormous arms seemed capable of snapping a tree in half.
Sadie whistled, impressed.
"And I thought they were ugly before."
Carter just clenched his fists, tense.
Ikki, in turn, maintained his relaxed posture.
"Now that's a decent entrance."
The air seemed to grow heavier as Nekhbet narrowed her bright eyes at Ikki.
"You dare treat us with such disdain, outsider?"
Ikki didn't answer. He just raised a finger.
The reality around the gods distorted. Gravity pulled them down with crushing force.
Nekhbet tried to beat her wings, but she was the first to yield, kneeling under the pressure. Babi roared, his muscles trembling as his feet sank into the ground.
Ikki stood there, impassive, watching them with the calmness of someone who was simply certain they would win.
"Good..." he said, almost bored. "I think now we can talk as equals..."
Sadie stared at Ikki, her eyes wide.
"Okay. That was..." She gestured wordlessly, then looked at Carter, as if needing confirmation. "That was insane, right? It's not just me thinking that?"
Carter didn't answer immediately. His gaze was fixed on Ikki, but his expression wasn't exactly one of admiration. There was something there... unease.
Meanwhile, even bowed by the crushing gravity, Nekhbet and Babi still resisted. Their eyes glowed with fury, denying any attempt at submission.
"You cannot dominate me, human!" Nekhbet snarled, her voice a dry rustle, like wings tearing through the air.
Babi spat on the ground, his flaming eyes fixed on Ikki. A guttural sound emerged from his throat - half growl, half laugh.
Ikki remained impassive.
With a smooth movement of his hand, the shadows around him intensified. The environment darkened. The mist of the Duat seemed to recede, as if even space itself felt the pressure of his presence.
Sadie and Carter instinctively recoiled.
Ikki took a step forward. The shadows expanded with him, dark serpentines dancing around his body. Nekhbet flapped her wings in an attempt to break free. Babi dug his feet into the ground, muscles taut in resistance. But it was useless.
Ikki raised one hand slowly, as if to touch an invisible wall, and then extended his finger, placing it on Nekhbet's forehead.
The shadows lunged at her.
The goddess let out a shrill cry, a sound that dissolved into the void. Her body began to dissipate like sand blown by the wind. Babi tried to move away, but the darkness already enveloped him as well. In a matter of seconds, they both disappeared, their forms consumed by nothingness.
Sadie blinked, stunned.
"What... what was that?"
Carter swallowed hard.
Ikki stepped back slightly, the shadows around him returning to normal. He looked at the place where the gods had been, now just an empty space in the Duat, and then turned to the Kanes.
"Let's continue."
Sadie opened her mouth, closed it, opened it again.
"Right, I'm going to ask again: What was that?!"
"An expulsion," Ikki replied calmly.
Carter frowned.
"It wasn't an Egyptian spell. I know all the banishing incantations, and that wasn't anything like them."
Ikki shrugged.
"Some techniques are less known."
To Sadie and Carter, it seemed like he had simply expelled the gods, like an exceptionally skilled magician dealing with spirits of the Duat.
But he knew the truth.
He didn't banish them. He consumed them.
His [Conceptual Void] expanded silently, devouring the fragments of Nekhbet and Babi's existence. It wasn't something physical, not even something that could be explained by mortal words. It was a primal force, a silent hunger that dissolved concepts and integrated them into itself.
[Vulture]. [Protection]. [Baboon].
They were insignificant fragments in the grand scheme of things, but they still added a small weight to his being. Half a percent. Little, but enough to confirm his suspicion: he didn't need to destroy to assimilate. Just touch, interact... and consume.
Sadie narrowed her eyes, suspicious, but in the end just let out an exaggerated sigh.
"Right. Weird and threatening mystery. I'm going to pretend that doesn't worry me. But, just so you know, it worries me a lot."
Ikki said nothing. He just moved on.
Carter stood still for a moment, frowning, before following him. Something about that bothered him, but he couldn't put it into words.
Sadie, on the other hand, snorted and muttered something inaudible to herself before following the two.
"Well, with them out of the way, now comes the hard part." Her voice carried a mixture of irony and weariness. "Find Ra, wake him up... and hopefully get a decent dinner along the way. Preferably without dying."
Carter cast a doubtful look at the barge moored at the edge of the dock. Ra's boat, or at least what was left of it, looked like a walking shipwreck—if a shipwreck could walk. It was hard to believe that that thing had once been the grand vessel of the sun god.
"Does that thing even float?" Carter asked, crossing his arms.
Sadie raised an eyebrow at him. "I don't know, little brother. Want to test it by swimming in the Duat first?"
Carter sighed, in no mood to argue. The weight of the journey hung over him like an anchor. Navigating the river, facing the forces of Chaos, all without the slightest guarantee that they would succeed.
Sadie took a step forward, analyzing the vessel with an expression that mixed disdain and resignation. The sides of the barge were full of cracks, the sail was a pile of rags, and the oars... well, they looked like they'd been chewed on by a hippopotamus.
She let out a short laugh, devoid of any joy. "Three teenagers in a doomed boat, alone in a world of Gods. I'm loving this plan."
Ikki remained silent, observing the vessel with the same impassive look as always.
Sadie shrugged. "Well, I've seen worse."
Carter raised an eyebrow. "You have?"
"No, but saying that makes it sound like we have a chance." She turned, slapping her hands on the sides of the boat. "All aboard!"
For a moment, no one moved. The boat creaked slightly, as if protesting against the idea of being used.
And with that, they boarded the dilapidated barge, ready—or perhaps not so ready—for what awaited them on the river of the Duat.