Chapter 58: The Severed Nile River
Step by step, kicking up sand, Hikigaya Hachiman turned his head to glance behind. That impossible-to-be-here voice had come from the rear.
And then he thought he was seeing a mirage — he actually saw the Yukinoshita sisters and Hazazi not far behind, jogging toward him.
What kind of stingy mirage is this? At least throw in an oasis!
You dumbass creator god, consider the feelings of desert travelers, will you!?
Hikigaya cursed inwardly.
But facts proved that cursing the creator god wasn't a great idea. That guy was petty.
Soon, the "mirage" spoke to him.
"Hachiman!"
"Boss!"
"…"
The ellipsis was because Yukinoshita Yukino didn't say anything — but she was running the fastest!
"Boss my ass!" Hikigaya howled in frustration and then shouted in fury, "Go pilot a Gundam right now!"
As he roared, the three of them arrived before him.
"Boss, you're pretty slick with this sand stuff," the chronically brain-cell-deficient Hazazi said as his first line.
"Hachiman, let me help you!" That was the reckless trouble-magnet Yukinoshita Haruno.
Yukino remained silent, but oh-so-"considerately" picked something off Hachiman's shoulder.
It looked like grilled dog meat.
Oh right, he'd forgotten that guy. Should still be alive, maybe?
Wait, that's not the issue here!
"Stop messing around. I'm busy here. Go as far away as you can." Hikigaya panicked.
What kind of joke was this? He was fighting a god.
Tamamo-no-Mae was one thing — but now three randoms showed up?
And Haruno—what, planting a tree makes you an all-rounder now? You couldn't even beat Liliana or Ena!
"God-slayer, your companions have arrived too, I see. How unwise." Horus's voice came from the opposite side.
From earlier, this guy had been happily smashing sand.
He'd also begun using his powers as the god of the sky, exhaling icy winds to counter Hikigaya's heat gusts.
This only made the battlefield even more chaotic.
Hikigaya's attention faltered due to Haruno and company's arrival — a fatal opening.
"You're getting careless, God-slayer. Watch your opponent properly."
A section of the sandstorm nearby was torn apart — Horus burst through.
Before Hikigaya could erect a new wind barrier, a golden falcon shot out from the sun disk on Horus's head, flashed across his shoulder, and burst open a spray of blood.
"That freaking hurt…" Hikigaya growled in pain.
Furious, he looked back to see that damn bird clutching a strip of his flesh in its sharp talons.
Getting bullied by a beast!? Unacceptable!
With a glare, Hikigaya detonated the flesh that had been torn off — it exploded like a bomb, and flames engulfed the falcon, sending it crashing down.
Spicy chicken wings — complete!
"You're getting better, God-slayer," Horus's figure was once again buried by the sandstorm, but his voice rang clearly.
"But your mastery over Set's power is still lacking."
"Oh really?" Hikigaya deliberately weakened a sandwave, and when Horus poked his head out, Hikigaya — who had already been waiting — smashed a fist right into his face.
This time, he didn't use Set's power.
With a thunderous boom and leaving the trio behind him dumbfounded, Hikigaya's punch blew away even his own sandstorm, and Horus was sent rocketing backward like a missile.
The desert in front of Hikigaya was scoured clean, gathering into a massive golden wave that rushed into the Nile River and severed it completely.
But in stark contrast, the land behind him was eerily calm — not even a breeze stirred.
"What are you all still gawking at!? Get the hell outta here!"
Hikigaya yelled at the stunned trio behind him, then leapt into the air without waiting for their response.
With a powerful kick aimed at Horus's landing point, he unleashed a slash-kick.
The massive air displacement formed a tangible crescent-shaped wind blade that crashed into the riverbed where the Nile had just been cut. With a deafening explosion, it carved out a crater hundreds of meters deep and dozens of meters across — everything within was obliterated.
And it wasn't over.
Hikigaya had seen Horus's ridiculous vitality with his own eyes — no way he'd die just from this.
"Turn into a family bucket, dammit!" Hikigaya shouted, both arms igniting in flames as he imitated Horus's earlier style, furiously punching the air mid-flight.
Each punch launched a fireball the size of a calf.
In mere seconds, hundreds and thousands of fireballs rained into the crater like a storm, causing massive explosions.
When the trio — who had fled a fair distance — turned to look, what they saw was truly shocking: a torrential flame pouring down from the sky like a reversed river, staining everything in blood-red hues.
The scorching heat distorted the air, and the earth trembled beneath their feet, nearly knocking them over.
"Holy crap!" Hazazi nearly peed himself at the sight. Seeing the two clueless girls still watching, he panicked and used a spell to grab them both and run.
To wield such power alone — this must be what a mythological god-war looked like.
He must have been out of his damn mind earlier to agree to teleport them here.
A human touching this level of power would be obliterated instantly — from this moment on, Hazazi truly understood the vast, hopeless gap between a God-slayer and human magicians.
It was a chasm too wide to cross, too terrifying to comprehend — even looking up at it was overwhelming.
All he could do was run — far away. Whether they got lost in the desert was something to worry about after surviving this.
So, terrified, Hazazi dragged the two girls and ran and ran — so far that when Hikigaya looked back again, they had vanished from sight.
By then, he had ceased his fiery onslaught.
From above, the pit he had created was now even larger, filled with roaring flames.
The destruction around it had evaporated even the nearby Nile waters — distant riverbanks began to refill the void, but it would take time.
Both of Hikigaya's sleeves had long since been burned to ash. Unleashing this much burning power was a first for him — and not a pleasant one.
But he kept his eyes fixed on the pit.
He had learned a lot from Horus — and gained a clear understanding of his opponent's strength.
Sure enough, not long after, a silver glow began to shimmer within the flames.
At first faint, it grew stronger and more brilliant, until finally it erupted like a flood, forming a beam of light that pierced the clouds and completely overpowered the fire's glow.
Under this light, Hikigaya's flames were extinguished.
"Not bad — that actually hurt a little." This time, the voice came from within the silver glow.
Horus's figure rose along the column of light, until he reached Hikigaya's height in the sky — and now, his divine form was clearly visible.
But it had changed greatly.
He was no longer an eagle-headed god — now, he bore the face of a handsome adult man, wielding a spear and wearing a tall, collared crown.
The sun disk atop his head was gone. His eyes no longer burned but glowed with pure silver.
"Let me reintroduce myself. I am now the son of Amun and Mut. You may call me Khonsu — though Onuris or Min will also suffice."
Chapter 59: History and Myth
When it came to Horus, Hikigaya had definitely done his homework.
This wasn't just because of his conversations with Set.
Ever since the business with Osiris, he had a feeling he would eventually run into this bird.
In fact, the fact that Horus had only now appeared was already later than he'd expected.
The power Horus had just revealed should be that of a Moon God.
The ancient Egyptian religion spanned thousands of years, with countless deities.
As time progressed, influenced by political needs, new religious ideas, and the continuous development of religious theology, the image of a single god could be expanded and extended.
For a major deity like Horus, it wasn't surprising that he possessed numerous variations and forms.
Historically, Horus was originally a local god of Upper Egypt.
Before his worshippers launched a unification war against Lower Egypt, he had already absorbed many divine images from other Upper Egyptian gods.
Even the myth of his war with Set was a result of the fusion of various originally distinct mythological deities.
In mythology, when Horus combined with other gods and his image or function changed, he became a different god.
In the current version of Horus, different forms and powers were manifesting — a setup similar in effect to the Persian war god in the original work who had ten incarnations.
Among the gods historically absorbed by Horus were Khonsu, Onuris, and Min.
Khonsu was the Moon God, son of Amun and Mut. His child form was often conflated with that of the child Horus.
Min was the god of fertility and male virility in myth, sometimes directly called the son of Osiris or Isis in literature. He exercised pharaonic authority and bore titles such as "Mighty Horus" or "Avenger of the Father."
Onuris was a hunting and war god — the new form Horus had now taken on. He had once battled Set, and that story was one of the sources later used to shape the Horus-Set myth.
However, although Horus had absorbed many gods, many of their roles overlapped.
Thus, the number of actual forms he could take in combat was likely limited.
But given the sheer volume of deities, his transformative potential probably exceeded even that of the Persian war god.
Forget Hikigaya — even a scholar who specialized in Horus mythology probably couldn't accurately count how many transformations Horus could manifest.
The era was simply too ancient, too many myths were lost to time, irretrievable, and thus couldn't be used as a basis for speculation.
So yeah, being the divine son of a creator god is seriously annoying. This kind of "second-generation" is always even more arrogant than their divine parent.
The light of the moon was sacred. In ancient times, when humans still relied on hunting and gathering, moonlight was considered the light of life, free of any harmful elements.
The Moon God once held a status far above that of the Sun God. Egypt was famously a center of sun worship, but before the unification of Upper and Lower Egypt, it was the Moon God who was most revered in the lands of Upper Egypt.
Only in the Nile Delta, where the sun's effects were stronger and agriculture emerged earlier, did the people of Lower Egypt start worshipping the Sun God as supreme.
Horus' moonlight was vast yet gentle. Hikigaya could feel the power of protection and healing from it. The resurrection power within him from Osiris even began to stir because of it.
But Hikigaya wouldn't mistakenly assume that the other party was some kind of healer or tank.
In later myths, Horus and Set fought for what seemed like eighty years, and Set barely won a single match.
Even when he managed to gouge out Horus' eye, he got his own balls smashed in return. Considering the original protagonists who had been stitched together to form this grand myth of war — how could any of them be pushovers?
The most prominent example was how Hikigaya had used Set's "Shatter" power multiple times earlier, but it was like tossing a rock into the sea when used against Horus.
It had no noticeable effect.
This "Shatter" ability, just like the protagonist Kusanagi Godou in the original story, was supposed to nullify divine powers and authorities with sufficient knowledge.
But whenever it targeted Horus, his left eye would emit an eerie force that seemed to neutralize it.
This likely stemmed from the myth in which Set gouged out Horus' left eye, which was later healed.
Since then, Horus' left eye not only symbolized protection and healing but also became a symbol of Set's "Shatter" ability — turning it against itself.
This god was entangled with Set far more deeply than with Osiris.
As Hikigaya calculated silently, the vast moonlight finally faded away, leaving only Horus standing there — holding a long spear and wearing a high-collared crown. Because this form had a human face, it was easier on the eyes than the falcon-headed version.
When the moonlight dissipated, only ten or so meters separated him and Hikigaya — a distance that meant nothing at their level.
But Horus didn't attack immediately. Instead, he smiled and asked, "God-slayer, what is your name?"
"Hikigaya Hachiman," he replied. They had been fighting for so long — it would be a bit absurd if the other party still didn't know his name.
Right, the next line should be something like "A fine name"… right?
Then Hikigaya heard Horus say:
"That's a weird name."
And he even pursed his lips as he said it!
WTF!? What's weird about it!? That's a perfectly normal name, okay!?
No friendship possible now! Time to launch round three!
"My name's nowhere near as weird as yours!" Hikigaya growled, unleashing the dead-fish eyes — though he still didn't understand why that expression felt oddly natural to him.
He clenched his fist and shouted, "Come on!"
"Very well," Horus dropped his disdainful expression, nodded, and raised his spear. "We've wasted enough time already."
In the next instant, the spear tip crossed the meaningless ten-meter gap and nearly touched Hikigaya's chest.
But Hikigaya's right hand struck the shaft of the spear — though he had originally aimed for the tip — while his true attack came from the left hand. That arm turned into flowing lava, stretching out with smoke and heat, aiming directly at Horus' face.
The spear that was struck and the lava-like left arm both missed their targets, but the clash between them stirred the skies once more.
Beneath the man and the god, as their new battle began, the waters of the Nile slowly crept back across the dried-up riverbed, converging in the massive crater created by divine power and authority.
No one knew — nor could they predict — that within this convergence, a force that would intertwine history and myth was slowly being born.