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When I think of superheroes, the general idea of their origins tend to lean towards a higher calling, a greater purpose that shifts their path in life from that of a normal citizen to that of a protector who uses their power to help others. There is often some force — a tragedy like with Batman and Spider-Man, some kind of larger destiny as with Green Lantern, the greater good as seen with the X-Men, etc. — that pushes a person to become a hero, effectively moving them away from a normal life and instilling them with an unrelenting desire to help others. These stories have been revisited quite often over the past few years in movies, games, and comic reboots, and though enjoyable, I’ve been wanting a different kind of superhero story. I found that change of pace in the world of Kohei Horikoshi’s My Hero Academia, where the usual character motivations of superhero narratives are subverted to make the path of a hero a choice, and a very personal one at that.

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There’s much to experience in the massive open-world of Ancient Greece in Assassin’s Creed Odyssey. But as is tradition, the Assassin’s Creed series has a very strange way of blending historical accuracy with bizarre supernatural elements–and Odyssey is no exception. While you’ll mostly take on pirates, foot soldiers, and the sinister members of the Cult of Kosmos throughout the various locales around the world, there are some encounters that will take some extra effort to find–leading to Odyssey’s most memorable fights against beasts of legend.

In this feature, we breakdown Assassin’s Creed Odyssey’s most involved and unique quest-line, which pits you against some various mythological beasts that reference Greek mythology, including the deadly Medusa and the Cyclops. In addition to giving you all the details on how to find them, we also offer up some tips on how to overcome their unique challenges. Obviously, there are some spoilers in this article, which relates to the midpoint of the game. Proceed with caution.

Where To Begin

To start your epic quest to vanquish the four mythological creatures hiding out within Ancient Greece, you’ll need to reach the midpoint in the main Odyssey quest, which takes you to island of Thera, just north of Messara. After solving the puzzles to gain entry into the ruins, you’ll meet a very important character inside, who will give you a new Odyssey quest-line called Between Two Worlds. This quest tasks you with finding four lost Isu artifacts that have been stolen, which are now hidden across the known world of Greece.

While you may get the urge to drop everything and set out to complete this quest after the cutscene’s finish, you’re much better off holding off until much later into the main story. Not only will you have the proper gear to take out some of the harder challenges, some of the legendary gear that drops from these quests will also become more powerful. We’d recommend you finish the main story, which will take you through many of the islands and locales that house these lost artifacts. What follows is the best order to take on these creatures, based on level.

The Sphinx And Where To Find It

Marked as level 35 quest, the Lord of the Sphinx mission tasks you with finding an artifact hidden in Boetia. Located on the southern coast of Lake Koapis, you’ll find ancient Isu ruins shrouded in fog. At these ruins you’ll find a discover a Sphinx statue and an NPC named Gorgias, who’s searching for a piece of a medallion to unlock the secrets of the temple. Tasking you to find his apprentice, you’ll start the next leg of the quest, which will have you travel to the Tomb of Menoikeus. Located in the northeastern part of the Scorched Rolling Plains region in Boetia, you’ll find the remains of the apprentice, killed by a nearby alpha lion–which has also eaten the other half of the medallion. After securing the piece, head back to the ruins to proceed with the next part of the quest.

Once you return, you’ll find that Gorgias and the statue are missing. Before proceeding further, be sure to save your progress. Taking the piece of the medallion that Gorgias left behind, you’ll be able to place the item on a pedestal in the ruins, which will summon the mythological Sphinx. Surprisingly, you won’t engage in an actual fight with the Sphinx, but rather a game of careful wits. After conversing with the beast, the challenge begins. You’ll only have one chance to clear this encounter, as offering an incorrect solution to the puzzles will result in instant death. Moreover, each subsequent reload of your save will see a different set of riddles offered up.

Think carefully before giving your responses to the Sphinx’s questions, as your answers also apply to several runes scattered around the ruins, which have to be activated after the riddles are complete. If you can’t find the rune assigned to your given answers, then you’ll meet certain doom. After making it through the riddles correctly, you’ll best the Sphinx at its own game and collect your first artifact, along with a legendary Sphinx Figurehead for your ship.

The Cyclops And Where To Find It

You’ll likely be aware of the location of this particular mythological beast early on into your adventure. Found on the Isle of Thisvi just south of Phokis (one of the first areas you go to after getting your ship), you’ll find the ancient Isu ruins after diving into the Forgotten Isle’s inner cove. However, the door leading to the mythical Cyclops is sealed, and will remain so until you take on the necessary quest. At a recommend level of 35, the quest that opens the chambers of the Cyclops is located on Kythera Island, towards the southernmost edge of the map. Head to the region known as Pilgrim Hill to find a quest giver near a statue, opening up the mission A God Among Men. By taking this mission, you’ll eventually Empedokles, who believes himself to be a god. After assisting him throughout the Island, he’ll venture off to the Isle of Thisvi to meet a fellow god.

Once you head back to the small island, head into the island’s underground to find Empedokles outside the door, who’s ready to reunite with his fellow god. Suffice it to say, things don’t work out for Empedokles, and you’re left to do battle against the mythological creature. As one of the largest enemies in the game, the Cyclops–also known as Brontes, The Thunderer–has an advantage when it comes to range and raw strength. However, the boss’ slow speed and lumbering movement can be taken advantage of. You can also aim the obvious weak spot of its glowing eye with your ranged attacks, dealing some solid damage. Halfway through the fight, the Cyclops will become more aggressive, resulting in some falling debris throughout the chamber. Keep chipping away while avoiding the falling the rocks to take him down. After the fight you’ll acquire the next artifact, and along with the Polyphemos Cyclops Bludgeon, a legendary heavy blade.

The Minotaur And Where To Find It

Located in Messara, on the island in the southeast section of the map, you’ll come across a small town in Minotaur Hills that worships the mighty beast. This area serves as a great place to learn more about the history of the region, level up, and gain some new gear–including a replica helmet of the Minotaur (which is just a bull’s head fashioned into a helm). Just west of town, you’ll find Knossos Palace ruins located in Mino’s Legacy. In this area you’ll find a child named Ardos, who’s trying to rescue his father lost in the chambers of the Minotaur below the palace. Starting the Myths and Minotaurs quest, you’ll learn more about the labyrinth and discover that you’ll need to find the medallion to open up access.

From here, you’ll begin the Of Minotaurs and Men questline, which includes sub-quests around the region including Blood in The Water, Recollections, and Full Circle. Along the way, you’ll interact with the allies of Ardos’ father, local merchants, and assist the boy’s current caretaker. The questline involving the caretaker will have you cross paths with the Swordfish, who just so happens to be a member of the Cult of Kosmos. After completing these tasks, you’ll acquire the key to the labyrinth of the Minotaur. While exploring the maze, you’ll find the body of Ardos’ father, and not long after, encounter the mythological beast.

The battle with the Minotaur can be quite challenging, which requires you to be at least level 40 to make a successful go of it. In this battle, you’ll have to dodge many of the Minotaur’s attacks and head in for an opening when its vulnerable. Its most powerful move is a ram attack, which you can fortunately see coming. The beast can also stun itself when it rams against an obstruction, allowing you to get some solid hits in. Staying and attacking at a distance is also an effective way of getting the upper hand against the beast. Once you defeat the minotaur, you’ll get the next artifact and a new legendary axe known as the Minotaur’s Labrys.

The Medusa And Where To Find It

For the final mythological beast, you’ll need to travel to the island of Lesbos, located in the northeastern corner of the map. At this point in the game, you’ll likely have finished the main story before traveling to this island, which is one of Odyssey’s most difficult areas. To start the quest, head to the town of Eresos in the Petrified Valley, which is located on the southwestern coast of the island. In town, you’ll find a female NPC named Bryce. After conversing with her, you’ll start the quest Romancing the Stone Garden, which tasks you with finding her lover lost in the Petrified Temple. After learning more of the Temple and its mysteries, you’ll need to new quest called Shadows of Serpents, along with all of its sub-quests that to open the pathway to the Medusa.

These side-quests will take some time to finish, as they’ll have you travel across Lesbos and to the nearby island of Chios. One mission has you infiltrate a village full of female hunters, all of whom are lethal archers and agiles fighters. However, if you already completed the Artemis quest-line involving the hunt for legendary animals, your choices in that mission can allow you to become the leader of the village, letting you come and go without incident. The other quest has you track down an adventurer who’s made the dubious claim that he wields the spear that killed Medusa. After completing the necessary steps, head back to the temple to open up the way to Medusa’s lair.

The battle against Medusa is Odyssey’s most challenging and complex encounter. Choosing to fight at range with a squad of stone mercenaries at her side, the Medusa can petrify targets–namely you–while also calling in aerial attacks that deal heavy damage. In order to remove her protective shield, you’ll need eliminate her guards, all while avoiding her petrifying gaze and magic attacks. Throughout the room are several stone pillars, which can offer safe protection from her gaze. After taking out the minions, the beast will become vulnerable, allowing you to deal direct damage to her. During this state, the Medusa will teleport around the arena and immediately follow-up with a ranged energy attack. This will be a long fight, so be patient and stick with a certain rhythm of attacks, both ranged and close-range, and eventually you’ll take out Odyssey’s most difficult boss–earning you the final artifact and the legendary sword Harpe of Perseus.

If you want to know more about Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, check out our full-review, along with our breakdown of some useful tips to help you along your journey in the game.

Although John Carpenter’s 1978 horror classic Halloween didn’t invent the slasher genre (1971’s Bay of Blood and 1974’s Black Christmas came before it), it made it a commercial force. Along with Friday the 13th, Carpenter’s movie set the rules and conventions for what would soon become briefly-lived but extremely profitable sub-genre in the 1980s, with dozens of cheaply made imitations appearing almost weekly. And while Carpenter had very little further involvement in the series, the movie’s producers knew that in Michael Myers–aka the Shape—they had a classic horror villain, so the sequels, reboots, and remakes have kept on coming.

For all the twists and plot inventions that filmmakers have been throwing at us over the years–from sibling surprises and unwanted backstories to psychic connections and strange cults–the Halloween movies remain popular for one simple reason. We like to see Michael kill people. Few of the directors that followed in Carpenter’s wake have his cinematic craft, and the tension and scares of that first film were quickly replaced by violence and gore. But with his expressionless mask, incredible strength, and wide variety of killing tools, Michael remained a perfect bad guy throughout, and even the weaker movies are enlivened by some juicy kills.

Forty years later, Michael returns to the screen for an tenth time, in David Gordon Green’s Halloween, which is a direct sequel to the first film. Early reviews suggest that it has some of the nastiest deaths to date, and hopes are high that this movie honors the great legacy of Carpenter’s original; it’s notable that this is the first film for decades that he’s had any creative involvement in. So while we countdown to Halloween, here’s The Shape’s most brutal kills in the series so far.

18. Halloween Resurrection – Laurie’s Last Stand

The worst movie in the entire series, the woeful Halloween: Resurrection offers very little in the way of satisfying kills. In fact, the only death of any note is that of Laurie Strode. Jamie Lee Curtis returned for a short appearance at the start of the film, and engages Michael in a fight to the death on a hospital rooftop. Both Laurie and her brother end up hanging from the roof; Michael stabs her in the back several times and she plummets to the ground.

17. Halloween (1978) – Bye Bye Bob

Poor Bob. All Lynda’s likeable boyfriend wants is a post-sex beer on Halloween, but unfortunately Michael is waiting for him in the kitchen. Myers strangles Bob, lifting him clear off the ground, before plunging a knife into him, pinning him to a door. Michael’s quizzical turn of the head, as he looks at his victim, is a great touch too.

16. Halloween: H20 – No More Marion

1998’s superb reboot, Halloween: H20, is actually much more restrained than any of the later movies, relying more on old-fashioned tension than gore. There’s a great death in the scary opening sequence however, when Marion Chambers–Michael’s nurse from the original–is attacked while cops investigate the house next door. “In here, goddamn it!” she screams out of the window, just before Michael cuts her throat.

15. Halloween II – Nasty Needle

While the first Halloween is a model of subtlety and restraint, 1981’s first sequel was definitely not. With the slasher movie craze in full swing, director Rick Rosenthal and producer Carpenter seriously upped the brutality. Much of the movie takes place in a hospital, where Michael has tracked Laurie. In one scene he grabs a nurse called Janet and in excruciating close-up, inserts a hypodermic needle into her temple.

14. Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers – Gardening Time

Halloween 5 sees Michael continue to hunt his niece Jamie, with whom he seems to have developed a weird telepathic connection. One of the earliest kills is a juicy moment when he targets a flashy, mullet-sporting guy named Mike and plunges a gardening claw deep into his forehead.

13. Halloween (1978) – Annie Strangled

It takes a full 55 minutes before the adult Michael starts killing the teenagers of Haddonfield in the original Halloween, as Carpenter wrings every drop of tension out of the movie (and the audience). When Michael does finally strike, it’s sudden and shocking. Annie, sitting in her car, is grabbed from the backseat and brutally strangled. Michael seals the deal with his knife and she slumps against the car’s horn.

12. Halloween II – Scalpel Lift

Another of Halloween II‘s hospital-based nurse kills. This one happens towards the end of the movie and is particularly eerie because it happens almost silently and is witnessed by a catatonic Laurie, who just stands here, looking on blankly. Nurse Franco approaches Laurie, but Michael steps out from beyond and stabs her with a scalpel, lifting her clean off the ground and letting her hang there before she falls to the ground.

11. Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers – Thumb Head

After the non-Myers movie Halloween III: Season of the Witch failed at the box office, the idea of an ongoing horror anthology series was abandoned, and normal service resumed. The Return of Michael Myers is a surprisingly decent sequel, which gets to the point early on. The seemingly-dead Michael wakes up in an ambulance and kills one of the unlucky paramedics by jamming his thumb right through his forehead. Ow!

10. Halloween (1978) – Prank Call

Lynda’s demise is given a blackly funny twist, by having Michael wear a sheet and Bob’s glasses to trick her into thinking he’s her now-dead boyfriend. With Bob–I mean Michael–just standing there in the doorway, Lynda gets on the phone with Laurie. Unfortunately, the phone cord provides a handy murder weapon, and Myers strangles her mid-conversation.

9. Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers – Shotgun Impalement

Michael loves pretending to be other people to trick his victims–he does it in the original movie (when he dresses as Bob) and in Halloween II (when he nearly gets frisky with nurse Janet), and again the fourth movie. This time he kills the cop who is guarding Kelly, and sits down in his chair. When Kelly comes offering him some coffee he rises, wielding the dead cop’s shotgun. But his being Michael Myers, he doesn’t do anything as old-fashioned as actually shoot her, but instead impales her on the barrel.

8. Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers – Forking Spitz

It’s a slasher tradition that masked killers love to target horny teenagers, and Halloween 5 ticks that box in gruesome style. The unlucky couple in this case are Sam and Spitz who head to a barn in their Halloween gear for a literal roll in the hay. Unfortunately, Michael is already there and impales Spitz with a pitchfork while he’s getting down to business.

7. Halloween (2007) – Judith Dies

Rob Zombie had already made a name for himself for such gritty, violent shockers as The Devil’s Rejects and House of 1000 Corpses when he took on the Halloween remake, so it was no surprise that the brutality level is high. While the murder of Judith Myers in Carpenter’s original is fleeting, in Zombie’s version it’s excruciating, as a bloody Judith staggers then crawls down the hallway, young Michael walking purposely behind her.

6. Halloween 6: The Curse Of Michael Myers – Jamie Gets Threshed

Jamie Lloyd was a recurring character across parts 4, 5, and 6; she’s daughter of Laurie Strode who becomes a target of her psychotic uncle Michael. Sadly, she doesn’t make it past the twenty-minute mark in her third movie. Michael has discovered that Jamie has had her own child, and corners her in a barn, where he picks his niece up and impales her gorily on a corn thresher. “You can’t have the baby Michael,” she tells him, before he before he turns the machine and lets the spinning knives tear her apart.

5. Halloween 6: The Curse Of Michael Myers – Face Vs Bars

Halloween 6 is not a good film–it was reshot and reedited, and what was released in 1995 is considered by many fans to be one of the worst movies in the series (a subsequent director’s cut improved things somewhat). Nevertheless, it does contain some ludicrous moments of over-the-top gore. Towards the end of the movie, Michael catches up with one of the doctors working for the movie’s Halloween cult, and slams his face repeatedly through some metal bars. While the original scene is fairly tame, the director’s cut delivers the full gory goods, and you see doc’s entire head fall to the floor in three bloody chunks.

4. Halloween 2 – Misty Meets Mirror

Rob Zombie’s Halloween 2 showed just how far the brutality of a Michael Myers killing spree could be pushed. One of the most shocking scenes–because it combines nudity and extreme violence, always a controversial combination–comes when a dancer called Misty runs into Michael. He’s already killed her boss, hanging his mutilated body from a string of fairy lights. He then grabs Misty, and repeatedly smashes her into one of the stripclub’s mirrored walls, before dropping her lifeless body to the floor.

3. Halloween 6: The Curse Of Michael Myers – Heading Off

This has to be the silliest death in the entire series, and it was added after reshoots. Nevertheless, it’s hugely satisfying. Laurie’s uncle John is introduced as an alcoholic, abusive scumbag, making him one of Michael’s few victims that is utterly deserving of his demise. And he gets a good one–attacked in his flooded basement, Michael lifts John off the ground and impales him on a fuse box. As the volts surge through his body, John’s face starts to blister before his entire head erupts. Sure, it’s dumb, but you gotta have an exploding head in there somewhere, right?

2. Halloween 2 – Stab Frenzy

For all their flaws, Rob Zombie’s Halloween movies are masterclasses in how to deliver shocking brutality. One of the most agonisingly prolonged kills in the franchise comes near the beginning of Halloween 2, as Michael searches for Laurie in Haddonfield hospital. A poor nurse called Daniels (an early role for Oscar-nominated Hidden Figures star Octavia Spencer) gets in his way. aving been stabbed once, she attempts to crawl away, but Michael quickly catches up to her. It’s the savagery of this scene that shocks, combined with the close-ups on Spencer’s face as she is knifed over and over and over by Michael.

1. Halloween II – Karen Gets Boiled

As infamous for the creepy build-up as for the brutal payoff, this is another of the notorious Halloween II kills that went far beyond the levels of the original. Nurse Karen is taking a break from her hospital duties and running a hot bath when Michael enters the room behind her. Her lays a hand on her bare shoulder, but believing it to be her Paramedic lover Bud, she starts to stroke and then–ugh–nibble on his hand. As she turns, she sees it’s in fact Michael, who proceeds to submerge her in the boiling water repeatedly until her face blisters in gruesome style.