REBORN HERO: THE ULTIMATE SYSTEM

CHAPTER 005: FORGE WORLDS

She placed her weapon back into the pouch and glanced at him, her eyes relaxed in relief. She walked forward and pulled open the wooden cage. Valor stepped out quietly, gazing at her with curiosity. 

“How do you know Ravian?” He demanded. 

“You ask a lot of questions,” she replied. “Follow me, I will take you to him and you can ask him all the questions you want to ask?” 

Valor sighed and decided to obey, he knew he wasn't going to get much from her. “If you can't tell me about Ravian, can you tell me what this place is?” He demanded. “I mean, I have been here for about three years and I still can't figure out where the hell I am, except it being desolate and dangerous. Sometimes it feels like I am breathing poison.” 

The girl glanced at him. “First tell me how you came across an Astral Sanctum,” she replied as they trudged forward.

“I made it,” he said succinctly. “To save my son.” 

Lia hesitated, her green eyes flicking between him and the box. “You expect me to believe you’re some kind of… god?” she said, skepticism lacing her voice.

“I was never a god,” Valor said quietly. “I was a man with too much power and too many regrets. And when it came down to it, even all that power wasn’t enough.”

Lia frowned. "If you are telling the truth-and that's a big 'if' then why the hell are you stranded on a wasteland?” She demanded. 

“Because it took my entire power to make this. The trickle I had left was what I used to esca…” he paused. “Nevermind.”

The girl looked at him quietly for a very long, dragged-out moment but she didn't say anything. 

After a while, she glanced back at him. “You gave up infinite power to save one person,” she said, almost to herself. “Why?”

Valor’s expression softened, a faint, almost imperceptible smile crossing his lips. “Because he’s my son.” he sighed. “Anyways. What is your name?”

The girl glanced at him for a while as if considering it, Valor noticed it was a behavior of hers to pause before saying anything. “Lia.” She said simply.

“Now to answer your question,” she said finally. "This is what you could call the old world. Before the Forge worlds we all called home now every corner of the earth was livable.”

"Forge World?”

Lia glanced at him with an eyeroll as if an idiot should know what a Forge world is. "A fortification. A city built to keep humanity alive after… well, after the old world destroyed itself. "

“What?” Valor said. 

“Where did you think you lived?” She demanded.

“The entire world?” he sighed, realizing how stupid he was sounding but that was the earth. He'd always been able to see the wall, when he flew high enough, but they stretched above the clouds and he never thought anything was outside it. “Wait so you are saying, where I am from is just a Forge world. How many Forge worlds are there?” He demanded. 

“I don't know.” She shrugged. “But they built walls around them to keep the cancer that destroyed the wasteland from spreading.” 

“How would they even be able to build walls that high?” he demanded, confused completely.

“They were powerful… have you never read the Earth's history?” She sighed. “Back then they were gods. The Astral Sanctum was something found in labs for experiments. Humanity reached a pinnacle beyond all. We achieved godhood.” She almost yelled.

“Then how does that become this,” he gestured all around.

She shrugged, gazing off afar. "Not all of that I know exactly. Wars. Greed. Usual stuff. All I know is the Forge Worlds were built upon old tech, the stuff that could deal with the breaking world, and would keep out the monsters, have systems to let people survive, but it wasn't perfect.”

Valor wasn't having any of the story deep inside him. "And you? How would you know all this?"

“They read it to us in basic class where I come from.” She chuckled.

After this neither of them spoke anymore. Valor just followed the girl while navigating through the weird landscape. After a while, a campsite appeared on the horizon. Valor wondered why he didn't come across any of this in the past three years.

The campsite however, didn't look good as they got nearer. They could hear screams from afar. When they were finally about a few meters away from it, they could see people clearly running, shouting, and fighting. Smoke rose in the air, and fires flickered in the chaos.

“This isn’t right,” Lia muttered, stopping suddenly. Her sharp eyes darted around. “This place should be safe.”

Valor frowned. “What’s going on here?” he demanded.

“I don’t know.” Lia turned to him, her voice firm. “Listen, you need to find Ravian. He’s here somewhere. I have to find my sister.”

“What? How am I supposed to find him in all of this?” Valor asked, gesturing at the chaos around them.

“You’ll manage,” she snapped back. The urgency in her eyes made Ravian understand she needed to find her sister.

 Lia disappeared into the crowd, leaving him to figure the entire thing out. He sighed and looked down at the Astral Sanctum in his hand.

“Any ideas?” he muttered. 

The Astral Sanctum pulsed faintly. “Guess now that the pretty girl is gone, you remember my existence,” his son said.

“Just show me the way,” he yelled as an explosion occurred right in front of him, throwing him backwards. He rolled to his feet, feeling a little ache by his side. 

“Go left dad, I think I can feel Ravian’s signature, although it's a bit weak,” Dusk hummed in his mind from the Astral Sanctum.

He didn’t question it. He moved quickly, weaving through the chaos. He ducked as someone swung a makeshift weapon nearby, avoiding trouble as much as possible. Dusk kept giving him instructions which he obeyed without his heart skipping a beat. At last he arrived inside a small structure at the edge of the campsite.

Inside, the air was heavy with the smell of oil and sweat. He could hear the obvious sound of commotion. A group of people seemed to be fighting. 

Valor stepped in cautiously. The room was messy, with broken furniture and papers scattered everywhere. At the center of it all was a man—tall, wiry, and quick. He had wild hair and sharp eyes, and in one hand, he held a metallic device in his right hand. He was fighting off several attackers at once.

“Ravian?” Valor called out.

The man glanced at him briefly, his eyes narrowing. “A little help would be nice!”

Valor didn’t waste time. He charged forward as one of the attackers turned toward him. The man swung a metal rod, but Valor ducked under it and tackled him, sending both of them crashing into a desk.

Another attacker came at him with a knife. Valor stepped back, narrowly avoiding the blade, then grabbed the man’s wrist and twisted it hard. The knife fell to the ground, and Valor kicked it away before slamming his elbow into the man’s chest.

Beside him, Ravian reacted quickly, tearing through the two masked assailants standing before him. 

One last attacker swung a chair at Valor. He ducked, grabbed the man by the arm, and threw him at Ravian who spun in the air before delivering a roundhouse kick that caught the man in the chest, sending him to the ground.

When the room finally grew quiet, Ravian leaned against a broken table, breathing hard. He wiped sweat from his brow and looked at Valor.

“Valor?” Ravian asked with a smile.

“Ravian,” Valor replied, standing up and staring at the man from head to toe. “It is really you.” He smiled. “I have so many questions.”

Ravian raised an eyebrow. “I bet you do.” He straightened up, still holding the mechanical device tightly. “However, it is really good to see you, and I owe you an apology. I am sorry for what happened back then…”

“Save it,” Valor said, not interested in the past. “What happened to you, why are you here, how are you here? Did you lose your powers?” He had so many questions to ask. 

Ravian glanced at him with a sigh. “I will answer your questions as quickly as I can,” he said as an explosion rang out in the far distance. “We don't have time… I don't have time. So listen to me!”