234 Those touched by fire

Leona rushed over to Hana's side and tried to confirm if she needed help.

"I'm fine, Leona... Don't worry..." Hana affirmed.

"I see... I'm glad..."

Ashley tried to check on Evlin, but the minute she tried to approach her, the mage just glared at her and continued walking.

"Thanks for not having my back... So much for being my sister..." Evlin grumbled as she released her fusion and returned to her normal body while slapping Ashley's hand away.

"Evlin... I just..." Ashley tried to explain herself, but her sister didn't seem interested.

Gustav and Daren were moving while standing between Hana and the kids. If they needed to fight again, Hana would need to go through them first.

Claire and Joseph looked at Ellie and Dia to try to see how they were doing.

"Dia... Are you still feeling full?" Detra asked while walking behind them.

"Y- Yes... Even though I barely ate anything, I'm still not feeling hungry..."

"I see..." Detra replied, realizing that there was still a lot of hostility among those present there.

That was a cause of concern since this was a rather delicate situation and she couldn't have Evlin, Daren, and Gustav making decisions while being with their heads full of anger.

Evlin could never forgive anyone trying to take advantage of those who couldn't fight for themselves. Daren hates gods more than anything, and Gustav despised anyone that tried to harm his friends.

These three looked like they were begging for things to go wrong just so they could jump on Hana again.

"This might end up badly..." Detra whispered.

She also took this chance to take a look at Hana herself.

The Hana she knew was supposed to be a woman with skin completely devoid of color, hair made of wild flames, and covered in a black armor while having a body made of powerful muscles. Her face should be something that could strike nightmares in those weak of heart.

But the one in front of her was barely like she expected.

For one thing, she wasn't a demon but a goddess, the goddess of the east, no less. While her skin tone wasn't all that strong, she definitely wasn't devoid of color. Her hair had a regular brow tone and her clothes were the usual godly attire of a white dress. Her body had barely anything that could be called muscle.

She looked like she could lose to an arm-wrestling match against Daren when he was cursed with a skinny body.

And yet, she still managed to hold her own on a fight against Evlin, Gustav, and Daren armed with Marcus. This lady was basically a walking contradiction.

They finally reached the meeting room and everyone decided to take a sit on different corners of the round table.

On their left, Evlin, Gustav, and Daren, all glaring at the goddess.

On the right, Ashley, Detra, Lilith, and Marcus. The group that seemed like had no idea of what was going on and just wanted to gain more information before advancing.

And finally, on the other side of the table, staring right at Hana, Ellie and Dia, with Joseph and Claire as well.

"Well..." Evlin started, "Go ahead! Tell us why you want to send us on a suicidal quest!"

"... I'm not doing this because I want to..." Hana whispered.

Ellie and Dia kept looking at Hana, not sure how they felt about her. Ellie knew that she was supposed to be this big bad guy from Detra's story about the origin of magic, but right now, she just couldn't feel anything bad coming from her.

Dia also seemed confused, but she felt rather strange for some reason as if Hana and she were connected somehow.

"Uuhh, excuse me..." Dia said while raising her hand, "Have we met before...?"

Hana tilted her head, "I don't think so..."

Evlin glared at the goddess, "You don't recognize your own granddaughter!!??"

"Granddaughter!!??" both Hana and Dia repeated.

[Evlin, calm down...] Gustav told her using his power, [We need to find out as much as we can about her first. Don't just give away information that could be used to our advantage...]

[Sorry, Gus...]

"Wait!! This lady is my grandmother!!??" Dia yelled while standing from her chair.

"Well... More like great, times five hundred, grandmother..." Detra commented.

Hana herself seemed perplexed, "This kid is my descendent??"

"You seriously didn't know??" Detra asked while raising an eyebrow.

"N- No... I don't have much contact with people... I mostly just send requests to the members of my church and wait for them to complete it..." Hana explained, followed by staring at Leona, "How come you never told me she was my family!!??"

Leona flinched, "I assumed you knew... S- Sorry..."

Detra just observed intrigued, "Interesting..."

"Family..." Dia whispered softly while taking a seat again. She began to stare at Hana again but now she was more curious than nervous. She did not expect that the first member of her family she would meet would be one of the four gods of the world.

"Could you please explain things again miss... Hana..." Ashley asked.

"As I said to the short-tempered mage over there..." Hana started while staring at Evlin, "I need the help of you four to take down a dragon named Knucker... He is the one responsible for killing my best friend, and I want revenge for his crime..."

"Revenge...? Not justice...?" Detra asked, wondering why a god wasn't using the common technique of trying to make his actions seem more heroic than they actually are.

"No... Revenge... I'm not doing this for anyone else, or because it's the right thing to do... I'm doing this because I want to make him suffer for what he did..." Hana bluntly declared.

"Why do you need them?" Daren asked, "It seemed to me you were more than capable of taking on anyone by yourself..."

"Dragons are the mortal enemies of terminal beings..." Hana explained, "They can't be killed with just blessed energy, even one provided by a god..." she then looked at her hand, "Trust me... I tried..."

"Mortal enemies...?" Lilith repeated.

"Yes... The two sides share a longer history than many are aware of... When my friend took me away, many years ago... She brought me to her world... The world of the terminal beings... Where I found out that the reason they explored other worlds was to plant seeds of their power in order to gain more allies in their war against the dragons...

My friend didn't felt like my world was ready to face the dragons... So she was going to pass on that plan... But because of me... The seeds ended up being planted anyway...

The dragons cannot be killed by curses, blessings, or magic... Only pure terminal energy...

When she showed me that, I realized that the reason she wanted to rid this world of its power, was so that dragons wouldn't target us as possible enemies and try to attack us before we were strong enough to properly defend ourselves...

She tried to return me to this world right after that, but one of them saw us and managed to follow us all the way to this world... We tried to take him down, but he realized that my powers had no effect on him and tried to kill me...

My friend saw me in danger and jumped in to save me... At... At the cost of her own life...

This dragon... was Knucker..."

The whole room went silent for a brief moment as Hana finished telling her story.

"And you want to send three kids after a guy that even a god and a terminal being can't kill??" Evlin stated, breaking the silence.

"For some reason... Knucker fears these three kids..." Hana continued and she glanced at them.

"What...?" Ellie gasped, "Why??"

"The three of you have the blood of beings from another world inside of you, don't you? The blood that increases the power of the energy from this world." Hana declared.

"Blood from another world...?" Ellie repeated.

"I think she means Earth..." Evlin assumed.

"Oh..." Ellie whispered, revealing she almost forgot she wasn't on her own planet right now.

"Ellie and I are from Earth, Dia's father was from Earth, and Marcus is a person from Earth that was reset... And people from Earth are more capable than the people from here when it comes to connecting with energy and using its power..." Evlin commented.

"Hold on!" Joseph raised his hand next, "Me and Claire are from Earth as well! Is this Knucker guy after us too??"

"No... I don't think so..." Hana replied, calming the trembling boy in the process, "It's not just your Earthly blood, it's also that you all came in contact with terminal energy at some point..."

"But the energy is not there anymore... " Ashley noticed, "Evlin could only use that energy by fusion with a demon and a champion, and Marcus himself never had any means of accessing this power... Mia had a god and a demon inside of her but they were all purged by Ellie and turned into Dia..."

"That's right... Ellie is the only one that can activate terminal energy on her own..." Marcus added, "But even that puts great risk on her body as she is still too young to properly control it... This guy has no reason to fear us..."

"Wrong..." Hana declared, "the energy never leaves once it appears inside of you... Even now, it might not be that big yet, but it is there, sleeping, in the deepest part of your being..."

The entire room began to stare nervously at Hana, all with the exception of one who was just calmly listening to everything.

"I see... That explains it..." mentioned Detra.

"Explains... Explains what?" Evlin asked.

"During the fight early on... Your attacks managed to hurt her, even if just a little... Marcus as well..." she explained, "It seems your bodies are slowly starting to become compatible with terminal energy itself... soon you should all be able to use it at will..."

Evlin, Marcus, Ellie, and Dia all began to shiver while thinking about this power being inside of them, the all-killing power.

"This Knucker definitely has a good reason to fear you..." Detra continued "If left alone to grow... You four will soon be the strongest living weapons of this world..."