Reborn as an Extra Chapter 912: Plans. Limit-Breaker. Part-3.

The Dragon King looked at Riya, Link, and the others before saying,

"That’s why, even if you guys manage to rescue the fairies this time, I ask you to keep your expectations down... if my predictions are right, only Rio and Lia will be welcomed by them with generosity and gratitude..."

His gaze was kind, though it did not conceal the sorrow behind it, and each of them felt that he was truly trying to protect their feelings in advance.

He spoke the words carefully, one by one, as one might set down fragile glass, and the group listened without interrupting.

"The rest might as well have to sleep in a tent outside their territory and might not even be able to enter the main camp..."

Link scratched the back of his head with a wry smile, and Riya puffed out her cheeks in a mock pout, though both of them understood the reason well enough.

To those words, Lia became even more confused and asked back,

"I can understand they will welcome Rio... but why me too? I didn’t save their homeland."

She blinked several times and glanced around the table, certain that she had missed some obvious detail that everyone else had already noticed.

It was an honest question, spoken with such sincere puzzlement that it was impossible to doubt she truly had no idea what everyone was thinking.

Hearing those words, everyone in the room went silent and gave Lia a weird look as if they all had the same thought running in their mind.

Some coughed softly, some just stared at the pattern of the table as if they hadn’t heard anything, and some just directly averted their gazes.

The awkward pause stretched on for several long seconds.

In the end, Selain broke the silence and replied to Lia’s question in an awkward tone,

"Well... the entire world knows that Rio only reconstructed and saved that place to make it beautiful enough so that he could gift it to you... err... so yeah... indirectly, you had a hand in saving that continent..."

Hearing those words, Lia shook her head in helplessness and jabbed Rio lightly to vent her embarrassment.

Her face turned red all the way to the tips of her ears, and she hid half of it behind her hand while the other half glared at Rio with embarrassed fury.

Rio, on the other hand, just shrugged as if the topic had nothing to do with him. In fact, he even wanted to correct Selain and say that he was planning to gift the newly rejuvenated Maya continent to Lia too... as a wedding gift.

He even picked up his cup of tea and took a calm sip, so shamelessly innocent that Link had to turn away to hide his laughter.

"Ahem! Well, now that we have all come up with a plan, you all can rest for a bit while I and the other SS rankers modify the seal to open a small entrance..."

The Dragon King cleared his throat loudly, as if determined to redirect the conversation back to the main topic and stop it from drifting to a weird direction.

"It will take a while to get everything ready for the expedition, so you all can rest up for an hour or so..."

The old dragons around the table rose from their seats one by one, their heavy robes rustling as they began to file towards the door.

With that said, the meeting came to an end, and the Demon King left the meeting hall with several of his subordinates to discuss other important matters.

Chairs scraped back, murmurs filled the hall, and the stiff atmosphere of the meeting dissolved into the ordinary bustle of people preparing for a long journey.

As the group started to leave the meeting hall, Fenix, who had been silent all along, walked over to Rio’s side and patted his shoulder before asking,

"Care to catch up with this old friend, Champion?"

He moved without hurry, his steps light and steady despite his size, and the warm smile on his face carried a familiar and friendly kind of curiosity.

The old title sounded strange but pleasant in Rio’s ears, like a faded banner pulled from a trunk and shaken free of dust.

Hearing Fenix’s words, Rio smiled lightly and nodded before following Fenix’s lead to move to a secluded balcony of the fortress.

The two men left the hall side by side, their footsteps echoing down a long corridor that smelled faintly of old stone and warm iron.

"It’s been a while since I last saw you. Back then you were stuck in a dilemma and were worried about your fading emotions... it seems you finally managed to overcome it and regained all that you had lost..."

The memory of that tense conversation seemed to belong to another life, and he said it with a gentle and almost fatherly kind of pride.

"Congratulations on becoming a ’limit-breaker’... rarely does anyone in the world manage to do that in a lifetime."

He lifted his chin slightly as he said it, and in his eyes there was not even a trace of jealousy, only sincere respect.

Hearing Fenix’s words, the smile on Rio’s face widened as he leaned against the stone railings and stared at the people coming and going around the fortress walls.

Down below, soldiers hauled crates of supplies and dragon smiths hammered at glowing metal, and the busy ring of their work rose through the cool air like a steady heartbeat.

"It’s difficult indeed... but I must thank you for showing me a proper path back then too... indirectly or directly, you did help me achieve what I wanted to achieve..."

The honesty in his tone was unmistakable, and Fenix gave a soft and satisfied nod, as if he had waited a long time to hear those words.

Back then, Fenix had confronted Rio and advised him on the ’Path’ of strength.

Although Fenix and Rio both were unaware why Rio was losing his emotions even back then, Fenix did manage to give Rio some useful advice and could be considered half a teacher to Rio in that aspect.

Neither of them had known the reason behind that strange and creeping emptiness, yet the conversation had still planted a small and stubborn light in Rio’s heart.

"Haha, no way, all I did was just give you a little push; whatever you have achieved was solely through your own hard work... others can’t help you become a ’limit-breaker’ after all... it can only be done by your own hands..."

He waved his hand dismissively and laughed, and the laugh rolled out across the balcony with a warmth that made the stone walls seem less cold.

"It’s been centuries since I became an SS ranker, and I have yet to achieve it, but you did it right after ascending to rank SS; the talent you have is something rarely seen in thousands of years..."

There was no bitterness in his voice, only a quiet and sincere wonder.

"I am proud that I got to help you even if a little bit back then and helped you achieve your goals..."

He turned his gaze to the horizon as he said it, and for a moment the sunlight caught the faint lines at the corners of his eyes. Fenix was happy—truly happy—to have been chosen as the examiner for Rio back then.