Hello, My Name Is Lucifer (Book III)

Chapter 6 - Riddle Me This

Leo was laying on the floor, his hands pressed against his head while his facial expression was filled with pain and his skin color slowly turned grey.

I quickly look at Winter and then I ran to him, but when I made my first step inside I felt immense pain rushing through my body and my head felt like somebody stuck a knife in it. Almost I fell down, just like Leo, but I gave everything to stay on my legs and tried to handle the pain.

While I got closer to him I realized that his skin wasn't turning black but his soul slowly split from the human body and smoke was spurting out of his pores. He tried his best to stay in the body but if I wouldn't be fast enough then we'd have an unconscious human here and Leo would have to look for a new host.

I grabbed his arms and used my last strength to drag him outside, just to fall on the ground there as well. It didn't take long until the pain was gone and Leo was back as well, but I stayed on the ground and tried to understand the situation.
I sat up and looked over to Leo; Winter was checking on him and questioning him about what happened.

After a few minutes Winter turned towards me and said "I've seen some signs on the walls of the church to keep us away from the relic. For Leo and me it's almost impossible to get there without getting ripped out of our bodies, but you should be able to."

"I think this is going to kill me if I stay in there too long." I replied while getting up. Winter copied my action and crossed her arms, "Then hurry up."

I groaned and walk to the entrance of the church, but shortly before I walked inside Winter grabbed my arm to stop me and leaned closer to my ear. "Be careful." her voice sounded softer than normally and for a moment I looked irritated at her, then she added with the same rough tone as always, "If you die then we can't kill Amnael."

I walked inside after pulling my arm out of her grasp and immediately the pain shot through my body again, but slowly I walked to the altar. When I arrived I opened the shrine behind it and pushed the goblet aside while desperately trying to find the amulet, but it wasn't anywhere to be seen.

While looking for the amulet the pain got worse every minute and my whole body was trembling. Even blood was running out of my nose and down my face like a waterfall but I kept looking.

After what felt like forever I recognized a tiny button at the inner top of the shrine. Without hesitation I pushed it and the back wall of the shrine split in two parts, each of them disappeared in the sides. On the wall behind the one that just opened was text.

I am greater than all the gods,
yet worse than the fires of hell.
Dead men eat me all the time,
but if a live man eats me, he dies slowly.
What am I ?

Below the riddle were some buttons with symbols on them. One showed a bird, another one a human, again another an angel, a demon, earth, poison and an empty button.
Normally I might have solved this riddle within seconds, but since my body was filled with pain I couldn't think straight. I hit the first button that came to my mind which showed the symbol of air but nothing happened.
All in sudden the pain seemed to multiply by 10 and I fell on the floor.

I groaned and grabbed the edge of the table to pull myself up. With all the strength I had I punched against the altar and normally it would have broke easily, but nothing. Not even the slightest crack.

"What's going on?!" I heard Winter shout from the doorway.

"A riddle. I have to solve a riddle!" I replied and rubbed my temple.

Now Leo answered instead of Winter "Which riddle?"

I took a deep breath and kept holding on the altar while reading the text to them. When I was done they remained silent. I only heard my heart beating while waiting; it pounded and my head hurt horribly.

"Nothing. The answer it nothing!" Winter answered loudly, "Nothing is greater than god. Nothing is worse than the fires of hell. Dead men eat nothing and is a living person eats nothing they starve."

I turned to look at her for a second, but I wasn't able to suffer any longer and so I pressed to only button which had no symbol on it.
Right after the button clicked all the pain was gone and the wall behind the altar started rumbling. The wall slid down and an amulet which looked like a coin was revealed.

The amulet was old and the coin full of rust and dirt. It didn't look special but I could already feel its power without even touching it.
It wasn't made by humans, it was made by an angel - maybe even god.

When I touch it, it felt like lighting stroke my body but it didn't hurt. A second afterwards the feeling was gone but the strength was still there.
I felt its power even more now, it was incredibly strong - definitely strong enough to defeat Amnael.

Now that we had got what we needed to weaken the ruler of hell, we only needed more demons to get rid of his followers as well.

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