The Next Element

3rd Person's POV:

Lian and the beastmen left the office, heading to the etherealian daycare, they immediately found the child as he accidentally bumped into zeus.

"Mr.zeus!" The child exclaimed happily and hugged the beastman by his legs.

Zeus: I'm so glad you're okay caylen! Did you get hurt? Are you injured?

Zeus asked worriedly to the child, he cares too much for the sake of caylen, after all, he acts as a father figure to the children of hodore.

Caylen: Nope! I'm very okay!

Caylen chuckled as he hugged zeus tightly, the beastman smiled as he carried the child and booped his nose.

Lian let out a smile as he saw how zeus was so caring with children, unfortunately he wasn't so sure if he can treat a child the same way he can.

Lian: Let's go home now, it's better if you're back to your world now little one.

Caylen looked at lian, he was getting afraid of the male standing in front of him.

Caylen: Mr. Zeus? Who's that?

Zeus was slightly shocked with the question.

Zeus: Oh, well that's lian, he's an old friend of mine?

Caylen: Lian? Isn't that the name you've been mumbling when you are sleeping?

A faint tint of red was painted into the beastmale's face.

Lian's eyes widened as he hid his face away from the others.

Blizzard chuckled, max and shadow stopping themselves from letting out a sound of laugh to not make fun of their comrade.

Zeus: Oh well that ridiculous! I don't mumble names in my dream.

Blizzard: You're too much in denial there zeus.

Zeus: Blizzard I will electrocute you.

Blizzard: Oops.

Lian: Enough with that, you five need to head home, let's all go now.

Lian said with a bit of a bothered tone in his words.

The chuckling and laughing ended with them clearing up their throat to end the awkward tension.

Lian: Follow me.

Back in the etherealian portal, the portal that connects the earth and the said realm, lian stepped foot at the very middle of it making the symbol of their realm shimmer.

Before they could leave, rune and totem arrived stopping lian from leaving.

Rune: Master!

Totem: We will come assist you!

Lian: No need for that you two, just keep a good eye in the realm, remember, you never know when an enemy is planning to invade us.

Totem: Master, this realm is indestructible, let us come with you.

Lian: Do I need to repeat myself to you two?

Totem: I-

Rune grabbed totem by his shoulder.

Lian: That's what I thought, I'll be back as soon as possible.

"Man, lian sure is a rough leader, so hot!" Blizzard thought to himself.

The portal shone once more as they all were teleported back to earth, a beam of light blasted from the symbol creating a stream taking the five of them outside of etherealia.

The beam landed outside the forests of hodore... Hodore that was now engulfed in flames.

Max: Oh no...

Shadow stood shocked.

Blizzard: The village.. It's completely destroyed.

Lian only stood there, not saying a word, his eyes staring at the continuous roar of fire sizzling the village till it burns into ashes.

Zeus' body began to shake, caylen crying on his shoulder after seeing their peaceful village now completely desolated and wrecked.

(WARNING! This part may be really dark to some viewers)

The beastmen rushed his way inside the village, what he had witnessed frightened him to his very core.

The children, every single child that zeus had taken care of, now they were all in a pile of corpses, beneath them was a pool of blood.

Zeus: No... No! No! No! This can't be... This... But.. How...

A spark can be seen forming from zeus' head.

Lian look unamused, at each angle he looked, there were piles of women, men, all dead, none of them were spared, none of them survived.

The roaring fire doesn't seem like it's willing to stop anytime soon.

Lian: Such poor souls... Now they've all been taken away... Tsk tsk.

Lian sighed, but unfortunately, zeus took that comment in a wrong way.

Zeus clenched his hand tightly as a hint of spark circled around it, his palm releasing a yellow glow.

Being devoured by anger, zeus threw the charged current of electricity to lian.

Lian quickly felt the lightning heading towards his way, fortunately in such a short time, he was able to summon his gun and shot the incoming lightning, a sound of thunder crackling was heard the moment his bullets came in contact with zeus' attack.

Blizzard and max headed to zeus to stop him from trying to attack lian anymore.

Lian: Is this your ill-attempt of thanking me zeus? I saved your life didn't i?

Zeus: saved my life? Saved my life?! What so you're rubbing to to my face that you saved me? First of all i didn't asked to be saved by you! Second I had a feeling you didn't want us to see you ever since you called us back in your stupid realm!

Lian rose a brow.

Max: That's enough zeus.

Blizzard: Yeah, we should be grateful that Lian's aliv-

Zeus: Grateful? You're actually grateful that this bastard is alive?! Hell I don't even wanna see that person to begin with!

Lian felt a tear almost about to drop from his cheeks but he stopped it.

Lian: I'm not amused by your behavior zeus.

Zeus: I don't give a fuck about what you like about me, these children, these people, they were family to me! And you're just going to insult them! I wish you just died permanently and out of our lives!

Max: THAT'S ENOUGH ZEUS!

Zeus pushed max away from him along with blizzard,

Caylen began to cry loudly while still in the hands of zeus.

At that moment, lian felt his heart shatter into bits.

Blizzard, max and shadow gazed at lian.

Lian on the other hand had enough of all of this and opened the portal back to etherealia.

Blizzard: Lian wait!

He left not even hesitating to talk to the beastmen.

Max only sighed, now that two of their members are currently in an argument, he couldn't think of a way on how to fix it.

Another conflict has started and it isn't even an enemy's fault.

Such tragedy.

-- End --