The cheap brass doorknob turned with a slow, grating squeal.
« Alert: Critical divine energy signature detected. Hostile intent confirmed. »
Before it could complete its turn, the metal glowed red-hot.
It dissolved into a fine, rust-colored dust.
Its atomic structure was unmade by a reflexive system command.
The door itself exploded inward.
It collapsed into a mound of fine sand.
In the doorway stood the demigod.
A shuddering, coalescing nightmare of absence.
« Analyzing entity... Designation: Sekhet. Domain: Dust, Decay, Famine. Threat Level: Bane. »
Twenty feet of swirling Saharan dust.
Within it, the hollow-eyed skull of a starved calf glinted.
A desperate, grasping hand reached out.
Its eyes were two voids of blinding, sterile white.
A low, constant groan emanated.
It was the sound of the earth itself cracking open from thirst.
"Thief," it hissed.
Its voice was the sound of desert wind scouring rock.
"Little thief of power. You spill water in my deserts."
"You bring life to my graves. I am Sekhet."
"This rot is my domain. You upset the balance."
Deo's breath vanished.
The roaring sun of his new divinity shrank to a guttering candle flame.
He was a general with a nuclear arsenal.
Facing a master assassin in a phone booth.
« Warning: Divine vessel integrity compromised. Stress levels critical. »
He had no time to plead.
No time to think.
Sekhet moved with the suddenness of a dust storm.
A limb of solidified, sharp sand slashed through the air.
Deo threw up a hand.
A weak, distorted shield of air formed.
It shattered like glass.
The blow tore across his forearm.
Blood welled in a clean line.
White-hot pain exploded up his nerve endings.
« Vital Sign Alert: Laceration detected. Minor blood loss. Adrenaline spike. »
"This… this can't be…" he gasped, stumbling backward.
"System! God… help me!"
« Directive: Preserve Administrator. Countermeasures insufficient. »
« Entity Sekhet operates on a parasitic divine frequency. »
« Recommend strategic withdrawal. »
"Withdraw how?!" Deo screamed internally.
Panic clawed at his throat.
Sekhet flowed like a tide of decay.
The very air in the apartment solidified.
Dust filled his lungs, choking him.
« Oxygen levels falling. Initiating localized atmospheric filtration. »
Gasping, Deo felt a pocket of breathable air form around his mouth.
A tiny bubble of safety.
It drained his energy with every second.
"Your spark is bright, fledgling," Sekhet rasped.
It advanced relentlessly.
"But untended. A fire in the wind."
"It will be a pleasure to devour it."
The entity gestured.
A concentrated blast of pure, solidified desert hit him.
Not air. Sand and absolute dryness.
It threw him across the room into the wall.
« Impact warning. Rib fractures detected. Internal bleeding likely. »
Plaster cracked behind him.
White-hot agony erupted in his chest.
His vision swam, speckled with black dots.
Warm blood trickled from his nose.
It dripped from a cut on his brow.
"Ah! No! Please! I… I was wrong! I'm sorry!" Deo screamed.
The pain was a roaring fire in his body.
"System! Help me!"
« Calculating... Options limited. »
« Host vessel compatibility too low for offensive protocols. »
He tried to push himself up with his right arm.
It screamed in protest definitely broken.
Outside, the clash of divinities bled into reality.
A microburst of wind shredded the street below.
Car windows shattered.
The sidewalk cracked with a sound like thunder.
The mortal world experienced a freak weather event.
Completely unaware of the divine slaughter occurring inside.
Sekhet was on him again.
Deo, in a blind panic, tried to fight back on instinct.
He focused his will, screaming internally.
He tried to summon a torrent of water from the building's pipes.
To drown this thing of dust.
The pipes in the walls groaned and shook violently.
Only a pathetic trickle of brown, rusty sludge emerged.
Sekhet had already claimed all the moisture.
Corrupting the source.
He was a god of nothing.
Against a god of one terrible, specific thing.
« Action unsuccessful. Entity domain superiority overwhelming. »
A whip of dust and decay yanked him across the floor by his ankles.
His broken ribs grated against each other.
He cried out, the sound a wet gurgle.
The void-like eyes of the demigod drank his terror.
Deo lay there, barely conscious.
Like a lamb waiting for the slaughter.
Sekhet raised a clawed hand of sharpened stone and sand.
It aimed for his heart.
All hope was lost.
Deo's half-conscious self braced for the final impact.
« Host vital signs critical. Emergency preservation protocol engaged. »
« Diverting all power. »
Everything stopped.
The air became heavy and granular.
Like breathing sand.
But it wasn't Sekhet's doing.
A new pressure filled the room.
Immense and immovable.
It was the pressure of deep earth.
Of continental plates.
Of foundations that had endured for eons.
The wall behind Sekhet groaned.
The plaster cracked and fell away.
Behind it was not more lath and brick.
But living rock.
Granite, veined with pulsing, molten quartz.
A second figure stepped forth from the wall as if it were water.
He was solid.
As tall as Sekhet.
His skin was of weathered granite.
His eyes glowed like magma deep in the earth.
He moved with tectonic slowness.
It was terrifying.
Sekhet recoiled.
Its form agitated in waves of dust.
"Kavral," it rasped.
Its voice lost its hungry confidence.
"This does not concern you."
"I am claiming what is mine. The fledgling spilled his power in my domain."
"And he now hides in mine," Kavral rumbled.
His voice vibrated in Deo's chest.
"You trespass, Sekhet."
"You bring decay into my foundations."
"The Ancient Ones have rules."
Deo watched through a haze of pain.
Ancient Ones. Demigods.
A terrifying hierarchy was being revealed.
Amid his own execution.
"Rules?" Sekhet shrieked.
The sound was like grinding stones.
"The Old One is gone!"
"He has given his mantle to this… this mortal!"
"The rules are breaking!"
"Why should I be bound to the deserts?"
"When this power is ripe for the taking!"
"We were worshipped once!"
"We were given names and altars!"
"Now we are forgotten!"
"Concepts clinging to the edges of belief!"
"While he holds the core power!"
"The power of the One True God who predates us all!"
"And that is why the rules must stand," Kavral boomed.
He took a single, ground-shaking step forward.
The floorboards at his feet didn't dry rot.
They petrified, turning to solid, cold stone.
"Without them, we are but chaos."
"And chaos draws the attention of things even you fear, Dust-That-Gnaws."
"We are lesser gods, Sekhet."
"Remember your place."
"Leave. My city. Now."
"Or what, Rock-That-Sits?"
"You will be slow."
"I will be gone with my prize before you have lifted your hand."
"You will try," Kavral said.
The room exploded.
Not with fire, but with earth.
Kavral didn't move.
He simply willed the architecture to obey.
The ceiling above Sekhet fractured.
A torrent of rubble crashed down.
Lath, plaster, and the very brick of the building.
Sekhet shrieked.
It dissolved into a whirlwind.
The debris passed through its semi-corporeal form.
It retaliated not with blows, but with entropy.
It gestured.
The stone at Kavral's feet crumbled into sand.
The granite of Kavral's arm cracked and flaked away.
It was instantly replaced.
New rock flowed up from the floor like a healing wound.
The two Demigods were locked in a stalemate.
Creation versus decay.
But they were not fools.
To unleash their full power was to risk utter annihilation.
It would draw the attention of greater, hungrier things.
From the spaces between.
With a simultaneous, practiced will, they acted.
The air in the apartment shimmered.
The space around them seemed to fold.
To separate.
The sounds of the city vanished.
Replaced by an eerie, pressurized silence.
The walls became a hazy, indistinct painting.
They had pulled a pocket of reality with them.
Into a separate layer.
A demigod's dueling ground.
Here, the shockwaves of their conflict would bleed back.
As manageable "natural" disturbances.
A cracked foundation here.
A localized tremor there.
Sekhet unleashed living sand serpents.
They twisted like vipers to strike.
Kavral countered by creating localized gravity wells.
He bent debris and air currents to crush his enemy.
Dust spiraled into solid columns.
Rock flowed like molten lava.
Pieces of the building alternately froze and disintegrated.
For a single, precious moment, their all-consuming focus shifted.
Their personal war was all that mattered.
A small sliver of opportunity opened.
« Hostile entities engaged. »
« Energy signature localized to sub-reality layer. »
« Emergency teleportation available. »
« Probability of survival: 34%. Execute? Y/N »
Deo's body was failing.
His divine spark screamed in pain.
Yet he felt the folds of reality.
Shimmering, bending around the warring gods.
He knew.
This was his only chance.
Yes! Now! Go!
He screamed with the last of his conscious thought.
« Command recognized. Diverting all remaining power. »
The world dissolved.
Into a nauseating vortex of screaming colors.
It was a violent, system-forced rip in space.
He felt a fleeting sensation.
Passing through the heart of the storm.
Scoured by dust.
Crushed by stone.
He rematerialized with a jarring, catastrophic thud.
« Emergency teleport complete. Power reserves depleted. »
« System entering standby mode. »
The notification was the last thing he perceived.
Before the world went black.
He crashed onto a hard, cool surface.
The impact sent fresh agony through his broken body.
Then blessed numbness took over.
The last thing he saw was a woman's face.
Snapped toward the sound of his arrival.
She was stunning.
Her features a perfect blend of strength and elegance.
Her skin was a deep, warm brown.
Flawless.
Seeming to glow in the soft light.
Her eyes were wide with shock.
Dark and intelligent.
Her hair was braided back.
Practical yet intricate.
She looked like a goddess.
Or a queen from an ancient lineage.
She wore simple sleep shorts and a tank top.
A medical textbook lay open on the desk.
Tropical diseases.
She gasped.
Her hand flew to her mouth.
The room was small and clean.
It smelled of antiseptic and soap.
Her eyes dropped to the floor.
To the source of the terrible noise.
Deo lay in a broken heap.
His chest was slashed open.
Bleeding profusely.
His arm was bent at a horrifying angle.
His face was a mask of blood and bruises.
His blood was dark and shocking.
It spread in a growing pool across her clean floor tiles.
His eyes met hers for a split second.
They were clouded with pain.
And the fading image of two warring Demigods.
Then they rolled back in his head.
His body went utterly still.
The only sound was the drip of his blood.
And the woman's sharp, terrified intake of breath.
The human god had crashed into the doctor's life.
And he was dying at her feet.