Hero of Darkness
Hero of Darkness - Chapter 4: The Task

Silence. Total utter silence. It felt as if even a man's heart could not beat at this moment.

Elric's response left both God of Darkness & Kravel speechless. It struck them like an arrow in the throat and both of them seemed to lose their ability to speak & think at the same time.

A few seconds passed away, God of Darkness stared at Elric with a gaze so deep and full of wrath, enough to kill anyone just by looking at them. Suddenly, an extremely horrifying aura exuded out of both God of Darkness & Kravel's bodies.

BANG!

Unimaginably horrendous killing intent filled the surrounding atmosphere and covered a radius of few dozen kilometers. Even diamonds would be reduced to nothing but small granules under this pressure. Elric, the one being who was actually at the receiving end of it all shuddered & his soul form flickered again and again as if his current form was simply getting wiped out of existence and brought back to life. To Elric, it felt like he had gone through thousands of deaths. This pressure he was enduring had destroyed his current form & rebuilt him again in a nanosecond, only to carry out the process indefinitely.

After a minute of such heart wretching scenario, God of Darkness & Kravel finally stopped excluding their killing intent and looked at Elric who was barely keeping up his screams in.. He just didn't get time to open his mouth & scream or wail. To be precise, he had indeed died few thousand times again in that one minute. But an unknown force kept bringing him back to his previous state. Elric had a hint of exactly what this was.. It was the God of Darkness using his powers on Elric after his extremely rude & disrespectful response.

God of Darkness retracted his gaze from Elric, it appeared to become extremely dim compared to before. G.O.D ruled over Death & Infinite Abyss. He was a True God who controlled an aspect of reality.

Then G.O.D gazed at Elric with a look of disappointment and spoke again, "Never had I ever seen such an extremely impetuous human before. Even the other Gods do not dare to talk to me in such a vile & disrespectful manner. Tell me, mortal. What makes you think I really won't wipe you out of existence or torture you for the end of time ?" G.O.D. questioned Elric.

Elric, who had finally gained control over his consciousness looked back at G.O.D and responded, "Then why don't you do it? What makes you think I want to be alive? Just finish the job and end me already!"

Elric's answer left both G.O.D. & Kravel speechless. Had their act of trying to put Elric into submission by making him experience death over few thousand times turned him into a fool? Or had he gone senile from the pain & suffering to become a suicidal maniac?

Kravel who was rendered speechless by Elric since he had said 'Fuck off' to G.O.D. looked at his master as if he was looking at someone who broke their favorite toy.

"My Liege, are you sure you haven't destroyed his consciousness completely ?" Kravel asked.

G.O.D. was startled at this point and refused by flexing his hands around.

"Oi, what are you waiting for? Just kill me already! I don't want to spend another second looking at your ugly faces." Elric grumbled in a discontent tone.

"Ugly your mother!" both G.O.D. & Kravel said in rebuttal. Both of them looked at Elric as if he just killed their dog.

Elric on the other end was surprised. These two ultimate beings killed him over few thousand times for being disrespectful but now they were suddenly throwing rude comments at him for calling them 'ugly' like little girls? Why was this happening? He just wanted to die again & be done with it.

At the next second however, G.O.D. decided to end the charade and get back to business.

"Why do you not want to live again? Is it because of your past life experiences ?" he asked Elric.

"Yes. Who wants a second chance at life just to get used up by someone else again? I mean whatever you want me to do comes with a price which definitely won't be beneficial to me at all. And why should I believe in anything you say? Let's save us all the trouble, send me back to being dead and find someone else who actually wants to live." Elric said with a bored expression.

G.O.D. & Kravel were taken aback again. "So you don't want to live again, Mortal? Do you not understand the opportunity my Liege is offering you? Not everyone gets such a miraculous chance." Kravel who refrained to be part of this conversation decided to meddle in.

"Are you two morons dumb? Didn't you hear me the first time? Let me die you, bastards! Pick someone else. Why do you even need to listen to me, just send me back!" Elric gave his discontent.

"I... I can't." G.O.D. finally spoke up. He shook his head and was trying to avoid direct eye contact.

"My powers allow me to control death & things that have no place in existence. I am a being born out of that very aspect of reality in our world. At most, I can summon the dead souls from other worlds like yours inside this World Boundary and only keep just one of such Souls in my possession as the dead of other worlds are bound to their respective world's laws of reality. And even keeping one soul here takes an immense amount of my power." G.O.D. explained the whole process.

Elric looked at G.O.D. as if he was looking at a liar. Not satisfied with his answer at all. But then he looked at Kravel who was standing beside G.O.D. 's throne. And he too looked like that was indeed the truth.

"And what if I refuse to do whatever you said you wanted me to do? You'll at least kill me, right ?" Elric asked with an expectant expression.

"No!" both G.O.D. & Kravel shouted at the same time.

"Why?" Elric asked

"Because you're the only one we can rely upon now. And I can no longer summon anyone again for next few thousand years." G.O.D. said.

"And why should I care? From the looks of it. It looks like some impossible job for a normal office worker guy like me. I didn't live a life of wonders & heroic deeds you know. Why would you even pick me of all the people you could've picked?" Elric asked curiously. This didn't make sense to him as G.O.D. could've easily brought someone more capable & experienced for whatever job they had to be done. So why him?

G.O.D. however, stayed silent for dozen seconds and finally heaved a sigh. He looked at Elric and said,

"Because the task we're going to give you demands one being extremely aware and not trust anyone. Because currently, all my representatives and anyone who was allied to me has been marked as someone who must be killed in the entire world of Vantrea. Including those who once served or worshipped me in the form of Cults, Temples and Churches." said G.O.D. in a very disheartened tone.

"I wasn't even supposed to summon you myself. Normally, whenever a chosen one is brought from a different world into ours, they are summoned by the Churches & the Empire who worship a particular God & follows their Doctrine at the expanse of hundreds of mages working together. But all my followers & anyone who had worshiped me were wiped out completely more than 200 years ago. And now, no one even knows that I exist. My name is nothing but a myth in our world at this point." G.O.D. explained.

Elric who looked at both the beings in front of him with a suspecting gaze still appeared to be uncertain and asked

"So what do you want me to do? Build churches & temples for you, spread your divine teachings to the masses and bring you back to your glory days? Sorry, but I'm not a religious guy."

G.O.D. & Kravel both glanced at each other and gazed at Elric together.

"No. We don't want you to do something so arduous & hectic. We just need you to kill the Demon God." Said G.O.D. with an embarrassed tone.

As if struck by a thousand bolts of lightning at the same time, Elric stayed rooted on the spot. He didn't speak or move at all. Only after half a minute, he was fumed with anger and shouted,

"YOU MOTHERFUCKERS!!"