Kai’s hands trembled as he tightly clutched onto the hilt of his spear. His heart was hammering in his chest, and he could hear each breath he took like he was laboring over a smith’s fireplace.
But Kai wasn’t exhausted— he wasn’t panting and out of breath from being locked in battle for hours. Instead, he was gripped in fear. Trepidation ruled his body. Every small step he took— every subtle action he made— it all resounded in his mind like the roaring clap of thunder.
And why should he not be scared? Why shouldn’t he be afraid?
This was his first mission. His very first job as an Inquisitor— and the Church had sent him out to deal with this.
Yes, he was a Level 12 Sapphire Rank [Paladin Ordained By The Light]. He had earned the Titles of the Lightbringer of Ortaz and Valan’s Indomitable Champion. Back in his hometown, he was lauded and praised as a hero. And he was seen as the pride of the southern region of the Sanctus Empire— because he was able to rise up the ranks of the Church of Life at the young age of twenty-five and become an Inquisitor despite coming from such an impoverished region where most wouldn’t ever see the Capital City.
There was much he had accomplished in his life that he was proud of— that would make him confident of his capabilities of dealing with most ordinary threats. However, what he had been tasked to deal with today was not an ordinary threat. Not in the slightest.
Glancing to his side, Kai hoped to find any words of wisdom from his two teammates that would instill the sparks of courage into his fading heart. They were both veterans. The first member of the team was Meera, and she was a woman who looked to be about a year or two older than him at most. She was a type of [Life Mage]— capable of both healing and casting powerful offensive spells.
And the other member of the group— their leader— was a burly man named Kaleb. His age wore on his face, showing in his graying hair; and the scars of his past battles remained on his skin. Kai just knew that he was a powerful [Spellsword], but the specifics of his Class eluded the rookie.
The two of them had been Inquisitors for years, and Kai thought he could turn to them for help. But when he stared at their faces— all he saw was a reflection of his feelings.
Meera quite literally quaked in her boots. She raised a gloved hand and wiped the sweat drenching her face. Meanwhile, despite Kaleb wearing a mask of confidence on his face, Kai could still see a crack in the older man’s demeanor.
There was an aura of uncertainty surrounding the three Inquisitors, which betrayed the exuded confidence that often came from the ornate armor they wore bearing the sigils of the Church of Life. But who wouldn’t feel this way in their position?
Kai swept his gaze around the desolate city— its buildings lay a ruined wreck. The streets were lined with rubble, and desiccated corpses littered the ground. Once, tens of thousands of souls resided here, in Avilos.
But now, there was nothing left but death and despair.
All because of—
And a terrible screech resounded, sweeping throughout the ruined city. A pulse of dark energy exploded out, knocking over what few buildings remained standing, turning them to dust. Dark clouds began to gather overhead, despite what had been a clear blue painting the sky overhead just moments ago.
Meera backed away as she looked up in horror, seeing the pillar of purple light shoot to the sky from the center of the city.
“It has detected our presence!” she exclaimed with wide eyes, taking a step back.
Kai looked towards their leader, uncertainty plaguing his face. “What do we do?”
And Kaleb shook his head, drawing his rapier as a ball of golden flames flared into existence in his free hand.
“We have to intercept it. We can’t let it escape and attack another city—” But before the words could finish leaving his mouth, he was cut off by a flash of purple light.
A blast of lightning shot down from the eddying clouds overhead, heading straight for the three Inquisitors. They moved all at once, gathering behind Meera as she placed one hand on the ground. A spell circle formed at her feet, before a small forest of trees and branches grew around the three of them into a dome, encasing them entirely right as the lightning struck the earth.
But that wasn’t enough to protect them. A powerful explosion engulfed the area, and the barrier protecting the three Inquisitors was ripped to shreds. They were sent flying back as their armors flashed and flickered, taking the rest of the brunt of the attack.
Kai’s world spun for a moment, before he crashed into the earth. And for a moment, he lay there in a daze, facing the sky. But then he saw Kaleb’s figure running up to him, screaming at him to get up.
Even as Kai’s ears rang, he forced himself to his feet and picked up his spear. His armor was cracked and damaged, but he still stood tall as Kaleb helped steady him. Looking up, Kai stared past Meera who was standing at the edge of a crater. She was looking on in shock at the pillar of smoking rising up to the sky just ahead of them.
Kai took a moment to process this scene too. And that’s when he realized the same thing his comrade did.
With just that single attack, half of the ruins of the city had been completely obliterated. All that remained was a giant crater that spanned out for miles, the bottom of the pit burning with a raging black fire that threatened to spread even further.
“This…” Kai’s breath caught in his throat when he saw the destruction wreaked with a single attack.
And then he heard a terrible whistling sound that almost sounded like a shriek echoing from the sky above him. Kai, Kaleb, and Meera tensed at that. Kai held up his spear as it shone with a white light, while Kaleb’s body flickered with the image of a golden armor protecting him. Meera simply held up both of her hands as small glyphs of green light appeared in her fingertips.
The three Inquisitors looked up in the direction of the whistling screech, staring into the curtain of smoke for a long moment. And then the gray blanket covering the sky parted to the side as a shadowed figure emerged.
There it was. Their target. What they had been sent here to exterminate.
It wore the shape of a human, but it was no human. Its body was ashen-gray, and its arms were like scything blades protruding from its sides. It had a single feathered black wing coming from its back, and it wore the face of a hairless cat that glowed with crimson eyes and no mouth.
Its gaze bore down onto the three Inquisitors as they stared back at it in horror. It was—
[Avatar Of Death - ???]
“I can’t see its Rank…” Meera whispered as the creature slowly drifted down from the sky.
“That means it has to at least be Ruby in Rank,” Kaleb said as he gritted his teeth. “But it might even be Emerald…”
“But… but…” Kai tried to work his jaw. He couldn’t even muster up his words. However, his teammates knew what he was trying to say.
Because they had the same thought too.
We’re only Sapphire Ranks, they all thought. We are going to die.
Perhaps if they were Bronzes going up against a Silver threat, they would stand a chance of winning. But at the higher Ranks, it was practically impossible to fight an enemy that was a higher Rank than them and win.
The three Inquisitors all knew it— as they stared at the descending force of death slowly drift their way. They knew they were all going to—
And there was a flash of white light.
The Avatar of Death came to a halt and floated in the same spot for a long moment. Kai blinked as he stared at the shadowy creature, uncomprehending.
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“What… just happened?” he asked, his mind processing what had just happened.
And all at once, the Avatar of Death’s body split in half, sliced vertically down the middle. It slowly fell from the sky as Kai, Kaleb, and Meera just watched in confusion and shock.
Before a figure landed lithely on the ground before them. They recognized who it was in an instant.
Golden hair. Blue eyes. A silver longsword encrusted in precious jewels. She didn’t wear her heavy plate armor with her right now, instead choosing to wear pure white robes similar to what the [Battle Monks] wore, but there was no mistaking it.
“I apologize for my late arrival,” she said as she raised her head, smiling at the three Inquisitors. And the body of the Avatar of Death landed with a thud as she continued. “But the threat has been eliminated.”
She was Aria the Lady of Light.
The [Hero] ordained by the Goddess of Life.
The One Who Slew the Death God.
And Kai could only stare at her in awe as she sheathed her blade.
***
Aria had just dealt with a Sapphire Rank Avatar of Death in the southern regions of the Sanctus Empire when she got the news that another one had appeared to the east and destroyed the city of Avilos. Even though she had been reassured that a team of Inquisitors had been sent to deal with the problem, she still immediately took off to aid them.
After all, the Avatars of Death greatly ranged in their degree of strength. Some could only be Platinum Rank in threat at most, but there were some who were even as powerful as the likes of Archbishop Walden.
And those were the ones who were daring enough to attack a city— especially ones as populated as Avilos. Because even though they seemed like mindless weapons of death, they all seemed to have some sense of self-preservation too.
This was something that Aria had warned the Church about many times. That was why she told them to leave the Avatars of Deaths to her. But they refused to listen to her. And that had cost them the lives of many Inquisitors in the last few years.
Even today, the Avatar of Death that had wrecked Avilos would have wiped out the team of Inquisitors sent to deal with it if Aria had not intervened. After all, that had been a mid-leveled Ruby Rank threat. They hadn’t stood even a semblance of a chance of defeating it.
Fortunately, Aria arrived in time, saving them from what would have been their demise. And now, she took her time to rest in the camp the Inquisitors had set up, leaving them to clean up any remaining mess.
She sat inside of a tent, sipping on a cup of tea as she waited for the Inquisitors to return. She set the cup down and reached for her journal she had left on the small wooden table before her. But before she could open it, she heard the shuffling of feet from outside of her tent.
A shadow appeared right before the flaps, and a man cleared his throat.
“May I come in, Lady Aria?”
“Of course,” she replied as she lowered the journal and faced the entrance to the tent. A man with crimson hair stepped into the room and saluted her. She just nodded back at him with a smile. “Kai, was it?”
He hesitated, taken aback by the fact that she remembered his name. But then he composed himself and nodded. “Yes, Lady Aria. I have returned with a status update.”
“Go ahead,” Aria said as she gestured for him to continue. “And please, there’s no need to be so formal. Just call me Aria.”
Kai blinked, before hesitating. He shook his head apologetically at that. “I apologize, Lady Aria. I cannot do that.”
Of course not, Aria thought, rolling her eyes. Practically everyone in the Church worshiped her. So they would
Kai just straightened as he continued. “As for the status update, Meera has managed to extinguish the flames started by the Avatar of Death, and now she has joined the hunt with Kaleb for the Artifacts of Death that were scattered across the area.”
After killing the Avatar of Death, just like every other one, its body had cracked and exploded into a handful of shining objects that scattered across a radius of a dozen or so miles. This time, it had scattered approximately seven of these Artifacts of Death.
“So far, we have collected only three of them,” Kai finished as he handed over a Bag of Holding to the Lady of Light. “I will return to my teammates and aid them in their search. Hopefully, we will return by the morning, so that we can make our way back to Lux without any further delays.”
“I see.” Aria just nodded as she accepted the Bag of Holding from the Inquisitor.
He took a step back, before pausing for a moment. He stared at her for a long moment, before he saluted her once again.
“And thank you again, Lady Aria— for saving our lives.”
“It was my pleasure,” she said simply, smiling back at him. “You may go now, Inquisitor Kai.”
Kai flushed, before he took a step back. “Y-yes, Lady Aria. We will act swiftly— we shall not fail you.”
And with that, he exited the tent. Aria just sighed when he was gone. While she was used to being treated in such a way— being admired and respected by those around her— she still wished that others would just treat her… normal.
From that day she had been found by Archbishop Walden— when the world found out she was The One Anointed By Fate— she had never been treated as an equal by any others. Because she was going to be the [Hero] who would save the Goddess of Life.
And she thought… hoped… that now that it was all over, and the War of Fate had concluded, that she could resume the ordinary life she used to live, before she was thrust into the duty of a [Hero].
However, things had only gotten worse since then. Because they all thought she was the One Who Slew the Death God.
That she was the one who defied fate.
After all, every [Hero] of the past had to sacrifice their lives to defeat the Death God— it was thought that she would have to do the same.
And yet, here she was, alive today. So they didn’t just see her as a [Hero] anymore. They saw her as the greatest [Hero] to have ever lived.
For what she had accomplished. For what she had done.
And while everything they said about her was technically true, it also wasn’t exactly the whole story either. Because it was not due to her own merit that she defied fate.
So she just wanted to slink into the shadows— hide away from the public eye, and maybe run away to a small town and start a farm.
Anything to escape the burden of responsibility placed on her shoulders to be the [Hero] everyone thought she was. But she couldn’t do that. Because of the appearances of the Avatars of Death.
Aria took in a deep breath as she opened her diary, taking a moment to scribble down the description of the Avatar of Death she had killed today. Every single time she faced one down, she took note of every little detail about her encounter. Each one was always different in appearance, and they often resulted in a different number of Artifacts of Death being scattered.
But one thing she had observed from having killed over a hundred Avatars of Death now was that the less grotesque in appearance they were, and the more anthropoid they resembled, the far stronger they were.
She had yet to encounter an Avatar of Death that was fully anthropoid in form. But she knew that if the day came, it would be difficult to bring down, even for her.
But that was pretty much all she learned about the Avatars of Death in the last few years. She didn’t know where they originally came from, nor did she know what process created them when they did appear.
In fact, it wasn’t just her— nobody actually knew of their origins. The official explanation by the Church was that they were related to the Death God— that it was the manifestation of his desire for vengeance against Aria for her victory over him in the War of Fate.
And that was also why the next Death God had yet to appear, according to the Church. Because it was in hiding, afraid that if Aria found it, its reign of terror would end before it even began.
However, there was no proof to these claims made by the Church. In fact, Aria herself personally rejected what they were saying. Because she believed that… well, she didn’t know what she believed in.
But what she knew was that she didn’t believe that the Death God was responsible behind these Avatars of Death. And a small part of her even wanted to believe that the Death God was possibly not as evil as she thought.
And it was all because of that day.
The Final Battle of the War of Fate.
That day weighed on her mind, even until now.
Why? she asked herself as she recalled her final confrontation with Nox the Death God. Why did he let me kill him? Why didn’t he fight back?
He had been so close to achieving his victory. He could’ve killed the Goddess of Life there and then. But he didn’t.
Instead, he let Aria kill him at that moment.
He was the one who had defied fate.
And because of his actions, Aria had also escaped from her fate.
Because she knew she had been supposed to die there. She knew that she was not supposed to live. After all…
Aria closed her eyes as she lowered her head. This was something that the public didn’t know— a fact that was being suppressed and withheld by the Church. But ever since Aria had returned from the Dominion of Life, she had lost her Class.
She was no longer a [Hero]. Her Class had been revoked from her, and had been forced to take up a different Class in its stead.
And that was not all, she had lost her Title too. The Title that had told her since she was a child that she was meant to be the one to kill the Death God.
The Title of The One Anointed By Fate.
Instead, she was now—
The Enemy Of Destiny.
And because of that, Aria found herself questioning fate.
Why exactly do I need to die to appease fate? she wondered as she pursed her lips.
But while she didn’t know the answer to that question, she knew there was something more to it— that there was something more sinister going on. And that Nox the Death God had known about it, which was why he let her kill him that day.
That’s why… Aria took in a deep breath as she rose to her feet, resolving herself. I need to find the next Death God before the Church does— to figure out what exactly is going on.
And she slammed her journal shut.