The Evil God Was Killed At Last

"Surrender now, Pavor!"

"You may be immortal, but you are not unkillable. With the blade blessed by the Goddess, your dark heart will seize once it has been pierced and you will no longer be in this world."

"Do it, Xarian. It is the will of fate."

He found the voices of these mortal children to be amusing. Pavor turned to the hot-headed girl with flaming hair that matches her personality and long deadly claws, who taunts him to surrender. Then, he turned to the reserved young man with spectacles, holding a book of spells and telling him how he was not unkillable. 

And finally, to the small blind boy who was wearing the clothes of a priest of Amore, the Goddess of Love. He does nothing but heal the wounds of his comrades, but his words were the most impactful among all of them.

The will of fate.

What does this sheep of Amore know about fate?

With a weak laugh, Pavor used his last bit of strength to conjure a dark ball of energy in his hand. What fuels that energy is fear so strong that it will drive anyone mad. 

He shot it towards the child!

The child immediately fell backwards, dark tendrils surrounding his young body. He screamed in pain, and despite his eyes being empty and pure white, they seemed to witness unspeakable terrors that left his mouth hanging into a wide 'O' until he collapsed. 

"Davien!" The girl with claws took the child's feeble body in her arms.

The man with the book of spells searched quickly for one, the pages fluttering with divine energy, as he tried to reverse the damage done by Pavor's attack. But it was far too late, Pavor knows that. 

He made sure nothing can save the little priest, not even the Goddess he worships.

And the hero...

He just let all this happen, still standing over Pavor with listless eyes. 

Xarian Plover. 

Pavor had fought this mortal many times, but Xarian was still an enigma to him. He seemed to have been born to be just an obedient servant, a dutiful prince that had been trained since birth as Amore's champion.

Before he was even conceived, he was already chosen. 

He was the son of the King and Queen of Erosith, the greatest kingdom in the world they call Amoreas. The chosen land of the Goddess who created this world, or at least, the good part of it. 

The one who had created and ruled over the Outlands was Pavor. Only demons made of fear and dread lived there, along with some cultists who decided to worship him in defiance to Amore. 

But he never doted upon these cultists, he merely saw them as willing pawns to use. Pavor only cared about the Phobodemons and monsters he created, as well as his personal satisfaction.

Meanwhile, Xarian was the opposite. He was not moved by hatred or intent to protect, but merely of obligation. As the chosen one, Xarian could feel no fear. He seems to barely feel anything. And so Pavor's dread powers could not affect Xarian at all, not even when the Lord of Dread was at his peak form.

And right now, Pavor was definitely NOT in his peak form.

But Pavor still found a reason to laugh. He was bleeding black tar all over his immortal body, and his bones were broken from the 1000 strikes from the energy surging through Xarian's sword.

That energy was the power of Amore...

Love triumphs fear at last. 

After a long stalemate, fear would finally be defeated. Pavor smirked at this notion, and could only imagine the legends and tales that would be told about this day. 

The day where there will be no more misery or monsters. No fear.

And then what?

Don't these feeble humans realize what they would lose when they defeat him? Of course they won't, because their small, greedy minds were only filled with idealistic hopes and daydreams to think ahead of what may happen hundreds of years later when evil no longer exists in their world.

And so he taunted Love's hero with a wide smile:

"Blessed mortal, is this everything you have ever wished for? The glorious destiny of killing the greatest evil in the land of Amoreas?"

He was waiting for Xarian to say something just as heroic as his reputation. Something so cheesy and climatic that would be remembered in those legends and tales that the people would make of this day.

But instead, Xarian knelt in front of him, bowing his head. 

If Pavor didn't know any better, he would have thought that Xarian would start praying to him.

"Lord of Dread.... I was destined to slay you before I was born. You are destined to become the greatest evil in the land ever since you have existed. We are all puppets on a string, moving in the whims of a puppet master we could not see."

He looked up at Pavor. "Isn't it tiring, playing our roles in this story we could not refuse?"

Xarian raised his sword, and drove it into the heart of Pavor without an expression on his face. But the way he did it was not spiteful or glorious at all…..

It was simply as somber as cutting the head of a bird that was already dying.

"Urk!" Pavor spat out black blood as soon as he was hit by that sword, the hilt rose gold with the emblem of a dove, Amore's symbol.

"May you have your long-awaited rest at last. I do not wish to have this fate either. If only our fortunes could be reversed."

Pavor's lips rose a bit at that. He gripped the shoulders of the hero that continued to drive his blade deeper into his chest. "I do not wish for..."

He was not able to continue those words before his vision turned to black.

--------------------

"I do not wish for your fate either. I am already thankful that you have freed me of mine."

That was what he would have said if he still had time. 

The Hero of Erosith, Champion of Amore, rose from his bed with his hand on his chest. He felt a numbing pain and continued to rub it for a while, feeling like something's wrong.

"Oh…. There's no wound here."

He finally looked at his surroundings and realized he was in a fancy bedroom with lavish gold curtains, a bed three times what he needed, and furniture that could feed 100 peasants for a year if they had been sold. 

His eyes were drawn to a portrait on the walls. 

It was the royal family.

The mother and father wore crowns on their heads, rose gold crowns laden with rubies. Their hair was also like luminous threads of golden silk. But their child....

Their child's hair was pitch black, darker than the darkest night. 

"This is....." 

He went to touch the child's face. It looks so familiar, but also foreign.

Because it was his face, but much younger. 

Pavor looked at himself in the vanity mirror. "Hahahaha...…. What cruel game is fate playing on me now?"

It finally dawned upon him. 

The words of Xarian Plover had come true. Their fates were reversed, and now he was to live the life of a hero fated to slay the Lord of Dread. 

It was so bizarre. He was no longer the God of Fear, and yet his appearance remained the same. His sneer remained menacing, and his hair was still the color of coal, his eyes green like a viper's. His skin was pale white, like that of a corpse.

But instead of a dark robe that he used to don, shrouding his whole body to leave an air of mystery, he was now dressed in the pristine clothes of a human prince. His hair was coiffed and stayed slicked back even after rolling in bed. 

Suddenly, a holographic screen appeared beside him. Along with it was a monotonous voice that spoke in an odd manner. 

[Welcome, Pavor Plover... System update initiating..... 60%.... ]

Pavor tilted his head at this strange apparition. He tried to touch it, but his now mortal fingers only passed through. Is this some strange Amorean magic that he had not heard of?

And where does that voice come from? Is it a spirit that follows Xarian around?

[System update finished. Tutorial shall now begin.]

"Tutorial?"

Suddenly, there was a loud shriek from down the hallway. Pavor rushed to see, enticed by the fear in that voice. 

And sure enough, there was a woman being chased by some green slimy creature, likely a maid in the castle. She was carrying a bunch of old laundry and ended up slipping as one of them fell and tripped her. 

"Young Master! Please help me, there's a Phobodemon in the castle!"

She held onto Pavor's leg, clinging for dear life. 

Pavor looked down at her….

And kicked her away!

"Don't touch me, mortal. Tsk." He scoffed like someone just swatting away some pest. 

He then turned to the creature, and the holographic screen came again to tell him:

[Stop the Phobodemon attack to complete the mission and gain points. Points can be exchanged in the store for stat boosts.]

Pavor frowned. "Points? Stat boosts? What strange language you speak, spirit."

As for the Phobodemon….

He simply approached it, straight to its mouth and said:

"My beautiful child! Come to Papa!"