God of What? 26 (Patreon)

Commissioned by Kejmur

God of What?

Chapter 26

-VB-

Yor punched.

His fist slammed into the minotaur’s side right where its kidneys should be, and then sunk into the monster’s flesh.

The monster roared in pain as his fist dug into the flesh and misshapen it but locked into forward momentum as it was, the minotaur couldn’t twist around to attack.

But it did.

With flexibility he did not expect from the monster, it came swinging around with its club.

Yor just pulled back and ducked at the same time. The minotaur had aimed too high and missed him by a good foot, and Yor just went right back as he noticed that the minotaur had swung as hard as it could and not just enough to get him away.

So he dove right back in and threw one, two, three, four, fiv- and then jumped back again when the minotaur stumbled away.

It gasped and held onto its side while glaring impotently at him.

The attacks Yor had dished out were each capable of punching through thin steel plates. The fact that the minotaur’s skin and organs held was a testament to the monster and its level: a slow and strong Middle Floor monster. Yor could see how this monster could easily end adventurers unprepared for it.

“Come at me, big guy,” Yor grinned. “Scared of a few adventurers from the Upper Floors?”

It mooed and charged at me. Its hooves thundered and shook the ground underneath -.

And it was too slow.

Had I been a regular Level 1 or Level 2, then the minotaur would have been a decently quick, impossibly tough, and one-hit career ending monster. It was the orc of the Middle Floors.

‘Yo, original,’ he thought into the network. ‘The new upgrades should be standard for all of us.’

‘Is it good?’

‘I’m going head to head with a minotaur.’

‘... Canon minotaur? The one that Bell is supposed to defeat.’

‘I think so. Its club is not the usual thing.’

The original went silent after that, but Yor was on the move. He lunged forward and the minotaur predictably tried to smash him down into the ground. It brought down the club so quickly that it almost blurred in Yor’s eyes… but the trajectory and momentum were already set. Yor brought himself to a skidding stop, and the club smashed into the ground in front of him. The club and the ground both shattered and sent rock shrapnels flying. Some of them cut him but he didn’t care.

He jumped on the club and ran up its length before jumping up at the minotaur’s face with the intent to pluck its eyes out.

But the minotaur did something he didn’t expect.

The monster headbutt him.

Everything blurred for a second as the monster’s forehead met his, and Yor tumbled to the ground.

And then got struck.

He flew away, most of the ribs fractured but not broken and struck a “tree” with his back. He gagged as he slid down to the ground.

‘Oh fuck,’ he thought through the pain. He tried to get back up but his body wasn’t listening. The best he could do was crawl painfully slowly right now. Looking up, he saw the minotaur grinning in victory and leisurely stomping toward him.

And … that kind of pissed him off. A monster thought that he was done for?

Yor was not a normal adventurer. He was stronger than all of the goddamn Level 2’s out there, and this minotaur thought he was down and out of the count?

Fuck that shit.

Pain flared like firework in his mind but the anger, the shimmering anger, was stronger than the pain. He pushed himself up and glared at the monster.

Seeing him stand up also ticked off the minotaur and it roared before charging at him.

Yor knew he couldn’t fight for long, so he needed to end this as quickly as he could.

So he waited.

And waited.

The minotaur was almost upon him.

And then it brought its arms and club up to finish him…

And Yor sprang up.

The blood dribbling down his hands pooled at his fingertips and transformed into claws. With those claws, Yor landed on the thing’s shoulder and stabbed into the minotaur’s throat… and laughed gleefully as blood spilled forth like a fountain.

And blood was all he needed to heal.

Blood from the monster flowed to him rapidly and all of the wounds and fatigue disappeared as if they were never there.

Then something happened. Something triggered inside of him, and Yor felt all of the moisture around him.

And he knew he could move them.

His grin split even further up his cheeks and he brought his clawed hand down on the minotaur’s forehead. The minotaur tried to headbutt backward into him, but Yor was at his physical peak again. He easily dodged the attack that a wounded and debilitated him would not have been able to. In the same motion, he let himself drop back down to the ground right in front of the minotaur’s feet… and swung his arms around in a circle like his mind was telling him to do. The blood on, around, and flying around him spun with his arms and formed a spike.

There was a split second where his eyes and that of the minotaur met.

“See you never again, fucker.”

And launched it forward with a double palm strike.

The spiked blood stabbed into the minotaur’s chest, punched through it, and burst out of its back. It stood there with its arms still up and club in its hands… and then the hands relaxed and the club fell to the ground with a bang.

It keeled over backward and crashlanded on the ground.

“YOR!”

He turned around and saw Bell running up to him.

“Hold on,” he said, making her skid to a stop. He walked up to the minotaur and slashed its throat open. Just in case. The entire body lurched and then remained still. “Clear.”

Bell was up on him with a potion out of her bag. And then she paused after looking over him. “You don’t look hurt…? But you got hit by that club!”

“Ah, that might be my skill,” he grinned. “I heal from blood I spill.”

She looked at him in amazement. “Really? You had that kind of a convenient skill?”

He chuckled as the adrenaline rush died down.

“Well, we just killed a minotaur. Let’s see what it dropped.”

-VB-

While Yor and Bell dug through the remains of the Middle Floor monster, I pondered on the information I just received from my clone.

Yor had … evolved. No, changed.

He gained an ability that he previously did not have nor was built into him. Was Vampirism evolving independently of Yor?

It was … more evidence that the world was impacting more than he was impacting the world.

“So what if he’s changed a bit?”

I looked over my shoulders. Climbing out of the biomass pool were two new clones. Two women, tall, lithe, and powerful, grinned at me.

“You know your missions.”

“Of course,” Lily, a blonde with shark-like teeth, replied.

“Are we sure this is something we really want to do?” Janice, a brunette with … massive assets, sighed.

… I couldn’t believe that they were my clones, even though they stood right in front of me after having climbed out of the pool.

“Show me your powers.”

Lily brought her hand up and a green light filled the room dimly before dimming down to near nonexistence and leaving a long broadsword in her hands. Janice spun her hands around and the airflow in the room intensified briefly.

“Then you know the plan.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Lily huffed. “If canon is going to happen anyway, which our older brother Yor just confirmed -”

“-then we may as well get rid of our future enemies as quickly as possible from within-.”

“-and if we’re going to have a lot of bodies-”

“-then Ishtar might have a few girls who might be interested in our future selves.”

“... Good enough,” I shrugged before grinning. “Have fun~.”

Yor and Victor may have become too infatuated with their new lives to think critically of our situation but I haven’t. I haven’t changed that much yet. I haven’t forgotten what I told myself when I first came here. This was going to be my adventure. My new life.

And if Freya and the other gods and goddesses thought they could have fun with me and my clones, then they were in for a fucking rude awakening.

Freya… Freya was going to be more subtle about it, but Apollo and Ishtar?

They needed to go even before they started making a mess of this. And Hermes… He’ll come later. He’ll get his due.