There was a moment of stunned silence before Natsu asked, “We’re… dead…? What do you mean by that?”

“We’re not dead, sir, as you’ve been fighting us all this time,” said Ward telepathically in a cold voice.

“Yeah! If we’re dead, you wouldn’t be fighting us now!” William said in a sharp voice. “Unless you’re going to claim we’re ghost or something nonsensical.”

The God of Calamity chuckled at their statements and asked, “Don’t you know? I’m actually amazed.”

“Know what?” Natsu asked suspiciously.

“Spill it! What it is that we don’t know that you know?” Vikram demanded quickly.

“Temper. Temper,” said Climax and laughed, causing Vikram to look very angrily at him. “Of course, I know what’s happening,” he said and chuckled darkly. Then he looked at them with a crazy smile and said, “I was the one who set up the summoning circle beneath that castle over there in the first place.”

There was a moment of stunned silence at his words before there was an outburst of exclamations of disbelief from them all. None of them were willing to believe that their enemy, who was attempting to kill them until now, was actually the one who created the summoning circle that brought them to that world.

Climax chuckled and looked towards Engraut, who wore a bitter expression on his face.

Lakshman was the only one among them who remained calm and composed, but he narrowed his eyes in suspicious. He then turned to Engraut and asked, “What is the meaning of this? Is what he’s saying the truth?”

The God of Energy remained silent while looking uncomfortable before silently nodding his head in agreement. Everyone else, who had heard Lakshman’s question, turned and witnessed this action with surprise. Then they turned back to look at Climax with astonished looks on their faces.

“For starters, who are you two? We haven’t even gotten an introduction about whom we’re fighting at all,” said Gram, who was the first to recover from the rest.

“This is the God of Energy, Engraut, and that is the God of Calamity, Climax,” stated Lakshman in a quiet voice.

With this piece of information, everyone was thoroughly shocked beyond belief. They could not believe that they were in the presence of two Gods. Fred, Martin, William, and even Ward froze up with horrified expressions on their faces at the realisation that they had been fighting against Gods.

“T-T-T-The… God of… Calamity…!” Ward said telepathically in a shocked voice.

“T-T-This… This can’t be… real…!” Fred muttered with a scared look on her face.

“I… I think I’m… I’m going to… faint…” muttered Martin, looking a little dizzy.

“My god…!” William said shortly in a hushed voice, staring at them in horror.

The Tempest Hero snorted and asked, “What? Gods? Seriously? You believe in that kind of religious stuff?”

“You don’t believe in Gods, Gram?” Vikram asked, who felt distracted by his words.

“It’s neither belief or nonbelief. Rather, I find it stupid that people waste time on something like that,” said Gram casually as if he did not care, causing Vikram to look at him with exasperation.

Natsu looked at him with a wry smile before turning back to look at Climax with a serious expression and asked, “Regardless of whether what you say is true or not, what do you mean that we’re dead? You still haven’t made sense of it.”

Climax chuckled and looked at him with a dark expression while asking him, “I don’t need to prove anything. In fact, I’ll make you prove yourselves that you really are… dead.”

“What?!” Natsu exclaimed as he, Martin, Gram, and Vikram gave him a sharp look.

“For instance, do you remember what you were doing before being summoned? Like, what was happening to you, where you were, what was going on around you, or something like that? Anything at all?”

At the God of Calamity’s question, all of them appeared to be confused before trying to recall the last thing they were doing before being summoned to the Alzard World. To their surprise, they found that they could not remember what had happened moments before being summoned to another world. Even Lakshman found that he could not clearly remember what had happened to him after he fell through the void portal that closed in on him.

Seeing their expressions, the God of Calamity smiled widely and asked, “You don’t have any recollections of what happened to you before being summoned, am I right?”

“Why?” Maxwell asked curiously, looking at him with a puzzled look. “Why can’t I remember?”

“This doesn’t make sense…!” Vikram said sharply, looking worried.

Natsu looked down at his hands and then at the God of Calamity, who simply smirked at him.

“Explain,” he asked in a cold voice.

“Oh my? Suddenly demanding answers from me? Again?” Climax asked and gave them a deadly smile.

He raised the black ball of energy he had already gathered in his hand and launched it at them. They were shocked, but Fred quickly reacted by moving forward with her shield out. She activated her shield powers, causing an invisible barrier to form around them as the energy ball smashed into it and exploded.

The result was that a massive shock wave occurred, causing the wind to blow around them wildly as shock waves were sent in all directions. Her shield’s barrier got destroyed in an instant, and them found themselves being throw into the air as they screamed in shock and fright. However, they managed to recover and landed firmly on their feet while sporting only a few minor bruises and cuts from the previous attack.

“There. Learnt your lesson to be careful around your enemy, who could very possibly destroy you in a moment’s notice?” Climax asked with a sinister smile. Then he turned to Engruat and said, “You explain to these foolish mortals what they’re missing.”

Engraut look at him and sighed in resignation before turning back to them and began explaining about it.

“Long ago, Demons made their way into this world and threatened to exterminate the species that live here. The God of Justice saw the injustice happening here, and decided to help this world’s people by establishing a summoning circle to summon nine heroes from other worlds to help them fend off against the demon threat.”

“Yes. We heard this already,” said Vikram, but Natsu waved his hand to silence him and look back at him.

“Please continue,” he requested, and Engraut smiled before continuing with the explanation.

“During that time, none of the other Gods wanted to do anything for the people of this world as the progress was much slower than the minimum accepted rate. However, one God chose to help despite not being asked for because he felt it was the right thing to do—!”

“—and that God is me!” Finished Climax, cutting across Engraut’s speech to emphasis his declaration. “I conjured the summoning magic to have heroes come to this world and defend it against the Demon invasion.”

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

“Wait! What?!” Vikram exclaimed, looking appalled. “Why would you… Um… the God of Calamity choose to help the people? Aren’t you meant to bring calamity and suffering to the people?”

At those words, Climax burst into a hilarious laughter before he calmed down and said, “You’re correct. That is my role, but back then, I did not like my role, and I chose to work towards preservation and protection, that is until that incident occurred.”

Vikram looked confused, but Natsu became suspicious as he asked, “What incident?”

Climax glanced at him, and he was no longer smiling as he said, “Never you mind. Besides, it’s something between me and that guy’s ancestor,” and he shifted his focus onto Lakshman.

All of them looked between them with confused looks on their faces before Lakshman said, “Apparently, my ancestor is the God of Power.”

“What?!” Was the collective exclamation from all of them.

“T-The… God of Power…?!” Vikram asked, blinking rapidly in disbelief.

“Mmm. Makes sense why you’re so powerful,” muttered Natsu, nodding his head in understanding.

“Damn! So, your lineage was indeed far greater than mine!” Gram complained, looking very angry all of a sudden.

“Wait. Doesn’t that make you a Demigod?” William asked, suddenly coming to the realisation.

Lakshman shook his head and said, “I don’t know. I’m the descendent of a God or whatever, but that doesn’t matter.”

Climax chuckled and said, “You’re right. It doesn’t matter when you’re already dead with no way to return to your home world.” As they all looked at him in shock, he turned to Engraut and asked curiously, “You saw how they met their ends, didn’t you?”

At the question, the God of Energy flinched and looked coldly at him. This made the God of Calamity to smile evilly at him. Following the line of conversation, everyone turned towards Engraut and began demanding if it was true or not. The reason they wanted the truth out of Engraut was because they realised that Lakshman seemed to have some amount of faith in him, and as such, they turned to him for answers.

Engraut looked hesitantly at them with a gloomy expression on his face before looking at each of them in sadness.

“Please, tell us,” implored Natsu with a sad look on his face.

And so, the God of Energy sighed in resignation and began saying, “Gram was poisoned, Vikram was impaled, William was assassinated, Maxwell was bombed, Martin was run over, Natsu drowned, Ward froze to death, and… Fred… She… She was…!”

“Stop!” Lakshman said sharply, startling them all. He was staring at the God with a horrified look on his face as he continued to say, “You don’t have to say more.”

This momentarily surprised everyone as they did not immediately understand the reason for him to stop the God from saying it. Lakshman, however, understood from the difficulty that Engraut faced in trying to state it that something terrible had happened to her. As such, he did not want the poor girl to know what had happened to her, but contrary to his wishes, Fred seemed to have figured out what had happened as she went pale in the face.

“Was I… I… v-v-violated?” She asked finally after hesitating for a few moments.

Engraut looked uncomfortable before he simply nodded his head. Fred stared at him for a moment before she sunk to the ground with her knees and held her head with her hands with a truly horrified look on her face. William looked down at her with a saddened look on his face as he came to the realisation of the terrible thing that could have happened to kill her.

Vikram was shocked by the brief statement of how he died, but he was distracted by Lakshman’s sudden demand to stop the God of Energy from revealing the reason for her death. He was even more curious about that fact that they were treating Fred as a girl.

“Um… Why are you treating him as if she’s a female? He’s male, right?” He asked curiously.

Lakshman looked at him sardonically while Engraut eyed him with great amusement. It was William who sighed and told him the truth.

“No, silly. She’s a girl.”

Vikram blinked in surprise before he asked, “A girl?”

Then he looked down at her and then back at them in confusion.

“Um… Really…?” He asked curiously.

“Believe what you want to believe,” said William with a sigh.

This shocked Vikram, and he stared down at her in alarm before muttering, “I can’t believe she’s a girl.”

“Never mind that!” Gram said, suddenly speaking over him and looking seriously at Engraut. “Explain how I’m poisoned! My food is taste checked by my attendants all the time! There’s no way they would serve prince like me anything like that… anything… except…!”

While speaking, he came to the realisation of something crucial and it made him widen his eyes.

Engraut nodded his head in agreement and said, “Not unless your attendants were in on the task of killing you.”

This enraged Gram, who demanded, “Who did this?! Who?! Tell me!”

“Your family,” replied Engraut simply.

This piece of information horrified the prince from another world, who could not believe his own family had him killed. He staggered backwards a few steps in shock before regaining his composure while retaliating against the God.

“No way! I absolutely cannot believe my family would do this to me! I’ve never done anything to harm them in any way!”

“But you didn’t do anything good for them either,” stated Engraut coldly, and Gram flinched. “You were always: I am good at this, I am good at that, I am good at blah blah blah, I am good at la la la. You were a spoiled kid who was too full of himself to notice anything apart from himself.”

“Instead of raising a sore thumb that could backstab them, they decided to backstab you first,” said Climax from the side, and Gram turned to look at him in horror. “A typical human behaviour to save oneself from possible problems,” and he laughed mockingly.

Gram was at a loss for words, his eyes widened to the maximum as he stared from the God of Calamity to the God of Energy. Then he looked down at his hands and became very silent and still from the betrayal from the family he had never expected would happen to him.

Vikram blinked at him in surprise before looked towards Engraut hesitantly before asking, “Um… What about me? What impaled me?”

“Steel rods.”

“Steel rods? What? I don’t—?”

“You were riding on a bus to school when a truck, carrying steel rods for construction purposes, backed into your parked bus and pierced through the back of the bus, which was where you were sitting,” said Engraut sadly.

The Sonic Hero could not believe what he just heard, and he clapped a hand over his mouth while his eyes widened before he groaned, “Ugh!” It looked as though he was going to throw up, but nothing happened as he knelt down while holding his mouth with his hand, looking horrified by the accident that robbed him of his life.

“Yikes. That’s nasty,” muttered Maxwell while Natsu looked sympathetically at him. Then he turned to Engraut and asked, “Let me guess, I died because an enemy troop during some kind of fight threw a grenade at me and that’s how I died. Is that right?”

To his surprise, Engrat shook his head and replied, “I like that you’re calm about it, but you’re fundamentally wrong. You tried to throw a grenade by removing the pin, but a nearby explosion knocked you off your balance, and made you fall. As such, you fell on top of your grenade and that was how you died; killed by your own weapon.”

“No… way…!” The Gundas Hero muttered, looking shocked. “To die from something… so silly is… unbelievable…!”

While he was distraught, William turned to Engraut and asked, “What about me? How was I assassinated?”

“While in the middle of the night, your enemy troops infiltrated your camp and slit your throats while you were asleep,” replied Engraut flatly.

For a moment, William was frozen by shock at this news before he exclaimed, “Are you kidding me?! I died just like that?! Dammit! What a waste, and here I was hoping I had died like a true warrior! Dammit all!”

He clenched his fists tightly, which shook from the frustration he was feeling by what had happened to him.

Engraut turned to look at Ward and asked, “Want to know how you died?”

Ward shook his head and replied telepathically with a gloomy look on his face, “No need. I can figure out how I died. Freeze to death. Yes. It’s easy enough to guess how I died.”

When he fell silent, Engraut turned to Natsu and asked, “What about you?”

“I’ll pass,” replied Natsu quickly with an uncomfortable look on his face. “I rather not know how I died since I drowned of all things. Yes. It’s better I don’t know the details.”

Engraut nodded as he accepted his wishes and turned to Martin, who caught his attention and quickly shook his head while looking scared. That alone made the God of Energy sigh in resignation and turn back to face the God of Calamity, who laughed at the miserable state the Nine Heroes of Legends were reduced to.

“So, you see, all of you are dead in your original worlds, so if you’re thinking that after defeating me, a portal would magically open for you to return home; forget it! Reality is a cruel mother, and she doesn’t have any kind of special feelings for dirt bags like you. Your hope is dead just as you are!”

None of them replied as they were too immersed in their own selves at the realisation of what had happened for them to be summoned to that world. All this time, they were hopeful of returning to their world after doing their best and defeating all evil that stands in their way. That was what they assumed, so this harsh truth shattered all their hope and destroyed every fibre of their fighting will that they had very recently in preparation to try and defeat Climax.

“So, accept your fate and resolve to face my wrath,” said Climax in a dangerous voice, and he materialised a black ball of energy in the palm of his hand with the intention of utterly destroying them and the planet they were on.

Suddenly, his smile faltered when he sensed that someone, among them, was radiating with a brilliant light of hope. He sensed that person’s presence and turned towards Lakshman, who had lowered his head in an apparent sadness at the situation they were in. However, in the next moment, the king from another world raised his head and smiled at him while radiating a great deal of confidence.

A few seconds later, Climax asked suspiciously, “What are you smiling about?”

“The situation may look grim, but hope is never lost to those who never give up,” said Lakshman lightly, and he smiled serenely at him.