The Earth After Rebirth

"Healers, make sure you stay back there we don't want to lose you any time soon." Percival barked orders. "Shields up for them, now! They're here, I can feel them. Don't be afraid." He bellowed trying his best to sound confident.

These things had taken advantage of their weakness. They were too busy fighting each other that they couldn't sniff out the enemy lying in wait—and now they were paying dearly.

Kiro noticed that the only difference between these harbingers and the ones in-game was that these ones didn't seem to talk—if they did they communicated vastly different from humans.

He was also impressed that the human side had various weapons, obviously crafted after they were gifted powers, they were without a doubt inspired by fantasy.

Unlike him, his predecessor was a swordsman. A damn good one at that, he'd never seen anything like it. He was slaying harbingers like they were child's play, he remembered his first time and how he almost lost a lot experience.

'Ah right, the queen was actually my second. The first was the idiot who underestimated us.'

The sanctum had about thousands of members, all broken down into smaller groups, that would fight with each other and have each others backs. Of course the coordination was a bit off, it was apparent that the teams were created not too long ago.

Percival moved with the wind and as far as it would carry him. He only one person on his team, just a healer. He was the leader, so he'd do it with style.

His blade moved through the thick dense bones like they were a thin layers of paper. It hadn't been much time since the encounter but he was already doused in black blood.

He was clearing the road with the healer right behind him, safely surrounded by some kind of dome. It looked awfully similar to the one Ishaan had.

"Hiei watch out, duck!" Percival yelled from across the city, which was now levelled and turned into a battlefield.

Kiro's eyes carried him from Percival to the person he was talking to. He squinted his eyes because of how far they were. He noticed a pale man, wearing gauntlets, smashing harbingers with his bear hands and they died on impact.

He didn't need to turn to be elusive to the oncoming attack. He'd known his friend for a number of years, since they were both in diapers. The fact that he said both words was also code, telling him the danger was above him.

Using his boots that had thrusters to propel himself up, one fist in the air to meet the danger half way. He slightly jerked his head out of the way, the fist grazed his cheek—his gauntlet however ran straight through the harbinger's torso, causing for the guts to spill out and the blood to shower those below.

Nobody on the ground stopped to wonder, instead of looking up, they looked forward to the enemies in front of them. Instead of being frightened of the black blood touching their skin, it seemed to drive them to fight more fiercely if anything.

Kiro was too far to make out what they were shouting, if he had to guess, it would've been a warcry.

"Can't you make it so we can see the battle, all of it? And hear everything?"

Chronos looked at him incredulously, "what do you mean, you can't?"

Kiro nodded his head, not looking away from the battlefield. He was afraid he'd miss the turning point of this war, he knew humanity lost but what he was seeing made him doubt that, a little more.

What he watched was peak humanity. Treating harbingers like nothing but rag dolls. Since receiving their powers, they were on another level, making Kiro consider his future civilisation as a downgrade compared to what was in front of him.

They'd always considered themselves, the evolved humans. That belief couldn't have been further from the truth. Yes they evolved naturally to survive their environment, while this humanity was tossed a bone by a god to survive a wave of destruction—the end of humanity—they were still better in every way.

And they were utilising the opportunity given to them brilliantly.

Chronos on the other was trying to figure out why exactly his powers were threatening to malfunction. It was simply too soon.

He ran a full body diagnostic. He recoiled at what he saw, his health had detoriated to something he could not hope to recover, ever. He thought he'd made perfect calculation, going back into the past and giving Kiro this tour.

'Dammit, and to think I wanted to wait longer. It would've been too late by then.'

Even with great calculation, even with the god of time, there were still things unknown to him—things at the horizon he couldn't hope to reach for and this was one of those things.

Kiro's vision suddenly changed. He could zoom in and out of specific fights. He could hear everything in the battlefield. Kiro turned and gave Chronos a thumbs up and a mimed thank you.

He saw this just in time as his sight pulsated and then went dark. He gave the boy an awkward smile, and wipe the purple liquid that was dripping from the corner of his mouth.

The times he'd seen this war were countless. He didn't need sight, not for this. But the boy needed to see—he needed to be ready—he needed to understand—he needed to take Asgard a little bit serious knowing the consequences of treating as just a game.

Kiro watched, the more humanity purged the streets of harbingers the more he felt like this was a calm before a storm—giving them hope by tossing ahead weak footsoldiers, in a twisted way raising the enemies morale just to throw them down with unimaginable force.

"You're right about one thing," Chronos commented having read Kiro's mind. "This is the calm before the storm, but those Harbingers aren't weaklings, humanity was just that strong."

"Then, what happened?"

"Time to find out."