“The Devil and Simon Flagg” in which Flagg sells his soul in exchange for the proof of Fermat’s last theorem. No proof is found, but the Devil becomes consumed with mathematics.
I love any story about ancient super powerful creatures being defeated by modern people. Humanity kicks ass.
These things are often scaled to be something extremely powerful but possible for the hero to struggle against, at the time, which often puts them far below the capabilities of modern society. This is usually missing the point (the ancient God or gods probably set up an adversary that like that on purpose, or whatever, to show something to the mortals), but just taking that on face value and trouncing the thing will never not be funny to me.
“The Devil and Simon Flagg” in which Flagg sells his soul in exchange for the proof of Fermat’s last theorem. No proof is found, but the Devil becomes consumed with mathematics.