"WHAT???!!!!"

"........"

In that span of a few seconds from when the momentary skirmish began until the time it was finished, the faces of Maester Slith and Ol' Mulberry transitioned from expression to expression - from panicked and anxious, to shocked and incredulous and finally to utter disbelief!

Maester Slith and Ol' Mulberry stood in stunned silence, staring at the two patriarchs' corpses slump to the ground. They blinked once, then twice, checking if what they were seeing were really the truth as Lars strolled over quietly from where the bodies lay.

Then the two old men rubbed their eyes, trying to ascertain if they had just been pranked.

Only, how would anyone get their sworn enemies in on a prank of this level and scope?!?

So the guard and the caretaker of the Ancient Slith Sect slowly turned their heads and exchanged a terrified look.

Had they just opened their doors to an even greater monster, an even greater threat than their previous enemies ever posed...?

Gulping, Maester Slith urged his heart to settle down as he forced his gaze back forward to the man who he now realised was an unknown stranger - just, one that came on behalf of young master Everaldus...!

'Yeah... Yeah, that's right! If he wanted to take over the sect, he wouldn't even need to go through any ruses or tricks to wrest the sect from us! And he brought the Ice-element Longevity Treasure big bro needs...!'' Eyes brightening and clearing up with the realisation that he had no reason to fear so far, Maester regained his confidence.

He then stepped forward boldly to greet and thank Lars as he drew nearer - even as he sighed inwardly.

'Alright, time to pay respects to this grand figure and figure out his intentions... To humble myself and, if need be, even snivel and beg... All for the sake of the sect...?'

Mid-step, Maester paused a tick and then suddenly barked out a single laugh, sounding like a cough. Then he began to chuckle more earnestly as his steps resumed and he thought, '...What sect...? It's just me and Kenzie left... Sigh...'

Shaking his head slowly, the stress and tension in Maester's shoulders faded away as his stance grew more upright and confident.

He had decided. Once Kenzie recovered, he would urge Kenzie for the both of them to re-join the army and abandon this G.o.d-forsaken Slith Sect and this land that had brought them no end of sorrows.

After all, what was land for but for the living...? What was the point when... There was no one living left to appreciate it...?

Smiling, Maester met Lars' eyes with renewed vigour, a newfound confidence and sureness of self as he recited his prepared spiel of thanks to Lars.

"Sir Lars, benefactor Lars...! Truly, our gratefulness knows no bounds...! You have saved us from abject doom, rescued us from certain death... Ah..."

But his voice caught in his throat when Lars did not meet his eye and just waved to him as if asking to do away with the meaningless words and to guide him onwards.

"Ahem... I-I..." His words tapered off and he realised that he should just keep quiet despite the questions in his mind about what had just happened in the battle against two Legendary combatants...

Maester nodded, drawing a momentary flicker of a glance from Lars, then beckoned the way. The duo walked on, Maester nodding to Ol' Mulberry who sighed as he proceeded to clean up the corpses - and loot the two Patriarchs of anything valuable.

* * * * *

Lars sighed.

This was the first time since... Since *then* that he had used a Legendary spell.

This time, he had not suffered any injury to his soul. This was despite shortening the incantation to merely 1 minute from the customary 3-5 minutes casting time recorded in the spellbooks.

This time, he had easily won, instead of like in the last where he had merely thrown it out as a form of swan-song; death throes if you may.

This time... He could not help but reminisce of his brothers and sisters, his companions who had tided through the years with him and survived the war.

This time...

This time he remembered Robin once more; and wondered when he would ever understand why he had betrayed their band of brothers...

Lars sighed and shook his head, his mood turned melancholic. He slowly tried to refocus his mind and push aside the moody thoughts; and whether he did or not, no one really knew as he just put one foot ahead of the other and followed Maester to see the Patriarch of the Ancient Slith Sect.

Though the sky had grown dark, it was not actually that late in the evening, merely a half-past eight o'clock in the evening. And yet there were no servants, no bustle of life, no signs of activity in the yawning halls and wide paths through the large compound.

Lars and Maester Slith's pa.s.sage was a quiet one with nary a word spoken by either of the two. Their journey was accompanied only by the echoes of their footsteps falling, hitting the ground. The high ceilings lent further to these echoes, with the progressively lower-frequency reflecte sounds giving an odd, otherworldly feel to their otherwise short walk.

Within minutes, they had reached their destination - a simple wooden door on an unadorned wall. Somehow along the journey, Lars could feel the air around them getting more and more frigid, colder in a way that seemed to seep into his bones. Not odd given that it was night-time in a desert, but it was also far too cold to be normal even for an arid winter...!

Maester turned back to look at Lars, then, tightening his lips in a half smile, squeezed the storage ring in his hand tightly - Everaldus' personal storage ring. Then he drew in a breath and knocked in a certain cadence for a total of 9 knocks with erratic pauses in between.

Then he waited for several moments before the sound of the door unlocking from the inside was heard; and then a faint voice that spoke, "Come in..."

The voice was not weak, decrepit nor old - and yet it carried with it the undertones of weariness; of a soul that was old beyond it's time and had just woken from a long slumber.

Opening the door slowly but surely, Maester cast a glance over his shoulder to Lars and bowed slightly, inviting him to enter together after him.

Lars followed the older man in, and the first thing he saw when he entered was the sheen of blue - piles and piles of blue-tinged, dark blue, light blue, turqoise blue or any other shade of blue minerals and materials. It was a veritable mountain of cold element, ice element or other types of resources that were laid up in a huge pile, lying in a pool of liquid that should have by right long frozen over in such low temperatures.

Lars was amazed when he was met with the great aura of cold in the room. Just a minute ago, with the door closed, there was at most just a chilly breeze sweeping through the building. However, now that the door was open, he could sense the full intensity of the treasures prepared here. Why, it must have been at least 80-100 million platinum coins worth of treasures!

On top of that, this should also be the treasure room with high-grade and highly expensive sound and aura dampening materials in the walls, defending against vibrations or damage from shaking from the outside and preventing any leakage of power from the inside. In other words, a sealed chamber where whatever was within would be isolated from the outside.

Seated in the middle of the pool with his legs crossed was a man with wispy hair, long though it was as if he had once had a l.u.s.trous, glorious mane on his crown. He was thin but looked swollen; his flesh unnaturally pinkishly red even despite being submerged up to his neck in the freezing cold elements.

Lars knew it could be none other than Kenzie Slith, father of Everaldus - and the one who was in dire need of the Legendary-level Cryo Core to soothe the fire-based poison.

Curious as to the extent of the poisoning, Lars gingerly extended his spirit sense in an attempt to get an idea, only for the seated Patriarch's eyes to flutter open and stare directly at him.

Lars was temporarily stunned as he felt the man's eyes land on him and his spirit sense lock onto him - this was an expert! One easily on par with himself; or at least, his old self from before entering Gorun City, that is... The man was clearly suppressing his aura, mana and blood energy, probably to prevent whatever fire-element poison from spreading into his systems. Lars also noticed that the haggard-looking man's countenance was beleagured, his breathing laborious and suppressed so much that if his eyes were close and he lay still, one might very well take him for a corpse!

Upon seeing Lars and sensing the "rat", then mistaking him for a common cultivator due to his suppressed aura, Kenzie's gaze returned to Maester as he spoke with a raspy, weary voice, whispering, "Maester... What has happened...? Who is this...? Has there been news of Everaldus since Bernie and the other two returned...?"

Maester took in a deep breath, then let it out again in a heavy sigh, saying, "Big bro..." Then he sighed again before lifting up the storage ring in his hand.

Kenzie's eyes fell upon the simple ring, his eyes narrowing in concentration as his spirit sense swept through it. Then his eyes widened, narrowed again, then began to mist up, tearing up.

"Brother.... Is he.... Everaldus..." Kenzie's eyes closed, eyelids trembling slightly as a line of liquid ran down his cheek.

After losing his wife and family, was it now his son's turn to go...?

Maester stood there quietly, looking on with gentle eyes at his younger brother, one who had taken on a heavy burden all these years leading the family since the pa.s.sing of their parents. A man of strength, vision and greatly capable; alas, perhaps, had they lost sight of what was truly important all these years...?

Perhaps...

The sect and the land were just ephemera, like the mist pa.s.sing in the wind...? Something that they should not have held on to nor grasped; for the sake of keeping the ones truly dear to them...

Maester sighed once more, not knowing how to answer his younger "big" brother. He knew; they knew what had happened for the ring to be here.

Instead, he lifted up the ring and whispered the key-word, "Chesed..."

As the Cryo Core emerged, Kenzie's shut eyes snapped open, bewildered, confused...

He stiffly yet forcefully arose from the pool of waters, standing up and revealing his greyed and pallid looking body; then lurching over and nearly tilting over as he forced his rigid, hibernating body back into motion.

Maester, understanding exactly what his brother's thoughts were, held out the Cryo Core, pa.s.sing it to the Patriarch of the Slith Sect who held it tightly in his hands.

Kenzie looked at it, turned it around once, then twice, tears in his eyes the entire time. Then he held it up high, high above his head - and then his knees. .h.i.t the ground with a *Thud* as he kneeled; breaking down into tears, sobbing.

"Everaldus... You are worth so much more to me than even my life... Why...??? Why...??? Why did you have to leave this old man behind..."

"Kenzie...." Maester stepped over quickly, kneeling by his brother's side, cheeks streaked with tears as he laid one hand onto his brother's shoulder, gripping it tightly as Kenzie's arms fell and the Cryo Core bounced on the floor with a *clink, clink clink clink clink* sound, rolling away slowly before stopping against the wall.

Standing quietly to the side, Lars could merely watch on in silence as the two brothers held each other[1] and shared their loneliness and sorrow; sorrow at being the only 2 left in their family line.

And Lars sighed.

How good it was to have someone else to call family.

*

*

*

[1] No h.o.m.o.