Chapter 534: Chapter 534

Adam’s eyes opened slowly, blinking against the soft light filtering through the obsidian walls of the throne room. His vision cleared gradually, the haze of unconsciousness lifting like morning fog. He tried to sit up, expecting the familiar stab of pain from his wounds, but found himself moving without trouble.

His hand went instinctively to his chest, where Gungnir’s point had nearly pierced his heart. The star-shaped scar was still there, but it felt different—not the angry, throbbing wound that had threatened to kill him, but a mark that seemed to pulse with quiet power.

"Easy," Mimir said, his weathered face appearing in Adam’s field of vision. The ancient jotun’s golden eyes held relief mixed with exhaustion. "You’ve been unconscious for hours. Your body needed time to process the healing."

Adam pushed himself up to a sitting position, his movements steady and sure. Every muscle felt renewed, strengthened beyond what it had been even before the battle with Odin. "How long?"

"Six hours," Garduck answered from across the chamber, leaning against one of the pillars, his left side showing extensive burn damage that painted his skin in patches of blackened char. Despite his injuries, he managed a grin. "You missed all the cleanup."

Adam’s eyes fixed on Garduck’s burns, taking in the severity of the damage. The charred flesh exposed bone in several places, and each breath the general took seemed to cause him pain. "Those look worse than mine were."

"I’ll heal," Garduck replied with a dismissive wave. "Takes more than Ra’s fire to put me down permanently."

"Mimir," Adam said, turning to face the jotun who had saved his life. "Thank you. Without your intervention—"

"You would have found another way," Mimir interrupted, waving away the gratitude with a dismissive gesture. "Stubborn as you are, you would have crawled back from death itself rather than leave your war unfinished."

Before Adam could respond, Tiamat’s voice cut through the air with the tone of an exasperated older sister rather than a primordial goddess.

"You almost bit the dust this time."

Adam turned to see her lounging in her throne with deliberate casualness, one leg draped over the armrest as if she were sitting in a common chair rather than a seat of cosmic power. Her ancient eyes sparkled with mischief that belonged more to a troublemaking sibling than the Mother of Chaos.

"I had everything under control," Adam replied, but his tone held no real conviction.

Tiamat snorted, a sound that somehow managed to be both divine and thoroughly undignified. "Control? You let a half-blind old crow stick you with a pointy stick. If that’s your idea of control, I’d hate to see what you call losing."

"The half-blind old crow was the All-Father of the Norse pantheon," Adam shot back, rising from his makeshift bed with steady movements. "And that pointy stick was Gungnir, the spear that never misses its target."

"Excuses, excuses," Tiamat said, waving her hand dismissively. "Next you’ll be telling me the dog ate your homework."

Despite himself, Adam felt his lips twitch upward. The primordial goddess had a way of deflating his more serious moments that was both infuriating and oddly comforting. "I don’t know what homework you’re talking about, but I’m fairly certain Fenrir would have eaten it given the chance."

"See? There’s that sense of humor I was looking for," Tiamat said, her grin widening. "For a moment there, I thought all this god-killing business was making you boring."

Adam shook his head, but he couldn’t suppress the smile that threatened to break through his composure.

"Thank you," he said, his voice growing more serious. "For the healing, for the potion. I know you helped Mimir with more than just ingredients."

Tiamat’s expression softened slightly, though the mischievous glint never entirely left her eyes. "Don’t get all sentimental on me now. It has the uncanny effect of making me want to throw up."

Before Adam could formulate a response to that particular bit of deflection, Garduck cleared his throat. His voice carried a weight that commanded attention.

"Ozymandias achieved his dream," Garduck said, his tone holding both respect and sadness. "Not like a god would have—not through divine power or cosmic authority. With his own hands, his own will, he destroyed the Egyptian pantheon before dying."

Adam felt something twist in his chest, a mixture of pride and loss that he hadn’t expected. The pharaoh had been arrogant, annoying, and absolutely convinced of his own superiority. He had also been diligent, determined, and willing to sacrifice everything for his vision of justice.

Adam shook his head slowly, the weight of Ozymandias’s sacrifice settling on his shoulders. "That stubborn, arrogant bastard actually did it." Official source ıs 𝗻𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗹⟡𝓯𝓲𝓻𝓮⟡𝙣𝙚𝙩

"He went out exactly the way he would have wanted," Garduck continued. "Victorious against impossible odds. The construct carries his memories now, his purpose. In a way, he achieved the immortality he always sought."

The silence that followed was broken only by the distant sounds of battle echoing through Atlantis. Adam’s expression shifted, concern replacing the melancholy that had clouded his features.

"Safe," Garduck interrupted, chuckling despite the obvious pain the movement caused him. He gestured toward his charred left side, where flesh had been burned away to reveal underlying bone. "Many of our untrustworthy allies died according to plan. But Luna is safe. A little wounded, but less than I am."

Each laugh sent visible tremors of pain through his frame, but he continued with a knowing wink. "She gave me death glares for suggesting she handle the burial duties, but it kept her away from seeing you unconscious."

"What kind of wounds?" Adam pressed, his concern evident in his voice.

"Nothing serious," Garduck assured him. "Some burns on her arms, a few hair singed, and a few cuts from fighting through the Egyptian honor guard. She’s tougher than she looks."

Relief flooded through Adam, followed immediately by a sharpening of focus as his tactical mind reasserted itself. He turned toward the south, his enhanced senses picking up the distant pulse of divine power that marked their remaining enemies.

"Only the Babylonians and demons remain," he said, his voice carrying the cold certainty of a predator identifying its next targets.