Challenger

[WP] You're a powerful Demi-God King of an Empire. A laughably weak mortal tries to defeat you and dies. Yet, after some time, they return - a bit stronger and well equiped than before. It occurs again and again until it's not laughable anymore. You need to find a way out of this situation.

*****

My people loved me. They enjoyed my reign (or their head would decorate a pike. I'd also instruct the soldiers to make sure the head would smile, or their heads would be piked next). I gave them riches...well...not my riches. Riches from lands I conquered. And then took my nine-tenths cut. Then I'd tax their amount to pay for more conquests...okay. So maybe I'm not that loved. Fear is probably a more apt term.

And respect, because I'm a almost God. Almost there. I shed my humanity ages ago to embark on a quest of godhood by sacrificing the souls of others. And the best part? I don't use my citizens for that. Ain't that kind of me? Well, those that didn't like it either are not around anymore.

Anyway, nobody really opposes me. An empire of iron-fisted rule by a nearly divine deity.

Except for this brat that keeps coming back every fortnight or so.

My scouts had spotted the Corpse Boy yet again making his way to the castle.

Thirty. Seven. Times. Thirty seven times back from the dead. At first I thought maybe this was a mere mortal; a scrawny lad from a recently conquered land coming to tell me to stop plundering the wealth of his land or free his imprisoned parents.

Nope. He went right for the jugular. Tiny, impotent hands that I easily separated from their owner and then...well...the first death was the easiest one as I folded his body several times upon itself and then threw it out the nearest window for the scavengers to feed upon.

And the joke was he kept coming back. A curse perhaps?! Laughable were all the attempts, though maybe I felt an incrementally stronger squeeze after each attempt on my throat. But the 20th time, he actually armed himself with a weapon, though inexpertly handled. I snapped the spear in half that time and then spit-roasted the brat on an open fire for my courtiers to feast their eyes upon.

And now more recently, the fire in his eyes now matched his moves. He wore leather armor, charred and smoldering. And he held that spear with more poise. He also packed a back up dagger that I didn't see coming and got a good nick on my face.

I made sure to drag his body around the kingdom behind my chariot for a good few days just to make sure he got the point one last time.

But now I just learned the assassin I sent to waylay him had been found trussed up in a tree, the intestines decorating the branches in a pattern I would have found amusing.

I shooed the court jester from my audience chamber and closed the doors, making sure no one else would disturb my seance. I moved toward the central brazier and watched the man size flame from the bronzed chalice cinder more sinisterly as I summoned an old friend.

From the churning ashes, a face of smoke smiled at me.

"Dear 'Emperor.' What beckons you to call upon me?" asked the smoke face as it's eyes formed, a flash of red and orange ember.

"King of the Underworld," I stated flatly. "A man defies your realm again and again and again. What do you know of this...Corpse Boy?"

It rolled its coal eyes. "Oh come now...what makes you think I would know..."

I folded my arms. "Because that's literally your job. No soul escapes the underworld..."

It chuckled. "Fair enough. But it is my job when a soul arrives here."

I paused. "So this Corpse Boy...doesn't die?"

The face pondered but nodded. "Yes. If it doesn't die, I don't have the agency to collect it at the border of life and death. Something must be preventing it from dying. A powerful force."

"Well, can you clue me in?" I asked. While death was his forte, the King of the Underworld also dabbled in the secrets of the dead.

The wispy face rumbled a bit, the smoke shaking as the brazier churned and the flames flicked about. At last it settled.

"Youuu..." it said, letting the word linger.

"Yes?"

"You know this answer...better than anyone...if you don't now, wait until you meet this...'Corpse Boy' face to face one more time..."

And like that...the smoke dissipated and the brazier fell back to it's usual hunger for fuel.

And left me dumbfounded as I began to process the thought of how I possibly could know...

...and just like that, the doors to my audience chamber flew open. I turned to see who had dared to enter upon my summoning.

And there the Corpse Boy stood. Less a boy and more a man with far more sinew and muscle than I last remembered. He had added chain mail to his attire and a weathered metal helmet. He had the spear still, but it looked a bit more ornate. And on that spear...

...was the jester's head, a rictus grin smeared across it's eyeless, tongueless face.

I looked from the head to the Boy and the gaze filled me with an ancestral knowledge of who he was, a mortality that I had thought I'd left behind.

It came not for revenge, but simply for me.

I was hunting me.

He leapt and we joined battle once more.

*****

THE END