SOWER: My Cultivation Creates Gods

8 | Your Judgment is Here

The statue's eyes opened.

Not slowly. Not dramatically. One moment they were carved stone, the next they burned with light the color of dying suns. Orange. Red. Ancient.

Every hunter in the room froze.

"What the fu—"

The statue moved.

Its head turned. Stone ground against stone with a sound that made Rome's teeth ache. Those burning eyes swept across the chamber, taking in the hunters, the scattered treasure, the greed written plain on every face.

Then it spoke.

"FURES. SACRILEGI. IUDICIUM VESTRUM ADEST."

The voice wasn't loud. It didn't need to be. It resonated in Rome's chest. In his bones. In the hollow spaces behind his eyes.

"What did it say?" Kiona grabbed his arm. Her nails dug into his skin. "Rome, what did it say?"

"Fures... thieves." His mouth was dry. "Sacrilegi... defilers. Iudicium vestrum adest... your judgment... is here."

The other eleven statues opened their eyes.

Twelve pairs of burning light. Twelve hooded figures. Twelve judges staring down at seventeen hunters who had taken what wasn't theirs.

"DROP EVERYTHING!" Reyes's voice cracked. "DROP IT ALL, NOW!"

Bags hit the floor. Coins scattered. Gems bounced across stone. Hunters scrambled to empty their pockets, their backpacks, anything and everything they'd taken.

The statues didn't care.

"AURUM REDDI POTEST." The first statue spoke again. Its voice was a funeral bell. "SED TEMPUS NON POTEST."

"Gold can be returned." Rome translated without thinking. "But time cannot."

"UMBRA QUINTUM TETIGIT."

Rome's head snapped toward the pillar.

The shadow had crossed the fifth mark.

"OCULI APERTI SUNT."

Eyes have opened.

"IUDICIUM INCIPIT."

Judgment begins.

The floor disappeared.

Not crumbled. Not collapsed. Just... ceased to exist. One moment there was solid stone beneath their feet. The next there was nothing but darkness and the sickening sensation of falling.

Rome's stomach lurched into his throat.

Hunters screamed around him. Someone grabbed at his jacket. Missed. Tumbled past in a blur of flailing limbs.

This is how I die. Falling into a hole in a kobold dungeon. Calypso's going to kill me.

Wait, I'll already be dead.

She'll find a way.

Wind roared in his ears. The darkness swallowed everything. He couldn't see up. Couldn't see down. Couldn't tell how far they'd fallen or how much further they had to go.

Then light appeared below.

Not torchlight. Something harsher. Brighter. The kind of light that belonged in stadiums and arenas.

The ground rushed up to meet him.

Rome hit sand.

The impact drove the air from his lungs. He rolled. Tumbled. Came to a stop face-down with grit in his mouth and his entire body screaming.

Ow.

Ow ow ow.

Everything hurts. Is anything broken? Can I move my fingers? Can I move my toes?

Fingers moved. Toes moved. Small victories.

He pushed himself up onto his hands and knees. Spat sand. Blinked until his vision stopped swimming.

They were in a pit.

No. Not a pit. A coliseum.

Stone walls rose around them in a perfect circle, fifty feet high and lined with row after row of empty seats. Archways dotted the perimeter at ground level, dark passages leading to god knew where. The ceiling was just darkness, the hole they'd fallen through invisible from down here. Torches burned in sconces along the walls, casting everything in flickering orange light.

The sand beneath him was pale. Almost white.

Stained in patches with something darker.

Old blood. That's old blood. Wonderful.

Other hunters lay scattered across the arena floor. Some moved. Some didn't. Rome counted bodies. Fifteen. Sixteen.

Seventeen.

Everyone had made it down.

But not everyone was getting up.

"Rodriguez!" Someone screamed. "RODRIGUEZ!"

Rome turned his head.

The big man lay crumpled near the center of the arena. His hammer had landed a few feet away. His body was bent wrong. Neck at an angle that necks weren't supposed to bend.

He wasn't moving.