The Sixty-Second God

The gorge of Blackwater was a jagged scar cut through the earth, bridged only by a crumbling, ancient stone span. On one side lay the burning ruins of the Outer Settlements, the sprawling mining colonies that had once fueled the kingdom's war machine. On the other stood the shimmering threshold of the Safe Zone—a boundary blessed with holy runes that burned any beast that dared cross it.

Grim stood in the center of the stone span, his heavy broadsword resting on his shoulder. Rain washed the soot from his face. Behind him, the panicked shuffling of thirty refugees echoed against the stone as they scrambled toward the safety of the threshold.

In front of him, the darkness was moving.

It started as a low, rumbling growl that vibrated through the soles of his boots. Then, the glowing red eyes pierced the gloom. Dreadbeasts. Dozens of them. Massive, nightmarish horrors with twisted horns, bone-plated skulls, and jaws that could snap a horse's femur. They poured out of the burning tree line, their claws clicking against the wet stone as they charged the bridge.

Grim didn't flinch. He reached into his coat and pulled out a heavy iron pocket watch. He popped the lid. The glass was cracked, but the second hand ticked reliably.

"Hurry! Get inside!" a woman screamed from behind him. The refugees had reached the end of the span. The entrance to the Safe Zone was a wide tunnel carved into the mountain, secured by a pair of heavy iron doors covered in holy, beast-repelling runes. The refugees shoved and trampled each other as they squeezed through the opening.

Grim looked at the charging pack of Dreadbeasts. They would cross the span in ten seconds.

He didn't have spells that could conjure fire or ice. He wasn't a sword-saint who could cut the wind. He was a mercenary with exactly one trick. A terrifying, absolute ability known as Undying.

When activated, Grim became completely immortal. His flesh could not be pierced fatally, his bones could not be broken beyond use, and his life force could not be extinguished. He had exactly sixty seconds. If he deactivated the watch before the sixty seconds ran out, every wound he sustained would instantly revert, leaving him completely unharmed.

But if he let the second hand strike the sixty mark while the ability was active, all the accumulated damage would register on his mortal body at once, killing him instantly.

Grim snapped the pocket watch shut.

Click.

The power surged through him. The rain against his skin no longer felt cold. The ache in his exhausted muscles vanished.

The first Dreadbeast lunged, its horned head snapping for his throat.

Grim didn't bother raising his sword to block. He stepped directly into the beast's path. The horror's jaws clamped down on Grim's left shoulder, the teeth sinking deep into muscle and grinding against the bone.

Ten seconds.

Grim didn't feel the pain. He drove his broadsword up through the Dreadbeast's ribcage, twisting the blade until the monster went limp. He violently shoved the carcass off his shoulder and stepped forward.

Fifteen seconds.

Three more horrors hit him simultaneously. Bone-plated claws shredded his leather armor, ripping into his chest and thighs. One Dreadbeast managed to bite down on his left forearm, thrashing wildly to tear the limb free.

Twenty-five seconds.

Grim dropped his sword. He grabbed the beast attached to his arm by the scruff of its neck and squeezed until its spine snapped. His left arm hung uselessly at his side, the muscle completely shredded, but the blood refused to pour. He was unkillable.

Thirty-five seconds.

He waded deeper into the pack, fighting like a rabid animal. He punched, kicked, and gouged. The Dreadbeasts swarmed over him, a mountain of fur, horns, and teeth tearing at a man who simply refused to die. They ripped a chunk of flesh from his ribs. They clawed his right eye, blinding him on one side.

Forty-five seconds.

Behind him, a panicked voice echoed across the gorge. "Shut it! Before the beasts get here!"

Grim stood in the center of the span, surrounded by the corpses of a dozen Dreadbeasts. The rest of the pack circled him, wary of the bloody, mangled human who was still standing. Grim looked down at himself. His chest was laid open. His arm was destroyed. His throat had been torn.

Fifty seconds.

He turned his remaining eye toward the Safe Zone. The refugees had pulled the heavy iron doors completely shut from the inside, sealing Grim outside on the bridge. They had betrayed him. They knew that if they waited for him to cross, the beasts might slip inside before the doors could be secured. Panic had won, and they did what they thought was right to survive.

Grim let out a wet, rattling laugh. Of course they did.

Fifty-two seconds.

The Dreadbeasts, realizing their prey had escaped and the iron doors were untouchable, turned their full, furious attention back to Grim. They charged, a tidal wave of muscle and teeth.

Grim smiled. It was a grotesque, bloody expression. With his one good hand, he reached into his belt and pulled out a fist-sized runic explosive stone. He dropped it onto the cracked masonry of the stone span directly at his feet.

Fifty-five seconds.

He crushed the trigger rune.

The explosion was deafening. The center of the ancient span shattered, the stone giving way beneath the weight of the blast. Grim and the swarm of Dreadbeasts were instantly swallowed by gravity, plummeting into the dark, rushing waters of the Blackwater gorge below.

Grim fell through the cold air. The pocket watch in his coat ticked relentlessly.

Fifty-eight seconds.

The wind roared in his ears. To survive, he only needed to click the pocket watch. The moment he deactivated the ability, the missing flesh, the shredded arm, and the torn throat would completely knit back together, leaving him healthy and whole right before he hit the freezing water.

Fifty-nine seconds.

But his right arm—the one he needed to reach into his coat and press the clasp—had been pinned against his side by the massive, crushed corpse of a falling Dreadbeast. He struggled frantically, his fingers brushing against the cold iron of the watch through the fabric of his coat.

Tick.