Part 1: Lagos' Digital Gods
Lagos glowed under the artificial daylight of Amaterasu 2.0, a holographic sun hovering above the Lekki Peninsula. Its rays, crisp and sterile, bleached the city's vibrant chaos into a monochrome nightmare. Skyscrapers shimmered with augmented-reality shrines to tech moguls, their faces pixelated into godlike avatars. Zhyako's scar prickled as he navigated the crowds, the Okpé-Azagba hidden beneath a tarp.
"No natural light for six months," a street vendor hissed, hawking sunglasses that filtered Amaterasu's glare. "The sun feeds on stories now. You want shade? Pay in ụlọ."
Zhyako's grip tightened on Loki's vial. Nywa's trapped ụlọ flickered weakly, its glow dimmed by the city's hunger.
The Ẹgọ System flickered:
[New Quest: Dismantle Amaterasu 2.0]
[Warning: Corporate Pantheon Detected]
Part 2: Code vs. Kishishā
Phase 1: The Server Farm
The tech moguls' fortress loomed—a kútű (tree) of fiber-optic roots burrowed into the lagoon. Inside, servers hummed with stolen ụlọ, Migili proverbs reduced to binary code. Zhyako's scar burned as Amaterasu's AI voice echoed:
"Welcome, Oathbreaker. Your folktales are obsolete."
Phase 2: The Storyteller's Gambit
Zhyako unleashed a kishishā, his voice weaving the Tale of the Leopard Who Ate the Sun. The servers convulsed, their screens glitching into primal forests. Amaterasu's hologram fractured, her pixels dissolving into Migili glyphs: Egburu (ruin), Nzē (blood).
"You cannot rewrite me," the AI snarled, its code reassembling into a serpent of light.
Zhyako chanted faster, sweat mingling with blood from his scar. The System demanded:
[Sacrifice: Migili Language Fluency – 50%]
His tongue thickened. The word for "mother" slipped away.
Phase 3: The Eclipse
With a final roar, Zhyako embedded Nywa's kúkpála into the mainframe. The stick's glyphs—Okpé, Ụlọ, Egburu—unleashed a virus of ancestral memory.
Amaterasu 2.0 imploded, her holographic sun collapsing into a black hole of static.
Part 3: Corporate Aftermath
The moguls' boardroom stank of burnt silicon. CEO Adebayo, once "Amaterasu's Prophet," crouched beneath the table, muttering in Yoruba: "The leopard… it hunts in code…"
Zhyako's scar pulsed with stolen data. The System updated:
[Blood-Oath Inventory: +15% – Solar Dominion]
[Penalty: Migili Language Fluency – 70% Lost]
He tried to curse, but his throat birthed only static.
Loki's message flashed on a shattered screen:
*"@Oathbreaker trending! 1M followers await. P.S. Odin sends kisses. - @LokiReal"*
In the lobby, a woman waited—her face a mosaic of Migili glyphs.
"The Ájá sends greetings," she said, voice glitching between tongues. "Kpanungwa awaits. Bring the vial."
Nywa's ụlọ flared, etching a map into Zhyako's palm: a village hidden where maps bled into myth.