He was dead. For a brief moment, he was dead. His eye was pierced, his skull nailed by Kavlina’s blade. It should’ve been the end.

Yet he has risen.

He takes slow, leisurely steps towards Kavlina, the eight blades hovering around him in a ring. Outside, the battle in complete and utter chaos, the explosions erratic and irregular, both armies now engaged in battle as hordes without any semblance of organization. Yet within, the environment is eerily quiet, the combatants temporarily suspended in a moment of respite before they engage each other once more. At least, suspended so long as Avalel wills it to.

Kavlina clutches her chest, sweat pouring from her neck as she leans forward to support herself with her blade. She drops her knife, the weapon falling to the ground with a clang. Her heart is strained, her lungs in pain with every breath she takes. She had spent nearly everything she had to deal the killing blow.

And he is now resurrected.

“You did well, I admit,” Avalel says, taking off his damaged helmet and tossing it outside, revealing his youthful face, barely changed despite the years of war. “But alas, a mortal cannot kill a deity.”

“There are no gods in this world,” Kavlina retorts, irked by the arrogance her old friend now possesses.

“Do you not realize your situation, Maiden?” he laughs. “You are fighting against the unstoppable tides of Fate. No matter how much you cut it with your blade, it will continue its course. Fate creates all, guides all, decides all, is all. You are just a tiny part of this system, a minor antagonist in the grand narrative of the world. And I am the one who decides the narrative.”

Even as the environment around them is up in rubble and smoke, he stands relaxed, as if this is just a friendly conversation between two acquaintances, ignoring his own blood that lay in a puddle where he had died. He’s simply patiently waiting for Kavlina to recover, for her to catch her breath before they engage each other in battle once more.

“What happened to protecting the world, huh?” Kavlina hisses.

“Ah, right, protecting the world,” Avalel says casually. “I’m already doing it, aren’t I? By being on the side of Fate, I can save the world from the chaos brought forth by the people’s foolishness. Maiden, surely you don’t think you can protect the world by killing me? I, the savior as dictated by—”

A cloud of crystals suddenly surrounds him and strikes, piercing his body with hundreds of stabs. Avalel is stunned for a moment before he falls to the ground, his body riddled with holes. Shocked, Kavlina turns back, and finds Nasition stubbornly raising up his hand as blood flows from his calf and mouth, so weak yet refusing to admit defeat in the face of such an adversary. He huffs and pants, and as he lowers his hand, the cloud disperses, the crystals returning to the dust they were created from.

There is silence. Avalel is down for a second time.

“... It’s rude to interrupt someone when they’re speaking, Nasition.”

Avalel stands back up to his feet, unfazed by the slight intervention and inconvenience, serving no other purpose but to delay the inevitable. Looking at the Black Maiden and Nasition, both at their respective limits, he sees nothing but two pitiful mortals, constrained by their finite bodies and cores, expending their energy to kill an unkillable being.

This is quite the new revelation. He has died. Twice now. But he has risen, unscathed and freed from death’s clutches. This is true invincibility, the ultimate form of power as Fate has promised him. There are no more limits to hold him down. Even as he was pierced by the crystals earlier, he felt no pain, only a moment of darkness before he returned to things as is. That darkness, supposedly eternal, cannot hold him. All because Fate deems him essential to the path that is to come. As the vessel of Fate, he simply has to follow the path laid out for him. Nothing will stand in his way. Not emotion, not pain, not companions. Not even death.

Simply put, he is no longer human.

He looks at the Black Maiden, her legs barely keeping her upright, her body about to collapse on itself from exhaustion. She spent everything she had to defeat him, but her wish for vengeance will not be granted, no matter how great the sacrifice she has given. By marking him as her nemesis, she has already cursed herself to go against the path set forth by Fate. She has made herself the villain of Fate, and hence, there is only one outcome for her:

Death.

But seeing her die in such a cruel, slow way is not exactly the most interesting way to be defeated by the vessel of Fate himself. After all, her determination to kill him is admirable, even if that motive is relatively irrelevant for Avalel to the overarching narrative.

And it won’t be entertaining to see such a slow death.

He walks up to her, the latter not even having the strength to raise her blade. “I am the savior as dictated by Fate,” he says, finishing his previous sentence. “It is already decided that I will be the one to protect the world. I act for the grand narrative, for the greater good, but you’re only attempting to kill me out of vengeance. Isn’t that a little… petty, Maiden?”

“What has gone into you?” the Maiden questions, struggling to put up a front of strength. “Are you so corrupted you have forgotten who you are?”

“I know who I am,” he answers. “Unlike my naivety before, I know my purpose now. Instead of being a mindless creature pushed around by arbitrary limits, I now am the vessel, the avatar of Fate. I represent its will, executing its wishes. Certainly much better than basing my entire purpose on the hatred of a singular being, no?”

The Maiden grits her teeth, staring at him through her mask. “Do you even remember what you have done?”

“If you mean that I have killed some dear friend of yours, I must say I don’t remember,” he says with a smile. “After all, why do I have to know every victim I killed, when they’re merely small obstacles and moments in the narrative? Do you seriously expect a mostly irrelevant killing to hold a prominent position in the path of Fate?”

The words are simply said to provoke her. Despite the Maiden’s faltering physicality, Avalel still senses the hatred within her, a fire still burning on its last embers. There is still room for an interesting set of events, providing him a true sense of threat as it had in their previous encounters.

Victory is already firmly in his hands, but grabbing it too easily is quite boring.

“Irrelevant? You call that act irrelevant?” The Maiden roars. “You are just some egotistical killing machine now, huh? HUH? HAVE YOU LOST YOURSELF?”

She lunges at him, but he simply steps aside, allowing her to fall to the floor. Her legs are useless now, too weak to even get her back to a standing position. The once tall, imposing figure of the Black Maiden now lies helplessly at his feet, her life gradually drained away as her energy is depleted.

“What a poor end to this exchange,” he comments, pretending to lament at the situation. “Such determination, such hate, yet you still cannot achieve your goal. And to fall by exhaustion and not by my blade… What a shame.”

“Y-You tyrant…” The Maiden’s voice has also significantly weakened, the sound barely able to be registered as a dying whimper.

In the distance, Avalel notices Nasition raising his hand to summon another cloud of crystals. But to the latter’s dismay, there is nothing. The once-powerful leader of the Confederation, separated from his troops, is dying from excessive blood loss.

“Pitiful, pitiful…” Avalel mutters in amusement.. “Such are the fates of those who oppose Fate. Just pitiful, isn’t it?”

He laughs lightly as he kneels, placing the Maiden’s knife back in her hand. “But it is quite sad and boring for death to just linger above and gradually sap away the last few moments of one’s life, isn’t it?”

As he steps back, a visible trail of energy exits from his hand and into the Maiden and Nasition’s bodies. Just as he is resurrected by Fate, he too will put on an act of benevolence, giving them just a slight extension to their limited lifespans. Just as how one charges a battery, he transfers energy to his opponents, reviving their strength and healing their wounds.

After all, it will be more entertaining for them to have a proper duel than for him to just stand and watch as they die hopelessly before his eyes.

He is insane.

Kavlina struggles to her feet, her body completely revitalized from Avalel’s energy. It is disgusting. Humiliating even, for her and Nasition to be revived only for Avalel’s supposed entertainment. In a twisted display of power, they are almost made into toys for him to play with. That beautiful, formerly kind face, now inhabited by a soulless maniac representing so-called “Fate”. Such is what Avalel has become. There are no traces of that optimistic, friendly child who she considered her dearest friend, only a villain spouting nonsense while he is drunk on newfound power.

How far has he fallen?

“Come, entertain me!” Avalel calls out, the eight blades now pointed at her as they continue to hover around him. “Show me your vengeance again! Over and over, until I declare your end!”

Kavlina immediately dashes forward with her revitalized strength, her blade swinging at Avalel’s stomach. As expected, he parries with two of the blades as the other six are sent out for Kavlina’s neck. She dodges, maintaining a close distance with Avalel as the two of them orbit each other in a melee dance. Utilizing only her instincts, she ducks and weaves with every blow, her knife rapidly parrying stray attacks while she swings her blade with fury and rage, sparks flying whenever she comes into contact with Avalel’s blade-arm.

A cloud of crystals again surrounds them, this time blinding them from the environment outside. Hundreds of crystals rain towards Avalel with frightening intensity, but he simply swats them away with his blades as he focuses on Kavlina, not willing to let her have an opening.

“You have made a grave mistake, Avalel,” Nasition says from the outside. The cloud grows thicker than before, obscuring the vision of the two combatants inside as more dust begins to accumulate, forming even more crystals that shred the unfortunate two within.

There is no way of blocking or dodging Nasition’s crystals. As more and more sting her skin, tearing against her flesh, she finds her attacks erratic and weakening, her reactions unable to keep up with the pace. Yet the same applies for Avalel, the crystals stabbing into his body from the exposed gaps in his armor, even gradually tearing the armor apart with repeated strikes. His blades block most of them, but are simply overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of the crystals.

The victor will be the one who does not fall first.

In desperation, she slashes blindly at Avalel with her blade, expecting it to be parried. Instead, she finds contact with metal, then fabric, then flesh, then bone. The cloud is split apart, the crystals blown away by the sheer power of her attack. Surprised by the momentum, she crashes forward to the ground… and finds herself toppling the now divided body of Avalel, the top half sliding cleanly off onto the floor. Kavlina looks at his missing pelvis, the blood spurting out as his heart continues to pump. Her mask is now stained, drenched in his blood, to the point where she can sense the smell of iron even through her filters.

As for her blade… It is chipped.

“Ah,” she utters as she stands, stunned by her act.

She looks at Avalel’s face. A smile is still plastered on there, the man unfazed by his otherwise fatal injury. As their eyes meet, he just laughs.

“That was a fine maneuver,” he says. “However… You didn’t strike the core.”

He crawls to his pelvis, moving him until he is in the correct orientation. In a repulsive display of regeneration, the flesh grows and coils around each other, the bones and cartilage stretching until they snap into place. Even as the cloud of crystals regroup and bear upon him, piercing every part of his body, he just regenerates the damaged pieces of flesh.

And during all this time, Kavlina is stunned in place, her eyes frozen on Avalel’s face. Blood drips from her blade, splattering onto her boots. Yet she didn’t even budge her arm a bit.

It’s so strange. She wants to kill him. Simple as that. Then why is she not moving at the mere sight of his face? Does the existence of a helmet give her the impression that this isn’t Avalel as she knows him? That somehow, seeing his face is enough to trigger the memories they once shared. Even if he is already a completely different figure.

Why is it that of all times, she is beginning to hesitate now?

Avalel twists his waist, feeling the sensation of his lower body once more. There is no pain, but it is definitely a pleasant surprise for supposed “certain” death to come this early after he revived them.

Hatred is quite a strong emotion, isn’t it?

But unfortunately, his “death” means the end of a quick, light warm up. They are most likely feeling confident after “defeating” him again in such a short period of time, but their fun has already ended. He has given them enough of a taste of victory, something they do not even remotely deserve as enemies of Fate.

He is the vessel of Fate. He will not allow any more entertainment on their part, even if in the end it does contribute to the desired path. Villains do not deserve such privileges.

“It’s my turn now.”