CHAPTER 160: THIS IS WHERE GOD DIED (4).

Nero grimaced, "So there really is no way of knowing?"

The Oracle paused, and Nero felt something that might have been contemplation from the ancient entity.

Or perhaps it wasn’t.

Could a Divine, metaphysical existence think?

Something called the Will of the Divine One... Could it engage in something as mundane as thought? Perhaps it just knew everything.

Or perhaps it could think.

Nero shook his head to clear the haze from his mind...

{The Heretic must understand— the beings you call gods were never truly divine in the way humans imagine. They were conceptual personifications given form through the collective hopes and prayers of mortal minds. Humanity shaped them through worship, and in being shaped, they became something other than what they were meant to be. In death, they return that borrowed power to its source. This return of power bleeds back into the collective source and is not a straightforward process. Sometimes there can be leakage which manifests as physical distortions and corruption. Other times, there is none and the remnants of the Fallen One simply returns to the great Nothingness}.

Nero huffed deeply as he processed the information slowly, his gaze never leaving the massive corpse below.

The fungal growth covering it had clearly fed on the Grigori’s essence, growing fat and strange on divine corruption. This entire island was probably the result of that death, a garden of poison spawned from a fallen angel’s final breath.

Or perhaps it wasn’t...

The implications made his head hurt.

Gungnir thrummed again, more insistently this time. The spear wanted him to go down there, to approach the corpse of something that had once been worshipped as a god.

Because of course it did.

Nero looked around for a way down. The ravine’s walls weren’t particularly steep, and the moss provided decent handholds. With his current injuries, it would be awkward and painful, but doable.

He just had to decide if he was insane enough to actually do it.

The answer, apparently, was yes. He was exactly that insane.

Nero began his descent, moving carefully despite Gungnir’s impatient pulling. His injured leg protested every movement, threatening to give out and send him tumbling to the bottom. His broken arm swung uselessly at his side, throwing off his balance and making the climb even more treacherous.

"Oracle," he grunted, pausing halfway down to catch his breath. "Any idea why Gungnir is so interested in a dead god?"

{The spear was crafted for Orion with mystical knowledge, using methods and materials beyond mortal understanding. Perhaps it recognizes the essence of its kin, even in death. What it seeks within the corpse is beyond my knowledge, but the weapon would not lead you to danger without purpose}.

That was less reassuring than Nero would have liked, but he’d long since given up on getting reassuring answers from anyone or anything.

He continued down, his movements becoming more confident as he found his rhythm. The moss was surprisingly sturdy, and the fungi growing from the wall provided additional support when he needed it. His transformed body helped too, the claws on his fingers finding purchase in cracks too small for normal hands.

After what felt like an eternity of careful climbing, Nero’s feet touched the ravine floor.

He straightened slowly, wincing at the protest from his various injuries, and looked up at what he’d descended to reach.

The foot of the Grigori towered above him, each toe larger than he was tall. The flesh had long since rotted away, leaving only bone covered in layers of colorful moss and fungal growth. The bones themselves were white as fresh snow, untouched by decay despite the corruption that surrounded them. They seemed to glow with their own internal light, casting strange shadows across the ravine floor.

Nero felt impossibly small standing before it. This was a being that had existed since before recorded history, that had shaped the very fabric of reality through its presence. And now it was dead, reduced to a curiosity for a half-transformed human to gawk at.

The thought should have been comforting. Gods could die, which meant they could be killed. But instead, Nero felt a creeping dread settle in his bones. If something this powerful could fall, what chance did anything else have?

Gungnir suddenly jerked in his hand with such force that Nero nearly dropped it.

Then the spear simply shot out of his grip, flying forward on its own power.

"What—" Nero’s voice cut off as his brain caught up with what had just happened. "Shit!"

The spear streaked deeper into the ravine, following the curve of the enormous skeleton. It moved with purpose and speed, clearly headed for something specific.

Nero’s face went pale. That was his only weapon, his primary means of defense, and it had just decided to go on an unsupervised adventure into the corpse of a dead god.

"Get back here, you traitorous piece of—!" He cut himself off and broke into a limping run, chasing after the silver streak that was rapidly disappearing into the gloom ahead.

His injured leg nearly gave out on the first step, sending a spike of agony up his spine that made his vision blur. Nero gritted his teeth and pushed through it, forcing his body to move faster than it had any right to in its current condition.

The ravine stretched ahead of him, the Grigori’s skeleton forming a tunnel of massive ribs and vertebrae. Fungal growth covered everything in layers of color that seemed to pulse with each labored breath Nero took. The air grew thicker, more oppressive, filled with spores that made his eyes water and his throat burn.

Gungnir’s silver light was his only guide, a beacon drawing him deeper into whatever madness the spear had decided was worth abandoning him for.

Nero ran, cursed, and prayed to gods he didn’t believe in that he wasn’t about to discover some new and creative way to die.

Because at this point, that seemed like the most likely outcome.