Chapter 484: Alive and Home
(Meanwhile, The Skyshard Mansion)
At the same time that the Parade began, Leo pushed open the door to Luke’s medical room with a wide grin already forming on his face.
*Click*
From the moment he had arrived back at the Skyshard Mansion, his body had started to move faster than his thoughts, as he could almost not wait a single second longer to see his brother awake again.
*Step*
*Step*
As he stepped inside, his subconscious brain registered the atmosphere of the room and how it looked serene with the sunblinds half open.
However, his active brain did not pay attention to such trivialities.
Because sitting there, propped up against a stack of pillows with a blanket tucked over his waist and a faint smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth, sat his brother, very much conscious, very much alive, and unmistakably himself.
“Took you long enough,” Luke said with a lopsided grin, his eyes locking onto Leo’s as if nothing had changed between them.
“I– that, yeah,” Leo replied, practically stumbling into the chair beside him as his grin stretched even wider, teeth showing, eyes gleaming, the kind of expression only family could bring out in him.
“How bad’s the pain? Can you move? Are you fine under all that gauze?” he asked quickly, pointing at Luke’s bandaged torso as he leaned in, voice rising with excitement.
“You can hug me,” Luke approved, cutting through the concern before it even had time to take shape, already knowing exactly what Leo had been leading up to.
*HUG*
Without another word, Leo threw his arms around him, burying his face into his brother’s chest with the full weight of someone who had waited too long for this moment, while Luke let out a wheezing cough and a soft laugh as the air left his lungs in one short burst.
“Oye, oye, oye, calm down, I’m still healing, you idiot,” Luke muttered between chuckles, wincing slightly as Leo only hugged him tighter.
“I missed you,” Leo said, his voice trembling, as Luke gently placed his hand over his brother’s back and patted him till he was calm.
Secretly, Luke felt the same way as Leo.
Scared, Relieved, Happy, Vulnerable.
However, outwardly, he did not let it show.
He was the elder brother afterall, and hence, appearing vulnerable before his sibling was something he could never bring himself to show.
“It’s fine. I’m going to be fine. I’m a powerful Grandmaster, just like you–” Luke said, as he flexed how he had broken through to Grandmaster just before he had passed out, only for Leo to scoff at that remark.
Back when he and Luke were just gamers grinding in Terra Nova Online, ‘Grandmaster’ had felt like the ultimate peak of strength — a rank so impossibly high that nobody they knew could even hope to actually reach it.
The strongest NPC in the entire game was a Grandmaster-tier Dragon, and it was practically invincible, a behemoth capable of wiping out entire cities without taking a scratch.
At the time, the two of them used to joke that if they ever hit Grandmaster, they’d split the game world in half, ruling each side with iron fists and achieving total domination. But those turned out to be nothing more than the naive dreams of kids who didn’t yet understand how weak the Grandmaster Tier actually was in the real universe.
Because once they left the simulation and stepped into the actual world, they realized the bitter truth: Grandmaster wasn’t even considered ‘Elite’ in the greater cosmic power scale, and that those who sat at Grandmaster level were little more than bottom feeders in the eyes of the truly strong.
“Well…. You are strong, brother. There is no doubt in my mind about that,” Leo admitted, as he gently tapped Luke on the shoulder, causing Luke to grin even wider from the compliment.
“You’re not too bad yourself, Circuit Champion. I saw you entertaining quite the crowd while I was on the run from the Red Army. You made me proud,” Luke said, his voice enthusiastic, as Leo raised an eyebrow at the mention of the Red Army.
“The Red Army?” he repeated, his brows furrowing, as the name rang a bell somewhere in the back of his mind.
He remembered hearing about them back at the Rodova Military Academy when a group of students were discussing the Evil Cult in the cafeteria.
According to his memory, the Red Army was a specialized military division under the Universal Government, formed for one purpose, and one purpose alone, which was to hunt down Cult operatives on the run.
Nicknamed the ‘Cult Hunters’, they were a relentless elite unit of trackers and killers who were infamous for chasing their targets for years if needed, never stopping until they succeeded in eliminating them.
“Brother, how did you even cross paths with the Red Army? Weren’t you supposed to be training under the Cult’s protection?” Leo asked, his voice sharper now, as Luke visibly winced, as though the very question struck a nerve.
“I… was training for the Cult?” Luke muttered, his voice strained and uncertain, as a dull ache bloomed in his head, growing worse the longer he tried to think about it.
“I don’t really remember how I got involved with the Red Army, to be honest. It’s all still a bit blurry in my head,” Luke said, his voice low and thoughtful. “But what I do remember is being hunted… relentlessly… for nearly a year.”
He paused, letting the words sink in before continuing.
“No matter how far I ran, they always found a way to close in. I lived a life filled with horrors, Leo….. the kind you can’t explain.
There wasn’t a single night I could sleep in peace without the fear that I’d be assassinated in my bed. Not a single meal I could finish without wondering if staying in one place too long would lead to me being tracked and ambushed.”
His eyes darkened slightly, the memory clearly weighing heavily on his mind.
“It was a rough time… there were more than a few moments where I genuinely believed I wouldn’t make it out alive,” he said, the last part almost a whisper, as Leo squeezed his shoulders tightly, reassuring him that it was okay.
“I mean, you survived, brother, and now you’re back home….” Leo said with a reassuring smile, as Luke smiled back at him.
“Yes, that’s true…. I am alive. And I am home”