Chapter Eight – Part Two

  Narrated by Nikolai Renlanton

  I woke up to the trembling of the ground. The sound of soldiers marching could be heard from kilometers away.

  We were only eight, yet somehow the odds felt almost fair: five godborns and three women contracted with demons, against an army of a million trained soldiers equipped with cursed weapons, led by four gods and their deputies.

  To me, that was fair enough.

  We grabbed our weapons and started moving toward them. Though to be honest, our weapons were mostly symbolic—we didn’t use them in real combat. We used them only for the curses they carried, nothing more.

  Snow covered everything. The trees blocked our vision, and the cold was bitter, but we were used to it—it wasn’t that bad.

  What struck me most was the smell. It was the strangest scent I’d ever inhaled—like the stench of hell itself.

  And the feeling of my bare feet pressing into the frozen ground… it numbed me completely.

  As we approached, I saw a number unlike anything I had ever seen before. It was terrifying.

  This was one of the rare times we truly felt fear.

  The God of Fire approached us alone.

  He looked at me and said,

  "Nikolai, it’s been a long time since we last met. This will be the last time, too."

  He lowered his head and continued,

  "Forgive me if the timing is wrong. I won’t fight wounded warriors. If now isn’t the right time, I’ll withdraw my army immediately."

  I laughed and replied,

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  "Doesn’t seem like the others agree with you, so let’s finish it now. I’ve done most of the things I wanted before dying. It’s fine if I die here."

  He raised his head again and smiled at me, saying,

  "Sorry, Nikolai. We all have our reasons. Yours and mine aren’t so different. You and your brothers—we all put our families first. I'm doing this for my mother, Nikolai. I hope you understand."

  "I understand more than you can imagine," I said. "And I respect you for it."

  Everyone pulled their troops back to prepare for battle.

  The God of Fire was a real man, full of pride.

  He always reminded me of a samurai—with his long black hair, massive build (nearly matching mine), and those two massive swords he carried.

  Unlike the others, who only cared about winning—I couldn’t really blame them. After all, they were facing people that even the Five Gods themselves feared.

  The battle was about to begin, and I knew I was going to die in this fight.

  The scent of death was thick—I could feel it.

  So I said,

  "I’ll fight the God of Fire. Joseph, you’ll take on the God of Ice. Jason, the God of Darkness. Natasha, you’ll handle the God of Lightning. As for the armies—they’re yours, Stalin and Dwayne. Maria, Elina—you’ll take care of the god deputies."

  The God of Ice had already lost his deputy anyway.

  Stalin grabbed a tree branch angrily and shouted,

  "I can’t believe the commander did this to us… Threw us into an ambush!"

  "There’s no way he would do that," I replied. "We know him well. Something’s wrong. There’s a reason he told us to leave headquarters. There’s a trick to this fight."

  I looked at Joseph. He wasn’t scared. He wasn’t sad.

  He was terrified.

  He looked more afraid than I’d ever seen him—like he knew something terrible was about to happen.

  We began hearing footsteps racing toward us, but we could barely see them through the dense snow and trees.

  Yet there was one thing I could see clearly.

  The God of Death.

  I saw him everywhere.

  So I turned, smiled, and shouted,

  "Come on, Death! Try to take me! I’ve lived for over thirty years—that’s enough for me!"