Chapter 284 - Kill Nick, Kill Ahmanet, Problem Solved!

Walking down the stairs and into the chamber, even Zeel was startled by what he saw. This was a section of the tomb that his nanites could not scan.

The nanites were not omnipotent, they could not account for supernatural forces until Stage 4 was achieved, and Zeel was a long way from Stage 4.

Hence, the nanites had changed from Zeel's main resource to an information-gathering tool. After all, as long as Zeel was in a time filled with technology, he could move unhindered under the heavens.

"What are these?" Nick asked, pointing at the statues.

Zeel scanned the room with his eyes and discovered a few peculiarities. The room consisted of a small pit filled with silver liquid. Bordering the pit was several Egyptian statues pointed inwards instead of outwards.

Finally, there were several ropes leading to contraptions that created a mechanism that could raise whatever was inside the silver pit.

Zeel brushed the ropes and could feel a faint pulse of sacred energy that had long since faded from the ropes. Though he could tell that at one point in the past, the ropes were probably harder than steel.

"These ropes were once sacred," Zeel voiced out, stirring the interest of Jenny who was inspecting the tomb.

"What does that mean?" Nick asked while simultaneously picking anything of value off the floor.

Feeling a strange energy flickering in the chamber, Zeel snapped his head in Nick's direction.

"I wouldn't touch those if I were you," he stated causing Nick's hands to hover over a gold necklace.

"Why?" Nick asked suspiciously.

"Rule 101 of Supernatural Shit: Never touch anything, stare at anything, or answer anything without a sacrificial goat next to you that can take the punishment in your place," Zeel stated, walking forward and touching the statue the next moment.

"Pot, Kettle black?" Nick said, casting a confused look at Zeel.

Jenny just giggled and then pointed at Zeel, then herself.

"He is the boss; I am the Researcher… so what does that mean?" She asked, hoping to get back at Nick for stealing her letter after a night of pleasure.

"Goat?" Nick asked jokingly while rolling his eyes.

Jenny smiled but did not answer, instead she continued to inspect the statues. The moment Jenny tried to take out her camera, it was destroyed with a flick of lightning by Zeel.

"This is a strange place; you never take videos of strange places. The images can carry curses far and wide," Zeel stated but did not state that his nanites were like an everlasting recording tool.

Jenny nodded and pulled a pager from her pocket and began speaking "This is a complex chamber with canals that feed a ritual well filled with mercury.

There are scarab signet rings of High Priests. There are ritualistic barrier chains that act as warnings to intruders. There isn't a single provision made for someone's journey to the underworld…"

While Jenny was speaking, Zeel made his way over to Nick and asked "So what's your story with her?"

Nick watched Jenny walking around the chamber and replied "High school relationship that went off and on. This continued to college where I fell in love with someone else, and Jenny fell in love with ancient stuff.

We separated and for a while, I was a happy man indeed. I joined the army when the marriage got difficult….

I came back home to find my wife pregnant and with cancer. I wasn't sure if I should feel happy or sad so I walked away from it all.

When I walked away, it was directly into Jenny's arms and she comforted me… and we went on and off again until…"

"Until you stole her shit two days ago in Baghdad?" Zeel interrupted.

"Yeah," Nick replied honestly cursing himself for ever thinking that 'Harab' meant treasure.

"This is not a tomb, it is a prison," Jenny whispered to herself, not knowing that she caught Zeel's attention with those words.

As if to signify that Jenny had said something profound, Zeel could feel the death energy inside the tomb stirring awake and seeping into the walls.

"Jenny, come here!" Zeel called, already pulling Nick towards his body in an embrace.

Jenny ran to Zeel's side, and the next moment, a loud booming was heard as Zeel snapped his fingers to create the sound of thunder.

The noise echoed inside the room for a while before also seeping into the walls, and out of the cracks came curled-up spiders.

Nick jumped out of Zeel's embrace with a weird look on his face.

"You were afraid of Camel spiders?" Nick asked, suspiciously.

"Death-Attuned Camel spiders… then yeah!" Zeel replied.

Zeel then walked towards the edge of the ritualistic-well and hovered his hand over the liquid mercury that filled it.

Zeel's [Omnidirectional] ability was swiftly activated. This ability allowed Zeel, as The God Speed and Dimensional Shift, to vaguely know the direction of everything he sought.

At this moment, Zeel wanted to find the energy source that kept the tomb hidden for so long. Even though he was in this chamber, his nanites were still barely able to scan the location.

A foreign energy source was blocking everything without divine origins.

Slowly, a vague image of sands made its way into Zeel's mind and he immediately understood.

"This entire tomb was made to suppress evil, but we opened the tomb and now the evil is drawing energy from the desert," Zeel stated, causing Jenny and Nick to give him skeptical gazes.

Despite all they had seen, Nick and Jenny could not believe that Zeel was something more than a Government Experiment, or an Ancient Martial Artist of some kind.

While Jenny had seen vampires and mermen before, there were always measurable scientific data to explain the genetic mutations that led to such unique beings.

To Jenny, Zeel was just another genetically altered miracle, and in some ways, she was right.

"Then let's just take it away from the desert," Nick suggested, pulling his gun from its holster and aiming at the ropes that held everything in place.

Zeel nodded appreciatively "And that is exactly what a goat should say,"

Nick shot the rope and clinking sounds echoed throughout the chamber. Everything shook as a coffin was slowly raised from below the liquid pools of mercury.

The coffin gave off an ancient feeling and was made from gold alloys, carved with the likeness of a disgusting creature.

The moment Zeel laid eyes in the coffin, the black energy that was poisoning his soul pulsed aggressively for the first time.

The chains of the Cosmic Being that restrained his soul were barely able to restrain the darkness within Zeel. Likewise, the Ombos symbol materialized on his ankle and burned his skin once more.

The next thing Zeel knew, he was in a trance, drifting along the currents of the Nile alongside Nick. The scene suddenly shifted and they were both now in a desert expanse.

Zeel took a single step and found himself miles away from Nick. He watched as a woman gazed at Nick from the distance whispering curses that should have killed any normal man.

"Setepa-I, Stetepa-I…"

Still, Nick's consciousness did not tumble over and die, instead, the curse soaked into his body like a sponge in water.

Zeel had seen the woman before through glimpsed from the Information Dimension, so he knew she was Ahmanet.

Before Zeel could intervene, a click was heard and Zeel knew that the curse had already locked itself around Nick's soul.

Zeel was not unfamiliar with curses since Aurolana was the natural enemy of all curses. After all, no Apollonian could ever be cursed unless they were willing.

Knowing it was too late to help Nick, Zeel wandered through the desert, drawn by something his institution was saying is both dangerous and an opportunity.

Zeel now stood at the edge of the desert, watching the golden-sand fall like a cascading waterfall into the bottomless abyss.

Suddenly, Zeel understood where he was – The Egyptian Pantheon. Or at least, the memory of such a place.

And below the abyss, in the darkest reaches of eternal damnation, was The Egyptian Underworld. Zeel stared over the edge of the falling sands and into the Underworld where he sensed a lingering feeling of death.

The Death divinity was concentrated, but it was weaker than what he would expect from a Dimension of Death ruled over by an Old God.

Still, while he was staring into the abyss, Zeel could also sense something from within the abyss staring at himself.

Perhaps it was someone, but that should have been impossible unless…

Zeel felt a Hybrid Rune pulse from below the darkness at the same time the Ombos Symbol on his ankle pulsed.

"This is not just a memory, it's also connected!" Zeel whispered, finally coming to a realization.

Zeel activated [Traveller's Eyes] as he followed a shallow black line emerging from the Abyss and shooting across the desert sands, attaching itself to both Nick and Ahmanet.

Now, Zeel fully understood, Ahmanet was not just a woman, she was also a doorway through which Seth would regain his power.

Whatever battle Seth had with Hermes in The Jumper Universe, had injured him much more than Zeel realized.

'His Divine Core is on the verge of breaking,' Zeel concluded based on all the signs he had witnessed.

That meant something significant to Zeel. It meant that even without his intervention, Seth would die regardless, and a new God of Death would be birthed to take his place.

'Nick was meant to be a spare vessel, but what if I could make him the New God of Death?' Zeel thought but quickly dismissed the idea.

Dying Gods were dangerous, and Zeel would not take unnecessary risks.

At first, Zeel had the intention to destroy the entire Egyptian Death Dimension to kill Seth, but now, he just had to close the doorway and Seth would waste away in a couple of years helplessly.

Closing the doorway was even easier, grant Ahmanet true death. Zeel sighed in relief because it had been a long time since things were so simple.