NOVEL NEXT Chapter 69: Dismantle Order
"Your arrows are painful, y'know?" The Goddess began to rub her forehead, the exact spot where one of the arrows landed, "That's a… Hydra venom, yeah?"
"How are you still alive?" Heracles asked, his eyes staring intensely at the impossible thing in front of him. It should not be possible for anyone to survive tanking his Noble Phantasm in full.
Not only does Nine Lives draw out the most power of a wielded weapon, turning a sword into the greatest sword, a bow into the greatest bow, and a spear into the greatest spear, Nine Lives also possesses the ability to instill death on resurrecting opponents no matter how many times they try to return.
It is the pinnacle of his power. One that exterminated the one hundred heads of the Lernaean Hydra.
It became even deadlier after the battle's conclusion as Heracles dipped his arrows in the Hydra's blood. In his current form, each arrow possessed the same venomous traits of the legendary Hydra.
The same Hydra venom that all Olympians feared. The same Hydra venom that debilitated Heracles so much he sought death. The same Hydra venom that caused so much pain for Chiron the old Centaur gave up his immortality so he could be free of this suffering. It was a God-killer.
And this Goddess somehow survived all that. Eating a full barrage of his Nine Lives, enduring the poison of the Lernaean Hydra, appearing no worse for wear. If a bit mentally unstable.
"Heh, isn't it obvious? Those Demon God Pillars must've told you how important the Last Master of Mankind was, so you aimed at him with your Noble Phantasm when your true target was me all along. You knew I would use my body to protect him since aside from a certain spear, none have the Mystery even to scratch my skin."
While the Goddess spoke, her hands came down from her forehead down to her right eye, rubbing it.
"How devious. Is this what my enemies resort to now that I've proven too strong for them? Trickery?"
"That does not answer my question: how are you still alive?"
The Goddess smacked her lips, wetting them, "It hurt like a bitch y'know? Not the arrow, but the goddamn Hydra venom. Nine arrows injecting that venoms all over my body… I don't think I had ever endured that much pain… consciously at least. I wasn't conscious of much of Ion's attack against SCP-2399. The one that made me into a meaty skeleton."
Heracles used this opportunity presented by the Goddess rambling on some useless information. He prepared to fire off another Nine Lives quicker than last time, quicker than she could react to.
"Did you know I was conscious the whole time? I did say that, right? Ah, whatever, I'm saying it now; I was conscious the whole time after getting shot down. I lay there, at the bottom of the ocean, blinded and paralyzed by the unimaginable pain of having what? A liter? Of Hydra venom burning my flesh, and that flesh regenerating at the same time."
"Scant few gods could've replicated what you've done," Heracles admitted honestly. And it was true.
If Kukulkan was honest, this individual has either the regeneration to fully fight off the Hydra venom, or have a biology so alien the Hydra venom is less efficient. Either way, his second-greatest weapon is rendered less useful.
The Goddess scoffed, "Of course, few gods could do what I did. It wasn't a competition I wanted to win though. But I won it nonetheless. All because of you, you motherfucker. Ooooh, I want to hate you so much right now you have no idea."
She licked her lips again and began looking at Heracles in an unsettlingly hungry eye. The demigod felt himself the prey in this situation for the first time in forever. He felt the hair on his back raised up as though the individual in front of him was his natural predator.
"But I won't." The Goddess said as she gestured off to the sides, her eyes empty like a void, "There's too much hate in the world. As it rises from the ashes of the Apocalypse, I refuse to contribute to that reservoir of hatred."
Then her hands came together in a clap, "That doesn't mean I'm not going to beat you to death. Just that there'll be no hate in my heart as I do. Enough talking, now time to die."
"
There, in the corner of Heracles' eyes, he saw a glowing light that was becoming brighter. That Goddess moved so fast that she disappeared from his field of view. The demigod disregarded using his Noble Phantasm and instead nock another arrow.
Only when he turned to fully face the rapidly closing in Goddess did he realize he would never win in a close-quarter situation, not with a bow at least.
"Urk!"
Kukulkan drove a hand through his chest and out the other end. The blood-soaked right hand held a still-beating heart. Kukulkan proceeded to squeeze it until it burst as if it were a tomato, coating the ground underneath in blood that sizzled.
Pulling out of Heracles' chest, the Goddess beheld the ruined organ as if it were a piece of trash, remarking, "Huh, your heart is somehow still intact even after I pushed it through your spine."
She then cast a glance at a resurrecting Heracles, his wounds closing, bones mending, skin regrowing.
"God Hand, right? Your other Noble Phantasm. Twelve Labors for twelve lives. How many lives did I take with those two attacks? I'd be terribly disappointed if it were anything more than two."
Heracles then moved like a lightning bolt, quickly creating distance between him and his enemy.
"If I remember, your God Hand gives immunity to any attacks that killed you once. Given how I easily pierced your body and crushed your heart, I'm guessing that the first kill was fall damage. What's the second kill giving your immunity to? Piercing damage? Dying from a crushed heart?"
In less than a tenth of a second, Heracles was now a kilometer away from Kukulkan. In turn, the Goddess simply grinned as Heracles notched and let loose an arrow that flew faster than lightning itself. The greatest hero of Greece didn't bother invoking his Noble Phantasm, for he knew he couldn't utter its name fast enough.
She didn't move, merely watching as the arrow approached. Right up until the moment it was about to pierce her skin, she snatched it out of the air, her arm coated in a layer of smoke. Interestingly, unlike her arm, the arrow didn't have a sheath of plasma as something moving way beyond Mach 100 should have.
It was as if the arrow was unaffected by friction with the air.
"Hydra venom, right?" Kukulkan asked with a tilt of her head, "The same venom that killed you in life. How much do you want to bet if I stab you with this arrow it'll remove those remaining ten lives of yours simply due to conceptual bullshit?"
Heracles said nothing and prepared a full triple arrow volley. He couldn't give away the secrets to his God Hand.
"Heh." Kukulkan merely smirked as Heracles launched another volley. Those three arrows shot out—
*Boom*
She moved so fast to the naked eye that it'd easily be mistaken for teleportation. The arrow she snatched out of the air fluttered like a leaf, carried on by the hurricane generated from Kukulkan's movement. Heracles barely caught a flash of silver as his three arrows launched caused a huge explosion, using nothing but their kinetic force, at their destination on the other side of the volcano's caldera.
"But that'll end my fun too soon." Heracles heard Kukulkan's voice coming from beside him.
He whipped around so quickly a normal man's brain would've turned into a slurry. Kukulkan was right beside him.
She kicked him. Like a soccer ball, Heracles smashed into the rim of the volcano's caldera, the edge of this bowl almost three kilometers away.
"Ten lives, right? Ten more times, I think I'm creative enough to come up with ten unique ways of killing you."
"
Nine arrows flew out of the dust cloud that shrouded the demigod. Those arrows created shockwaves that would have ruptured all the organs in a human nearby.
Those arrows were coated in pure divinity, a culmination of skill clad in dragons— a nine-headed divine dragon bearing down on this foreign goddess.
The grin disappeared on Kukulkan's face. She blasted backward, flying into the air and out of the path of those nine arrows. However, like sharks, those nine arrows veered off course and began following Kukulkan as if she were prey.
Right as those nine arrows were about to hit Kukulkan simultaneously, the Goddess swiped her right hand in a wide arc like a sword until it reached her back. In an instant, all those arrows promising death were sliced into pieces as if diced by a knife too quick to follow.
With that same hand, Kukulkan focused on Heracles and swung the opposite way in another wide arc until the same hand reached her other shoulder in the motion of a wave
Kukulkan uttered a single command, "Sever."
Nothing happened. Until the dust cloud covering Heracles forcefully parted ways. Like the bare neck of a sinner, an invisible guillotine sliced it in two as it passed through, sinking into the rocks and creating a long, nasty gash on the ground wide enough to be able to swallow whole school buses.
Heracles was severed in two down the height of his body. The two slices of demigod sashimi flopped into the crevasse like pieces of fish rather than something with divine blood flowing inside it.
It was an application of Quetzalcoatl's Divine Authority over the Wind. Manifesting an invisible blade of concentrated wind the size of a skyscraper, the verbal command was nothing more than flexing a metaphorical trigger.
"What was that now? Immunity to wind-based attacks? Or immunity to slashing? Or even immunity to a Divine Authority?! Hahahaha! It doesn't matter."
Heracles leaped out of the crevasse like a cannonball. He didn't bother using his bow, but rather a hunting knife.
Kukulkan aimed a finger at Heracles and issued forth another divine command.
"Dismember."
"
A dozen more blades of invisible winds rushed forth to meet Heracles' rapid ascent, intent on ridding him of his limbs. They were in turn met with immediate slashes from his hunting knife. Nine in total.
Knives were categorically different from bows. Though both are, under a conceptual level, considered 'weapons', knives were simply much faster to use than bows. For bows, one has to take out an arrow and nock it on the strings, before pulling back and then letting loose. Knives on the other hand were much simpler, and much faster. Unsheath and stab, and if it's already unsheathed, even quicker.
Even the greatest bow cannot be faster than the greatest knife. As the Nine Lives technique makes the wielded weapon the greatest possible, Heracles could use his Noble Phantasm technique on a knife in a fraction of the time it would've taken him to use Nine Lives on a bow.
Though, similarly, knives will never be more lethal than an arrow, the corresponding power isn't on par with that of a bow.
Yet they are more than enough to deal with those air slashes that are designed to rip into Heracles' flesh and turn him into chunks of meat. The knife parted those blades of wind, disrupting them enough that they became almost harmless even if Heracles weren't immune to them already.
Now less than a meter away, Heracles used his Noble Phantasm again, "
He stabs the knife into Kukulkan's thighs repeatedly like a serial killer and continues up her body so quickly that only gods are able to react. Mortals wouldn't even see anything except the wounds the knife left in the aftermath.
Unfortunately for him, Kukulkan surpasses the gods.
Kukulkan kicks, resulting in a sickening crack in Heracles' arms—his attempt to mitigate the damage that would have taken his head.
The demigod went flying, a burning ball of fire. He was thrown beyond the island's edge and skidded across the surface of the ocean akin to a piece of rock.
"Hehehe—Hahahaha." The grin was wide on Kukulkan's face. The wounds that would've caused Kukulkan to howl in pain before were ignored as if they didn't exist. Space and time around her was being warped. It was as if there were two black holes orbiting each other within Kukulkan's body, sending forth ripples in spacetime.
The Golden Sea of Trees Travelogue was being activated as Kukulkan felt more motivated than ever. She was becoming the Apex of a long-lost World. Like an engine that pumps more and more power as the wielder enjoys a fight more.
She couldn't care how there were knife wounds all over her body.
"Hahahahaha!"
Kukulkan blasted forth once again. Appearing like a green comet to any observer.
Befitting the title of a hero, Heracles managed to maintain an upright position even as he continued to skid atop the ocean.
Easily catching up to the greatest hero of Greece, the demigod barely managed to block the incoming punch with his remaining arm—
*KABOOOM*
A colossal hole was drilled into the surface of the ocean as Heracles was sent into its depth by Kukulkan's punch. Moments later, the hole collapsed, sending up a fountain of frothy water that harmlessly splashed against Kukulkan's hovering body.
Knowing he was not dead yet, the Goddess raised her left hand and flicked it as though to swat away gnats. Even when it's a kilometer down, the rebound from the violent implosion that blighted Heracles' form rippled up to the surface in a colossal eruption of steam and water like a nuclear bomb had gone off.
"Hrmm, guess it's not Divine Authorities he's immune to, but wind-based attacks. And now is it pressure or water-based attacks this time?" Kukulkan shrugged, "Oh well. C'mere you."
There, she dove into the water.
With ownership of Pan-Human History's Kukulkan's Authority over the water itself, this Kukulkan ignored the usual water resistance that comes with traveling submerged by creating a cavitation bubble around herself, a region of no water nor air.
Dropping to below the Midnight Zone of the ocean's depth, Kukulkan then spread out her senses, trying to find Heracles hidden in this lightless depth. She felt what the water could feel. Taste what the water could taste, and hear what the water could hear.
And what she sensed was a scream, followed by the incoming thrust of a spear.
A fuzzy lance of cavitation bubbles erupted in front of Kukulkan as she moved her head just out of the way.
It was a rusted spear. One that appeared to have been submerged for decades like a sunken treasure.
Normally a smooth lance wouldn't cause enough cavitation bubbles around the spear that it appeared 'fuzzy', but because of the rust, the spear's handle was no longer smooth but uneven like the landscape of the Himalayas.
Quicker than those cavitation bubbles can collapse, the spear was pulled back. And then thrust again eight more times in a time span so short even a modern high-speed camera would struggle to capture more than one frame of motion.
How very befitting of the most powerful hero of Greece. Though he's an Archer, he breaks the convention of a Class Container by being proficient in all weapons. His Nine Lives can be used on anything, turning even a sunken spear that looked like it would fall apart in the next second into the greatest spear that ever was.
Almost comparable to a certain bloody spear in pure attack power, though it doesn't ignore defenses like Destiny itself.
It was like a more powerful version of Lancelot's Knight of Owner.
Kukulkan grabbed the spear piercing through her abdomen without a single display of it being painful. She drove it deeper into herself so Heracles would be closer— close enough for a headbash.
The water around them shuddered from the force of the impact. Heracles, stunned by the headbash, quickly swam away even when parts of his hair got ripped off from Kukulkans' hands. It was how the Goddess managed to force that headbash.
Throughout it all, even with the spear still inside her, Kukulkan grinned widely.
She threw a punch. Heracles brought a hand up to block— only to feel a rush of water and nothing more. None of that earth-shattering force from before.
"—?"
The demigod dropped the block to see how Kukulkan feigned that punch. Quicker than Heracles could bring up his defenses again, Kukulkan slammed her fist into his ribs, cracking several of them like glass.
He was thrown across the sea floor. The Goddess followed closely and threw a kick which Heracles brought his legs up to blunt the damage.
Another rush of water rather than earth-shattering force. Another feint.
This Goddess, Heracles denoted, doesn't actually know how to fight. Her moves can only barely be blocked because of her innate strength, not through the use of any techniques. If this was a boxing match, Kukulkan would be an amateur who only got so far because of nepotism and corrupt money.
Kukulkan then swiped her hand in another wide arc, and Heracles felt multiple blades biting into his skin and flesh, yet not piercing it. Blades of water are invisible, and undetectable at the bottom of the ocean.
If only they were near the surface. Heracles would've been able to spot any minor refractions, strange distortions that these water blades would've made as they passed through rays of piercing sunlight.
But they weren't enough to kill Heracles. His
Heracles was thrown back, caught in those water blades like a fish in a net. He was rapidly ascending up to the surface, so fast that vacuum bubbles— cavitations— formed on one side of his body as water could not close in fast enough against his skin.
"Come on! Make this more difficult!" Kukulkan screamed as she came to the surface.
Thrown into the sky like a rocket, Heracles took out his bow and notched three arrows.
He pulled back the strings of the bow so much it almost appeared it'd snap in two. Such was how far, how much force Heracles was inputting into this one strike.
"
To Kukulkan, she was more impressed how the bow and quiver of arrows didn't fall out from the devastation she had caused.
"Hahahahaha—"
She merely grinned at the approaching arrows. A wide grin that almost split one's face in two. It belonged only on the face of someone having the time of their life.
"Come on Heracles! Make this even more interesting for me!! Make it more fun!!!"
This was a battle determined by whether Kukulkan could reduce Heracles's God Hand faster than he could reduce her avenues of killing— for not even an attack that could destroy the world could pierce through God Hand's conceptual defenses. It was the ultimate battle of attritions.
___
AN: A glimpse into what if Kuku completely lets herself loose. If her inhibitions and moral reservations were mostly gone.
Give me some comments pls. Your comments gives me motivation to write more and finally conclude this Singularity.