The Earth After Rebirth

'I am not even half the man he is.' He looked at him with admiration. He may not have thought of himself as man enough to rival him, but that's exactly where he was headed.

He knew all was lost but he wasn't looking to give up, not any time soon. Not until every bone breaks, every muscles tears and his blood runs dry. Until then, he stood his ground not the least interested in joining the ranks of a god as a lackey.

The arrival of the ancient one to their world had made some drastic changes to the atmosphere, thereby making changes to the world.

Kiro was witnessing the very thing that reduced his home world into nothing but a single country.

The air was running very thin, it was clear that a being of this calibre wasn't made to fit into such a small world. As he was burning the very thing that supported and produced life, not purposely but by mere presence.

His mere presence caused the whole world to complain, it was only a memory but Kiro could feel it.

The changes were so visible that Kiro could see them. It was clearly still day but it was getting darker by the second.

The ground they stood on was heating up, Chronos lifted them up a couple of meters into the air. The changes wouldn't affect them, but he didn't trust himself to be strong enough to not make any mistakes.

Cracks started deepening, buildings crumbled, caving into the holes that nature had dug herself and being swallowed by the earth.

A bright brilliant orange showed itself from the cracks, then without as much as a warning the orange liquid shot up from multiple cracks on the ground.

"The world — the world is bleeding." He watched intently.

Percival wasn't going to let something like that end him, he was quick on his feet, avoiding each and every explosive lava.

Attacking the being who parried each and every one of his strikes. With a grass strand, he didn't show any signs of frustration. He knew landing a hit would be impossible.

"This is happening all around the world. Except for the sanctuary they sent their last hope to carry humanity forward. They've done amazing, you should be proud." Chronos broke the silence.

"Why isn't it affected?" Kiro was genuinely curious.

"They took precautions, they gave it all their protection while luring the enemy to them and away from humanity's hope. They more or less knew they weren't going to make it, the most important thing was to keep the enemy away from the sanctuary."

"That's kind of funny, maybe that's why my country is now called Sanctauri." He smiled. 'How unoriginal.' He thought, moved to almost tears.

Humans back then, or even now, may be endlessly flawed. But as long as one or two stand their ground, all will be well. Kiro believed this with every fibre of his being.

If there were more of Percival right now, standing up to this god, they may have been able to do great damage. He wanted guardians to be different, slightly different from the old sanctum. He wanted the strong, but also people he could trust.

He knew that was too much to ask at such a short space of time but if he was doing this he would do it the right way.

Kiro didn't understand why these gods couldn't just stay in their respective universes and rule those, why they had to take over everything. It was distasteful. He looked at the god with dwindling curiosity.

"Gods aren't so different from humans." He mumbled the thought coming to him, Chronos heard him even then.

"How so?"

"Greed. This god or devil or whatever you want to call it. They have a whole universe for them to rule but they want more. That's exactly how humans are, that's how my world became the way it is." He shook his head.

He didn't imagine that the greed within humans was buried this deep. It was clearly something that couldn't be cleansed, not completely. If gods could bear it too.

"The whole made in their image thing? A fallacy. You're your own beings. Besides, the only one who is hellbent in ruling every universe is just this one. Look at me, I'm helping you aren't I."

He pondered that for a second. Chronos was right. He was sacrificing his life to ensure they kept their world, he'd possibly die and not see what becomes of the world he was fighting for but he was helping anyway.

"Well if you don't want to join my ranks, then die with the rest of your ant soldiers." His voice could be heard.

Both Chronos and Kiro turned just in time to see a miracle. The god must've been too lax and too playful, but he slipped, his defense — his guard was down. Percival didn't let that go to waste, he closed the gap within a second, burying his sword on the right cheek of the being.

A scar could be seen, it wasn't blood that came out, it was instead a beam of light.

The white light suddenly engulfed all of them. Kiro felt suffocated, he was gasping for air when the swirling feeling returned to his core. Tugging at his flesh, his mind and soul. This was a pain he'd never quite get used to.

When everything suddenly stopped, his eyes weren't working properly. He blinked them back into focus, they were back in the garden. Kiro tried to speak but his throat was too dry, he couldn't get anything out.