Okeanos’s antenane twitched as he heard this creature known as a ‘genie’ say he needed to solve another riddle. He decided he would hear her out for once.
“Ok. Tell me what your riddle is,” said Okeanos.
“Really!?” The genie sounded genuinely happy. She then materialized behind the wall of sand soldiers, in front of the golden sarcophagus. She was a tan skinned girl with loose, baggy white pants and a billowing golden cloak covering most of her. Her eyes flickered like twin tongues of fire, and her lengthy black hair floated in the air like she was underwater.
“Don’t regret this – this riddle of mine is incredibly difficult!”
“Ok,” said Okeanos.
“Here I go!” The genie coughed into her hand to clear her throat and then began. “Many people have me but do not want me. When I am in someone’s head, I make them dim witted. When I am in someone’s stomach, I make them hungry. When I am in someone’s arms, they despair. What am I?”
Okeanos thought about this for a moment, his developed brain clocking into overdrive. His eyes narrowed in intense thought. After several dramatic seconds, he nodded to himself.
“Oh? Have you found out, intruder!?” said the genie.
“Yes,” said Okeanos. He declared confidently, “I don’t know.”
The genie made a shocked face. “What!? How can you say that with so much confidence!?”
“I can think fast, but it doesn’t help with this riddle,” said Okeanos in wondering voice. His mind could process extreme calculations that let him know exactly how much force a punch would output, how fast someone was going, where they were going to go based on vibrational input on his antennae, and things like that, but calculating fast did not seem to helphim here.
What a disappointment. And here Okeanos thought he could have a chance to show off his big brain.
But wait. Okeanos was supposed to be smart just like how he was supposed to be strong.
That meant only one thing: it was not Okeanos that was dumb here, but the riddle itself.
“This riddle is stupid,” said Okeanos.
“Wha-!? The genie looked genuinely hurt. “Argh, whatever, I’ll give you another one-,”
“No need. I am tired of riddles now,” said Okeanos. He then clenched his fists and lowered his center of gravity, green bolts of energy starting to crackle around him.
It was very obvious that Okeanos fully intended on charging his way through.
“Nobody appreciates my riddles…” The genie sniffled in despair.
Okeanos charged, disappearing in a flash of light. He moved so quickly that it almost felt like he teleported, and yet –
Okeanos felt himself get rebuffed by the wall of sand soldier shields. He tumbled backwards at high speeds like a stepping stone, creating a line of large craters before he stopped himself.
“Hm?” Okeanos looked at the sand soldiers. They were unharmed. He had expected to just charge right past them.
“In this tomb, my sand soldiers are invulnerable,” said the genie. “You cannot brute force this. This is meant to be a test of wits!”
“You think I cannot do this?” Okeanos felt his pride as the king of the oceans challenged. He would show this ‘genie’ he could outsmart her. “You think wrong.”
Okeanos started to circle back and forth around the wall of sand soldiers, looking for an opening to get to the genie. He moved so quickly with his energy boosted movement that he melted stone underneath him.
If he got her, the source of all these constructs, he could end this.
“Wh-what are you planning!?” said the genie. Her head whipped around rapidly as she tried desperately keep up with Okeanos’s rapid movements, but she was too physically weak to even remotely track him. She held her head. “Oh, I’m getting dizzy trying to keep you in my sight!”
Okeanos saw her get dizzy and used this chance while she was distracted. There were many sand soldiers, but not enough to completely cover all gaps leading to the genie. He shot forward through one of these gaps.
With nigh instantaneous reaction and speed, the soldiers shifted their formation, pushing Okeanos back again. He smashed back into the ground, gouging out another crater.
Okeanos looked down at his arms where he had braced for impact against the shields of the soldiers at the last minute. There were tiny cracks in his shell.
“Hah! It doesn’t matter how strong or fast you are! No, the more you struggle, the more your own power is reflected against you!” declared the genie proudly. “I may be weak, but this sand soldier seal was devised by the great Hierophant himself, direct successor to the ancient Arcane Emperor from whom all magic derives!
The likes of you cannot defeat it! It even holds a dimensional lock that prevents all tampering of space or time!”
“No wonder my shell got cracked,” said Okeanos. “It was reflecting my own power. I truly am strong!”
“Such arrogance…well, I suppose it is not entirely undeserved. But still, you will not get through this,” said the genie.
“We will see.” Okeanos narrowed his eyes. He charged again towards another gap in the formation. It instantly shifted to close the gap, repelling him once more.
Okeanos noticed that when the sand soldiers shifted to close the gap, they revealed others for there was a finite number of them. The biggest issue was that the soldiers compensated for this weakness by trying to reveal gaps far away from the gaps they covered, preventing an attacker from trying to feint and slip through.
Okeanos’s mind began to race. He needed more information. With seemingly reckless abandon, he smashed into the sphere of winged shield bearing soldiers again and again.
A dozen crashes turned into fifty which quickly spilled over into a hundred, but he kept going. At ultra high speeds, he smashed into the soldiers, smashed back into the ground, and repeated the process.
In just a few minutes, vast swathes of the chamber around the ceiling, walls, and floor were riddled with craters, though none too deep as the stone seemed to turn indestructible past a certain point.
“What is this madness!?” exclaimed the genie. “All you are doing is hurting yourself!”
Okeanos rose up from another charge attempt. “Not madness. I was thinking hard.”
He had seen enough. There was a specific set of formations that the soldiers could organize into at any given moment. He counted fifty of them in total, each meant to rebuff an attacker from any given angle, creating an iron solid defense.
And because the process was automated, requiring no real thought from the genie itself, it was near instantaneous, keeping up even with Okeanos’s speed.
But it was because it was automated that it had weakness. If there was a specific pattern of movements the soldiers followed, then Okeanos could finally put his thinking brain to use.
Okeanos powered up, generating a huge swell of energy that covered him in a crackling aura of green. His iridescent rainbow shell started to shine with brilliant luster. His shell had several deep cracks in it now, though he had not suffered too much real damage to his flesh.
Still, the cracks were so visible that it looked like he had taken much more damage than he actually had.
“It’s useless! Stop hurting yourself!” said the genie, concerned.
Okeanos ignored the genie and made his final move. He shot forth like a green comet, several times faster than before with his fully activated Burst. He made several rapid, calculated attacks.
Attacks from some angles caused the soldiers to enter into formations with larger gaps, and attacking multiple of these angles consecutively caused the gaps to widen as the soldiers struggled to keep up with Okeanos’s speed.
When the gaps widened enough, Okeanos made a feint, then instantly slipped by one of the gaps he had baited out with a final surge of Burst energy.
In an instant, Okeanos was upon the genie. He towered over her, his eyes glowing with ferocious energy. Energy crackled from his shell as did smoke from the intense heat of his movements.
“Eep!” The genie balled up and put her arms over her head.
The sand soldiers broke apart into particles of sand.
“See? I told you I’m smart,” said Okeanos.
“What? You just smashed through the soldiers! Where’s the brains in that!?” complained the genie, frustrated and scared tears in her eyes.
“I see you do not understand a big brain when you see one,” said Okeanos. “How sad.”
Okeanos just walked past her towards the sarcophagus. He smashed the tomb open, revealing a massive amount of coins that spilled out like a flood. At the head of the sarcophagus was a long, bandaged finger.
Okeanos had no idea what these were, but he knew the master would like them. The master would be so proud of him for solving these riddles the way he had done!
Another message appeared before Okeanos.
[You have beaten the hidden objective to dispel the sand soldier seal. You will now be granted the seal to use as your own.]
