The stone door sealing the crypt flung fully off its opening mechanism, and soared across the entire room before slamming hard into the opposite wall. There was a yelp as someone apparently got caught by the door.
The Son of Hades grinned amiably, his blade of death resting on his shoulder.
“Hello, all!” Zagreus smirked, “I hope I’m not interrupting anything?”
Now that Zagreus could see inside, he could understand the situation. There were what looked like a little more than a dozen mortals in variously colored robes. They were arranged in what was clearly supposed to be a geometric shape - Zagreus couldn’t see what shape it was, though.
“Oh, I apologize,” Zagreus chuckled, “Was this a prayer circle? I, for one, know how important it is to worship-“
“You broke the stone door with so little effort.”
Most of the mortals looked up at the one who spoke, who was donned in elaborate gold-rimmed maroon robes. His face was covered with a white mask, which had an Omega engraved into it.
“Quite right,” Zagreus said. He was actually genuinely shocked that he wasn’t being attacked right now. The godling supposed that he was so used to the spirits of the Underworld trying to murder him on sight, that he found this hostile but peaceful conversation quite… pleasant.
“Are you…” The apparent leader of the group paused, then cleared his throat. “Are you the one we called for?”
“I’m not sure,” Zagreus said, “Are you Chomper?”
The other mortals hissed at that name.
“Not fans, I take it. Then I suppose I’m not the one you called for,” the godling sighed, “Well, perhaps you can still help me. Any chance you fellows know where someone named ‘Darkseid’ might be?”
The leader snarled ferally. Zeus’ wounds, they sounded like animals.
“You speak his name with such disregard!” the leader spat, “You cannot be the one we seek.”
“Again, I’m not entirely sure what’s happening here.”
“We will drain your body, interloper,” the leader cried, “Lord Darkseid demands blood!”
Zagreus sighed; the godling had spoken too soon, apparently. He watched the other mortals draw clubs and maces from behind their backs. Two of them actually had curved blades of some kind - Zagreus hadn’t seen anything like that before - and three more were drawing some sort of long devices. They seemed to be mortal equivalents of the Adamant Rail Zagreus had at home. Either way, all of them wielded their various weapons with intent to kill.
“Shame,” the godling sighed, “I was enjoying this conversation.”
The ones holding their rifles all aimed from the hip as they started shooting at Zagreus, but the godling was already dashing to the side as their bullets shot past him. The god smiled. Even in this mortal realm, he could see their projectiles clearly outlined in an aura of pink. His instincts were still in place.
With a fierce lunge, Zagreus stabbed forward with Stygius at one of the cultists. The blood-red blade deepened in crimson as blood spewed from the cultist’s torso. Zagreus flinched. This was… different from the spirits he used to kill.
Regardless, Zagreus was dashing forward at divine speeds, zipping behind some of the other melee-weapon cultists. Bullets riddled through two of them as their own compatriots shot them in their effort to fight Zagreus. Foolish mortals. Even when the martial expert Zagreus used the Adamant Rail alongside Thanatos, he had to work extra hard to not strike him by accident in close-quarters. And Thanatos had his protective shield. These mortals were better off just not using these types of weapons.
Bullets bounced off stone in violent angles of sparks and pings as amused Zagreus continued to circle the group at regular speed. By now, the gunmen were starting to notice the godling’s movement, and started aiming ahead of Zagreus’ steps. But the adjustment was too late. The godling noted their adjustments and zipped behind the gunmen, slashing at their backs with his cursed sword.
The gunmen all yelped and screamed at the painful sensation of Stygian steel cutting through their shoulder blades, but all of them prepared to shoot again. One of them looked up, noticing something above his head. He tapped his friend, who looked up and noticed something similar floating above him as well.
Dangling menacingly above each of the cultist gunmen were dripping swords made of blood. They swung back-and-forth, held up by a red string that vanished into some invisible point.
The strings snapped unceremoniously, and the blades of blood jerked down, skewering each of the gunmen in the head. The cultists fell to their knees, their cognitive ability suddenly impaired by the descent of a bloodier sword.
As this happened, Zagreus dashed at one of the walls. This room was small enough, the godling’s speed extreme enough, that Zagreus could just bounce around the walls like a rubber ball. In this case, the rubber ball was also swinging a whirling cursed blade with devastating precision. In a matter of seconds, Zagreus had cut down another four more. They fell to their knees, looking up to see their own bloody swords dangling and patiently waiting for their grisly executions.
As the four cultists shrieked in their cries of death, the godling paused his assault in the middle of the room. It had been less than thirty seconds, and Zagreus had cut down ten men, and wasn’t even out of breath. He lifted Stygius up, and the blood that coated it was already soaking into the steel like sponge.
“Perhaps that should disturb me more,” Zagreus mumbled to the cultists, “Ah well, Achilles did call me the God of Blood.”
The godling looked up. There were three left, the two with the swords and the leader.
“I really did have some more questions,” Zagreus shrugged sheepishly, “And you still haven’t answered my first one. I’d appreciate knowing where this Darkseid is.”
The two swordsmen yelled something guttural before both charged at the godling. Zagreus winced, and mouthed an apology to the two mortals. He zipped to the right, sweeping with his blade at the attacker’s feet.
The leader just barely adjusted his vision to spot Zagreus, who was leaning on the crypt wall as the swordsmen’s screams were silenced by the Curse of Ares.
“This is getting quite unnecessary,” Zagreus said, wincing to show his remorse, “I apologize. I’ve had some frustration pent-up from being dropped here with little warning. Honestly, that Arbiter fellow went on about how this was a kind of freedom, but I don’t like being a pawn.”
The leader clapped his hands together. His robes rippled as wind swirled around in the crypt, quite inexplicably enough. No other words were shared from the mortal. Zagreus squinted.
“I’m… actually not convinced that you’ll be able to harm me at all,” Zagreus shouted over the building gusts, “I’m not trying to brag, it’s just… well, I’ve been told that I should be pretty-“
Unceremoniously, Zagreus was lifted off his feet by the winds. The godling was tossed into one of the crypt walls, and he crashed hard into the wilting stone. The wind continued to billow around him, crushing against the wall.
Zagreus stared directly ahead at the leader, who was still waving his hands around.
“Ouch.”
Before annoyed Zagreus could say much more, the cultist waved his arms again in some sort of dance-like movement, and Zagreus was granted reprieve from the crushing winds. A moment later, the wind blew again, shoving Zagreus against another wall. The godling grunted, face squeezed against the stone in an undignified manner. Ugh, the god thought, he could taste the slick and slippery humidity on the wall.
Zagreus was tossed back again. This time, the godling managed to maneuver his body to land roughly against the wall. Zagreus grit his teeth as he attempted to stabilize his stance, but he was no acrobat - as the winds tore him off the wall again, the godling had no recourse but to be flung across the room again.
“That’s quite enough of that!” Zagreus shouted through grit teeth.
The godling twirled his fingers as he flew across the room. As he slammed hard into the stone wall, Zagreus’ grip of Stygius slipped, and the sword vanished into embers. Fine. All the better to focus on casting.
After a split second, Zagreus reached with his left arm to better aim at the cultist. The mage seemed to notice Zagreus’ movements, and flung him again to hopefully disrupt whatever the god was doing. Not soon enough. Zagreus snapped his wrist forward, and a bolt of blood shot out of his palm.
The mage yelled as the projectile thudded into his shoulder, its course seemingly undisturbed by the extreme winds in the room. Zagreus landed hard onto the ground, the magical gusts having stopped when the mage was struck with the spell. The godling leapt to his feet as the mage attempted to recast his spell, and kicked the mage across the room.
The cultist grunted hard as he made impact against the wall, too stunned by the pain of the impact and the crystal in his shoulder to continue casting. Zagreus zipped forward, Stygius summoned in his hand. With his foot, he held the cultist’s neck against the wall - Stygius itself was pressed into the cultist’s stomach just enough to not actually cut into him.
“Good show,” the godling admitted, “Now. Darkseid. Where is he?”
The cultist’s mask had slipped off at some point, revealing a… boringly normal human face. The mage snarled, blood spilling from between his teeth. Red foam fizzled down his chin, and the hemomantic crystal in his shoulder shivered at the proximity of blood.
“I will - hurk - NEVER tell you.”
“I can take you to a physician if you do,” Zagreus said, “I’ve heard that mortals cannot recover from wounds like these by themselves, and we both know that death is inescapa- Hm, that’s not the expression, is it?”
The cultist snarled again. Hm. Zagreus pondered what was happening. It wasn’t just his impression - the man seemed to be contorting his face to be more bestial in some ways. There was some sort of tattoo on his face in the shape of reptilian scales.
“Please reconsider,” Zagreus continued, “I can help you. I’m something of a god myself.”
The cultist stopped snarling, as if to ponder Zagreus’ words. Then, without warning, the cultist gripped the sharp edges of Stygius. Unimpressed Zagreus gripped tightly onto Stygius’ handle so that it wouldn’t be knocked aside. To the godling’s great surprise, however, the cultist shoved the blade deeper into his own stomach.
“For Darkseid,” the cultist choked as he looked up. Another glowing red sword appeared over his head.
Zagreus shook his head. “No, no, no-“
Despite the godling’s protests, the sword descended rapidly into the leader of the gang, and blood spurted from the back of the mage’s neck. The mage collapsed into Zagreus’ burning foot, which was now supporting the body’s dead weight by the neck. Zagreus sighed and released the corpse, letting him crumple onto the ground. There he stood, examining the dead body from above, with no answers.
Hopefully this world’s Underworld was more forgiving than Father’s realm - Zagreus had no coin on him.