After everyone hopped into the mirror gate and felt as if they were falling through an odd space for a bit they arrived at the outskirts of the council on a hill.
Grey was the last to enter but all three were staring down in shock at something in the distance.
As grey came closer he saw what was once the beautiful castle ground now completely destroyed as if raided recently.
Some flames still burned inside the city while a few spread into a forest.
"What happened?" Grey asked shocked.
"Isn't this a good thing? I mean you came here for revenge against sell out your people to your enemies right."
Grey shook his head "I wanted them to hurt… to feel the pain we did for selling us out, but that was only true for their leaders this… it's just needless slaughter of innocents for no reason."
Grey continued staring at the destroyed and burned buildings when he noticed something in a crater. "Hey you can control blood right? Can you try moving that black stain?"
"Sure? I mean I definitely can manipulate blood but that doesn't look like blood." Golo said confused.
"Can you please just try?" Grey said with almost desperate eyes.
Golo just sighed and tried without much thought only for his eyes to widen as the black stain moved at his command over blood forming into small droplets floating in the air.
Tony and golo looked at grey with a look that asked how did he know.
Greys whole body shook rapidly in anger causing some stones beneath him to turn into dust.
He stopped for a moment before stopping to breath slowly and calming down and looking at the three staring at him questioningly.
"Yeah I know who did this. It was a rabbit friend of mine with a strong sense of justice that died in the first attack but he came back after making a deal with some sort of demon but he said he had it under control last I saw him."
Moqui looked at grey with sad eyes. "If he truly made a deal with a demon of some sort they probably corrupted and twisted his view on things so he sees this as justifice while slowly becoming a puppet for that demon."
Grey looked at her curiously "you talk as if you know a lot about demons?"
She looked at him with a deadpan gaze "well duh, I am a goblin born without a rune so I studied powers of others closely. That how I learned to command nature and corpses despite not having a rune."
"One of the quickest ways to gain power is to strike a deal or connect with a higher being, but if you do that your no different from a powerful puppet at their disposal. So I connected nature itself I it's raw form so I can manipulate plants and corpses."
"Hmmm, that sound like what mister flos taught me except his enhances his body while letting him store stuff somehow." Grey said.
"Oh! You gotta show me how to do that I've been studying raw energy in its primal forms for the longest. Only plants and corpse are easily manipulated but if you can use it to store thing that changes a lot of things." Moqui asked excitedly.
"I'll explain later first let's look for survivors and anything useful the soul seeds."
Everyone nodded at greys words and split up searching the area. Tony went around finding all kinds of weapon, seeds and blueprints left behind by the council. He even found a few interesting scroll that he sealed inside a quartz crystal using his mirror gate as a makeshift backpack.
"Fascinating they left behind so much loot!" Tony said excitedly.
"All these potion recipes and artifacts will be very useful later, better not let them go to waste… hmm we could also use some extra food reserves, Now where is the kitchen?" Tony seemed diligent in raiding the place.
Moqui went around following the death energy but only led her to black stains in the walls and floor. "This energy feels as if they just self destructed their energy flow, but why would anyone attack a fortified base only to have their soldiers self destruct? Seems extremely wasteful."
"And judging from the stains shapes all sorts of animals attacked this place but their energy… it just feels wrong? It must be that demon that the rabbit mentioned."
Meanwhile golo just walked around aimlessly checking houses once in while. "Why does every big conflict lead to Mass death. Why does the group have to suffer for the few that made the mistake?" Golos face twisted in unfiltered hate.
He was Being reminded of his old tribe as memories of his fellow goblins being slayed by the frog kin.
A memory of him falling into a pit with a bloodied body in his hands. The last thing he remember seeing was his tribe fighting and losing before he was engulfed in the pit and the hole closed up.
Grey searched the area but found nothing but ruin and ashes all around.
After a few hours everyone meet back up where they entered. Tony was the last to arrive and most cheerful of the bunch as he opened a mirror gate using the quartz like crystal.
As everyone jumped into the crystal they felt the usual feeling of falling and bright lights as they made it to the crystal back home.
The moment they arrived they all fell down tripping over a pile of random items.
Tony soon appeared after them as everyone glared at him angrily. "Whoops! I forgot to mention I may have taken a bit of stuff. Watch your steps there are a few blades somewhere among this chaos."
Grey looked around for a moment "I know I said take what you want or anything useful but this… this is basically everything they had and you just tossed it in here?"
"I mean they are dead it's not like they need it and I have debts to pay off, plus I got the special plants we may need."
"As for organizing it, well I was kinda enjoyi— I mean busy finding thing that would help us, all of us."
Golo just turned around and started walking away "well good luck cleaning this up, let's go moqui I'll show you around."
Tony looked at golos back with a shocked expression before turning to grey "you'll help me right I mean you'll need these!"
Grey let out a deep sigh of resignation. "Fine let's organize these and separate the consumables from the weapons and other items. Then we'll go from there and bring it in for someone to inspect to see what's useful and what's useless."
After a few hours of organizing the food blitz and Violet came to inspect taking things that would help out the group while storing away weapons for future use.
Violet inspected the scrolls and potions to see what is useful for them until late at night.
After that golo called them to one of the arenas he made.
Blitz, karma and all the six claws members were here and two strange humanoids.
Grey and Tony arrived only to see a tall dark skinned humanoid woman with abyssal black hair and deep purple eyes that stared deep into their souls.
Grey noticed the bear ears on top her head and the even taller white humanoid with blue hair and golden eyes and even though his limbs were quite muscular he had a big round belly.
Grey stared at both of them with a quizzical look for a moment before something clicked in his head. "Oh your cocoa and Ted dreams in your beast kin forms!"
"Oh right! You haven't seen my beast kin form or cocoa since you've been training alone before you left. Well feast your eyes on this magnificent form of perfection." Ted said as he flexed his muscles.
"You can keep your perfect form away from my mother. while you explain why we are here so late at night?" Grey asked leaving Ted in a slightly depressed state while golo began to talk.
"Ok now that most important people are we will revisit everything that's happened to us on our journey and come up with solutions."
Every nodded at his words as explained the frog kins fighting style and main base and then started explaining the damage the now demon possessed rabbit caused at the central burrow leaving no survivors.
"So let me get this straight first we have your personal revenge, those frog kin's expanding their territory about a nearby and you want them gone before they become a bigger threat, and then we have a wild rabbit going on a slaughter spree because of a demon so no matter what we are still in danger." Blitz asked for clarification.
"Jajajaja, that's not all you also need to make a new deal with me so our tribes will no longer fight we can even become close allies."
Every looked up and at the top of the arena was a Bright red fox waving her black tipped tail as if to say hello
"Oh… right, my bad I forgot about that."
"I mean in all honesty I thought we would never see each other again." Grey said awkwardly leaving everyone to look at him confused.
"Oh? You didn't tell them about me ~little toy~ oh how you wound my fragile heart."
"For those of you out the loop, I helped this cute little snack with some inside information so I could take over the fox tribe after hunter was slain making me queen and taking rabbits of the menu."
Few looked at grey after scarlets claim to see if it was true but he just nodded.
"Yeah and now our deal is over so why are you back here?"