The Earth After Rebirth

The tension in their meeting hall was rather thick. Each of their faces with panicked expressions, except for Kiro. There was only one missing within their ranks, Hiro. They could all guess where he was and that didn't seem to be the main concern of theirs.

"That little brother of yours knows? We're screwed then aren't we?" Nikolai asked, this wasn't something that was within their expectations. Especially because Loki was very young, they were skeptical that he could hold it in.

"Royally." Ishaan agreed.

Felix didn't have much of an opinion on the matter, but concern could be seen on his face nonetheless. He tried to play it cool, but any idiot could see it.

"Calm down, will you? Loki is my brother, I know him better than anyone. If I say he's not going to talk, he's not going to talk." Kiro was slightly annoyed, if they couldn't trust Loki, then they could trust him.

But those words weren't comforting to any of them. This was a matter of life and death, if the sanctum were to learn what they knew before they were ready, they'd no doubt be killed.

"You just have to trust me." He didn't think he was any good with words, he was sorry he couldn't say something that would break them out of the concern and motivate them.

"What's done is done, we don't have a choice." Felix finally said something, shrugging it off.

"How can you be so nonchalant, this could risk everything!" Ishaan's voice shot through the roof, he'd always been erratic when it came to this topic.

"Hey, idiot, discussing this now won't undo what that little brat already knows. Suck it up, life is one big inconsistency, if you can't handle a small hiccup such as this maybe you aren't ready to take something this big." Felix shot back with a mixture of insults and hard truths.

Ishaan was red in the face. He didn't think it was fair that Felix could insult him at a whim. Worse of all, he didn't think that he respected him much, so he was ready to fight it out.

"Oh I dare you to unsheathe your sword little pup." He mockingly provoked him.

Nikolai got up from where he stood and placed his hand on Ishaan's chest who was already charging forwards. Alliance be damned, he was sick of being treated like some second rate warrior.

"We can't fight amongst ourselves." He said looking to Felix and then Ishaan. "They're right, there's nothing that can be done, we just have to prepare like we always had. Nothing's changed." He said that last line more to himself, trying to convince himself that this could still work.

Felix retreated immediately when Nikolai intervened. Ishaan had grown on him, so he got annoyed the most when he started showing signs of his old useless self.

Nikolai gave Kiro a piercing gaze, wondering why he didn't stop them before it escalated to the point where the pair wanted to fight each other.

"Duking it out is sometimes much more effective than words." He shrugged, disappointed that he didn't get to see the fight.

Felix was always hard on Ishaan so Kiro wanted to see just how Ishaan would fight a guardian, even though he was just a priest. He thought it would've been an interesting duel.

Nikolai wanted to agree with his words but he didn't want to show it. Someone had to be the responsible one when their leader allowed such things to happen.

The fight could've went really good or really bad. They couldn't afford resentment building within themselves, they had a much bigger fish to catch.

"Why's Hiro hot here for such an important discussion anyway?" Nikolai asked, trying to peddle them as far away from the explosion that was brewing. Discover exclusive tales on m,v l'e|m-p| y r

"Mm, 'I have more important things to worry about' is what he said."

"What?" Ishaan's anger hadn't yet subsided, so he figured this could be a good outlet for it, just to make him forget their predicament.

Kiro noticed the anger in his tone, "I'm just the messenger man, but I don't mind sparring with you. You seem to have a lot of anger bottled up."

Ishaan considered Kiro's suggestion for but a second, he was clearly still in his right mind because he shook his head violently.

Kiro gave him a sinister grin. Just then Hiro walked in, he looked like he hadn't slept for months. His hair stood up, all frazzled and charred. He'd most likely survived a lot of explosions in his shop.

"Which dungeon did you come out of?" Kiro joked.

"Yeah, what the hell were you doing in there?" Ishaan's anger dissipated at the sight, he couldn't hold back laughter.

He looked like a truly tired old man, who had endured thousands of years in battle. But Hiro paid them no mind.

"I was so close." He kept muttering, in a zombie like state.

"I think the potion defeated him once again, Hiro zero, potion hundred." Nikolai chuckled in-between his speech.

"Maybe it needs legendary herbs, but where the hell would I get those." Hiro continued to ignore their taunts.

It wasn't so much as ignoring them, but he was in a zone of his own, he couldn't hear anything they were saying.

'Look at him go, he looks more like a mad scientist. If we don't help him I'm afraid he's going to lose his mind.' Kiro thought to himself.

He wasn't sure why his friend was so focused in successfully brewing the true blood potion, but he could guess, their last fight left them all a kind of scar. The harbingers were clearly much stronger, he didn't want to imagine how strong the ancient ones they worshipped were.

"Hey buddy, I think I know just where to get legendary items, probably even ancient ranked."

That was the only thing that managed to break him out of his unconscious state. Life was even returning to his eyes, though he still looked absurd.

"I'm sorry, did you just say ancient ranked? there's a rank above legendary?" Felix caught that immediately.

'Oh sh*t, I've done it again.'

He tried to smile as to not look guilty, "what do you think this robe is?"

"That shabby looking thing is ranked above legendary?" Ishaan was skeptical.

"I've been in how many fights in this? Ever seen it scratched?"

Now that he mentioned it, the durability of that robe was really suspicious. While they had to give their weapons and armour to Hiro after battles, Kiro didn't do the same.

"Never mind about that! Let's go collect some legendary herbs." Hiro spoke to them for the first time since he entered the room, his voice was loud and commanding.