Does anybody know?

[FrankTrollman]

Endoperez asks:
Are you sure that wasn't 9999 damage?

Positive. My dead Sea King has -972 hit points, and he had 27. So the Burden o Time inflicted 999 hit points. I suspect other death effects do the same thing. Certainly, the Ethereal Crossbow actually claims to inflict 999 points of damage on some screens.

As to a Sphinx, in a Golem Cult it gains 100 hit points per point of Dominion before it even gets any XP. So at dominon 10 it's going to have 1500 hit points at the start of the game.

-Frank