The Earth After Rebirth

"Oh sure, ev before this, I don\'t doubt that your loyalty was already reserved for Hubris."

The kid flinched at hearing the King\'s name bare, without a title.

"What is your name?"

"Achyls, Sire."

"Well, Achyls, you\'re quite talted. I ought to make a squad, containing all of you, of course you\'d be in the front lines, are you up for that?"

"I move with your command Sire." He blurted out, he didn\'t know whether to be scared or excited.

This would be his first time in a war, much less being the main attack, lead by someone who ranked higher than his King, according to his King. There\'d surely be a lot to learn, but he also thought, what if he would die. His face was hard to read as these thoughts ran through his mind.

"If you die, you die. This is a war, there\'s no time to think about these things. Death is ever prest, just do your best to beat it every time."

"Sire, that\'s not very comforting."

"I wasn\'t trying to comfort you Achyls, just the truth of a war and especially a world as cruel as yours, this should ring more true." He shrugged looking at the others who were almost done familiarising themselves with Kaos.

"You\'re right Sire, I\'d be honoured to be part of your squad."

Kiro smiled and nodded in satisfaction. He decided to play a game with Achyls, they\'d guess who comes out next. As fate would have it, Kiro got all 66 of them.

\'He\'s good, but his sses suck.\'

"Ahhhh, I was going to get that last one!"

"Your problem is you only guess, without using your sses."

Achyls looked at him pouting and like he was insane. "There\'s just no way, I can\'t see the future."

Kiro gave up.

"Congratulations, all of you for making it this far, about 50 of you were able to create pathways, the rest tried and couldn\'t finish them completely.

"That\'s not really a loss. You could work on it while we walk to catch up to the main army. The rest of you, who have created pathways, learn to use Kaos effectively. I\'ll carry those two, so rest easy and train while we walk."

Just like that, the training was short and a success, according to Kiro. They walked toward the forest, Kiro hoped that there was nothing weird about this forest. He\'d se ough to not trust trees that were clustered together.

He was carrying the two on one arm, like they were nothing. Kiro initially thought he could train his muscles carrying them all the way, but they weighed nothing at all. His currt body was just that strong.

\'Hey, anyway what\'s your name? I can\'t just keep say hey wh I want to say something?\'

\'You don\'t have one? Uh, how about R? Okay R, where are the rest ask them.\'

He waited for the answer while R attempted to communicate with his brethr. They were already walking through the quiet forest, the atmosphere was thick. Walking through there felt like running in water with great mass and pressure.

But because they had the Kaos ergy coursing through their bodies, it was easier than it should\'ve be. Kiro wondered how the army wt through this much pressure, it was most likely Hubris who helped them get through.

\'Thanks R.\'

Kiro had just gott word that, the army was almost at the field they were marching for. Everything was still going great for the other side.

Though he didn\'t want to put his guard down, he wanted to be there as soon as possible. He wish he could run, but those walking with him would be left behind and who knows, maybe there are assassins tailing them ev now. He found it chilling that they couldn\'t be ssed like that.

But now, everyone else was far in front of them that anyone who shows up from behind them, would absolutely be an emy.

"Sire, I have a sudd urge to go that way." Achyls commted.

"Ignored it and focus on your training kid, the forest does have a weird pull toward that place. I wonder."

Kiro put a mtal note to come back here and check this out after they win the war.

----------------------------

"Have you checked? Are they back there yet?"

"I\'ve checked Sire, they\'re still nowhere to be se."

Hubris sighed. He could see the field, they were getting closer. It had a small crack that broke it in half. Hubris decided they should stop there, he didn\'t really want to cross the crack.

It wasn\'t long before they had erected various shelters. Hubris felt out of place, these were his people, but they were so differt from him. Apart from reclaiming their home, he didn\'t know what else they had in common.

He wasn\'t ev sure most of them would want to be lead by a grehorn like him. But he stilled his nerves, they had no say in the matter after all. He was royalty, they were bound by some invisible unspok rule to respect him.

He spt most of his time th thinking about the kind of King he wanted to be. He hoped he could be half a leader his father was, he wasn\'t there but ev after hundreds of years there were people waiting for his son. He must\'ve be one hell of a leader.

Th as if the crack on the g splitting, a crackling sound reverberated across the field. Hubris acted faster than any of them, it was only by instinct, he pounced theless and the dome that covered their camp missed him by an inch.

"Sh*t!" He exclaimed.