Strongest Among the Heavens
Chapter 495: Khamose

Chapter 495: Khamose

’Don’t tell me—’

His hair. His flesh. His blood. Dasha failed to notice it but the jackal teleported and attacked him the way it did not to inflict pain but to retrieve those little pieces of him. They were collected within the jackal’s fist which he revealed by opening his palm.

Ka’s Judgement.

The moment Khamose uttered the words, the small amounts of Dasha’s blood, hair, and flesh evaporated in his hand.

The ballroom darkened, its golden chandeliers snuffed out. The marble floor beneath Dasha’s feet rippled like water, distorting his reflection into something alien. Towering jackal statues lined up the ballroom and groaned to life, their hollow eyes flickering with blue flame.

Dasha felt pressure.

A crushing, divine force settled upon his shoulders, not just physical—but spiritual. Something was reaching inside him, gripping at his very being. It went from his shoulders down to his chest and lingered in his ribcage. His heart.

Then he saw it.

A great golden scale materialized above Khamose’s open palm. Upon it, a beating heart.

Dasha Pang’s heart.

B-badump!

His own heart...it was gone from his ribcage...!

"Your soul is now weighed, intruder," Khamose intoned. "There is no preparation. The time is nigh."

’I’m still alive even without my heart. Must be apart of the technique’s procedure.’

The long, dark-iron spear darkened. Hieroglyphs ran along its shaft, shifting like living ink.

"This is the Spear of the Dead, forged in the underworld and blessed by Anubis," Khamose said. "It is a family blessing and it will only pierce those whose souls are weighed down by sin."

The scale tipped.

Dasha’s eyes widened.

His soul was sinking.

An unbearable weight crashed onto him, nailing him to the floor. His body would not move. His Qi flow stuttered, choked by an unseen force.

"You...have sinned more than any other."

Khamose teleported. Dasha had no time to do anything as the Spear of the Dead was already upon him, the obsidian tip aimed for his chest.

He could not dodge.

Pain erupted in his torso.

The spear drove through him.

Blood sprayed across the ballroom floor, dark and glistening. His vision blurred.

A mortal wound. The spear was not just physical. It had sunk into something deeper. His Qi, his very essence, was unraveling—being dragged into the Underworld.

Khamose lifted the spear. "Now, the Ammit will feast."

A deep growl rumbled through the room. Dasha looked past his fading vision. Activating his Qi Sense, he felt it. The Ammit was coming. The Ammit, unlike Khamose, were products of the Territory. If ancient beast fed on him, Mehen and the Territory itself would gain power.

Dasha’s grip on consciousness wavered.

He was going to die—or so those weaker than him would believe. From the very moment he saw his heart, he had been drawing. His arm tucked up and fingers just over his missing heart.

And with his own blood, he began to carve. ᛞ: Dagaz. Transformation. ᚨ: Ansuz. Divine knowledge. ᚱ: Raido. Journey. A path. ᛃ: Jera. Cycles. Renewal.

The runes flared, burning with desperate power.

He focused. Connected them.

But the moment he activated them—

The scale rebelled.

The magic fractured.

His body convulsed.

It wasn’t enough.

"Fool." Squelch! Khamose took his lung. The side of the scale holding his heart tipped deeper. "You cannot mix divine laws so easily."

Dasha did not flinch or retreat. He simply tried again. What point was there in panicking?

If Qi could refine the body, refine the soul—then it could refine power itself. Dasha inhaled deeply and pulled. His Dantian Breathing activated—not just within his body, but within the runes themselves.

The symbols burned brighter, sinking into his flesh, merging with his Qi. This time, they held.

The Egyptian curse and the Norse runes were now one. His soul was no longer weighed down—

Squelch!

Crocodile teeth sank into his left leg and swallowed it whole. In that moment, he burst alive, electricity at the soles of his feet. He ripped the spear free from his body—his wound sealing shut. His one remaining foot found footing and he hurled himself up.

He was high up. High, high up, witnessing as Khamose glared up at him and the monster sent by the god Mehen chewing on his left leg. It was an excellent source of Qi and Dasha could feel the monster’s power increase. He grabbed a chandelier and stayed.

"Hmph. Your resistance is futile." Khamose’s spear returned to his hand and a black sigil formed at the tip. "Sacrament of the Jackal."

The sigil shattered. He turned gold and teleported.

...

’Above! Counterflow Stance.’

Time slowed ever so much and yet it wasn’t enough. Khamose and his spear shattered the chandelier he hung on and nearly shattered Dasha with it. Without his leg, his circulation of Qi had to be completely restructured.

In the blink of an eye, Dasha did just that.

Losing a limb meant to completely rewrite one’s method of cultivating. For Dasha, it was an inconvenience he could snap into shape on the spot. It meant nothing. He grasped and understood Foundation Establishment Peak Stage on every level. One leg, two leg, it mattered not to him.

The blood was an issue. As he soared and Khamose chased, his palm erupted with flames and he slammed them against the gaping wound. Following the successful cauterization, he blocked the spear with his gauntlet and used his sole remaining leg to slam a Hyper Furious Kick on his side.

The blue flames made contact and the jackal boomed away. Landing, one arm down, Dasha was suddenly faced with the crocodile head of Ammita. He caught it by its bite and then shoved an arm inside.

"Eyða."

Lay waste. Destroy everything. With black lightning rupturing, he smoked the man-eating creature from the inside-out. It was dead and there was no way to retrieve his leg. He dragged his arm out and his gauntlets clashed with Khamose’s spear again. He had teleported.

Zip!

Khamose teleported again. Dasha blinked, his Qi Sense at the ready, and did a flip over the corpse of the creature he had slayed. Khamose teleported his spear and himself separately, one coming from his left and his leg diving from above. Khamose caught his spear and proceeded to jump onto his served god’s personal monster to strike at Dasha.

At close-quarters, he applied deep pressure. Dasha could not afford to use incantations or runes. With one leg, he was effectively bouncing and blocking.

’That spear is dangerous. Only my gauntlets can block them. Even if I had worn Ruh al-Qital, I’m sure it would still pierce into my flesh.’

A spear gifted by Anubis. A family blessed by the old Egyptian pantheon. A dutiful worshipper. A man who proclaimed himself as the most loyal and the best in his eyes. Madame Sun-young was likely fighting another powerful worshipper in the castle regions down below.

These people were from an ancient, older time. They fought on emotion and dedication.

Dasha’s Qi was bottoming out and his soul was creaking. Losing his leg was already one loss to great. He likely could only afford one more attack on the scale of Final Draw: Black Cards and Eyða. Just one.

Dasha had to make it count.

He stepped forward, coming in close, and the black spear dragged alongside his waist. Blood ripped out from his torn flesh. He didn’t care. He ignored the pain, chopped the back of the jackal’s head, and gained distance away from him.

It was too late for Khamose to understand what exactly his oppponent was targetting and why.

"Die."

Dasha’s hand became focused and he penetrated the heart of the dead Ammit. The jackal worshipper screamed.

"No! Get away from it—!"

Dasha had scanned the innards of the creature and instantly managed to retrieve its heart. It truly was dead, unbeating.

The heart also truly belonged to Mehen. A tiny, insignificant piece to some but not to everyone. These creatures and this Territory, all of it was Mehen’s. All of it, for a man like Khamose—

"That is sacred! Do not dare to—"

Dasha brought the heart to his mouth and bit on it. One bite, two bites, and then he gulped down the rest. His Qi surged to full capacity.

The original goddess Ammit was called "eater of hearts". To commit the same act as her was blasphemy. To do against a tiny aspect of his god was an even greater act of blasphemy to Khamose.

"O Mehen! Give me strength so that I may smite this feeble trespasser—!"

Khamose raised his arms. Khamose weeped. Khamose begged. Khamose raged.

Dasha hurled the corpse of the monster and Khamose had no choice but to catch it.

’Gotcha.’

He was vulnerable for a fraction of a second. Dasha blitzed behind him...

Squelch!

Dasha seized and dragged his heart out. Dasha’s black gauntlets drizzled with the black blood of the jackal.

"Unfortunately, you are already too strong, Khamose. Be proud that you’ve managed to take a small part of me. No other has ever come close to what you have done."

Khamose’s eyes remained wide. He was dead from the moment he punctured his heart.