CHAPTER ONE-HUNDRED-ONE

The Unbroken, Part 2

“I can do this,” Sam insisted while resolve flashed across his face. “I can do this.”

He ran headlong into the Blade Dance of Death and nearly got his head decapitated by the ax blade swinging out at him from the right.

“Holy Zeus!” Sam ducked down at the last second. “That was freaking—”

A scythe rose from the ground and nicked him on the chin.

The invisible crowd cooed.

“Styx!” Sam cursed.

Blood dripped down his chin, although Regeneration was quick to patch him up. He wasn’t sure it counted though because Chiron specifically said he wasn’t allowed to be injured when he crossed that finish line.

Sam stepped back almost instinctively and was lucky enough to avoid the scythe swinging down at him from the ceiling.

“You’re going to get cut up if you don’t move, lame-brain,” Chiron warned.

“Yeah, I know,” Sam sighed.

He jumped forward to avoid a cluster of caltrops and then had to perform a roll in mid-air to dodge another ax head swinging at him from the left sidewall. If that wasn’t harrowing enough, Sam landed on what he thought was a safe patch of dirt only to be met by the spear tip rising from the ground that then bit into his right heel.

“Yow,” Sam hissed.

“Thank the gods you’re not Achilles,” Chiron chuckled, “Or that would have killed you.”

The invisible crowd laughed.

Sam sighed. “Can I even finish this now that I’ve been injured?”

He had no choice but to continue onward. Through one curtain of swinging scythes after another, past spears popping out of the walls to either side of him, and finally, through a portion of the course where double-edged swords whirled above him like ceiling fans of death.

“No freaking way I can do this without getting nicked!” Sam screamed.

The laughter of the invisible crowd only got louder, making Sam think he’d somehow stepped out of reality and fallen into a sadistic version of a seventies sitcom.

“At least they’re entertained,” Sam sighed.

Although he did try his best, Sam’s prediction was spot on. He left that fifty-yard tunnel with cuts all over his body. Blood soaked the white linen pajamas he wore underneath his armor.

“Godsdammit, I won’t get the prize like this…”

Sam hoped Chiron would allow him another reset, although he wasn’t sure if he could ever get through that Blade Dance of Death unscathed.

“No, that’s impossible…this is insanity mode.”

Strangely enough, the floating timer above him continued to count down, leaving Sam to wonder why Chiron hadn’t stopped this second run of the Tribulator despite him already failing the prerequisite conditions for completing it.

“Do I have to get knocked out for that to happen?” he wondered out loud.

“Herculean’s stalling by the entrance of the fourth course,” Chiron reported. “I don’t blame him. The Tower of Pain’s earned its name many times over.”

“Wait,” Sam frowned. “There’s no point continuing—”

A thought occurred to him.

“Hold on…”

Sam sat crossed-legged on the ground and repeated the meditation ritual that helped speed up regeneration’s ability to heal the cuts and bruises on his body.

“Um,” Sam opened his left eye a crack to make sure Chiron wasn’t about to stop him from healing himself, “I guess it’s not cheating to heal myself inside the Tribulator?”

Why would I stop you from using your power, lame-brain? Chiron whispered into his mind.

“Oh, right, right…” Sam grinned sheepishly. Relief washed over him. “If I can heal…then I might be able to do this after all.”

He didn’t spend too much time meditating, just enough for his cuts to scab over. And yes, it was pretty difficult to concentrate while an invisible audience booed him relentlessly for, in Chiron’s words, “Sitting around and boring the Hades out of us.”

When he got back up, Sam turned his gaze on the fourth and final obstacle course—and he wasn’t sure how he was going to survive it.

Ahead of him, a thick, circular, marble tower rose to about sixty feet. It was capped like a lighthouse with an opening at the very top. The tower’s walls were covered in handholds Sam could use to climb up, but he was pretty sure there was more to it than that.

“It’s booby-trapped,” he guessed.

His gaze drifted toward the tower’s base.

A thick wooden plank bridged the gap between him and the tower while a pool of water encircled the base. The pool’s surface was coated in a thick layer of ice.

“Freezing water…two things I’m not fond of,” Sam sighed.

Sam’s gaze snapped toward the top of the tower where he could see something shiny peeking out at him from the opening near the roof.

“I could just jump up there—”

That’s when he noticed a strange, hazy glint of something floating directly above him. It was a kind of translucent film that reminded him of Bulwark’s near-invisible aura.

“There’s a barrier around this tower,” he guessed.

“You didn’t think I’d let you leap the tower in a single bound?” Chiron chuckled, and the audience laughed with him.

Sam frowned. “I could just smash through it, you know.”

“This noob hero thinks he can break through Athena’s Shroud of Aegis, folks,” Chiron reported.

The invisible crowd laughed.

“Yep, he thinks he can do something even Hercules couldn’t,” Chiron chuckled.

The jeering continued.

Sam’s frown deepened, not because of the invisible audience’s taunts, but because he recalled the name ‘Aegis’ and its legend as the Goddess of Wisdom’s unbreakable shield. If this barrier was somehow connected to it, then Sam wasn’t strong enough to challenge it. At least not as a gamma.

The sound of an explosion appeared not too far away.

“What was—”

A plume of smoke was rising above the tree line to his right. It wasn’t close enough to be too alarming, but this was definite proof that the enemy was drawing closer and closer to his location.

Without another word, Sam dashed across the plank and began climbing the tower while also whispering a prayer to his patron.

“Now’s the time to bet your drachma on me, Apollo,” Sam said.

The Tower of Pain did deserve its name in Sam’s opinion because each leg up meant a chance to get clobbered by one of the iron balls that swung at him from the sides. These basketball-sized bruisers peppered Sam’s body while he scaled up the tower’s wall, nearly causing him to lose his footing more than a few times.

WARNING! Your health is now below fifty percent. Please refrain from getting hit while [Regeneration (Δ)] works to heal you of the bruises you’ve accumulated.

Sam had reached the tower’s midpoint when he heard another explosion to his right. This one was much closer than before.

“Godsdammit, I need to—”

Sam didn’t see the massive chunk of iron swing around to him before it was too late. He raised his arms to block it, but the impact was strong enough to smack him off the tower.

“Oof, that’s got to hurt,” Chiron grimaced. The invisible audience mirrored his sentiments with pronounced gasps and cheers of their own.

Sam fell back to the ground, smashing through the thin sheet of ice coating the pool’s surface and then plunging into the freezing water below.

Styx! his brain screamed.

Panic filled his chest as the ice-cold water entered his mouth, pushing him to flail around within the pool’s depths.

Calm down, kid, Chiron whispered into his mind.

But Sam couldn’t calm down. He was too busy recalling Thunder’s words; the possibility that being inside a body of water might truly be his ‘weakening’.

You need to get out of there before the hypothermia sets in… Chiron insisted. Come on, kid… you can do this!

Sam would never admit it out loud, but Chiron’s words of encouragement kept him from drowning. They cleared his mind of doubt and filled him with a resolve not to surrender.

He wasn’t entirely sure how long it took him to swim back up to safety as the freezing water sapped at his strength—which is exactly what a ‘weakening’ was supposed to do to one’s gift—but his head eventually cleared the pool’s surface.

“Luckily, the kid’s a better swimmer than Leander,” Chiron joked, and the crowd laughed.

Sam was so relieved to take that first deep breath of fresh air that he even welcomed the jeering of the invisible crowd.

Slowly, much too slow for everyone’s liking, Sam pulled himself out of the water. Then he lay there spread-eagle on the wooden plank and gulped down more air while his body healed from his latest brush with death.

Don’t tell me you’re about to throw in the towel, kid? Chiron teased.

“No,” Sam huffed. “I see victory in sight.”

It took two more attempts but after fifteen minutes of a punishing climb up the tower’s wall while narrowly avoiding the iron balls meant to throw him off and Sam’s fingers finally grasped onto the ledge of the tower’s top floor. He pulled himself over it and then roared in triumph while the invisible crowd celebrated with him.

“It’s too early to celebrate, lame-brain,” Chiron chided. “The course isn’t done yet.”

At the very center of this circular space was a slab of marble. Lying on top of it—its bronze frame glinting in the light of the late afternoon sun—was a treasure chest.

“Um,” Sam glanced left and then right, “this is the finish line, right?”

He noticed that the floating timer hadn’t stopped yet.

“The game ends when the challenger places their hand on the chest,” Chiron explained, and then added, What are you going to do now kid?

“Isn’t it obvious?” Sam sat cross-legged on the marble floor. “You did say I had to be uninjured to get the prize I want.”

He could hear Chiron’s odd-sounding chuckle in the back of his mind. Turns out you’ll be setting a new record just like Thunder did.

“I guess so,” Sam smiled, although he winced immediately afterward.

It took him ten more minutes to heal up, but eventually, Sam’s fingers brushed against the treasure chest’s bronze frame.

The gong sounded. The invisible crowd cheered. And Chiron, sounding quite proud, yelled, “I give you… Herculean! The Unbroken Champion!”