The Earth After Rebirth

Kiro was on the ground pinned, trying to get himself out of the situation by using vibrations. He thanked the gods he wasn't alone, because right now he was vulnerable, open to all and any attacks.

The harbinger was locked on him, travelling at great speeds to reach his prey and bring his god the head of it when Hubris handed between them.

Giving Kiro leeway to get himself free. It was fortunate that the spikes of sand didn't hit anything important, he coughed once and mouthfuls of blood flooded out of his mouth.

"Dammit!" He was already healing, fast.

He used Ryu to get up from the ground and leaned against his staff replaying in his head what had just happened and what he could've done differently to avoid getting into such a sticky situation.

Kiro thought he needed to be able to fight a harbinger this strong without relying on anyone else, most importantly without such injuries. He thought every guardian should have that level of strength if they at all hoped to thwart the ancient ones. Explore stories at empire

While Kaos was stitching him together he watched Hubris completely destroying the other party. The cocky air about it was no longer visible, it was being thrown from left to right, up and slammed right back down.

Kiro couldn't help but watch with pride swelling within, remembering the first time he met with this hellhound, young and stubborn to the brim. That's why he named him Hubris, so stubborn that he preferred death over being tamed.

Looking at him now, the only thing that remained was his stubbornness but he'd grown beyond what Kiro imagined he could. The pup was no longer there, replaced with a menacing hellhound with broken powers of gravity.

"I guess I don't have to do much but sit here and heal." He took a sitting position, channeling Kaos so it could work faster at mending his tattered skin.

"Wh-who a-are y-you?"

Kiro almost jumped from where he sat, he'd forgotten that the harbingers was fighting people before they arrived. Looking at them, they didn't look human at all, in fact he doubted they even had flesh.

They looked like they had sand for skin with perfectly human features like eyes and a mouth attached to their supposed face. As far as he could see they didn't have hair, at least not the same kind humans had.

"Your saviours I suppose." He squinted his eyes trying to make sure that they were really just sand.

"A-are y-you going to k-kill us?"

It didn't matter what he said, it was as if they couldn't hear him, whether from trauma or they were hit in the head so much that they lost all ability to think and reason.

Kiro was tempted to cut them open to see if they had the same functions they did, because seemingly they could bleed but they were made out of sand, he didn't understand how that worked exactly.

'Unless the blood is from the harbinger?' He shook his head, 'impossible.'

"I'm not going to kill you!" But nothing was getting through to them.

Kiro stood up and they flinched, this was a clear waste of time. Because he didn't see how useful these people could be to their cause.

He shook his head to get rid of these bad thoughts. Every world conquered was a threat to theirs, so saving even this one must've been worth something.

He took out a bunch of healing potions hoping that they would work to heal them and passed them along, they were skeptical at first accepting something from a stranger whom they didn't know why he even showed up here.

"You can drink these they'll heal your wounds, hopefully..." He drank one to prove to them that he wasn't trying to poison them.

Skeptical as they were, their injuries were far greater so they did as the man did, nothing happened at first but suddenly they were embraced by a warm light.

Kiro's focus was on his mount Hubris now. Even though he wasn't getting dominated, killing the harbinger seemed to have been harder. So Kiro started his own engine, vibrations and blink at the same time activated.

Ryu was completely coated with Kaos, the harbinger was screaming in anger as he got closer. Angry that something as lowly as Hubris was able to hold him back.

Thanks to this his attention was entirely on his mount, giving him ample time to marinate his staff with the energy. Kiro didn't waste any time when he reached the harbinger, he was far enough not to be caught if this didn't work.

"Ryu, go!" He threw the weapon and it flew, the farther it went the more momentum it gained. The weapon drove through its back and all the way to his stomach and out.

Ryu spun for a few seconds in the air and came right back to the enemy piercing the harbinger's neck clean and pinning him to the sandy ground.

"Hubris! Now!" Kiro yelled at the of his voice up in the sky.

Hubris wasted no time and summoned his hellfire. The fire seemed to carry more heat than what Kiro remembered, he was glad he wasn't in the receiving end because it burnt the harbinger into a crisp.

Along with his master they descended from the skies and touched the sand. The sandstorm dispersed the moment the harbinger was killed, a small sand person appeared at the midst of it. She looked like a witch, with a staff in hand.

"That was great buddy, good job." He scratched him under his maw.

Despite being the king that he was, he found himself wagging his tail like old times. Happy that his master was complimenting him, he'd truly worked hard to be on the same standing as Kiro.

"Wha‐who are you people?" The sand witch asked them.

"Just travellers from another world, what happened here?"

"We can't say for sure but the attack came from out of nowhere...travellers from another world? What do you want? Are you here to attack us as that monster did?"n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om

Hubris didn't take kindly at her accusatory tone so he growled.