The Earth After Rebirth

"Where are these voices coming from?" Kiro asked genuinely confused.

The others looked at him like he was an idiot. Then they proceeded and pointed at different directions.

They started barking amongst themselves, each wanting their senses to be the right ones. They were about ready to fight it out when Kiro used vibrations to stun them.

The voices were poisonous, clearly they were made to turn teammates against each other. If Kiro didn't have an insanely strong mental fortitude he wouldn't have been able to stand between his comrades and stop them from killing each other.

But he was just himself, not that he couldn't wipe the floor with them, but doing it while holding back so he didn't kill them would prove difficult. His best hope now was using stun after stun until he figured something out.

"Okay, let's see. Where exactly is it, which way is the correct one?"

The echoes were strong enough to contend with his vibrations, he couldn't discern where the voices were coming from exactly. It was the most frustrating predicament.

"Sh*t I don't even have Ren and the gang." He cursed under his breath.

He couldn't understand why the system would restrict just him. As far as he knew, everyone else was able to use their sub-class, he was the odd one out. He was always the odd one out.

The stun wore off after a while. Instead of fighting each other, they now ran for Kiro. He was the only one capable of stopping them from doing what they wanted to do, which was to murder each other.

Despite having their brains controlled by the echoes, they were able to think logically just fine. They hadn't even taken a second step when Kiro activated vibrations once again. Nikolai was caught in half as he was about to travel through shadows.

His lower half was completely out of the picture. As they stood unmoving, their eyes full of anger and hatred that Kiro had no idea where it was coming from.

He listened carefully from the echoes, he heard them from every possible direction. It was a very confusing experience. It made him hit his head occasionally. As if that would get rid of the voices.

As he listened closer, he noticed that these weren't cheers. They were voices of people, possibly in battle and dying in the worst way possible. So they were crying, for some reason their cries sounded more like cheers.

He was no longer sure whether they were close to clearing the forest or not. The results he could get from sensing vibrations was dead static.

Tried as he did but failed, the only thing that worked was the stunning. Something he was doing every time it wore off. He also had potions to drink, so he wouldn't run out of energy that quickly.

He turned away from vibrations since they were failing him deeply. He started using his sense of nose, at first there was nothing distinct. Every path smelled like a regular forest. Dirt and trees.

He slowly walked around, sniffing like a dog looking for an old bone. This was definitely embarrassing, he was glad nobody was there to see him do this.

"This is not it. Sensing through vibrations is so much better." He complained, annoyed that his companions were so weak. Also berating himself for never taking them to Paradise, because surely their mental would've been strong enough.

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"No use crying over spilt milk now." He consoled himself.

The more he smelled, the more the different paths had a distinct smell about them. One was blood, a strong metallic odour attacked his nose which caused him to wrinkle it.

One path were rotting corpses. The odour wafted through the air and into his nostrils causing him to enter a fit of coughs. He'd smelled worse but it was unexpected.

Another smelled of burning meat, Kiro surmised that either someone was having a roast or they were the roast.

The last path was odourless. This was the one he chose, if it was the wrong one, alas to his comrades, they could fight to the death and try again next month. He smiled arrogantly.

He waited for vibrations to wear off. There was no way he'd waste his energy and carry them over. It was better if they all chased him to the path he had chosen.

It hadn't even many minutes since he waited and they were behind him like a pack of wild dogs. Kiro wanted to laugh, even the priests were able to keep up with him. He wondered just how high their agility was. He'd heavily underestimated them.

As soon as they entered the path, their minds received an awakening. Each of them skidded into a stop. Looking around, confused.

"What happened?" Hiro asked.

"Man, you guys are a b*tch and a half to work with. Why are you so weak, mentally? I almost died protecting you!" He exaggerated.

"Oh? What did you do?"

Kiro walked in front, his staff on his shoulders. His arms hanged on it. "Saved your assess for one. Honestly, you guys were attacking me. The echoes were affecting your minds."

"You really are the leader!" Jorge said in admiration.

"Are we going the right way?" Nikolai asked.

"Yes, the arena is right up ahead."

Kiro had gotten his wish, and he didn't run into Isla in the forest but as soon as they stepped out of the forest, he was face to face with her.

She looked at him, suppressing laughter. Then out of nowhere, unprovoked, she sniffed the air not breaking eye contact with Kiro.

Kiro furrowed his eyebrows. 'She wasn't around was she?'

She nodded. As if to answer his question for him. He could die of embarrassment at that moment. He decided not to focus on that, what was done was done after all.

She looked absolutely beat. Her hair was all over the place. Her beauty was still hers though. Saanvi looked worse. Like she'd walked an entire desert, all alone.

She looked like she was at a brink of losing her mind. Kiro counted their members. Isla had around 40 competing, they had about half left now.

'Not bad.' He complimented.

He wasn't sure how strong her guild was, but the fact that she survived the forest with so many members spoke volumes about their ability as a team.

"Isla." He greeted.

"Kiro." She greeted back.

She understood why he chose someone he didn't have a relationship with. After all, there would still be doubts, unless they worked with someone they have never even met.

She understood this much, but she couldn't help but sulk. She was determined, now more than ever to win the guild wars this time.

Just to prove to Kiro that, she wasn't someone who needed him to carry her around.

They were still the only 2 teams there who've made it out. The forest was like a maze, its either you get lucky and get a shortcut or you get extremely unlucky and not only run into monsters but also take wrong turns.

Wrong turns that would make the path longer, making it more monster infested for those unlucky fellows. Some guilds were already eliminated by this point because of that mostly.

As they stood there with nothing to say to each other, more and more guilds started to fill the front of the arena. The cheers would erupt with each reveal.

The ones who died, the ones who didn't participate were all here to watch and support their favourites.

"We shall bask in their support then." Kiro said abruptly, enjoying every moment of this.

The atmosphere was euphoric. Those who died didn't dwell in their failures, they instead looked forward to their teammates or the new guilds they've chosen to support.

Jorge was smiling like an idiot, feeling more important than he actually was. There were still a lot of guilds, the pouring of people didn't stop until 3 hours later since Kiro and his team had arrived.

"Pheew, that waiting period was tiring." Lyle commented. He looked at Isla and pierced Kiro with his elbow, "is that sister-in-law?" He asked honestly.

"What the hell are you on Lyle? We aren't even related!"

"But you're my master, so I'm like your younger brother right now." He proclaimed proudly.

"Hey, idiot, my adopted brother would be more amazing than you!" Kiro joked.

"He'd wish to be!" Lyle said with the biggest grin.

The general public was starting to get restless. There were guilds that wanted to show off their strength by beating on tpeople they deemed weaker. Kiro wanted to spit on their faces.

To him, the fact that they made it through the Tartarus forest meant they were capable enough but he guessed there'd always be an Isaac somewhere with much arrogance.

Ding!

[Congratulations players, guilds. You've made it to the second round of the guild wars. The next stage will be versus fights against guilds that challenge you. Of course guilds can be challenged once.

Out of thousands, only 200 survived Tartarus. May lady luck be with you.]