Harry had once said that being in the presence of a god felt like an itch at the back of his neck. A faint warning. A subtle discomfort, depending on how close the god was, like static charge. It was the natural reaction between a campione and a god, a signal to the instincts that the "other" was close.
What he was feeling right now was nothing like that.
This was like a hundred white-hot needles, stabbing into his brain all at once. The sensation was so violently overwhelming that Harry stood frozen, completely still, his muscles locked in a state of primitive reaction.
Every nerve ending in his body fired at once, a cacophony of pain signals that left him breathless. So still was he that anyone looking at him would have assumed he was nothing more than a statue.
Above him, the massive crimson eye stared down from the absolute void. Harry was so still, he wasnt even sure he was breathing at the moment.
It peered through the pathway as it locked its gaze at him, even without looking at it, Harry could feel the hunger in its eye.
Since when…
When was the last time he had felt this? Felt fear? felt bone-chilling terror? A primal dread that turned his blood to slush and made his marrow ache.
He didn't think he had even ever felt fear like this before, no, he was sure of it.
Because at this moment, that was the only thing he felt. It was a cold, suffocating feeling that made his lungs forget the basic mechanics of drawing breath.
He watched, still for a heartbeat that felt like an eon, as ink-like tendrils, viscous, oily, and darker than the deepest vacuum of space, began to wrap around his bridge between worlds.
They squeezed with a rhythmic, pulsing pressure, a slow-motion crushing force. Cracks began to spider-web along the walls and floor. the beautiful, crystalline structure groaning and splintering under a strain.
The moment Harry saw his sanctuary literally cracking beneath his feet, the survival instinct finally overrode the paralysis. It was a desperate, frantic surge of adrenaline that burned through the mental static.
He lunged into motion. Space bent around him as he invoked his basic understanding of spatial manipulation, trying to use the same trick he had once used to impress Daphne, folding the distance between points like a sheet of paper. The distance to the exit should have shortened to a single step.
Instead—
THUD.
Harry slammed into something invisible and unyielding. It felt like sprinting full-tilt into a wall of solid diamond. The impact rattled his teeth and sent a shockwave through his spine.
Space itself had become fixed and utterly immovable. 'What the hell?' his eyes widen at that.
The flexible motion of the void seems fixed now. Like before, it was always shifting, twisting, and turning, but now it was solid and unmoving. Was it this things doing?
A screech erupted from the creature.
The sound was so violent that Harry's ears popped instantly. The pressure was immense blood began to flow from his ears, his nose, and even the corners of his eyes. He stumbled, his vision blurring into a dizzying haze of red and violet as the world tilted on its axis.
The pathway cracked further, shards of starlight falling away into the abyss like broken glass. Harry didn't hesitate. He turned and blasted off, flying through the pathway at speeds he'd never even gone before.
What did you expect? That he would stay and fight this thing?
Hell no. Every cell in his body was screaming a singular, frantic truth, If you try to battle this thing here... you will die.
And Harry was going to listen to his instinct. he was not going to think he was invincible and try something so foolish. he ran, ran like hell.
He didn't make it far, though. The tunnel shattered completely, dissolving into glittering dust that was immediately consumed by the darkness. From the surrounding void, the ink-black limbs shot out like harpoons, tracking his movement with impossible precision. Harry twisted in mid-air, dodging the first limb by a hair's breadth, then two more, then four. Soon there were twelve, then twenty, a forest of writhing, oily appendages closing in from every conceivable angle.
A tentacle barely grazed his shoulder.
"AGHHH!"
Harry let out a jagged, raw scream of pure agony as he tumbled into the void. It wasn't just physical pain, it felt like a hot iron being dragged across the sensitive surface of his soul. The touch left a trail of numbing, necrotic energy that threatened to shut down his heart and extinguish his inner fire.
"What the hell?!" he cried out, his voice lost in the vacuum. That was the most agonizing sensation he had ever experienced in any life. Was this what it felt like to receive damage on your soul, the pain of being unmade.
He gritted his teeth, trying to focus his crumbling mind as the creature rushed toward him, its form expanding to fill his entire field of vision. He raised his left hand, pouring his power into a multi-layered barrier.
A spherical shield of shimmering golden light erupted around him, but the creature didn't care. It wrapped its massive limbs around the bubble, drawing him in closer like a spider reeling in a particularly stubborn fly.
Then, the ink-like mass opened.
Rows upon rows of endless, jagged teeth, thousands of them, spiraling deep into a throat that seemed to lead to the abyss yawned wide. The creature began to push the bubble shield, with Harry trapped inside, directly into its maw.
"Hell nah! This is NOT how I die!"
Harry roared, summoning hundreds of weapons using the Authority of Njörun. Blades, spears, and axes launched like a barrage of meteors. They struck the creature and simply sank into it harmlessly. They vanished into the inky body like stones dropped into a pond of tar, leaving no mark, no blood, and no sign of damage.
He switched tactics instantly to elemental option, Fire, Water, Wind, and Lightning erupted as they fired onto it. This time, the reaction was different. The searing white lightning and the flames seemed to have an effect, burning small, smoking pits into the darkness. Little damage, but damage nonetheless.
The creature screeched again, a sound of irritation Harry noticed. He focused everything he had on those two elements, aiming his attacks directly at the massive, pulsing crimson eye.
The eye flared as the lightning struck the iris. The monster screamed, a sonic wave that shattered Harry's barrier, but it released its grip. Before he could capitalize, a massive limb slammed into Harry's side like a battering ram, once again feeling him with unimaginable pain.
He flew through the void, the impact breaking ribs and rupturing organs that even his divine body struggled to knit back together. He managed to stabilize himself, clutching his right side, his breath coming in ragged, bloody gasps.
"God, that's one huge, ugly-ass bastard," he muttered, watching the entity glare at him with renewed malice.
His mind raced. He realized with a sinking dread from the beginning that most of his Authorities were useless here. The powers of Geb, Asclepius, Eros, Hades, and Morrigan won't work well here.
Geb's power was over earth, there was no earth here in the void. Asclepius was storing sunlight to turn into strength or cure all, and he had already used his stored sunlight to cure all, he was not expecting to fight a serious fight today. Eros was manipulation of desire. He didn't think he wanted to do that here. If this thing could even feel desire, the power of Hades was his afterlife, and Morrigan's power just didn't have the firepower for this.
He doubted even Anansi's Weaver would work, and even if he could see and touch its strings, he doubted he could do anything to them, if this thing even had strings to begin with. Fenrir's Authority was for close-quarters slaughter, and getting close to this thing was a suicide mission.
That left only three: Odin, Njörun, and Cú Chulainn.
In a moment of desperation, he activated Odin's Wisdom.
It was the greatest mistake of his life.
The moment the Authority activated, his brain felt like it was being put through a meat grinder. His mind tore apart under the weight of the information he got looking at this creature. Odin's wisdom was telling him, showing him what this creature really was.
Blood poured from every orifice of his face.
Through the haze of mental disintegration, he looked at the eldritch being. He finally saw it for what it truly was.
It was an Outer God. A dweller from the Far Realms.
He deactivated Odin's Wisdom immediately, his head thumping with a migraine. It was only because he possessed a divine Campione soul that his mind and soul hadn't shattered into a million pieces. A mortal would have been reduced to a mindless, drooling husk in a millisecond.
Harry kept his distance, dodging and weaving, fighting with every scrap of energy he had. "How do you kill an Outer God?" he hissed to himself. He didn't remember any legends of them dying, only being banished or sealed.
Even in TV shows, books, and manga, outer gods were rarely ever defeated. Most of the time, were when they form onto the world with lesser forms, but this was not a lesser form, and this was not earth but the void itself.
The fight dragged on for what felt like an eternity. Harry grew more desperate as his reserves began to bottom out. The creature, he realized, possessed a bit of intelligence. It had stopped its frenzied attacks, instead opting to corral him, waiting for him to tire out so it could consume him whole.
Harry landed on a small floating platform of his own making, his chest heaving. The creature began to swell, growing even larger, its shadow blotting out what little light shone in the void.
Harry summoned his final weapon.
A white spear, jagged and cruel, appeared in his hand. This was his last Authority, his final gamble. He charged the spear, calling upon the full, terrifying might of RESONANCE.
"I call upon the hero's ultimate frenzy and the law of the inevitable spear!"
His voice echoing in the void.
"The action of the future precedes the cause of the present! I swear by the fate of the great King's Hound that this desire shall be completed, and this outcome shall not fail!"
The spear began to glow with a bright white and golden light that seemed to eat the darkness.
"GAE BOLG!"
He launched the spear with every ounce of his remaining strength. The target was so massive the spear couldn't miss even if he tried, and thankfully, the creature didn't seem to try to block as it struck the center of the crimson eye.
The Outer God let out a sonic scream so powerful it physically threw Harry backward, tumbling through space.
For the first time, the monster was truly injured. Black, smoking ichor poured from the eye. It roared in a blind, cosmic rage, its speed doubling as it lunged for him.
"Oh, hell no!"
Harry didn't wait for a second strike. He called upon the very last of his strength, ripping a dimensional rift. He didn't care where it went, he just needed to be somewhere else.
A tentacle brushed the heel of his boot as he dived into the violet tear.
The rift slammed shut behind him, luckily, before it could follow through.
Harry burst out of the portal like a fallen star.
He slammed into the ground with enough force to create a small crater. He rolled, his body acting like a plow, destroying stone and trees and tearing through the earth for fifty yards before finally slamming into the trunk of a massive tree.
The impact knocked the last of the air from his lungs.
Sunlight, bright and unforgiving, hit his face. His vision was a blurred mess of green and yellow. He could hear voices, high-pitched, youthful voices echoing nearby.
"Is that... Did he just come out of the labyrinth?" someone asked, their voice filled with confusion.
"One of Luke's?" another said. The murmurs grew quiet as his vision faded.
Harry tried to focus his eyes. He saw dozens of children or teenagers standing around him. They were wearing strange orange shirts and pieces of bronze armor, chestplates, helmets, and greaves. Some held swords, others held bows.
Harry tried to push himself up, but his arms gave way. The darkness of exhaustion finally claimed him.
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