World Boss: Break the Narrative

Well damn. I had nothing. No clever idea. No secret plan. No ace in the hole. Not even a pithy comment.

I gripped the handle of the hammer tighter.

This bastard was going to come down from the mountain of bone and literally rip me apart.

I wanted to live. I doubted I would. I knew I couldn’t take this jerk in a fight.

I really only had one option left.

“Last chance: surrender. I promise you will not be harmed,” I said, somehow managing to keep my voice from shaking.

Amazingly that stupid bluff did stop Grond mid-condescension. He eyed me, and after a long pause he asked, “Do you honestly think you can harm me here in my domain?” Strangely, this sounded like a legitimate question.

I set the hammer down and leaned on it. After a moment, I started stroking my beard, “The thing is… it’s not about what I can do… the issue is you are missing a real deciding factor.”

Grond’s eyes narrowed and he crossed his arms over his chest as he studied me. “What am I missing?”

I shook my head, chuckling,

“Tell me now!” Grond roared. He loomed over now, glaring into my eyes.

I let the smile slowly fade from my expression and spoke seriously, “Fine, the issue you missed is you are a misogynist.”

Grond’s glare shifted into a confused look, “What does that have to do with anything?”

“It means you underestimate women in general,” I explained.

“No I don’t and No I am not,” Grond argued,

“Bruh, you called Angelica a fuckhole for quipping back at you,” I explained.

“We were in a fight, insults are supposed to be…insulting,” Grond insisted.

“Just saying we are our words,” I lectured. I was shocked I had made it this far. There was no reason this psycho shouldn’t have just decked me five sentences ago. So far so good I guess.

“Even if I was, which I am not, what does that have to do with me killing you, a male titan spawn?” Grond demanded. He grabbed the front of my shirt and pulled me down to his eye level. Apparently me being taller than him bothered Grond.

“It means you underestimated her specifically.” I told him, staring him down. The prick was too busy trying to not blink; he didn't see what was coming.

Celeste may be an Angel of Truth, but she was not above stabbing Grond in the back. She was phenomenally fast. In the space of heartbeat she went from fifty yards away to slamming her spear through Grond’s torso, chest plate and all.

Grond bellowed in rage and pain. His health bar bottomed out to nothing as his body went translucent, intense light radiated from the spear. I could see his skeleton writhe in pain.

Grond cannot be killed in his domain.

Domain remains intact.

That… wasn’t good. Some would even say it was a problem.

Grond’s health bounced back to full immediately. He rounded on her and unleashed a flurry of attacks. Celeste sidestepped the kick, deflected two swipes of the claws with her spear, ducked under another round house kick.

She launched up into Grond, impaling him again. Six more spears of light manifested and struck Grond. Or they would have. The slippery bastard slid off the spear and faster than thought was thirty yards away.

“Another uppity goddess?” Grond jeered. He was steadily increasing in speed as he continued to taunt Celeste. He did take several direct hits at his first question. “No, an angel?” He only took a few glancing hits as he began to laugh. “I’m going to enjoy breaking you.”

That is when Celeste hit him with everything she had. The cave shuddered and ice and bone exploded from the impact. Seven spears of light glinted, and Grond dodged two, blocked three and tanked the last two. His health bar nearly bottomed out again, but bounced back to full instantly. He caught Celeste on the shoulder with one swipe of his claws, and caught the leg with another.

Then things got fast. I honestly have no idea exactly what happened. Two god-level badasses threw down. Rocks shattered, beasts screamed, snow flash boiled, light blinded me, and blood flew everywhere. I wasn’t completely free of the fight. From time to time claws would catch me, as Grond would use me as a pawn to pull Celeste out of position. I would like to say I gave as good as I got, but over the course of ten nightmarish minutes I was whittled down to 35 hp, and dealt a cumulative 29 points back.

I was gutless again, I was blinded, disarmed, and of course bleeding.

The prompt informing me that Grond could not be killed in his domain kept flashing in my mind. It popped up at least half a dozen times a minute, every minute, for ten minutes. In any other scenario Celeste could have killed Grond a hundred times over, but here the bastard kept getting back up. Nested in the sea of prompts proclaiming Grond’s invincibility was another prompt.

The Eyes of the Titan are upon you

Before I had time to think about what the hell that meant I heard Celeste lose her powers. The thrum of divine power faded for a nerve-rending moment of silence. The time was up. A blood curdling scream broke the silence before suddenly cutting off.

Something landed at my feet.

“Angelica?” I shouted. When no response came, I felt for the thing in front of me. It was her. Before I could feel if she was dead, a hand like iron grabbed my throat. I was lifted into the air, and slammed into the ground.

The impact brought me to six hit points.

Grond waited a few moments and then slammed me into the ground again, almost, but not quite killing me. I picked up the broken back and shattered skull condition. He waited again, and just as my vision returned he pulled out my eyes. I heard him chewing, as he laughed to himself, “Oh come on, cats play with their food.” Grond purred into my ear. When I didn’t respond I felt him shrug. “Let’s get to the good part then.”

You now have the Heartless condition… Hp reduc-

Wrath of the Titan Triggered!

You are invulnerable while this condition is active.

All negative conditions removed

You have temporarily unlocked Cosmic Martial Art: Unfathomable Void

The first level is All Encompassing Sight

The second level is The Darkness Between Stars Body

The third level is Undefinably Vast Strength

The fourth level is Reality Bending Movement

The final level is Universal Control

Time Remaining: 00:00:49

What happened next was the single most terrifying experience of my life. I lost all control of my body. I could still see, hear, and feel, but I was a prisoner in my own flesh. Someone else was in control of my body, and whatever it was… it was Angry.

Okay this is one of those things that words fail to fully describe. The obvious bit about burning with the hatred of a thousand suns comes to mind, but that isn’t right. This was that cold, borderline malevolent anger. That kind of thing that gets people to plot for five years and then run someone down with a car some winter night when they knew the target of their scorn was alone, vulnerable, and accessible. That said, it was so strong and so vast that I could feel myself slowly becoming lost to it.

Mental Resistance prevents Mind Wipe.

Willpower check Successful.

You will remain aware.

All Encompassing Sight activated!

With All Encompassing Sight, I could see that what was before me was not the god Grond. It was a vessel that Grond could use to interact directly with the world. This specific “doll” had been dressed in the trapping of snow lions in an attempt to mock me. I knew I could not kill the god Grond here, but I could destroy this aspect, and rob him of a means of interacting with the world.

Voice of the Titan Activated

“Perhaps I should use your terms. You would try to take from me, Grond?” the Titan demanded.

Grond looked deeply uncertain, “I am defending my territory.”

“Do you know why no god has challenged me, Grond?” the Titan asked. Grond made an attempt to answer when the Titan boomed over him, “Because no god CAN challenge me!”

Grond charged.

It would be wrong to say I dodged Grond’s attack. That is probably what it looked like to an outside observer. Instead the Titan merely bent space around me, causing the distance between Grond’s attack and my body to become infinite. Then combining the resilience of a body made from the darkness between the stars, strength that superseded attributes, and again bending reality to draw Grond to my fist at a relativistic speed. The impact mixed with Universal Control removed all of Grond’s abilities to flee. This avatar and aspect were stuck here with the rest of us.

Grond was flung back and collided with the side of the arena. The barrier that held us in was even less yielding than stone. I could tell through the All Encompassing Sight that impacting the true edge of an arena hurt significantly worse than any other surface.

“What is about to happen is going to be a lesson to all the other little gods who think they can take from me,” the Titan explained, slowly walking toward the battered deity.

“I just have to run out the clock and then your Left Hand is mine!” Grond managed, trying to swagger through the pain.

The Titan laughed in his face. “Look at the timer.”

Time Remaining: 00:00:12

Time Remaining: 00:00:12

Time Remaining: 00:00:12

“What?” Grond demanded.

The Titan reached further than my arms length and seized Grond by the throat before pulling him close, “Time will only move when I allow it.”

Grond seized that moment to try and maul my face. He would reach Pluto before he could touch me as the Titan again shaped reality around the attacks. Eventually Grond figured out I was untouchable. I saw the realization of his helplessness reach his face. This seemed to further enrage him.

“Fine, what do you want from me?” he snarled.

“Nothing. I do not care about you at all. Your only value is as a lesson to others.” The Titan explained. He paused for a moment, “I am no sadist, but you were the one that made it a point to torture others. An eye for an eye.'' The Titan inserted my index finger and thumb into Grond’s eye and plucked both it and his ability to recover hit points for the next year out of his head.

Grond screamed in both terror and agony.

To have someone else use your hands to harm another is such a strange violation. In that moment I was literally untouchable and invincible, but I was also completely helpless. I had no control. It was also an existential revelation that the person who became the Titan, the man whose memories were in my brain, had changed to such a degree. Nearly 300 years was a long time.

The Titan wiped my hand on Grond’s furs, “Let’s resolve this matter.” It then quickly, methodically and almost gently grabbed and snapped each of Grond’s limbs. Grond screamed each time something snapped. He started with the hands and feet. After that the wrist and ankles. Then the elbows and knees. Finally the Titan casually crushed a vertebra in the ‘god’s’ neck.

Crack!

That sound is going to stick with me. It was sharp and clear, but there was a wet tearing underneath it. The reason it disturbed me so much is how controlled it was, precise, almost gentle.

I could tell that the avatar was now paralyzed, utterly imobile. The Titan dropped Grond like a broken toy.

The Titan nodded, surveying their work.

“You… you can’t kill… me in my… my domain,” Grond managed, a defiant grin twisting his face.

“That is correct, Even someone like me could not kill a Divine Scale player in their domain while it exists.” the Titan conceded. It then reached my hands into the air. My fingers clasped the filaments that created the Domain. I felt it break. It was like having a joint pop. A moment of resistance and then the freedom of full motion. It was such a minor effort. I could barely believe how fragile a Domain was. They had so much power. Shouldn’t they be more robust? I could have broken that myself.

Grond paled and stared. He probably would have trembled if not for the paralysis.

“I will tell you this, Grond. Your ‘might makes right’ philosophy has met its logical conclusion. I will leave you in the hands of your would-be victim. Remember they offered you the chance to walk away. You refused because you felt superior. Excuse me for a moment, what I am about to say is for the benefit of my… son." The titan walked a few paces away. “Stop looking to me for answers. I don’t have what you are looking for.”

Voice of the Titan Deactivated

Time Remaining: 00:00:01

Time Remaining: 00:00:00

Wrath of the Titan Deactivated

I looked down at the broken and bloody face of Grond. It would be so easy to just kill him. No! I had priorities. My voice shook when I spoke. “You get one chance. If you have something that will help Angelica and Brand, I-I’ll let you go. We’ll be even. No hard feelings.

He laughed, “I thought I could take you. You’re so low level. Oh well, the achievement of dropping your pets will have to do.” He saw the murder in my eyes, “You think you can kill me? The Narrators will never let you. Arbitration is going to go my way. Say goodbye to your slut and your fa-“

“Empowered Critical” activated

It would be a lie to say I had never been angry up until this point. This world never missed an opportunity to hurt, confound or belittle me. I tried to always be the bigger man and just deal. This was too far. I was not going to accept having to watch the man who killed my friends laugh in my face.

With every syllable I spoke I bludgeoned his head “You! Should! Not! Talk! About! Them!” his nose was pulp and teeth floated out with the blood pouring from Grond’s mouth, “We! Aren’t! Supposed! To! Break! The! Narrative!”

I pummeled his skull until it broke, then shattered. Then pulped.

That is when the parade of prompts blocked out my vision. The last one stuck in my view.

New Achievement!

God Killer!

I bet you feel big!

…