Watching Veles descend from the sky like an angry god. Okay, not like an angry god, but just as an angry god was something that I had to admit was impressive. As much as I despised the man for all the evil shit he'd done to Mokosh and me personally, he was a figure that still possessed the power to awe my mere mortal heart.

  Demigod of not.

  I'd faced Veles before, in a dream, but he'd never actually made a move to actually fight me. Really, he'd just showed up, terrified off the Wise Man and then sent Valentin to kill me. I'd always wondered why he hadn't just snapped his fingers and caused me to die then and there. Now I understood: pride.

  Veles also wasn't a coward, no matter the fact that he'd chosen to flee Mokosh. No, he'd shown up here directly with none of his armies. Veles was ready to hash it out with us and that took courage. Mind you, it was the kind of courage required by Andre the Giant fighting the Seven Dwarves but courage it was.

  Veles settled down close to me rather than any of the others among the destroyed towers and lowered his head before conjuring a staff that suspiciously resembled Skeletor's from the Eighties Masters of the Universe cartoon.

  "Oh Aaron, still fleeing from the godhood of my brother?" Veles said. "I was hoping you'd take my warning and not do something incredibly stupid."

  I shrugged. "What can I say? High INT and low WIS score."

  "Veles!" Susanos shouted, floating over with her fists crackling. Each of them contained a lightning bolt and the fury in her eyes was something that made me think, death lord or not, there was something still very human inside her.

  "Ah, the ex," Veles said, sighing. "This is going to be awkward."

  "I challenge you, false god!" Susanos called out, her mouth frothing with rage. "I challenge you for the betrayal of our love, your worshipers, and all the thousands of promises you whispered before breaking them! I challenge you for the divinity promised and denied! In spite's name, for hatred's sake, I come to bring you the death you have brought millions of others!"

  "Khaaaaaaan!" Jon said, sounding desperate to find some distraction from the two titans about to clash.

  I honestly thought my friend would be annihilated in that moment, but I doubted his words even registered to Susanos in that moment. I had my answer for why she was acting so irrationally and seemingly without thought: love. Love was at the heart of her battering ram like philosophy and love would be our undoing or Veles.

  It was kind of sweet, really.

  Terrifying, but sweet.

  Veles, however, was not nearly as invested in her as the reverse. "My dear, it is not me, it's you. Stars have been born, changed color, and exploded in the time it takes me to care about someone. You never more than a passing fancy, a convenience, and your worth to me is less than the dirt I could pick up in my hand."

  "Ouch," I said, grimacing.

  Veles wasn't done yet, though. "Godhood? You? You have neither the pedigree or the temperament to be raised even to the least annals of my kind. Given near unlimited power and immortality, you have accomplished less than Aaron has in a year."

  "Don't bring me into this," I said, frowning.

  "You wish to distract me," Susanos said, narrowing her eyes. "You think I am still besotted young milkmaid living in a hovel like you found me. I have grown more powerful than you could possibly comprehend, so-called creator god. No, this is the hour of your end."

  Wow, this really was just about two exes.

  "You are just a besotted young milkmaid," Veles said. "Except you are a mummified corpse of one that clothes herself in illusions and artifice. As for the hour of my end? Your delusions are as asinine as your ambitions. I am at the moment of my triumph over not only the gods of Mokosh and Earth but all of the pantheons."

  Garland, Maelor, Maria, Alek, and Rachel moved into battle positions. I could tell all of them were ready and willing to fight but this all felt wrong. Also, none of them had heard that this place was about to explode. I didn't want to tell, though. Didn't even want to think it because Veles might hear it.

  Was I cold-blooded enough to try to turn this into an involuntary suicide strike? I wasn't. Not just because Alek was my brother-cousin, stupid choices as he made, and Rachel was my sorta-daughter, weird incest vibes as she seemed to think was funny. No, it was the fact it was bad tactics. I had no idea if it would take out Veles and never would unless he decided to let me know in the afterlife.

  "Triumph? I see no signs of triumph," Susanos said, glowing brightly with a nimbus of magical power. "I see a monster that relied deeply on the four Elemental Demons to vampirize Mokosh in his place. I saw a scavenger and worm who fled with a handful of forces when the tide turned. You are nothing but false bravado concealing a weak assassin and kinslayer. You are spent, Ancient One. Being one of the Old Gods dos does not make you stronger, simply old."

  Veles smiled.

  It was not a pretty look. He looked identical to the actor Peter Stormare and it was the kind of ridiculousness that had allowed me to overlook how terrifying my past year of adventures had been. Except, it no longer worked. It had, somewhere along the way, just became the face of the God of Evil.

  "Oh, my dear, you did me the favor of assembling all of my enemies in one place," Veles replied. "Better still, you separated the one person who had an infinitesimally small but real chance of defeating me from those who most had his back."

  "Die, God of Evil!" Susanos shouted, blasting Veles with a beam formed of the rawest magic. Something that wasn’t sorcery formed into fire or ice but just the kind of primordial energy the universe was formed from.

  The beam sailed outward and struck Veles at point blank range. Half of the creator deity's face melted away, exposing a skull that caught fire. It reminded me of Ghost Rider for a brief second before I realized Veles was preparing for his counterattack.

  Everyone else in the ground proceeded to strike at Veles even as I conjured a GLOBE OF INVULNERABILITY to hold off the friendly fire. Alek fired his enhanced M-16, magical bullets firing in a burst. Maria shouted a prayer to the long deceased spirit of Perun to bless her strike with her whip. Maelor pulled out a pair of shadow infused short swords that he used short range teleportation to stab quickly before retreating. Garland swung his blade and green fire shot forth that blasted against Veles. Jon reminded everyone that he'd been a bare-fisted martial artist before he'd been a dragon by combining them into his next attack.

  The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

  "DRAGON PUNCH!" Jon shouted, glowing with a blue aura before striking at Veles with a blow that would have insta-killed a giant.

  Rachel called forth a METEOR STRIKE that struck Veles like an orbital mass driver. I was very glad of the GLOBE OF INVULNERABILITY because it would have annihilated me as well.

  Not cool, Rachel.

  Veles laughed like this was funny. "And you, Aaron? What is your assault? Perun cannot protect you anymore."

  That was one of the differences between reality and tabletop RPGs. There was no such thing as turn-based combat and whoever was fastest could hit as hard as they could as many times as they could in as short a time as possible. Still, Veles was just letting everyone take their shot. This was all wrong and was either a case of gross overconfidence on his part or knowing something we didn't.

  But, dammit, sometimes you had to take your best shot. I dispelled the GLOBE OF INVULNERABILITY around me, took the Sword of Perun, and swung it around. I buried it into the side of Veles and channeled the lightning within me. The divine power of Perun remaining in my bracelets crackled and I realized they were trying to communicate with me. They had one word: Run.

  Veles cackled as his face fell away to become purely a decaying skull, the flames around his face turned blue white. "I actually felt that, Aaron. It's a pity you ran from power for so long that it killed you."

  Susanos intensified her blasting of Veles with her magic, only for Veles to raise his hand. "REFLECT."

  The spell that struck us was a horrifying one as Susanos was hit with all of the flames she struck Veles with, Rachel screamed as she caught fire with flaming meteor fragments, Alek was hit by multiple bullets, shadows engulfed Maelor, terrible flaming whip burns struck Maria, Jon flew across the air like he'd been kicked by Bruce Lee, and I felt myself electrocuted.

  YOU HAVE TAKEN FIFTY-ONE POINTS OF DAMAGE.

  The whole Dungeons and Dragons-esque nature of magic was fundamentally silly but it was just an extrapolation of how sorcery worked on Mokosh. For Veles, the rules were more like guidelines, and he'd just hit us with a 10th level spell equivalent. Something that took all of our attacks and forced us to experience them.

  "Poor fools," Veles said, grabbing Susanos by the throat then draining the energy of the lich into himself. "This was never a fight that could be settled by force of arms. Who did you think you were, marching up to me as if I would choose to fight fair? Tales of heroism and daring deeds are nothing more than the poppy juice of the common man. Lies told to children that make them think they have a chance to fight against the boot that will rest upon their throat forever."

  "Curse you, Veles!" Susanos said, spitting bone dust. She was once more the hideous desiccated thing that was her true form. She spoke some sort of spell in a language I didn't understand and I felt myself suddenly better.

  YOU HAVE BEEN HEALED OF FIFTY POINTS OF DAMAGE.

  "One cannot fight the ocean with a rainstorm," Veles said. "Everything that you are, Susanos is something that I gave you. I now take back that power and consign you to the pit of oath-breakers with all those other poor whores that were unwise enough to trust me."

  "No!" Jon shouted, conjuring a fireball in his hands before shooting it at Veles despite the spell that the creator god had cast. The magic Susanos had worked upon him might have been artificial, but it was no less real. Jon was a man in love and ready to die for a woman who was exploiting him.

  Knowing that Jon was going to get himself killed, I called forth every bit of my will to try to cast a spell. "DISPEL MAGIC!"

  Much to my surprise, the magic crashed against the spell Veles had woven around him and shattered the spell. Veles, despite having his face reduced to a burning skull, looked at me in surprise before the others descended upon him. He was struck first with Jon's fireball blast, Susanos' fire, and Garland's strike with his sword. Our group prepared to rally against the God of Evil.

  That was when things went to hell.

  "Alright," Veles said. "Point to you."

  Maelor pulled out a bow made of shadows, only for Veles to flash step toward him and shove his fist through the elvish vampire's chest. The God of the Underworld seemed to rip out Maelor's soul with his spare hand, causing the ancient assassin to disintegrate. Maelor's spirit thrashed in Veles' hand before the god let him go, causing his ghost to vanish.

  "No!" Maria screamed. "Monster!"

  MAELOR HAS DIED.

  "Yes," Veles said, pointing a bony finger at her. "Who sends a bunch of undead against the god who created them? RELEASE SOUL."

  Maria thrashed back and began vomiting blood, her body developing horrific red veins before exploding. It was a nightmarish sight, not the least because it meant that Ania and Agata would never get a chance to reunite with her mother.

  MARIA HAS DIED.

  "Eat modern weaponry, asshole!" Alek shouted, throwing a sticky grenade. The grenade stopped in midair and reversed itself, slamming into my cousin before throwing hm across the room. I didn't have a chance to react before the explosion signalled his death.

  ALEK HAS DIED.

  "Ha!" Veles said. "You're right, Aaron, PUSH is incredibly fun."

  "Bastard!" I shouted, striking again with Perun's sword again and again.

  Veles was promptly impaled by Garland with his sword as the weapon went through his chest and out his back.

  "You are not a god," Garland said, coldly. "There is no such thing. You are just a very old and powerful wizard that has delusions of grandeur. Even the afterlife is just a simulation of those we have lost."

  "You should have stayed dead, Garland," Veles said. "The only reason you were worshiped as a hero is that people enjoy pretending mediocre men like themselves have a chance of attracting women. RELEASE SOUL!"

  Garland's final death was less gruesome than Maria's but no less distressing. The greenish balefire within him escaped from his mouth and eyes, burning him from within. The great hero of the Dark Undermaster Saga had only come back for a short time, but I was helpless to do anything about his end. Like the Wise Man, those forces set against Veles were collapsing in rapid order.

  GARLAND OF NOWHERE HAS DIED.

  I changed my mind about not being willing to sacrifice myself to destroy Veles. It was increasingly clear we were losing this fight. I wouldn't be able to protect my daughter any more than I would be able to protect my cousin. Keeping Veles here until the place exploded might be the only chance we had to destroy the ancient monster.

  "Death has no hold on me, Veles," Susanos said, making elaborate hand gestures as strange glowing sigil patterns appeared in the air. Some of them being elaborate Enochian circles and others being collections of runes. All of them formed together into a single symbol. "My soul is hidden away from you and I know part of your true name. Enough to bind you to this place and keep you here until all of us die. Only I will remain to be reborn."

  Veles glowed and struggled as the symbol appeared on his chest. It was hard to see facial expressions on a skeleton and mummy, but it seemed the two of them were locked in an epic contest of wills. Whether or not it would be enough to hold Veles in place long enough for this place to go up was anyone's guess.

  "Oh," I said, pausing. "So, you did hear me. It's just the plan we're going with? Right. Thanks for telling us."

  "Wait, what?" Jon asked.

  "Yeah, I don't think she's that into you," I said, falling back and throwing every single spell I could at Veles.

  Rachel grabbed me. "No, father. Now is not the hour of your death. Be gone from this place and survive. TELEPORT WITHOUT ERROR."

  "Hold on, I'm not leaving--"

  I didn't get to say anything more because I found myself disappearing from the field and finding myself collapsed on the ground a mile or more from the place. I surrounded by a bunch of abandoned houses in the suburbs. The houses were boarded up and there were warning signs against zombies. Another sign that my world had changed dramatically in the time I’d been away from it.

  That was when I saw the mushroom cloud in the distance.

  "No," I muttered in horror.