The Earth After Rebirth

He got out of bed faster and headed to the castle. Luckily he didn\'t have to walk too far as their housing was pretty close. They let him in at the gate.

Right away, he saw Kiro and Hubris on their way to the meeting hall. The guests hadn\'t met Belial yet, so they\'d use him as an excuse of why they couldn\'t make it yesterday.

"Your highness!!!" He shouted when he reached them.

"Hush, your head will split even further if you make any noise. My poor advisor has been sick for the past 3 days, you should be in bed or something." Hubris commented, trying to convince himself.

\'Huh? What is he talking about?\' When he looked to his left, he saw the guests waiting to enter the hall with them.

"Ah, yes your highness, I feel a bit better today." He said catching on.

Seeing that Belial was in on it, he turned to his master. "By the way master, don\'t you want some shoes? Isn\'t it strange walking barefoot?"

"You\'re walking barefoot."

"That\'s because I\'m a hound?"

"Hound, Dreki, what\'s the difference."

Belial chuckled and whispered, "loads."

Kiro shot him a look that said, \'I heard that!\'

Belial ran forwards to open the door for the guests. They entered first, Hubris entered and offered Kiro the leader\'s seat which made Kiro look at him like an idiot.

"Hubris, you can\'t shove your leader duties to me, I\'ll sit besides you though." He whispered.

Hubris gave a disappointed sigh. This would be his first meeting as King, he didn\'t know how well he\'d do. He didn\'t even know he\'d do well.

The King of Ichor Kingdom sat on the left side with his people. Hubris\' sat at the leader\'s chair, while his people sat on the right. His people being Kiro and Belial.

The guests were humanoid. They had very pale skin, with red glowing eyes. They all had the darkest hair Kiro had ever seen, which was probably why their paleness was so out there.

They looked elegant with their black suits, black shirts and red ties. None of them had any muscles, they were very thin. Which reminded Kiro of his poverty days.

They sat in silence, Hubris waited for them to introduce themselves. He wasn\'t quite sure what they were waiting for, as he already saw this as a waste of time.

"Ah, sorry for yesterday. I was quite sick you see, it was also abrupt, I thought I was better but I was wrong." Belial broke the silence.

"Then, why weren\'t we told? We waited here for several hours. This isn\'t how esteemed guests should be treated." The one who said this wasn\'t the one who was clearly their leader.

Kiro scoffed, which caused every pair of eyes to fall upon him and then he broke into fits of laughter.

"Sorry, sorry. I\'m just, what you said is quite funny." He said still grinning.

"What\'s particularly funny about disrespecting the Kingdom of Ichor?"

"I don\'t know, the fact that you dropped at our gates unannounced? You expect the King of Abaddon to drop everything he was doing just to accommodate guests that arrived here without prior notice?

"Belial, if you\'re going to be my mounts advisor, you better not make him apologise for things that aren\'t his fault.

"You should be thankful you were received a day later."

"But the previous—"

"The previous King is dead, this isn\'t the previous King. If you had some kind of deal with Azazel, that doesn\'t hold with Hubris here. If you hope to continue a relationship with Abaddon then show some respect." He finished exasperated.

The King of Ichor saw that his underling was about to retorted so he held up his hand which quieted him.

"You\'re correct, in our hurry, with the news, we didn\'t do the current King the courtesy asking to be invited. For that, I deeply apologise." He slightly bowed to Hubris, his underlings followed suit.

"Tsk." Kiro exclaimed, calming down a bit.

"I\'m King Aenon of the Ichor Kingdom, our kingdom is a depleting one. We are a race of vampires, we have a treaty with Abaddon, rather, we had." He finished their introduction.

"I\'m the rightful heir, the son of Cerberus, King Hubris. I came back here to liberate my people and that\'s what I did."

Kiro was still on the fact that they were vampires. "How come the sun doesn\'t hurt you?" He asked confused.

"Hurt us? We feed from the sun."

"Huh? What about blood?"

"Thats part of our diet too."

Hubris gave him a nudge. He saw that he was about to ask yet another prying question. Like a child who\'s been refused a candy bar, he deflated on his chair.

"It\'s a pleasure to finally meet the offspring of Cerberus. He was a great King." Aenon commented. MVLeMpYr-novel-source

"He was. Knowing my uncle, he didn\'t just agree to the treaty, what did he have you do for him or what trade deals did you strike with him?"

Aenon looked a bit ashamed, but he wanted to be honest. It was not secret after all. "We used to punish hounds that were out of line by his standards. Hell whiskey is also a product of our Kingdom."

Hubris and Kiro smiled. Hubris didn\'t want to dwell in the past, these guys did what they had to survive his uncle after all.

"Then, in return, what did this Kingdom offer you?"

"Premium meat, silverware and even these suits. Also protection from our enemies."

"I know it was for survival, but my people cannot just forgive, incentive should be on the table for your crimes." Hubris informed them.

Aenon wore a thinking face. He wasn\'t particularly weak, but seeing the two in front of him, he knew he didn\'t have a chance. Ontop of that, they gave out the same familiar energy as the sun.

"We have plenty of mines in our Kingdom, how about we gift you three? Of course the mining will be done by us and we will send you the resources." He suggested.

"That doesn\'t sound too bad, it\'s a dilemma, I don\'t think I trust you guys yet." Hubris pondered, they could halve the resources before sending them.

"My Kingdom\'s science department—"

"Sire! No! You can\'t!" His advisor tried to shut him up. But the King shook his head.

"They are on the verge of technological a breakthrough, they\'re creating doorways that will transport you anywhere in the Underworld within seconds. When they achieve success, Abaddon will be the second Kingdom to have them installed, the first one will be free."

"Okay, when that happens, we will mine our own resources."

"That\'s not a problem!" Aenon said, excitement in his voice couldn\'t be filtered out.

"Then let\'s go drink, to the new friendship!"