God's Avatar

A Brief History

“As I’ve said before, I am Kirin from a country called Paiven Empire, a human country, I’ve come here to collect information about the guild called Surrender at 20, which is you.”

Introducing herself courteously, she raised her hands and a glimmering light shone upon it. It was shining and sparkling in color red and emanated its great brilliance inside the Guild’s hall.

As the glowing light began lighting inside the Guild Hall, all the people around them began to rouse in their deep sleep.

It was one of her skills called [Hypnotism], and it displays its effectiveness by just making the adventurers, receptionists, and guards sleep.

For a swordswoman like her to possess magic similar to a Chanter is truly surprising.

Then, once the spell was finished its casting, Jasper walked forward to the reception desk to observe the process of completion. It was just stamped and the tooth from Goblin King was kept in a room that seems to be the treasury.

“Thank you for exterminating the Goblin King where others found difficult, this is the reward for completing the quest.”

The receptionist handed him a bag full of sparkling small gold coins. Which is enough to buy a luxurious life inside the capital, not to add the recognition from the royal family.

He grabbed the bag of small gold coins and gently put it inside his bag and returned to the seats where Kirin, Manuel, and Jericho, were seated.

Sitting beside Manuel, Jasper began to ask some questions.

“Now, would you tell us why you’d like to collect information about us? We’ve just started this guild and yet we’ve become famous. There’s more to this am I right?”

Jasper has his doubts about this, a girl strong enough to kill everyone inside here is making contact with them, personally. Not to mention, she’s from another country, which means that they’ve attracted the attention of the others.

But her next word surprised them even more.

“I forgot to mention, I am one of the royal guards of the Paiven Empire, Kirin. My job here is to protect his highness that’ll be meeting the Bethia king for support about the impending doom of humanity.”

The battle gods brows furrowed, from her tone and breathing, she was not telling any lies about this. But that’s not the end, the fact that they haven’t heard about this is surprisingly shocking. An impending doom? Why did the king of Bethia didn’t tell them about this...or was the girl really lying? They don’t know anymore so they decided to prompt her to continue speaking.

For Kirin who saw their surprised expression surprised her, why didn’t they know about this crisis?

“Hmm, I guess I should tell you a story as a prize for defeating me in swordsmanship…”

Then she began telling them a story long enough to make them sleep, but they didn’t waste this chance as they are ignorant about this world history anyways. The more information they gathered and cross-section it to the information they already have, this would put them in an advantage.

So, the story started 10,000 years ago, an age of gods where demons and humans fought for dominance, the Demon Lord at that time summoned a powerful being that could be considered supreme, they are The Goddess of Love, The Goddess of Death, The God of War. Those supreme deities heed the commands of the Demon Race and turned the tide of the battle where the humans ended up losing. However, something happened that turned humanity victorious.

They conducted a ritual with enormous magic to summon a servant from another world. They are called “Otherworldly Heroes” their strength is comparable to deities and even stronger than the demon lords.

There were twelve of them in total and each of them was powerful. Together, they fought back alongside humanity and defeated those deities summoned by the Demon Lord.

It was a humiliating defeat for the Demon Race and lost the war. Now that they’ve won a war, humanity plans to fully eradicate the demon race so that they would never lay waste on the world again. However, to do that, they need the powers of Otherworld Heroes, which unfortunately expired due to the fact that they’ve done their duties as a servant, thus disappearing from this world.

Hence, the demon race prospered in that ten thousand years and is still looking for a way to revive those defeated deities. The catalyst necessary for the revival is unknown for humanity but the great seer of the Paiven Kingdom told them that there is no time, the calamity will soon trample again with humanity having no chance to fight back.

Their hope is the holy grail that can be granted to the winners of the Holy Grail Tournament which will begin in three months. But the great seer predicted that the summoning of Deities will begin in the next two weeks. The rules of the Holy Grail Tournament can’t be altered, changed, and broken. It has a specific rule passed down from generations that the Holy Grail Tournament should be done in a time of Cataclysm. Which is the exact date of the Holy Grail Tournament, not the fake one that was conducted every year.

Ending the story, the trio felt enlightened. At last, someone told them the history of this world, even if it's not similar to the one told to them by the king of Bethia and his daughters.

Jasper took this story seriously and began formulating questions inside of his mind.

Then minutes of silence was broken by Jasper who opened his mouth, ready to speak.

“First, why is the Holy Grail Tournament important?” Jasper asked simply.

“The Holy Grail Tournament is important because it will act as a mana supply for summoning the Otherworld Heroes, however, now that it's impossible to attain since the Demon Race will end their ceremonial summoning of the Deities in the next two weeks. The world will end by the time of the tournament or sooner than that.”

She fluidly explained, which they understood clearly. If what she was saying is true and from her worried expression. Jasper could infer one thing, those deities are probably strong enough to end the world.

“But ending the world is not the goal of the Demon Race, why are they summoning something that will end the land that they will dominate?”

“Unfortunately, we don’t know that too, but one thing is sure, that the Demon Lord is not as strong as the deities. From the moment of their summoning, the Demon Lord will become it's subordinate.”

Stroking his chin, Jasper thought of something.

Is this the information that they should believe and consider? It wasn’t even mentioned by Christine and the King. They only mentioned the Holy Grail Tournament which is useless in this age.

It was troubling him of the fact that the King of Bethia didn’t even tell them about these deities or calamities.

“If you haven’t heard about this, maybe the King of Bethia didn’t disclose this information because of your identity.” Kirin breaks his train of thoughts and is snapped back to reality.

“Pardon?” Manuel shrugs his shoulders.

“Your identities are mysterious and unknown in the first place. The moment you participated in that mock battle, our king was watching and was shocked at your great power and decided to gather information about you. But they couldn’t find your origin, which is odd, to begin with. You have no information about yourselves from the last 100 years and the fact that you just applied for citizenship is the proof of that....”

“Okay enough talk, what are you implying?” Jericho got bored of the long long train of words and decided to interrupt it with inconsequential implication.

“In short, we don’t know who you are and where you came from. That made the King of Bethia maybe not trusting you about this crisis.”

“And yet you voluntarily disclosed this information to us.”

“It was not voluntary but a prize.” She sighed and continued, “The fact of sharing this information with you will not damage the reputation of the Paiven Kingdom, in short, it was not that important. The most important thing is for our highness to convinced your king about something.”

“Which is what?” Manuel asked.

“You... “ She pointed at the three of them, leaving them baffled.

“What do you mean?” Jericho urgently asked, why would someone from a higher-up want them.

Then the next words shocked them.

“Because our great seer predicted that your guild will be the one who will save us from extinction.”

…

The same day, at the Battle Gods Estate, Inigo was walking around the Estate exploring every inch of the place. Since he was ordered by Ethan to get some important things in the weaponry, he took this chance to indulge himself in the luxury of their estate.

Why would they live there in a crappy mansion? It’s better to live here than there.

Those were his thoughts, so instead of returning immediately after getting those “important things” he will spend his afternoon here…

However.

The atmosphere heavied suddenly and Inigo felt a cold presence behind him. It was something indescribable that made his head turn to look at this sudden change.

There was a warped space forming on it like a portal. He saw nothing but darkness.

It was an infinitesimally thin, yet unfathomably deep blackness. It was a half-oval of obsidian that seemed to protrude from the earth. It was a mysterious sight that filled the ones watching it with a powerful sense of unease.

Then something seemed to be coming out of that shadowy passage.

Inigo assumed battle stance, materializing his staff and shield in his hands.

Then that something turned into a figure. Inigo noticed its appearance.

It was a handsome young man with black hairstreaks of red and gold. It was finely dressed in garments like that of a prince and his pupils were staring intently at him.

Then that figure speaks.

“Allow me to introduce myself, I am the current demon lord of the Demon Race, My name is Diablo and I came here personally to see the hindrance of our world domination. Which are you, Surrender at 20. Kufufu.”

In his gentlemanly and soothing voice, there was a dark intention behind it. Since it was the Demon Lord that Ethan told them about, he needs to be wary about him.

But this looks like it’s gonna turn into a fight. Inigo readied himself.

Suddenly that figure disappeared in an instant. Though Inigo wasn’t surprised about this and focused his mind to track Diablo.

Then Diablo rematerialized himself behind and delivered a right hook. With its blinding speed, any human received this will shatter its head.

Which didn’t happen.

Surprising Diablo, Inigo tilted his head to the side slightly, evading his right hook, successfully doing so, he let go of his wand and grabbed that arm, and toppled him down onto his back, crashing and shattering the ground with great force.

“To think that you’re going to attack me with no warning, how desperate of you to bring me down.”

He didn’t stop there and raised his left foot and stomped him directly on his face, disfiguring it...

Satisfied with the result he let go of him and Diablo took this opportunity to blink away from him.

He was tottering there, his face was bleeding so badly that he had to cover it with his hand.

Then that hand began to glow in pitch-black and the disfigured face began to disappear and revert it back on his original beautiful face.

“Kufufu...I shouldn’t have underestimated you...As expected from the threat I considered. You are a powerful being...may I ask your name?”

With a smug look, Inigo replied reluctantly.

“I’m just a healer in our guild, my name is Inigo.”

“Ohh, healer huh? You don’t jest, a mere healer seeing through my attacks and putting me down…”

His face began to contort in anger, his beautiful face covered with wrinkles and bulging veins after realizing that he was thrash down by a mere healer.

“I will never let this slide…[Cocoon of Darkness]”

A pitch-black cocoon protruded from Inigo’s location, coiling and wrapping around him.

“I don’t see the sense of using this skill to me.”

He lightly waved his hands and in an instant, the cocoon that was warping around him disappeared.

But he can’t see the demon lord anymore.

“Did he use that skill for his retreat? What a weak guy...not finishing the battle he started. Well, it doesn’t matter anyway, I need to report this to the captain.”