Rebirth 3

Unfortunately for them, the good ol' death never came to relieve them from their pain. Soon they found themselves in some kind of ancient corridor. Its walls were full of ancient drawings and writings, but they didn't have any time to look at it as the whole place began to shake like it was going to collapse any moment.

"Get up, maybe we still have a chance to survive this." Said Ryu, not even believing what he said himself. He squatted down to help George get up.

George, however, didn't believe they could survive this little adventure of theirs, but still determined to at least help Ryu, he got up like a champ, without Ryu's help, with one leg.

Seeing his friend do this, he couldn't help but smile gently. In his eyes, George deserved his respect, and all that trouble he brought with him was nothing in the moments like this one where he acted like a real man.

They walked for quite a while and as they were reaching the end of the corridor, the shaking intensified. It was like a warning of sorts saying " Stay away from this place!" But they couldn't turn back because in this direction was the only light source they could see and they weren't too keen on the idea of going back in that darkness which was more alarming than the light.

As they were walking, suddenly, the whole ceiling collapsed. out of nowhere, everything was falling in on them. It was truly sad, after everything they have been through they still couldn't escape death. and now, They both were too mentally damaged to react to their misfortune. But suddenly, George found some strength in himself and, like the champ he was, snapped out of it quickly, eyes burning with determination, he pushed Ryu out of harm's way and saved his life.

Ryu finally regained control of himself and shouted in desperation. " George, Nooooo" He quickly ran towards George, but was stopped midway through. As the ceiling fell something followed it, it was big charred metal scrap of their Pod!!!

When George saw this, he looked at Ryu, smiled, and said "Thanks for everything... Brother."

Boom!

Immediately after George said that he was buried under the metal scraps and corridor walls. Ryu ran as fast as he possibly could, not carrying about anything. The pure White barrier was surrounding him as he ran through everything.

Suddenly, one of the walls fell on him destroying his barrier and breaking his left leg in the process.

"Aarghh" He shouted at the top of his lungs, it really hurt. Both, his Star Core and his leg were damaged. The pain was so unbearable he passed out on the spot.

George, however, died immediately after the impact. Not regretting anything, He hoped that at least his friend could survive. In the last moments of his life, he thought about this one thing. "If there's next life, I wish that we still can be friends...No, Brothers."

After that, he died.

As the days passed, Ryu was still unconscious. He was bleeding from the leg and his Star Core was crumbling once again. One day though, He finally woke up. It was 3rd day since he fell asleep and the first thing he did was to search for George but what he saw made him... scream like a baby.

There was a large tower of walls and scraps laying on each other, burying George underneath.

"Georgeee, George, George Nooo. Where are you!? I don't believe you died. You motherfuc*er answer me! Answer meee!!!" As he was screaming and crying, he continued to throw everything left and right, not caring about anything else. He didn't even care about himself. His left part of the body was hurting too much, His Star Core was being destroyed by the second, but this pain was nothing in comparison to how he felt about his friend's death.

He didn't care about himself and his dying body and continued to throw everything left and right hoping to find his friend.

After another three days of search, he finally found something. But it wasn't what Ryu expected, It was a bloody hand and disfigured head that he found. At that moment, Ryu felt like his whole world was shattering. He wanted to hide himself, He didn't want to acknowledge this reality, he wanted to run away from this place. But there was nothing he could do except to value the life that his friend sacrificed himself for and move on.

After another 2 days of accepting the cruel reality, he finally brought his already damaged body to its feet and managed to take a step forward whilst cementing George in his memories. His sacrifice will never be forgotten.

As he walked in the corridor, he was getting closer and closer to the light while the place was shaking more and more uncontrollably.

After three hours of torture-walking, he found himself in a Majestic place. An enormous room covered with gold and all kinds of treasures graced his eyes. All of the recourses in the world were spread out on the ground like they were nothing much.

Rare alchemical ingredients, precious metals, ancient spell scrolls and books, top-quality weapons and techniques. Everything was there but it seemed like these treasures were still falling behind this one treasure. On the golden staircase which seemed to be stretching into the sky, there was one single item. It was an ancient-looking Hourglass.

It was adorned with all kinds of treasures and jewels which made it seem like it was something sacred and no one was eligible to dirty it with their filthy and blasphemous hands. Inside of it was the most golden-glowing sand Ryu had ever seen. What was the most magical thing was that it was rotating on its own, without anyone or anything pushing it.

Ryu understood that it was a treasure like no other but he didn't care, the only thing he wanted to do right now was to take revenge. Ruining this place was what he intended to do but, in the end, he decided not to do it, his friend was already gone nothing could help revive him now, so he proceeded to take the treasure.

As he was getting closer to the treasure he found ancient rune inscriptions surrounding it.

'Most likely ancient formation, but how old is this place to exhaust permanent formation of top-caliber like this one, in the first place?' Ryu thought. 'Permanent formation like this one could hold on for thousands of years. This place should be more than a million years old'

Although Ryu's guess was considerable it wasn't even close. The real age of the place was more than 50 million years old. Ryu was studying on formation master but you could tell he was still an amateur.

The whole place was still shaking as he advanced but strangely nothing happened and soon Ryu was before the Hourglass. Slowly he stretched out his hand to take the hourglass, but as he was getting closer and closer to the treasure, this Majestic room stopped shaking and everything settled down, unexpectedly.

Ryu finally got a hold of the Hourglass, it was truly a godly treasure and he felt as though he wasn't worthy to hold it like this. He didn't know what to do with an hourglass so he inspected it for a while.

He noticed that every time the sand ran out in the upper part of the Hourglass it would rotate bringing the lower part up. Every once in a while it would rotate.

Suddenly, a wild thought ran through Ryu's mind but he didn't dare to believe it. He thought that he was getting crazy but could not help but think of the possibility of Hourglass working like he thought it would.

He gulped his saliva nervously not believing that it would work, but he still had to try, he had to satisfy his curiosity and possibly save his late friend.

He rotated the Hourglass back!

Suddenly, majestic golden light drowned him and this whole place but it didn't stop there, it advanced at unimaginable speed drowning everything in its way. Cities, countries, continents, planets, star systems, star clusters, star fields. Everything was Drowned except...

Somewhere in the space...

The Main Base of the Monarchs...

At the giant black throne, an equally giant being was sitting, enjoying the Void crystal in his hand, but suddenly, he was interrupted by the majestic golden light that was heading in his direction.

He frowned and destroyed energy while examining it. When he was done he suddenly chuckled and said in amusement. " Somebody is playing with time... good, good... hahaha that will hinder the Heavenly Monarch and will separate him with his lovely wives. I should be able to use that time he will spend on searching them to destroy more of the universe." Monarch of Destruction was fairly satisfied.

Everywhere around the universe, something similar happened with powerful beings but not many of them were as happy as the Monarch of Destruction.

Elemental Palace - Home of The Elemental Lords.

" Your excellencies, we had dealt with the time elemental energies outside of the Palace but we couldn't save anything else." Commander of The Elemental Army said kneeling before the Six Elemental Lords.

"You may Leave Agnes but investigate what happened properly and find the culprit." Said Darkness Elemental lord.

"Yes, my lord." Then he stood up and left the room, leaving six of them for a discussion.

"Damn it, we just retrieved the Lost piece after thousands of years of planning and now this happened. If I find out who did it I will kill them myself." Fire Elemental Lord was angry.

" Calm down, it's not the time to be angry. Let's do what we can to save the situation first." Light Elemental Lord said.

"Let's discuss the future plans of action until we see how much was the timeline disrupted." Suggested Water Emmental Lord and everyone began to state Their opinions.

On Ryu's side though, He couldn't believe what his eyes were seeing, he thought that his whole life was just a dream.

"No this... this cannot be real...Did I truly reverse the time?"