To Kill a God

What does it take to kill a God?

How much planning do you need to do before making the first step? How many stories do you need to hear before you feel like you know them as well as you know yourself?

What if in the end…it doesn’t matter because you lack the will?

What if your will is the only power you have left?

Guisei sat in the darkness. He let his eyes stay closed at the sound of the rushing water behind him. There was something calming about this state, or rather, this place in his mind. He pushed the thoughts in his head to the back of his mind; it was useless to rely on them now that the chance finally arose once more.

To kill a god it doesn’t require any tricks or schemes. All methods were useless unless you had power to rival a god’s, but today Guisei knew where he had been called to. The scene was just like how it was when he saw it as a child.

“This time…I’ll kill you.”

He muttered the same thing to himself under his breath over and over, like the crashing sound of water filling his eardrums.

“This time you’ll kill who?” an amused voice asked.

The sound lingered close to Guisei’s ear like a taunting whisper. He recognized the voice and, in most situations, attacking would’ve been better, but this was — different. Guisei’s eyes snapped open to the sight of Mammon in front of him. his dark sclera focused on Guisei with the careless gaze of his golden eyes.

Guisei fell back into the water behind him.

Mammon couldn’t help but chuckle at the sight of Guisei fighting the water’s currents. Guisei latched onto the cobblestone he once sat upon. He pulled his head above water and he kept his eyes trained on Mammon like a distrustful kitten analyzing a lion.

“Screw….you,” Guisei muttered.

“Long time no see, Guisei,” Mammon said.

His voice was like the ocean, deep and carefree in tone. He looked upon Guisei pulling himself to the surface, glaring at him through his black hair. The way it looked when wet made him appear almost like a mirror image of him, though the horns and golden robes always separated the two.

“You’ve been avoiding me,” Guisei said to bring Mammon’s mind back to reality.

“It’s not like I went back on our deal or anything. I gave you the chance to have a taste of my power, but you rejected it. Something about not needing to rely on someone as distant and uncaring as me, am I right?”

Guisei grit his teeth. Images flashed through his mind that he didn’t wish to acknowledge. His gaze lowered before flashing back to Mammon with a hint of determination.

“Now that’s different ⸺ that whole determined look of yours. Tell me, did you ever find that desire you were so dead set on finding? Let me guess, you succumbed to what these people consider worthwhile.”

Mammon chuckled at his own words, and the sight of Guisei’s reiju rising into the air. His eyes shimmered bright gold before Guisei even had the chance to move. Instead, he took a step forward and Guisei took a step back.

“Was it money? Objects? Sex?”

With each word, Guisei stepped back before hearing the rushing waves behind him cease and, with it, his movements did as well. The last word Mammon said brought forth a fierce glare.

“Power.”

Guisei shook his head. He appeared almost hurt that Mammon would boil it down to such a nebulous concept.

“You.”

As the words left Guisei’s lips, the reiju within his body ignited. Sparks followed behind his body. He guided two daggers to his neck. They stopped moments before impact by an unknown pressure. The sound of clashing metal vibrated in both of their ears.

“You really thought it was that easy to kill a god?” Mammon asked.

Guisei smirked.

“I just thought you finally got tired of preventing the inevitable.”

Mammon shook his head in response. A bitter chuckle escaped him. He advanced forward. The sensation felt nostalgic for him. Guisei’s reiju ignited once more. Golden chains wrapped around Mammon’s limbs and sapped the reiju from his body.

It was pure, like poisonous oxygen. It entered Guisei’s body. He coughed blood at the mere taste of his power.

“So eager, but sometimes I wonder if your disbelief will be your death?” Mammon said. He walked forward, unhindered by Guisei’s trap; turning each chain into dust. He kept moving. A black tattoo spread across his body to mimic the pattern of his reiju. It ignited into bright gold, reflected in his eyes.

"I would at least wait until after the transfer, or else my powers might just die with me, you know and ⸺ you wouldn't want what you're aiming for to just go to waste so easily, right? My dear Guisei," Mammon said, allowing his voice to echo through the cave.

Guisei froze in place. His mind screamed for his legs to move for a kick or for his arms to punch, scratch, or even slash away him in retaliation; yet in the face of a god and his power, what could he do?

The atmosphere shifted.

“So eager to be free of me, so eager to kill me. You’ve filled your mind with lofty human desires and bonds; that partner of yours. You failed our bet the moment that you accepted those things into your heart.”

Mammon’s hand stopped right before it could touch Guisei. His expression grew soft at the sight of him.

“Yet… I almost pity you when you look like that ⸺ so I’ll do you a favor. I’ll grant that desire of yours, but I’ll warn you just this once…all power in this world has a cost, so I wonder what the cost is to ascend to godhood?”

“I — Don’t ⸺ Care.”

Guisei mouthed the words to Mammon. His voice abandoned him from the overwhelming pressure. His head thumped like it was pounded by a hammer more and more each second passed; his gaze flickered in and out of reality, but Mammon’s words stuck in his mind.

“You really want to become a god that badly. Fine. I’ll make you one ⸺ I’ll make you a deadly sin — Just. Like. Me.”

Mammon extended his hand and pushed Guisei into the water behind him, releasing the stored reiju within the tattoo into his body. Guisei shook like lightning struck him and his world descended into darkness.

Guisei drifted in an empty void of nothingness. There were no sights to see, no sounds to hear, or even any sensations to touch. Like so many times in the past, Guisei was alone.

He was alone in the torturous isolation.

Mammon’s voice drifted in and out of his mind. He cursed the idea of expecting Mammon to save him from this of all things, yet his voice lingered within his mind like an omnipresent figure watching him.

Nothing Mammon said mattered until a single sentence he uttered. Despite how recent it was for Guisei, it felt like thousands of years since he entered the void, but his mouth moved and Mammon’s voice arose from his lips.

“All power in this world has a cost, so I wonder what the cost is to ascend to godhood?”

Guisei felt his body ripped from the air; his mind and eyes flickered around searching for a place. He grasped empty air. His vision blurred and his hands touched nothing. Light overwhelmed him. He no longer could tell the bounds of his own reality. It expanded endlessly.

“Knowledge”

“Knowledge of Function.”

“Knowledge of Creation.”

“Knowledge of Components.”

The voice of a child rang in his mind; one that he didn’t recognize, but did. Gray skies and cutting winds. He felt all of it rush around him; burning fire and icy cold. Beginning and end. He reached forward, only for his skin to peel back at the mere action. No human had a place in such a realm, but what kind of realm?

“All power requires a toll.”

Mammon’s voice entered his mind like a ghost. It was lingering; connecting and weaving in and out of his body. He writhed in pain despite feeling numb from the inside and out. The pain burned his skin even more as a black marking sliced into his arm.

Closer to a sealing tattoo: a contract that he had seen so many times.

“Contracts.”

“Anima.”

“Curse Series.”

Images flooded his mind like an eerie crescendo. Voices flooded in his mind to overpower Mammon’s.

“Let us call it a tie since you want to beat me at my own game, my Lord.”

“There is also the fact that you have yet to secure an heir of your own.”

An heir. Guisei couldn’t tell why, but he hated the word even in a state like this. His arm burned.

The contract was complete.

“I wonder what the cost will be for one who wishes to become a god?”

Everything around Guisei slowed for a moment in time.

He knew the answer, yet found himself afraid to confirm it until he felt a familiar palm envelop his shoulder. The man at his side looked familiar; he looked just like him. A horn remained on his head and his skin appeared to glow.

“To become a god…one must trade. ⸺ their humanity.”

Guisei and the man at his side spoke as a single entity.

“But I am ⸺ human.”

Like water meeting stone, Guisei felt his body plunge to the floor. He opened his eyes. His body was in a cold sweat and his racing thoughts worked to make sense of it all. He was dead, yet here he was, alive and well. He opened his mouth to speak, his voice pained, and his throat burned, but the voice was his own.

"Mammon! Mammon, you bastard, where are you!?" Guisei yelled into the empty darkness, the memories flooding into his mind, imprinting themselves a scene he should never have forgotten.

He reached forward. His skin burned. He gripped at the stone beneath him. Like a weakened calf, he tried to lift himself, his limbs wobbling, only for him to plummet to the ground. His body was hot, yet the floor felt like ice. Guisei frantically gazed at his arm, remembering the pain that he felt. A single black tattoo lingered on his arm, seared into his skin. It spanned from the top part of his shoulder down to the back of his hand. It all burned.

It felt endless, like needles stabbed into his skin and were set ablaze; he writhed in pain, letting out a bloodcurdling scream. He clutched his arm, wishing for the pain to end. If only it would end. His mind flickered through every possibility, clouded by a voice muffled within.

"What... What did he do to me?"