Chapter 88: Rivalry

The mountain was truly a big one. Hubris wasn't the one failing, his speed was too fast but the mountain was simply too great. As much as he covered more ground, Kiro felt like they were, at most, running in circles.

"Hubris, don't exhaust yourself, we don't know what we will run into next."

But that only fuelled his desire to get to where Kiro wanted to go. He didn't slow down, instead he picked up speed. Kiro shook his head at his unbelievable stubbornness.

They heard a deafening roar that stopped Hubris on his tracks. He looked around to see what it was, and one by one, the rocks started getting up.

They were well camouflaged. They had the same colour as the mountain they resided in, which was a great way to get unsuspecting travellers. Kiro and Hubris had already been surrounded by the time they noticed.

Ding!

[You've encountered a pride of stone lions. They always hunt in packs, they set traps for the unsuspecting and devour them before they've come out of their state of shock.

Stone Lion

Level 35

HP 5000-15000]

Kiro immediately jumped and landed at the back of Hubris. They were surrounded, he had no time to be coddled by his mount this time.

"Well, Hubris, you will be my Hiro."

"Master? I don't understand."

"We will have to fight back to back this time."

"I can take them by myself."

"Heh, that's new," he said amused.

He used his staff as a crutch, to propel himself upward and met another stone lion that was attempting to attack Hubris while his back was turned.

He used bending kick to completely destroy it, one side raced into the deepest parts of the abyss, while another fell on the mountain floor with a thud.

He activated whirlwind, which caused a gale of wind that manged to uplift his enemies, with no ground to stand they started to panic.

Hubris didn't let the chance slip away, as he pounced from one stone lion to another, gutting them as he went. He unleashed fire balls when he realised he wouldn't be fast enough for all of them.

The more they fought together, the more in sync they became and the more they competed amongst themselves, neither of them wanted to lose to the other, so they stole each others kills.

Theirs wasn't a relationship of a servant and master, although Hubris would always treat Kiro with that much respect, but he also liked how casual it was most times. He witnessed first hand how caring his master was, despite having a heavy heart.

Kiro would speed to the ones Hubris attacked but couldn't kill in a single attack and finish them off. Hubris would do the same when he activated vibrations, he couldn't be at all the places at once, so he took advantage of that.

Ding!

[Congratulations, you've defeated a pride of stone lions. You receive 100k EXPs and 20k coins.]

Kiro noticed the significant drop in the coin giving by the system and wondered if the patch was closer than he thought.

"System, who killed more stone lions, him or me?" Kiro asked, lying on the mountain floor breathing heavily.

[...]

"Come on, be our referee, not like you have anywhere to be."

[This round goes to Hubris.]

"Sh*t."