God of Zero Cost

The three glowing characters of אֱמֶת (Emet) had barely dried on the golem's mud forehead when they started to tremble and twist. The golden lines coiled and thrashed, breaking apart like a tangled, writhing knot of serpents. They re-knitted into four heavy, dark red radicals that burned with a dull, menacing light: יַעֲקֹב (Ya’aqob).

The word did not fade. It sank.

Ethan watched as the characters physically melted inward, slipping down through the blank mud face. They dropped through the neck, down the center of the chest, and slid through the thick core of the torso like a heavy stone falling through stagnant water.

A sudden quest prompt flared open in front of him.

The mud golem dropped its posture into a low wrestling stance. A HP bar appeared above its head as it gave a short hollow grunt that rattled the dried silt.

Ethan's eyes narrowed slightly. He didn't turn away but stepped forward.

The golem shot its lead arm out for a heavy shoulder post, following up instantly with a crushing collar tie behind Ethan’s neck. Ethan stood tall, maintaining an upright posture, his forearms slamming upward to break the mud grips. He shucked the hands, but the clone was already moving.

Before Ethan could step back, the clone's heavy mud fingers hooked violently around his bare heel (עָקֵב (Aqeb).

A classic ankle pick. Swift. Clean.

Should have seen that coming, Ethan rued on hindsight.

The pull was immense. The clone yanked his bare heel upward while simultaneously driving its massive weight downward through the collar tie on his neck. His center of gravity shattered.

Ethan tipped over backward, crashing heavily onto his spine against the parched wadi floor. The impact slammed the air straight out of his lungs in a ragged gasp.

A blinding cloud of fine white dust אָבָק (Abaq) billowed up from the impact, swallowing them both.

Ethan didn't wait for the dust to clear. He instantly spun on his back, his hips switching as he desperately tried to recover some semblance of a guard. His arms locked around the golem’s mud shoulders in a tight embrace, his knees driving upward to wrap his legs around the heavy torso.

The clone didn't allow it. It drove its massive clay weight straight into Ethan’s chest, attempting to pin him flat and crush him into the ground. The mud chest felt like a block of solid stone pressing down on his ribs, squeezing away his breath.

Ethan's mind raced for a quick way to end this.

Working from the bottom, Ethan managed to clear his right hand from the tangle. He reached up toward the clone’s face, his fingers aiming straight for the forehead. Wipe out the leading character. Turn Emet to Met. GGWP. He thought.

His fingers dusted the mud brow.

Nothing. The clay forehead was blank.

Ethan's jaw set hard. The words had already transformed and disappeared.

Before he could pull his hand back, the clone tucked its elbows inward, gluing its palms to the center of Ethan's chest to kill any remaining space. In one explosive motion, the replica drove off its toes and stood straight up, hoisting Ethan's hips clean off the ground. Ethan clung on with his calves, but the clone immediately drove its right knee forward like a wedge, jamming the hard clay joint directly into Ethan’s floating ribs.

The sheer mechanical leverage was too much. Ethan's locked ankles snapped apart under the pressure.

Before he could adjust his hips, the clone reached around his neck, locking his head and shoulder together with an unyielding grip, folding Ethan in half. It dropped its mass, scooping its other arm behind Ethan’s thigh to form a tight, suffocating cradle. The clone heavy-stepped around Ethan’s broken guard, settling deep into a crushing side control.

Ethan gritted his teeth, matching his strength against the mud torso. He tried to use his 100 points of Strength to frame and push against the golem, but the stone-heavy mass didn't budge. Their stats were completely identical.

Every movement raised more white powder into the air. They writhed in the dirt, two identical silhouettes indistinguishable from each other, completely caked in the same white dust of the struggle.