Read I See One Second Into The Future: Loner In The Apocalypse Chapter 31 online for free - AllNovelFull

Chase stood up and cracked his neck.

"Is there a specific problem with the rain?"

Kairos shot him a glance.

"It seems very similar to the red sun, changing people into monsters. Considering I don't want to become a monster, it is a pretty big issue."

Chase nodded.

"Ah, that's fair."

Kairos took out the red prism.

"However, it also seems that it will charge this thing up, which would probably help a lot in making our base. So it's not like there are only bad things about it."

There was also the fact that it would help evolution, but he figured he could disclose that information later as it would probably take a while for the others to get enough points for evolution.

Kairos walked down the steps then looked at the giant hole he had created in the side of the stairwell. Peeking out from it, he could see that the rain had indeed stopped. Though, there were still faint red stains left behind all across the floor. This was the same for the first floor in the grocery store.

He turned around.

"We should be able to leave now, the rain has died down."

With that, Kairos took the lead, getting them out of the grocery store. He stepped out without much concern about any of the monsters.

"The wilderness should be fairly close by. I imagine we should be able to get there today."

Almost immediately he heard the sound of several monsters roaring. Looking to his left, he saw a group of five monsters that were looking at him ferociously.

However, Kairos wasn't the slightest bit scared.

After all, they would find it really difficult to do any harm to him.

However, one thing that he noticed was that these monsters seemed a little taller and redder than usual. Kairos scratched the back of his head.

"I won't touch them unless needed, as promised. You guys can go on ahead to get them."

Tori and Chase were the first to step up, one with their katana and the other with their fists. They also seemed to want to do their evolution soon.

These monsters were roughly ten meters away. But then, they all pounced together, closing the gap within a second. Both Tori and Chase seemed surprised, but it wasn't enough to fully shock them.

Tori's katana flashed as she stepped back.

It tore into one monster's neck, but suddenly stopped with a light thud. The spine kept the weapon from advancing any further. Without hesitation, she withdrew her sword and backed off. As for Chase, he threw a fist at a monster's skull, pushing it back, then retreated as well.

However, the monster he punched simply recovered one second later, seemingly taking no damage whatsoever.

Chase furrowed his brows.

"They have become much stronger for some reason…"

Tori also frowned.

"I need to increase my strength to kill these things."

Though the group backed off, the monsters were quite fast, meaning that they were unable to create any space. Kairos furrowed his brows.

"Should I step in?"

Chase clicked his tongue.

"Not yet."

Then, he pulled the bow off his back, taking a few seconds to draw back a mana arrow before letting it loose straight towards a monster's skull.

However, the monster he shot at suddenly pounced to the side. Chase frowned as he shifted the arrow's direction, causing the monster's skull to explode. Though he killed it in the end, he was forced to curve the arrow, unlike how the monsters couldn't react in time before.

Tori pulled up her status panel and frowned.

"Can you stall them for a bit?"

Kairos raised his fire axe and let out a soft sigh.

"Alright."

A little bit of mana gathered onto his palm, just a little bit more than required to cast the pulse spell.

The four monsters lunged towards him, but they didn't attempt to surround him. As such, they ended up blocking each other, leaving him with only two to fight at a time.

The two monsters reached out towards them with their claws, nearly twice as fast compared to the monsters he faced before.

However, Kairos was even faster, easily dodging both strikes. While their arms were still extended, he swung his fire axe and reached out with his free hand.

With a thwack, one monster's arm was directly cut off, causing blood to spray out of the air. Although it was easy for Kairos to do so, he definitely noticed that the difficulty of cutting through them increased by quite a bit.

As for his free hand, it got right next to the other monster's chest. Then, a sudden force shot out from his palm.

A few faint cracking sounds resounded.

[Killed Creature – 0.1 points awarded]

Kairos' eyes widened slightly as he realized that the monster had died. It was so unexpected that he didn't even stop himself despite seeing it happen one second earlier. The monster's chest looked extremely red, but nothing too bad. Although cracking sounds came from his bones, there was only a slight indentation visible.

It was not a wound that looked lethal in any way. Yet, it collapsed right there.

The monster that lost its limb earlier ended up taking a few steps back as its remaining arm covered the bleeding stump.

It appeared afraid.

Dealing with these monsters was extremely easy for Kairos. It was so easy, he even had the time to look over his shoulder at Tori, who was currently adding points into strength on her status panel.

The first thing he checked was her ID, seeing if it matched up with the one ID he had memorized. However, it was different. Then, he took a peek at the stats.

[Stats

Strength – 1.1

Agility – 4.9

Endurance – 1.5

Willpower – 4.2]

Comparing his stats and hers, the first thing Kairos thought was that they were really low. However, when he remembered how many points of his came from the top ten achievements, those points were also impressive. Not to mention, she still had two points saved up.

Another thing that also stood out to him was how those stats were balanced. Tori simply put a disproportionate amount into agility and willpower. Though that didn't seem to be that bad of a strategy in his eyes.

Kairos looked back towards his front. The two monsters were still charging up. They went around the one that began fleeing and charged in as recklessly as they were before. After thinking for a moment, Kairos thought of something.

One monster swiped at him while the other tried to bite. However, they didn't even get close. Kairos sidestepped before letting his fire axe whip out.

One of the monster's legs gave out, causing it to collapse.

Before the monster could react, his axe flashed again, taking out the other leg. The now legless monster collapsed to the ground. At that point, it tried to turn around and flee, but could hardly move that fast.

Kairos was about to do the same thing to the other monster, but the gleam of a katana came by beforehand.

With a small swish, the monster's head came off cleanly.

He looked over his shoulder to see Tori, as expected.

Kairos looked at the one-armed monster that was trying to run away.

"One second."

He dashed past the monster crawling away with both arms and raised his axe. The one-armed monster couldn't help but look behind itself.

And saw a guy gaining on him like a sports car.

The fire axe whipped out twice, taking out both of the monster's legs. Despite being on the verge of death, it continued to use its last arm to try and crawl away.

Kairos slashed off the last arm before picking it up by the back of its neck.

The monster continued to move its jaws violently, struggling with all it could. However, there was not much it could do while it had no limbs.

As for the monster that had lost both legs, I looked towards Kairos in front of him, then turned around and charged straight towards the others.

Nicole put on the red watch with a small frown before stepping up. She raised her fire axe high before suddenly bringing it down. Perhaps the monster would've been able to dodge before, but without its legs, it was a little harder to do anything.

The fire axe slammed into the monster's skull hard, piercing halfway through. However, it continued to struggle reaching out with its hands.

Sydney stepped up.

"Nicole!"

However, before she needed any help, Nicole pressed down harder, making the monster's skull let out a sound like a watermelon splitting in half, just more gruesome.

Kairos let out a soft sigh as he brought the last surviving monster over.

"Sorry, I accidently killed one of them earlier. But this one is still alive. I say Harold or Sydney should get it since they haven't killed any recently.

Harold looked at Sydney and nodded.

"You should take this kill."

Sydney furrowed her brows.

"But… aren't your stats pretty low?"

Harold waved his hand dismissively.

"I will be fine."

Though Kairos thought that was definitely false, he didn't speak up. Instead, he simply dropped the monster onto the floor.

Sydney ended up agreeing, stepping up and raising her bat.

Then, she brought it down on the monster's skull, causing a loud bang to ring out.

But the monster's skull was only slightly dented.

She repeated this process a few more times before it was finally smashed. Sydney furrowed her brows.

"Why is it still giving the same amount of points despite being so much harder? I… I don't think I can take one of these things on if they are so durable…"

Kairos pinched the bridge of his nose.

"It seems the red rain made them all stronger. Perhaps before, they were at the bottom of the E rank, but now they are at the very top."

Chase clicked his tongue.

"…That's annoying. We should've killed as many as we could earlier on."

Kairos shrugged his shoulders.

"Not like we could've known."

Suddenly, his eyes shifted to the side.

Off in the distance, a group of fifteen monsters began charging towards them.

Kairos raised an eyebrow.

"It seems they are far more lively after the red rain. It used to be hard to even find a few…"

He cracked his neck.

"I should be able to get rid of their limbs for you guys to kill."

Then, he dashed forward, raising his fire axe. The fifteen monsters reached for him aggressively, confident in their numbers.

However, Kairos easily slipped by, almost like an eel. He ran circles around them, taking off their legs one after another.

In just a few minutes, all fifteen monsters lost their legs.

Kairos thought that they would begin running, but they actually kept chasing him. Since that was more convenient for him, he just went with it, bringing the fifteen monsters along towards the group.

"They can hardly fight back. Each of you can kill three."

Tori didn't hesitate, immediately beheading three of the monsters. Nicole was a little scared, but she also killed them, splitting their skulls in half. As for Chase, Harold, and Sydney, they weren't as enthusiastic.

Chase coughed.

"Could you get rid of their arms? I don't want to use my arrows to kill them."

Kairos rolled his eyes.

"Fine."

And so, he got rid of all their arms, letting the remaining people get their kills. The process was quite brutal, especially for Chase since he had to use his hands. They all aimed at the monster's skulls, but had to really bash at them before they would break open.

Right when Chase punched through the last monster's skull, even more roars resounded.

Kairos narrowed his eyes, as he looked at an even larger group of monsters approaching from the distance.

…He began considering whether he should be afraid or not.

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After taking some time to count, Kairos found that there were forty-two monsters. He furrowed his brows.

"It seems we are attracting more of them by fighting these monsters. Let's start running before things get out of hand."

Tori let out a soft sigh.

"But they are worth so many points…"

Chase clicked his tongue.

"It is a lot of points, but at the rate that they are coming we will end up dying."

Tori nodded before running. She only said that out of pity for what they could've gotten, not because she actually wanted to stay.

Kairos was fairly certain that they could get into the wilderness after going in a certain direction, thus led the group that way. He quickly found that while he was able to outrun the monsters easily, some of his group members lagged behind, moving at a pace that was slower than the monsters.

Kairos clicked his tongue.

"Continue going in this direction. I will take care of the monsters behind us."

He then turned around, moving past the group. From there, he began gathering mana towards his palm, feeling it quickly rise to the absolute limit.

It did not take long for the monsters to get close. They were fairly grouped up, meaning that his attack with an area of effect should get them all.

And right when they were all in front of him, he let the spell loose.

A whipping sound filled the air before an explosive bang rang out.

[Killed Creature x42 – 4.2 points awarded]

[Multi-Kill – 1.0 points awarded]

All of the monsters were blasted away, torn into pieces that shot backwards at varying degrees, from a few meters away to being sent like a home run hit. Along with that was essentially a curtain of blood, splashing up down onto the ground below.

In fact, even the pavement below Kairos was caught up within the impact, evidenced by the cracks lined across it.

He couldn't help but marvel at the effects of the spell he just cast. Granted, that took more than half of his mana, meaning he could not replicate until his mana regenerated slightly.

Though the only upsetting thing was that while the points were sizable, they were far lower than what he used to get for killing such a large amount.

But before he could worry about that more, he could hear the cry of even more monsters.

Kairos could see a horde begin to form. Though he had been confident enough in his strength before to casually walk outside, he was not confident he could deal with the amount he saw coming.

He had become overconfident just because he evolved earlier on.

Kairos clicked his tongue and began running. He pulled out the red prism from his pocket and let it hover just above his hand. In the next moment, a long set of stone bars with red veins on them slowly came up from the ground, almost like prison bars.

They reached six meters in height and had a sharp tip.

Kairos lined those bars up between the school and a faraway house. After confirming he didn't leave any gaps, Kairos caught up with the rest of the group. Yet, he found that his group members were also engaged in a battle of their own.

They were currently fighting against six monsters, and from the corpse on the ground, it seemed that they had already dealt with one.

Tori cut off the head of a monster while gritting her teeth. As for Chase, he shot a mana arrow, but from the frown on his face, it seemed like he was reluctant to do so. Another monster's skull exploded, leaving only four.

Nicole let out a grunt, swinging her fire axe with all her strength, and was able to split the skull of another monster.

Harold and Sydney were both hitting this one monster with all they had, but while they tried to hit its head, their strikes ended up landing on their limbs.

Kairos frowned before slipping past them, beheading that monster before doing the same to another. As for the last one, Tori took care of it.

Harold gasped.

"Ah! You surprised me, I almost hit you!"

Kairos shook his head.

"No time. We need to go."

He looked over his shoulder towards the bars he had set up earlier.

The monsters were climbing up the poles as well as stacking over each other, forcefully getting themselves over the barrier. However, once they reached the top, they didn't do the smartest course of action and just tried to lunge over.

This led to the sharp tips ripping into their bodies.

Some of them got their leg caught, before falling down the pole, skewering themselves. Other monsters ended up tearing several long gashes across their torso as they forced themselves over, slowing their approach considerably.

Kairos let out a sigh of relief seeing his strategy had worked, but those weren't the only monsters. There were quite a bit approaching from nearly every direction.

He took up the front and killed a straggler that charged towards him.

[Killed Creature – 0.1 points awarded]

Kairos was originally running down the street, but suddenly stopped. It was because he heard the sound of a car. Nicole, who was right behind him, seemed a bit confused.

"Why are we stopping?"

Right as she finished her sentence, a car drove by in the distance, trying to go around all of the monsters. Right behind were an extremely large group tailing behind.

The driver was doing pretty damn good considering how many monsters were on the road, however, it didn't last too long. At one point, the car slammed right into a monster, killing it, but also making the car lose a fairly large amount of speed.

Not only that, but driving over the corpse made it lose even more speed.

This meant that many more monsters could reach the front, blocking it entirely. The driver was still able to kill a few more monsters with a few bangs and cracks, but in the end, the vehicle was stopped right in its tracks.

All of the monsters surrounded the car before smashing the windows while extremely loud beeping sounds filled the air.

A series of begging came from within the car.

"No! Don't come in! Don't! Get away fr-"

And just a second later, blood-curdling screams filled the air, attracting even more monsters.

Kairos clicked his tongue and pointed towards a direction without as many monsters.

"Let's go down this alleyway."

After the group passed through, he used the red prism to create more sharp bars out of the ground, blocking off the monsters that came for them. This way was a detour from their original destination, but there wasn't too much of a choice.

If Kairos had a bottomless supply of mana, he would gladly blast through all of the monsters. However, even just one cast was enough to use up the majority of his mana.

He began sweating slightly, trying to take the long way around.

The sound of the car beeping was still audible from the distance, so it should attract a lot of monsters towards it. As long as they got away, there shouldn't be as many.

And so, Kairos began running across a street, killing the monsters he came across, getting him a few of points here and there. The others behind him were also forced to occasionally kill a monster due to the sheer number. The two people that did that job were mostly Tori and Nicole. Chase would shove them here and there, but not much other than that.

Thinking that they had gotten fairly far from the beeping car, Kairos shifted their direction to be more on track towards the wilderness.

The number of monsters decreased considerably, making it seem rather promising.

Yet, Kairos ended up pausing once more.

"…What the hell is this?"

Off in the distance was a police station. From the sound of it, the police seemed relatively promising during the apocalypse. However, that was definitely not the case now.

Though most of the streets were bloody, they were still mostly not covered in red. However, it was a completely different story for this place.

For an entire thirty-meter radius, there was not a single spot not covered with blood in the form of dried stains and still slightly wet ones. It was clear to tell that an extremely large amount of things died here.

And as of right now, just outside the police station was a large pile of monsters. They were all above other corpses, eating up their flesh. Despite the giant pile, it didn't seem like there was enough to go around as the monsters began fighting each other, clawing at each other's flesh to take a little bit more food.

In the end, more corpses filled the ground, attracting even more monsters, and making the process repeat itself.

Kairos sucked in a cold breath.

"…It seems we have to take another detour."

Tori furrowed her brows.

"But the monsters are killing themselves there. It shouldn't be too hard to get rid of them if they work against each other."

Kairos grit his teeth. That was true to an extent. While there were a lot of monsters, their numbers also reduced rapidly because of how they were turning on each other. Compared to the horde they had to run from earlier, it was far fewer. However, he also felt that this much blood and noise would surely attract something bigger.

As Kairos deliberated about this, he suddenly bolted down another alleyway.

"We are going! Now!"

Before the others could even ask why, an incomparably loud high-pitched shriek resounded from the pile of monsters.

This prompted them to run as well, not asking why.

Suddenly, large spikes shot out from inside the pile. Countless monsters, both dead and alive were skewered. Any of the monsters that were alive before were immediately killed.

The spikes continued to extend out, lifting up all of the corpses. It revealed a monster that had a black back, where all of the spikes were coming from. The monster wasted no time in eating all the flesh that it could, even tearing up its own mouth in order to consume more.

By the time all that happened, Kairos had only reached the edge of the alleyway, and he couldn't help but glance at the monster. In his future vision, he saw that the monster's head immediately snapped towards him.

Kairos stopped himself from glancing, not wanting to attract the monster's attention.

Unfortunately, a few of the others ended up taking a glance.

And the monster looked over anyway.

The monster stopped eating and looked at the people who left into the alleyway with its pupilless eyes. Its torn open mouth remained half agape, letting blood and flesh slowly fall down from it.

Then, it retracted the spikes, letting all of the corpses smack onto the ground. With that, it shot towards the gap that the group had left in with terrifying speeds.

The group had only gone a few meters when the monster latched onto the side of the wall within their alleyway. Tori couldn't help but grit her teeth.

"Shit! Can you deal with that?"

Kairos looked over his shoulder, watching the monster crawl towards them on the side of the wall.

He cursed under his breath.

"If I can't handle it, then I guess we're all dead."

He jumped up, scaling on the side of the wall to get behind all the others.

Then, Kairos began gathering mana towards his palm.

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Though it would only take a few seconds for Kairos to gather a decent amount of mana for his spell, the monster was going to reach him at an even faster rate.

Kairos' eyes narrowed.

He spikes shoot out from the monster, thus threw himself back. However, he soon calmed down. When the monster had its spikes extend out, they ended up getting caught in the side of the walls. Although they pierced through to a certain extent, the monster seemed to be unable to extend its spikes further or even move.

Kairos saw this as an opportunity, thus got closer.

The monster retracted its spikes and even took a step back, almost like it wasn't expecting something to come towards it.

The monster let out a growl, leaping onto the other wall all the while watching closely.

Kairos was about to take a step forward, but stopped when he saw that the monster would've retreated out onto the streets with his future vision.

Although the alleyway would make it hard to dodge the monster's attacks, especially the spikes, it would also go the other way around. Considering how fast it leaped back and forth between the walls, he decided limiting the thing's movement would help quite a bit.

Especially since he only had one chance to use the pulse spell before his mana would be depleted.

Once Kairos stopped moving forward, the monster looked intently, its head abruptly tilting to the side and back. It would occasionally lift up its arms or legs one at a time, almost like it was moving, but would stay in the same location.

Kairos then tried to take a step back, and the moment he did, the monster lunged towards him, screeching. When it was a few meters away, the spikes suddenly extended out once more.

Kairos could see them coming with his future vision, thus threw his body to the side in order to avoid it. The spike lodged themselves into the walls around, causing more cracks to form in the wall.

But also keeping the creature in place.

Kairos pounced forth once more, sticking out his free hand and intending on using the pulse spell. The monster retracted its spikes quickly, but the palm was already in front of it.

However, Kairos suddenly grit his teeth and stopped himself from casting the pulse spell.

He saw in his future vision that the spell would let out a tremendous force, cracking the floor and walls around him.

…But the monster would be fine, before shooting out a spike and piercing his body.

Kairos cursed internally as he pulled back.

The monster promptly shot out its spikes, brushing by the side of his abdomen. Kairos felt his eyes widen as adrenaline filled his body. He did not think that he would brush by death like this already.

He thought through various possibilities as to why his pulse spell seemingly did nothing.

Unfortunately, his thoughts were cut off before he could come to a conclusion. After retracting its spikes, the monster lunged towards him. This time, it had its jaws wide open, trying to bite down on him. It looked quite creepy with the top of its head being a dark black while the bottom was instead red.

Kairos wanted to use the pulse spell once more, but stopped himself.

He saw in his future vision that the monster's bottom jaw would be obliterated, but the important parts would still be intact. In the instant, he switched to swinging with his fire axe.

With a clear bang, it slammed down hard on the creature's forehead and forced it back. One thing that immediately became apparent to Kairos was that not even a dent had formed on the creature's forehead.

It became quite clear to him that the blackened section of the monster was some sort of super armor. In other words, he should target its underbelly. The only problem was that this monster moved on all fours, keeping its vulnerable spot covered.

After letting out a low growl, it shot its spikes out once more.

Kairos blocked using the side of his fire axe. A fairly big dent appeared on the side of the weapon, but it was able to divert the spikes. After that, he decisively dropped the fire axe before reaching out towards the monster with his now free hand.

Though the monster was locked in place because of its own spikes, it didn't plan on just letting Kairos do what he wished. Its mouth opened wide, intending on biting down. However, with the help of his future vision, Kairos was able to trick the monster into extending its neck out one way and biting down.

His hand swerved to the other side and grabbed onto the monster's neck.

Despite the monster not being that large, he could immediately feel that it was quite heavy. However, he had already committed to doing this and wasn't going to back off now.

Kairos frowned, tightening his grip around the monster's neck to the point that his fingers whitened and his hand was trembling. At the same time, the monster retracted its spikes and grabbed onto Kairos' wrist with its own hands, desperately trying to remove the grip.

However, It was already too late.

Kairos had lifted up the monster completely, meaning that its back was now facing the opposite direction. This didn't stop it from shooting out its spikes anyway, however, none of them could even come close to hitting him.

Kairos moved his free palm towards the abdomen, then let the spell loose.

A faint whip rang out before a deafening bang resounded.

It slammed hard against the monster, causing its body to essentially turn into mush. Kairos lost his grip on it due to the force, thus letting its corpse shoot back. The surrounding walls and pavement were cracked from the residual impact.

[Killed Creature (Challenge Kill – One Rank Superior to Killer) – 0.3 points awarded]

Kairos couldn't help but think that all of this effort was definitely not worth the amount of points he gained. Though in the end he wasn't fighting it for the sake of points, but to survive.

And considering that he came out on top, it was the ideal situation.

Chase who was watching from afar nodded

"Nice kill."

The monster's black carapace was undamaged, though it was also blown away. Kairos was about to run away with the others, but suddenly thought about how useful it would be to have a shield that was that durable.

And as such, he rushed over to pick up the black carapace, ignoring all of the blood that had been mushed up inside it.

As he did so, he could make out quite a few monsters in the distance running towards him. Considering how he had almost no mana at all now, making him feel quite deprived, Kairos really did not like the sight in front of him.

He picked up the black carapace, retrieved his fire axe and placed it inside that. Then, he pulled out the red prism, letting it hover above his hand. Once more, he slowly formed those stone bars up from the ground, slowing down all of the monsters' approach.

The black carapace was surprisingly heavy, prompting Kairos to drag it along the floor. However, it wasn't heavy enough to significantly impair his speed.

It did not take long for Kairos to catch up with the rest of the group, but due to the constraints of the alleyway, he could no longer take up the front. Thankfully, Tori took on that job, killing the occasional monster that blocked their way.

Nicole couldn't help but comment on the giant thing that Kairos was dragging along.

"Why are you bringing that along? It's kinda loud!"

In response, Kairos shrugged his shoulders.

"Sorry, but this stuff is tougher than concrete. It would be too much of a shame to leave it behind."

Nicole seemed a little hesitant, but agreed in the end.

"Ok!"

Tori got out onto the streets after looking both ways.

"There doesn't seem to be anything blocking our way this time."

The group followed behind her hastily.

Out on the open streets were a few monsters here and there, but most were currently distracted by some of the leftover flesh still on the floor.

Kairos heaved a sigh.

"Let's try to navigate a way back to the wilderness then."

But that was when his eyes were attracted to a random red dot that had appeared on Nicole's head. Harold was behind her at the time and noticed it too. He seemed to understand what it meant, thus he shoved her away.

However, Harold put too much into it, thus getting into the sights of this red dot himself.

Kairos saw Harold's head explode in his future vision.

Immediately, his body was shot full with adrenaline as he understood what Harold's death meant. Nicole and Sydney would become extremely unstable, which was really bad considering they were the only two people he could somewhat trust right now.

Kairos swiftly reached for the fire axe within the black carapace, focused his senses to the limit in order to time this perfectly.

Then threw the axe.

Yet, right when he did so, Kairos' eyes widened.

"Motherfucker."

The fire axe flung through the air. Though he was not used to timing things like this, he ended up doing so perfectly, blocking the path of the bullet with the middle of the fire axe.

However, the bullet directly tore through it.

The fire axe ended up forcefully mangled into several pieces, unable to stop the bullet in the end as it whizzed past.

Harold's head exploded into a pile of mush, while his body continued to move forward, bleeding heavily from his neck.

Almost immediately Sydney yelled out.

"HAROLD!"

Harold's body ended up collapsing onto Nicole's side. Some of the brain matter had splattered onto her face, while parts of the skull had cut into her skin. To make things worse, after Harold's body landed on her side, the blood spewing from his neck ended up drenching Nicole as well.

She had completely frozen up. Not able to process the situation.

Kairos cursed internally. Though he thought that someone would die eventually, he didn't expect it to be so soon.

Not to mention, considering it was by a bullet, they were killed by some other human. He couldn't understand why someone would be not only willing to waste a bullet, but make a loud sound that would attract monsters to kill some random person.

Nonetheless, this person seemed fully intent on killing the others as the red dot began focusing on Sydney. Kairos yelled as loudly as he could while throwing the black carapace up ahead.

It seemed Sydney's survival instincts had taken over to a certain extent. Despite her frazzled state, she ducked behind the black carapace, and the bullet slammed hard against it.

The carapace was dented, but it held on strong. Chase and Tori seemed to get the same idea, throwing themselves behind the carapace as well. The only exception was Nicole, who was still frozen in shock.

The red dot began focusing on her head. Chase and Tori held the carapace up, but it wasn't exactly the largest thing. Kairos pushed off Harold's body and wrapped his arm around her shoulder to bring her down behind the carapace.

It wasn't exactly the largest thing, meaning that they had to group up in order to get behind it. Even the slightest movement out of the way could lead to disastrous consequences considering how little space they had from behind it.

Unfortunately, Nicole began screaming very loudly.

And frantically struggling as well.

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"Uu… AHHHH… ahh… AHHHHHHHHHHHHH."

Nicole held onto her head and began moving around dangerously. Kairos was forced to grip hard onto the fire axe she was holding to stop her from swinging it around. However, it was not easy considering he also had to hold her down.

While still covered in the blood and guts of her father, her mouth opened and closed as strange sounds continued to emanate. Even her eyes seemed to be dancing around erratically. As for Sydney, she seemed to be taking it somewhat better but was still freaking out.

Both of her hands were clutching onto the sides of her head. She was trembling slightly as tears began forming, but at the very least she wasn't resisting violently.

Kairos couldn't help but sigh internally. It seemed that they still hadn't truly adapted to the apocalypse, not ready to accept that one of them would very likely die at any point.

Though it would probably be stranger if they didn't break down like this.

Kairos suddenly tugged on Nicole hard, pushing her down. Right as he did, a bullet whizzed by the top of her head, slamming hard against the pavement, scattering debris and forming a miniature crater.

He tried to think of saying something that could calm her down, but he never was that good at comforting other people. Especially not for a situation like this.

Chase sucked in a cold breath.

"This is not the most… favorable situation to be in."

Tori furrowed her brows.

"How did someone get a damn sniper rifle?"

Chase sighed.

"There are quite a few ways for one to possess a firearm. Especially if you don't care about the legality of it."

Kairos furrowed his brows.

"We can't keep taking detours like this. At this rate, we won't ever make it to the wilderness."

Tori frowned.

"So you want us to push through this?"

Kairos looked towards Nicole, who began sobbing.

"Yes."

Tori seemed distraught.

"Wait."

She looked at Chase.

"You can shoot arrows, right? Can't you kill that damn sniper?"

In response, Chase simply frowned.

"From how fast that guy can lock on, he will easily beat me. I have no idea where his location is."

Kairos blinked a few times.

"…What if I tell you his location and I distract him then? You come out with your bow drawn right after you hear him shoot."

Chase raised an eyebrow.

"I never knew you wanted to die that badly. Did you not see how accurate his shots were?"

Kairos scoffed.

"Just tell me if you can do it."

Chase paused.

"If you truly provide a distraction, yes."

Kairos nodded.

"Alright."

With that, he took a deep breath. Kairos was intending on peeking out to determine the sniper's location, but only in his future vision. As he was preparing himself, he suddenly felt a tight grip on his shoulders.

Nicole was sobbing and clenching as hard as she could onto Kairos.

He wouldn't be able to peek out like this if she continued holding on. There wasn't really time to wait either, as a few monsters had turned their heads from how loud Nicole was being.

They seemed cautious, not willing to approach. However, they were still looking.

Eventually, Kairos decided to do something he really didn't want to do. He wrapped his arms around Nicole, letting go of the fire axe she was flinging around. In the end, she seemed to calm down significantly and hugged back tightly, gently brushing her hands against his back.

Nicole closed her eyes as she felt his warmth, somewhat surprised at how soft his body felt. Yet, the same could not be said for the other person.

Honestly, Kairos felt disgusted.

He was not the type to enjoy physical affection, but he decided to endure for just a bit. After a few seconds, Kairos let go, prompting Nicole to do the same. Her arms were still trembling, but she seemed to recover to a certain extent. She still couldn't say anything, but looked deeply into Kairos' eyes, seemingly thinking about something.

As for Kairos, he prepared to peek out. To only do something in his future vision wasn't actually that easy. If he didn't want something to happen in reality, it was difficult to perform such an action.

After all, there had to be a reality where Kairos decided to go through with that action for it to show in his future vision. The process itself was a little wishy-washy, almost like he was walking on a thin tightrope.

However, Kairos had done it many times before, thus it didn't take too long for him to work up the courage.

He peeked up and saw a two-story library in the distance. Though it was faint, he could see the glare of a scope. On top of that, he could feel the red dot on his forehead.

Kairos quickly stopped himself from doing that action, warping his future vision away from that. He then spoke up.

"In the second-most left window on the top floor of the library."

Chase blinked a few times.

"How did you figure that out?"

Kairos adjusted his glasses.

"Reflection trick with these things. Just get ready already, we don't have all day."

Chase seemed a little confused but didn't complain. He pulled out his bow, but felt a little uncomfortable with how tightly packed they were. A mana arrow began to form.

As for Kairos, he took a deep breath.

Once he confirmed Chase had his mana arrow ready, he peeked out.

This time, he stayed for longer, not caring about the red dot on his forehead. Then, he suddenly felt a devastating pain. His head felt like it was spinning, while his consciousness threatened to fade away.

Yet, Kairos continued to keep track of the time in his mind.

Then, pulled his head down.

Right when he did so, a bullet whizzed right past, blowing his hair aside before slamming hard into the pavement. Right at that moment, Chase stood up with his bow drawn, aiming at the sniper's location.

He took less than a second to hone in before letting the arrow loose. The sniper hurriedly adjusted to Chase, but heavily underestimated how fast the arrow would be.

With a bang, the mana arrow shattered through the glass window and exploded the sniper's head. He had been laying prone with a red sniper rifle, peeking out a slightly open window.

Chase sucked in a deep breath.

"It's done."

He turned to Kairos.

"You really just play with your life like that, huh?"

Kairos held onto the side of his head, still a bit dizzy from the phantom pain. Though he knew getting hit by a bullet would hurt, it was still much more than what he expected.

"Yeah, yeah… let's quickly get out of here now."

They got out from behind the black carapace. Sydney was still crouched down on the ground, seemingly not registering any of the world around her. Tori let out a sigh before pulling her up and dragging her along.

As for Nicole, she stuck close to Kairos.

Kairos took one last glance at Harold's dead body before dragging the black carapace along with him. A few monsters were in the distance, staring hungrily at the body, but did not dare approach.

Kairos could tell what was going to happen sooner or later. For the sake of Nicole and Sydney's mental health, they had to get out of here soon.

They ended up getting closer to the library and as they did, a rather strange sight was laid out before them. There were countless corpses laying down on the ground just outside the library, in a position that implied they were looking at the library before falling over. And it was the corpses of people, not monsters.

On top of that, nearly every single one had bullet wounds all over their body. There were currently a few monsters tearing these corpses up, feeding off of them. The monsters took notice of the group approaching, but had more interest in the food below them. It seemed that they wanted to be the first ones to eat it all up.

As for the library itself, it seemed completely closed off.

The doors were shut while the windows were blocked by bookshelves. As for the glass that these windows consisted of, almost all of them were shattered.

Tori frowned as she dragged Sydney along, who was stumbling in her steps and mumbling to herself. Almost like a drunkard.

As they got closer to the library, a voice suddenly thundered, along with a tinge of surprise.

"What are you trying to do? Leave now! We will not provide you with any food or shelter!"

It was a commanding tone, like a soldier. The arrogance behind that voice bleeded out heavily, almost like it was certain that every other person that existed was a piece of trash without exception.

Kairos couldn't tell how they were being seen, but didn't care too much.

"We are just passing by."

The voice didn't seem to trust him.

"You don't have to pass by this way! Go some other route!"

Kairos couldn't help but scoff with a small smirk.

"Do you feel like a big boy? Screaming as loud as you can to cover up how pathetic you are?"

He intuitively understood what kind of person shouting was. His disdain was so high that it couldn't help but slip out.

Chase laughed as well.

"You don't have to be so honest."

The voice didn't know how to respond for a few moments, not even responding despite the fact that they were walking by. The entire time, Kairos was focusing on his future vision in case these people did fire. He was ready to cover at the very least himself with the black carapace. On the other hand, Tori slashed one monster, killing it. And the moment she did so, the rest ran away like rats.

Only when they were almost past the library altogether did the voice return.

"I am a part of the armed military! You have no right to speak like that! If you dare get any closer then we will fire at you with our weapons!"

Although he had the enthusiasm to back it up, considering that the group was already beginning to walk away from the library, it was kind of pathetic.

Tori's face twitched.

"Let's just get out of here."

Chase chuckled gently.

"Yes, we should."

He then turned around.

"By the way, you should check up on your friend on the second floor. I'm sure he's getting a little lonely."

The voice seemed agitated.

"Shut up! Our arrangements have nothing to do with you! Do you hear me?"

The group ended up ignoring that guy, walking away. They could still hear his faint screams from far away. That person would probably have a nice surprise when they found out one of their teammates was dead.

Tori couldn't help but let out a long sigh.

"…Those guys really hate other people."

Chase slowly nodded.

"They would rather kill any humans that come close despite the monsters roaming the streets. It appears that they couldn't handle a few civilians that were probably begging to bring them along. Now they kill humans on sight, but thankfully we had that weird shield, else more of us might've died."

Sydney was not paying attention to the conversation, still faintly sobbing. However, when Nicole heard it, she froze up. Kairos was able to notice it because she was right beside him when all of a sudden she stopped moving.

Her breathing had become heavy once more. It was clear she was on the verge of a breakdown.

Kairos quickly spoke up.

"Hey."

Nicole flinched before looking at him. She tried to speak, but could only make very soft sounds that didn't mean anything.

Kairos reached out with his hand.

"We have to move forward."

Nicole hiccuped, before taking that hand and squeezing it very tightly. If it wasn't for his high stat points, Kairos would've complained that it was hurting him.

As for Chase, he looked over and seemed to have realized what he said.

"Ah, sorry about that."

Nicole simply kept her head down without responding.

Kairos took a deep breath.

"Let's just get to the wilderness already."

He narrowed his eyes.

"We should be able to take a break there."

Unfortunately, while they would be able to make it to the wilderness, it wasn't exactly a 'break' in store.

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The group continued at a fairly brisk pace, going down the street. Tori took up the front and was able to take care of all the monsters that came for them. Compared to how it was like before, the journey was quite smooth.

Although killing monsters would attract more, so long as they didn't stay in the same spot to try to farm points, not too many would come at once.

But that also meant that they couldn't afford to take a break and settling down at a location would also be difficult. It truly seemed that their only option was to make it to the wilderness, unless they wanted to settle down somewhere and face an unending horde.

Eventually, Sydney was able to run on her own. However, it seemed more like she was running to deal with the stress rather than overcoming it. As for Nicole, her eyes were still murky, but she continued to run while holding onto Kairos' hand as though it was the only thing keeping her above the water.

Kairos was rather anxious that something else would pop up once more. This was mostly in part due to the fact he didn't have any mana, and the regeneration process was far longer than he thought it would be.

At the rate that mana entered his body, it would take roughly half a day for it to restore completely.

Thankfully, his worries were unfounded. It seemed there were only so many unlucky encounters that they could come across. They traveled for quite a while, slowly cutting their way through all of the monsters. At first, Chase was occasionally forced to partake in fending them off with his fists or even his arrows. However, the number of monsters decreased significantly as they continued.

As for the road, it switched from pavement to a dirt trail. Even the occasional farm had appeared. Some were rather large, and others modest.

However, as they were running, Kairos ended up furrowing his brows as he took in the scenery around him.

That was because he could see a couple of strange red plants, some of which were moving around in an extremely life-like way.

Kairos didn't think about it before, but he realized that it wasn't only humans that would evolve. He still had the mentality that this was something more like the 'zombie apocalypse'. Where essentially only humans were infected, and for some reason the occasional dog.

He shook his head and quickly changed his mentality.

Even random objects could evolve, such as the watch that Nicole was using. That meant it really wasn't a stretch to say that other living beings could too. The only thing that reassured Kairos was that it seemed only the occasional plant would evolve.

As for the other plants, they either died or remained the same.

In other words, not everything would evolve even if they had the capability to do so.

Eventually, they came across a place that was filled with a relatively large amount of trees. They had made it to the wilderness.

Tori let out a sigh of relief.

"…Can we finally take a break?"

They really had been running for quite a while, so this was a fairly reasonable request. However, Kairos shook his head.

"Let's find a more plain-like area with water first."

Chase clicked his tongue.

"And what if we don't find it?"

Kairos let go of the black carapace for a moment to wave dismissively.

"I've been here before. I don't remember where exactly, but there was a camping spot with a nearby river. Once we get there, I can build a pretty big base we will very likely be safe in. Otherwise, it would be a waste of energy from this prism."

He narrowed his eyes.

"…It was a long time ago, but it should still be here."

Chase sighed.

"Alright then."

The group continued to walk at the precipice of the forest. Though Tori and Chase seemed to want to walk, Sydney was still running, thus making the rest of the group do the same to keep up.

It took nearly another hour, but the group eventually made it to the plain that Kairos was talking about. By now, everyone was extremely tired and hungry. It had already reached late afternoon, soon to be evening.

It seemed like it was finally time to relax.

There was a plain along with a river in the distance. Unfortunately, there was also a large tree with red leaves randomly in the middle of the plain. Its roots extended across nearly the entire place, almost appearing to be veins.

Tori cursed.

"What the hell is that?"

Chase took a deep breath.

"…I suppose we found the plain."

Kairos furrowed his brows.

"Can you kill it?"

Chase shrugged his shoulders.

"I can try shooting three arrows. If that doesn't kill it, then there isn't anything I can do."

Kairos was confident in the power of Chase's arrows. However, he took another look at the tree. It was nearly fifty meters tall, which wasn't anything too crazy for a tree. However, the trunk was extremely thick, reaching a diameter of nearly thirty meters.

Although Chase's arrows did a large amount of damage and had strong piercing power, they did not have the pure destruction one would need to take down such a large tree.

Kairos furrowed his brows.

"Hold on, let me test something."

He let go of Nicole, who ended up taking a few steps forward, but didn't say anything as he went off alone.

Kairos walked a little closer, setting foot onto the plain. One of the roots of the tree were nearby, but compared to how thick they were at the center, it was really tiny here, at the width of the average straw.

Kairos picked up an arbitrary rock before throwing it at the root.

It bounced off harmlessly.

That seemed to be a good sign, so Kairos decided to try stepping onto the root. As he was doing so, Nicole took a step forward.

"Wait! You can't!"

Kairos snuck a glance behind himself, seeing Nicole's pleading expression.

"Just trust me."

Nicole's grip on the fire axe tightened considerably.

"But… but…"

Kairos took a deep breath.

"I promise I will be fine."

Nicole seemed a little shocked. She reached out with her free hand with lackluster. But in the end, she put it back down.

"O-Ok."

Kairos then resumed taking a step down onto the root, paying close attention to his future vision. Yet, he was overthinking it.

As nothing happened.

There was one last test that Kairos wanted to do. And if it worked out, then he was willing to temporarily set up a base here, ignoring the tree for now.

Kairos reached down to touch the root with his bare palm.

Considering that even stepping on the root gave no reaction, he didn't think that it would be any different with his palm.

He saw himself put his palm down on the tree root.

It was fine for a split second, but at the next moment, a sudden fresh pain assaulted his mind. Almost immediately, several separate spiky roots shot up from the tree, piercing into hand and also binding it down.

Kairos immediately stopped himself from putting his hand down on the root as cold sweat formed on his forehead.

"…We have to deal with this tree first."

Chase pressed his lips together.

"Alright."

He then looked towards the tree.

"And how exactly do we do that?"

Kairos blinked a few times.

"Let me try something."

He had thought of the fire spell. Kairos didn't want to burn down the entire forest, but it would probably be fine since the tree was pretty far from any others.

By now, his mana had recovered to less than a third of its initial capacity. Not wanting to waste it, he decided to see if he could get away with the bare minimum, just barely injecting mana into the fire spell.

And that's what he did.

After a few seconds, he was able to form a tiny fire at the tip of his finger, just about a few centimeters in diameter.

Then, he shot that fire out towards the root.

It looked promising at first, causing the root to light aflame and begin burning. However, after a few seconds, the branch lifted itself off of the ground and slammed itself onto its sides rather violently, until the flame was eventually extinguished.

Tori's eyebrows raised.

"It can move."

Chase nodded.

"It seems we may have to find another place…"

Kairos took a deep breath.

"…Give me one last try."

He took a few steps back, pointing his finger towards the trunk in the middle of the plain. This time, he was going to use as much mana as possible.

Kairos began casting the fire spell, slowly gathering a fireball at the tip of his finger. One thing that he noted during the process was that it took much longer than the pulse spell. Even a fully charged pulse spell would only take a few seconds, while weaker versions would be close to instant.

On the other hand, despite not casting the fire spell to its full potential, it already took nearly twenty seconds.

In other words, it couldn't be used as a quick response in a fight.

However, within these twenty seconds, the fireball had expanded to quite a large size, a decent amount more than a meter wide. Kairos could feel the pain of having the mana drained from his body. Wanting to put his all into it, he continued to push the last bits of mana still in his bloodstream but quickly found a pain aching throughout his entire body.

Kairos didn't go too far, stopping when it became painful.

Tori couldn't help but comment on the side.

"That looks quite frightening."

Chase nodded while holding onto his chin.

"Though it is quite small compared to the tree."

Kairos let out a grunt before sending the fireball forth, letting it streak through the air towards the tree.

Though it wasn't at the speed of a bullet, or Chase's arrow, the fireball was still fast, tearing through the air with its flames. Kairos began heaving after casting the spell and watched as it shot through the air.

The fireball looked rather large at first. However, as it continued to travel, it quickly turned into what looked like a tiny dot, which seemed like nothing compared to the tree.

The corner of Kairos' lip twitch. For a moment, he couldn't help but think that he was scammed into taking this fire spell. Yet, once he saw the results in his future vision, he ended up raising an eyebrow.

The fireball landed onto the side of the tree and exploded, unleashing a large amount of flames, almost like a molotov. The explosion only had a five-meter radius, but the fires that formed on the tree spread very, very quickly.

It was far faster than fire on a normal tree, that was for sure.

For just a second or two, the tree didn't respond. And in that time, the fire had spread to the majority of the entire tree trunk. Suddenly, all of the roots of the tree were pulled out of the ground, flinging a bit of dirt into the air. It reached towards the trunk, slamming against it in an attempt to put the fire out.

However, the fire was already too much. The only thing slamming its roots against itself did was spread the fire onto those roots, speeding up its demise. If the tree had vocal cords, it would probably be screaming out in agony.

The tree put up a futile struggle, slamming its roots against the ground, scattering soil around violently.

Until eventually, it could no longer move.

The tree continued to burn more and more. The fire caught onto the leaves, releasing even more smoke that slowly billowed up into the sky.

And once it was finally over, there was only a pile of ash where it used to be. Unlike normal wood that would've been turned into charcoal after burning, there was hardly anything left of the tree to prove that it had existed.

[Killed Creature – 0.1 points awarded]

Kairos was a little surprised that such a large plant was still considered the same rank as him, but didn't think too much about it.

Tori raised an eyebrow, quite surprised at the sight before her.

"That works."

Chase blinked a few times before nodding.

"Yeah, it really does…"

Kairos took a deep breath.

"Now… let's build that base. I'm really damn tired."

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Kairos pulled out the red prism and looked at it from an awkward angle so he didn't have to take off his glasses to look at the other status panel.

[Status]

[ID: 1/10]

[Energy: 967/1000]

[Hide]

Creating those bars with sharp ends had used up a decent amount of energy. Although there was still quite a bit of energy left, he considered this a limited resource as he wasn't sure if there was some other easy way to recharge the energy within.

Once the group got closer to the lake, Kairos let the prism float above his hand.

He first formed the base ground, making it quite large. He wanted there to be enough space for all of them to sleep relatively far from each other and also enough space to store various items that they might've needed. And as such, he made it about as large as the size of a small house.

From there, he created walls that were three meters high and closed them off.

After that, Kairos looked at the energy used up.

[Energy 740/1000]

Chase walked around the place and raised an eyebrow.

"Where is the doorway?"

Kairos clicked his tongue.

"I'm working on it, alright? It's a little finicky making this thing."

He then made a doorway on the wall that faced the lake by making that section of stone sink down. But his eyes were suddenly attracted to the status panel.

[Energy 737/1000]

It took a few points of energy to get rid of the door.

Kairos furrowed his brows. It would probably be best to not have an empty doorway, but it was best if he did not use the energy of the prism to constantly remove and restore the door.

After a bit of deliberation, he thought of something. He used the prism to create a rectangular frame within the house and made it be supported by an inclined plane. This way, they had a pseudo door they could push over to block the gap.

It wasn't exactly the ideal way to have a door, but it should be better than nothing

Kairos massaged his temple.

"Alright, let's get in finally."

The group filed into the place. However, the first thing that they noticed was that the place was really dark. And that was with the lightning that came from the door.

If they closed off the door as well, it would essentially be complete darkness.

Chase let out a soft hum.

"It somewhat feels like I am in my mother's womb. But not in a good way."

Kairos furrowed his brows.

"…If I create windows, that also creates openings where we will be vulnerable. Maybe we can try to light up torches and make tiny holes above them to get rid of the smoke?"

Chase rubbed his chin.

"I'm not going to gather the branches. Especially not after dealing with the thing you just killed."

Kairos massaged his temple with the tip of his finger.

"How about I raise the ceiling a bit and then get rid of the roof altogether."

Chase frowned.

"Then what if something like the red rain comes once more? We should either do the thing with the torches or just live in the darkness."

Kairos nodded with a sigh.

"…Let's do that tomorrow then. We can just push aside the door for light. We should be able to take a break for at least one day."

Chase shrugged his shoulders.

"I suppose so."

Sydney's legs were trembling fiercely. She bent her knee in an attempt to sit down, but collapsed entirely in the process, crumpling to the floor. It seemed that while she had been standing this entire time, Sydney was actually exhausted.

She ended up falling asleep right there.

Kairos let out a soft sigh before sitting down himself. He began eating the various foods that he had brought, while Chase and Tori followed the same example. As for Nicole, she nibbled a little. It did not take Kairos long to realize that the amount he was eating was far more than normal. Perhaps by the second day, he would no longer have any food left in his bag left to eat.

…If they still had the food Harold was carrying, they would be in a much better situation.

This inevitably led to a bit of anxiety, but he decided to deal with it tomorrow. He remained firm in his decision to evolve despite the hunger it caused, especially because of the enemies they wouldn't have been able to face if not for that.

Kairos scratched the side of his head.

"…I guess I will take the first watch."

He then turned to the others.

"By the way, we should have it that Chase will accompany one person with the watch while Tori will accompany the other."

Tori raised an eyebrow.

"But-"

She cut herself off as she caught a glimpse of Nicole's trembling figure.

"…Ok."

It did not take long for the others to fall asleep. That is, everybody except for Nicole. She was still sitting upright and hugging her knees. Her eyes drifted towards the outside, towards the last bits of the evening glow.

Kairos sighed.

"You should get some sleep."

Nicole lowered her head slightly.

"…I'm not tired."

Kairos blinked a few times.

"Just try to get some sleep."

Nicole hugged her knees a little tighter.

"I don't want to sleep."

Kairos blinked a few times.

"…Do you want to take watch then?"

Nicole lifted her head and looked towards him.

"Can't we… talk a little?"

Kairos took a deep breath.

"Alright. But you have to lay down while we do so."

Nicole swallowed.

"Ok."

She was already relatively close, but got a little closer before laying her head down against the floor.

Kairos didn't look at her, but rather the sun that was slowly setting. For quite a while they just remained there in silence. Kairos even ended up sneaking a peek at her, wondering if she had fallen asleep.

However, her eyes were very much open, and also bloodshot.

A small frown rested on Kairos' face.

"What did you want to talk about? We should get it over with quickly so that you can fall asleep."

Nicole blinked a few times, taking a few seconds to get the courage to speak up.

"I…"

She took a deep breath.

"I can't really understand. I just, how did it all happen so fast?"

Nicole was relatively composed at first, but quickly broke down.

"Why is my dad dead? I don't understand."

Kairos did not respond, mostly because he didn't know what he was supposed to say. In the end, he just kept looking out towards the setting sun, listening to her speak.

Nicole rubbed her eye with a finger as tears spilled out.

"He didn't even get to say his last words. He just… just went away."

Kairos brushed his hair back with his hand.

"He decided to save you, even though that meant he would die. While he didn't get to say his last words, he still showed what he meant through his actions."

Nicole covered her face with both hands.

"But it didn't have to be like this, right? I… I could've died instead."

Kairos gradually closed his eyes. He obviously knew that Nicole was going through a lot. After all, having someone die so close in one's life die like that was an extremely traumatic experience.

At the same time, he was wondering what kind of person Nicole would be.

From what he saw in the world, there were people that grew far stronger from the terrible experiences they went through. However, there were also people that broke down completely, no longer able to function as a person.

If Nicole truly broke down, then he would be unwilling to stay with her. Though he did want someone he trusted to watch over him, it was only to a certain extent.

Kairos was rather shaky over Chase and Tori, but would still take that over a broken glass.

It was rather cruel, but he simply saw that as normal.

Though Nicole was essentially Kairos' only friend, he still felt like he was far apart from her. Even when Nicole wrapped her arm around his shoulder, Kairos still felt like he was alone.

This started long ago when Nicole saw Kairos getting bullied.

At the time, Kairos was young and thought that he could reach out to her for help. However, Nicole was too scared to do anything but run away. She still came back to comfort him after the bullies had left.

But Kairos couldn't help but see her in a different light.

It wasn't as though he thought Nicole was obligated to protect or help him. But he used to think that they would help each other through tough times. And Nicole would do that… in a rather strange way.

Kairos could tell that Nicole liked him. He wasn't that dense.

However, he was also a little too smart for his own good.

Because he could notice a few things with how Nicole treated him. She was particularly enthusiastic to talk to him whenever he had just gone through something, comforting him.

However, Kairos could tell that while a bit of it was out of concern, Nicole was trying to take advantage of him when he felt vulnerable.

To get on his good side by using those weak moments.

While Kairos was sad at times, his judgment was hardly ever affected by them. So each time Nicole tried to comfort him, it pissed him off slightly.

It was hard not to feel angry at someone that was trying to be manipulative. Instead of caring through any kind of mood, they would only show up when they thought that one was weak.

This was part of why Kairos just couldn't bring himself to care about Nicole and the suffering she was going through.

It wasn't as though he enjoyed her suffering, but rather, he couldn't bring himself to care.

…But in the end, she was one of the only people willing to help him. And as such, he would still favor her over other people.

And because of that, Kairos thought of a way to give Nicole a little push.

"Your father wanted you to live."

He gave her a glance.

"While he didn't say it, I'm sure that he wanted you to survive with all his heart."

Nicole took a deep breath.

"Yeah… I know."

There was a lost look in her eyes.

"That's why I decided I was going to try to stay alive, even if it gets really hard."

Kairos was slightly taken aback.

"…I'm sure he would be happy to hear that."

Nicole grabbed onto Kairos' hand with both of hers and held on tightly.

"But… it's still so scary. It's all so scary…"

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Nicole eventually seemed to calm down for the most part, with a small frown resting on her face. While she still was sad, her eyes were clearer.

"If I want to survive, I have to be stronger."

She opened up the system panel, displaying her stats.

"…What do I spend my points on?"

Kairos looked over at the panel.

[Rank: F]

[Stats –

Strength – 2.0

Endurance – 1.3

Agility – 1.9

Willpower – 1.1]

Kairos furrowed his brows.

"You added points into willpower?"

Nicole blinked a few times.

"Huh? I don't remember ever doing that."

Kairos raised an eyebrow.

"I remember last time it was half of a point, but now it's one and a tenth."

Nicole let out a soft gasp.

"Ah! It did rise by a lot."

Kairos tilted his head to the side.

"You really didn't add any to willpower beforehand?"

Nicole shook her head.

"No… I only added strength and agility."

Kairos came to a realization after hearing that. Just because one method of increasing one's stats was via points, that didn't mean it was the only way. It seemed like actual experiences could also contribute to that.

Just as he was nodding to himself after coming to this conclusion, Nicole spoke up.

"Wait."

Her eyes widened ever so slightly.

"I don't remember putting any points into endurance, but it seems higher."

Kairos snapped to attention.

"What? Are you sure?"

Nicole nodded.

"I… think it was either one point or just barely above one. But now, it's one point three."

This immediately made Kairos a little weirded out. Although the increase in willpower was drastic, he could still accept it as a massive shift in one's mind. However, the increase in endurance was quite different.

Kairos was pretty confident that none of his stats had increased at all without the help of the system. And he considered that pretty reasonable.

Though 0.1 seemed like a really small number, Kairos knew that it made a huge difference. An increase of 0.1 in strength equated to roughly a month of casual training in the gym for a person that didn't exercise before.

If Kairos wished, he was pretty confident he could run at a speed of 100 kilometers an hour, given that he didn't have to drag anything along.

These points were not anything small.

After running through various possibilities in his mind, he began to think that Nicole had just forgotten she added the points.

"You probably forgot. Those points aren't anything small, after all."

Nicole couldn't help but close her eyes tightly, thinking hard.

"…No, wait I'm sure. My strength and agility were increased by a tiny bit as well without my points."

The corner of Kairos' lip twitched. He looked at Nicole's current points.

[Points of Perfection: 3.3]

That was quite a large amount. When he began thinking of all the things that Nicole had killed, it really did seem she had an excessive amount of points that didn't come from her kills.

Kairos narrowed his eyes.

"Did you ever remember feeling an increase in strength despite not adding any points?"

Nicole's mouth was slightly agape as she continued thinking.

"…The watch."

She pulled out the watch from her pocket, looking at it intently.

"When I put it on and killed something, it made me feel a little stronger."

Kairos looked at the watch a little more closely.

"…Don't tell anyone about this."

Nicole nodded.

"Ok."

It turns out that the watch had some other function, giving one the ability to naturally get a little bit stronger while killing things. Though the effects were small right now, he could imagine that over time it would make a pretty huge difference.

Kairos narrowed his eyes.

"Just spend your points on your physical stats for now. Make sure to wear the red watch when you fight and try to save up for twenty points."

Nicole nodded.

"Ok!"

She then added her points among the three physical stat points. Once she finished, her eyelids were on the verge of closing, but she resisted, trying to stay awake.

Kairos rolled his eyes.

"If you finally feel tired, then go to sleep. Stop trying to stay awake."

Nicole took one last peek towards Kairos through slightly parted eyes.

"Mm…"

Then in the next moment, she began snoring softly.

Kairos watched as the sun set, and the sky became a starry night. After a good bit of time, he felt like he was on the verge of passing out entirely. Before falling asleep, he shook Chase's shoulder, prompting his eyes to shoot open.

He blinked a few times, forcefully shaking off the grogginess.

"Is there something?"

Kairos nodded while rubbing one eye.

"It's your shift to watch."

He then nudged Sydney until she woke up. Once she did wake up, she very slowly opened her eyes.

Kairos blinked a few times.

"Please keep watch with Chase."

There was no response, but he was too tired to wait for one, so he got back down on the ground and fell asleep.

Kairos wanted to rest comfortably so he could wake up the next morning refreshed. Unfortunately, he would not be granted that wish.

He was gradually awoken by Chase screaming.

Kairos still felt very groggy, but snapped awake when he caught a whiff of blood in the air. But even though he was awake, everything was black. There was no light in the room as of now.

He forcefully rubbed his eyes and got up.

"What is happening?"

Chase spoke up, a little exasperated.

"There are a shit ton of feral bunnies outside. For some reason, they aren't leaving."

As though to agree with his statement, there were countless shuffling sounds coming from all around, along with muffled squeaking sounds. From the scurrying sounds on the roof, it showed these things did not even spare the roof. The most prevalent sound was coming from where Chase's voice was.

Kairos thought for a moment before casting the fire spell, lighting up the room. He didn't channel extra mana into it, just letting the fireball rest at the tip of his finger. But it was enough to light up the room.

Chase was currently pushing his back against the makeshift door. His hands were currently bloody, while a rabbit corpse laid below him not too far away.

As for everyone else, they seemed to be half asleep, but in the process of waking up.

The situation seemed to be in control for now, as the bunnies were still outside. Though Chase was struggling, it wasn't too big of a deal for him to hold the door.

Kairos sucked in a deep breath.

"Has it been like this for a while?"

Chase let out an annoyed sigh.

"They only showed up a little while ago, but they seem really persistent."

He narrowed his eyes.

"I first saw a few bunnies watching us from outside. Their fur was a little red while their eyes seemed to glow a little. Not wanting to take any chances, I began pushing the door closed."

Chase clicked his tongue.

"Then they all went crazy, trying to get into the place."

Kairos nodded.

"They don't seem to be that strong, right?"

Chase shrugged his shoulders.

"Not individually. I was able to kill one of them pretty easily with just my hands. They are only at the F rank."

Kairos looked towards Nicole, who was paying close attention to the conversation.

"You should put on the red watch and get ready to swing."

Chase couldn't help but raise an eyebrow.

"You wanna let those things in?"

Kairos cracked his neck.

"If we only keep a small gap open, then it should be fine."

Chase frowned.

"But once they push through the crack, they could use it to make the gap wider and let even more through."

Kairos walked up to the door.

"Then just let me do it. My strength should be high enough to hold them down. As for you all, get ready to kill the bunnies."

Sydney was still crouched down sitting but slowly got up to her feet. As for Tori, she did a few stretches before walking over.

"Never thought the points would deliver themselves right to me."

Nicole silently put on the red watch and got close with the fire axe raised.

Kairos kept one hand on the door while the other held onto the fireball, swapping out with Chase. Then, he slid it ever so slightly to the side.

The moment the tiniest of cracks appeared, the sound of scurrying and squeaking filled the room. There was only a faint moonlight outside, but it was enough to make out the glowing eyes.

The bunnies violently pressed their faces against the crack, pressing their slightly reddened fur against themselves tightly just to get a little closer. However, Kairos was holding it down strong, making it too hard for them to fit through the gap.

Nicole was the first to act. She got up close to the door, raising her fire axe just above the tiny crack, lining it up.

With a grunt, she brought it down.

Various cracking sounds filled the air as blood splattered over Nicole.

Her axe did not go down smoothly, frequently getting caught on the various skulls. However, she clenched tightly onto the axe, continuing to push it down further.

In the end, a pool of blood had formed at her feet. The bunnies from behind continued to struggle, but there were only corpses at the front.

Kairos decided to make the gap a little wider. Almost immediately after, the corpses were pushed out, tumbling into the room. And behind them were many more bunnies that were shoving their way in, squeaking aggressively.

The bunnies were stacked up on top of each other and quickly entered the room. In just a moment, ten were inside. Nicole swung, but was only able to take care of a few. However, Tori quickly followed up, quickly beheading the remaining ones.

However, many more continued filing into the room, making both Tori and Nicole work damn hard to kill all of them.

Chase didn't seem to want to give up on this opportunity, but also didn't just want to charge in with his fists. After a bit of hesitation, he pulled back his bow, letting a mana arrow form on it.

After waiting for a gap between Nicole and Tori's swings, he let the arrow loose.

It zipped through the air before ripping into a few bunnies at the front. However, it didn't lose its initial momentum, tearing violently through many more. The bunnies were even somewhat pushed back by the recoil the corpses faced.

Chase even raised both eyebrows in surprise.

"…That was a lot of points. It seems that there are far more."

Tori clicked her tongue as she continued slashing.

"I suppose it will be a lot of work, but also very rewarding."

Chase nodded as he drew back another mana arrow, waiting again.

Tori and Nicole continued to slice up the bunnies that entered, causing a mound of corpses to fill up the front. The stench of blood was already pretty strong from the dried blood on their clothes, but now it was not only prevalent, but fresh.

Though countless of the bunnies have died, it seemed that the bloody smell was enough to motivate them to try even harder.

Chase let out another arrow and killed quite a few more bunnies, reducing the burden that Nicole and Tori had to face.

But it did not take long for him to run out of arrows.

By the fourth one, he was already heaving, unable to cast any more.

Kairos was still pushing hard, leaning his body into it slightly to get more leverage. There would be times where he felt like he was losing control, but a forceful push resolved that.

Now that Chase wasn't shooting arrows, the bunnies were gradually beginning to overwhelm Tori and Nicole. After roughly ten seconds, one of the bunnies went unaccounted for, charging towards Tori with its tiny teeth bared.

However, Chase grabbed onto one before that, prompting the bunny to struggle fiercely. That is, until a clean snap rang out, making it fall limp.

As time went on, Nicole and Tori were both getting tired. After all, they were both exerting themselves fully as hard as they could continuously.

The bunnies that slipped out gradually got out of even Chase's control. Just when Kairos thought that he would have to act, Sydney joined in.

She slammed down on a bunny that charged towards her fiercely, exploding it into a mass of flesh. The wooden baseball she was holding onto cracked slightly, while the bunny was very clearly dead.

The force behind her strike was obviously unnecessarily large.

And her breathing was a little heavy.

It seemed that while she was silent, a lot of anger had built up.

Kairos was wondering if that was a normal reaction and whether or not he should say anything.

In the end, he let her be.

And so, Sydney ran forward while screaming loudly.

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Right when the bunnies were beginning to overwhelm the group, Sydney stepped up and began swinging the bat violently. One after another, frightening cracking sounds resounded as bunnies were brutally smashed.

Though nobody was silent as they were fighting, it somewhat seemed that way in comparison to Sydney. She screamed hysterically, while her breathing had become erratic and heavy.

The control over the situation was somewhat restored, but with how much force Sydney was using, the wooden bat was beginning to crack. If she just used enough force to kill, then the bat wouldn't face many problems, but she truly put her all into the swings.

And as such, it wouldn't last for much longer.

Kairos sighed, thinking he was going to have to step in sooner or later. The only shame was the fire axe he had been using was destroyed in an attempt to save Harold. Kairos began thinking of whether or not he should use the pulse spell, his hands, or borrow someone else's weapon.

But then he felt a sudden pushing on the door he was holding back.

With his future vision, he saw that it was Sydney who began pushing at the door, trying to get closer to the bunnies. Knowing that this was suicidal, he conversely pushed as hard as he could, using his shoulder.

The crack in the door was just about to close off, but that was when Sydney started to push against it.

Kairos spoke immediately.

"Don't do that! You will kill all of us!"

However, Sydney didn't listen and began pushing. Although her strength wasn't close to Kairos', there was also the factor of bunnies. He could beat her head on, but also had to divert some strength to keep the bunnies away.

Nicole reached out.

"M-Mom?"

Kairos gave up on trying to convince Sydney and looked towards Chase.

"Help me out here!"

Chase did not delay in rushing over, but by the time he got there, the gap had widened farther than it was before.

Both Nicole and Sydney did everything they could to kill as many as they could, but there were simply too many.

Nicole grit her teeth as she swung her axe, causing blood to spill into her eye.

"Mom! Stop!"

The excess bunnies began attacking Chase. It did not take long for a bunny to lunge towards his neck, forcing him back.

As the gap widened, it became harder for Kairos to keep the door shut. And so, Sydney was able to push it open farther.

Nicole was a little frantic.

"Mom! You have to stop! Think about what Dad would want!"

Unfortunately, Sydney already seemed completely lost.

The bunnies began tearing apart her flesh. After all, she was right at the front. However, Sydney did not seem to mind, not even screaming out in pain. She was still swinging her bat, killing several rabbits each time.

However, for each swing, Sydney would take numerous bites. In the end, she continued pushing through until she went through the door altogether.

Nicole's eyes widened.

"MOM!"

She reached out to pull her back, but the bunnies got in her way, scratching up her arm before she could get to her.

Nicole swung her fire axe faster and faster, but there only seemed to be more bunnies to match. Kairos wanted to cast the pulse spell, but quickly realized that it would probably end up killing Sydney if he did so. The area of effect was simply too large when compared to something like Chase's arrow.

He cursed internally as he watched Sydney force her way through the horde of bunnies. Other than swinging her bat, she began biting down on the bunnies, tearing through their flesh violently with her teeth.

It was as though she was trying to get payback for all of the bunnies biting down on her.

As bad as the situation was, Kairos couldn't help but be a little confused.

Because Sydney should've fallen over by now, not just by pain but because her muscles were being ripped apart, meaning she shouldn't have the capability to even stand. But as though mocking his logical thoughts, Sydney began pushing further into the horde, to the point that they could no longer see her.

Nicole continued swinging her axe, but it seemed she was still in a bit of shock.

"…Mom?"

Now that Sydney wasn't interfering, Kairos was able to push the door enough so that the bunnies didn't overwhelm the group.

The situation stabilized quickly, but there was now a strange air that didn't come from the stench of blood.

Nicole grit her teeth.

"Why… why are there so many? Mom, come back!"

Despite swinging with all she could, the bunnies continued to block her way.

However, though muffled, the group could still hear Sydney's screams. This made the hairs on Kairos stand up. The only possibility he saw in her surviving was if she was transforming into a monster.

But he also didn't understand how she would be transforming into a monster already, as theoretically there shouldn't have been enough evolution energy to do so.

Kairos furrowed his brows.

He began thinking of various possibilities and various actions he could take. But eventually, it boiled down to just…

Doing nothing.

At this point, if Sydney was going to die, there was pretty much nothing he could do. His spells were offensive in nature and had an area of effect. He might be able to kill some bunnies, but to kill the ones directly impacting Sydney, it was going to be too difficult to not implicate her as well.

And so, Kairos continued to hold down the door.

Sydney's screams continued, like she was burning in the pits of hell. However, it wouldn't exactly be accurate to call them screams of pain. They still sounded angry, but also very muffled. That was partly because of the door blocking the noise.

But also because her fighting style of choice was biting down on the bunnies. She tore apart and ate their flesh as they did the same to her. It was as though they were competing on who was the true animal.

Eventually, when the time extended out for longer than ten minutes, he spoke up.

"Sydney is still alive. It looks like there's something that lets her survive."

Nicole's eyes lit up when she heard this. She stopped exerting herself so hard and began focusing on surviving.

…However, even that was beginning to become a hard task.

By now, a thick layer of blood had coated the bottom of the floor. The bunny carcasses had stacked up so high, that they almost formed a miniature blockade of their own. If the bunnies weren't able to force their way through it, then it could've been considered something useful.

By now, Tori and Nicole were almost completely covered in blood. They had to squint with their eyes just to see. Not to mention, they were both panting heavily, causing blood to splash into their mouths.

Even Chase was in a similar situation. His hands were coated deep in blood, making it seem as though he was a cannibal in a horror movie. He was trying his best, but his arms began to tremble.

Kairos quickly was pretty sure that the situation was starting to get out of hand, thus he tried to push the door closed.

However, it wouldn't close. It seemed that it had gotten caught on a bunny corpse, stopping it. Though Kairos was rather unsettled by this fact, he knew in the worst case scenario he could just use the red prism to close off the doorway forcefully. That would leave Sydney out to face all of them, but she seemed to be faring completely fine for now.

Kairos began gathering mana in his palm to cast the pulse spell.

Unfortunately, in the time that had passed, his mana had only recovered to about a fourth of its total capacity.

As such, this spell wasn't going to be the strongest.

Nonetheless, he reached out towards the gap and casted it.

A small swish followed up by countless crushing fleshy sounds rang out.

[Multi-Kill (Lesser Kill – One Rank Inferior to Killer) – 0.1 points awarded]

[Multi-Kill (Lesser Kill – One Rank Inferior to Killer) – 0.1 points awarded]

[Multi-Kill (Lesser Kill – One Rank Inferior to Killer) – 0.1 points awarded]

Countless bunnies died. There were still more, and a lot more. That was easy to tell from the scurrying sounds coming from all around.

But they began running away.

For a moment, the only sound in the air was everyone panting. Kairos still had his back pressed hard against the door even though there were no longer any left. Nicole and Tori were still clenching hard onto their weapons despite the trembling and Chases' bloody hands were still tensed up.

Eventually, they came to understand that it was over.

Nicole began pushing the bunny carcasses aside.

"…Mom…"

As though this was a sign, Kairos moved aside the door, and as he did so crunching sounds filled the air.

Nicole, Tori, and Chase all widened their eyes.

Wanting to see what the commotion was about, Kairos also looked over and his eyes widened as well.

"…Woah."

A couple meters out from the entrance to their base were countless bones strewn across the ground along with half-eaten bunnies. Standing in the middle, was a humanoid figure.

The reason calling it human wasn't exactly the correct term, was because of the current appearance. There was no skin or hair on that figure. The muscles were fully exposed, but most of them were partially gnawed through or ripped out altogether.

Though they weren't in full view, there were multiple gaps where bone was visible. Overall, there wasn't much left. Though it was hard to see, there were organs on the floor opposite to the figure.

And they were human organs.

Though one could probably tell that it was human, so much of it was stripped away.

And the only person that this could be, was naturally Sydney. It didn't immediately register to the people in the group, but by connecting the dots, they could come to this conclusion.

She was currently standing, facing away from the group.

Nicole slowly reached out.

"M-Mom?"

Kairos furrowed his brows. He didn't know why, but felt like Sydney was still alive, and very much so.

Nicole took a shaky step forward, but Kairos put one hand on her shoulder. Nicole turned to look at him with a shaky expression.

"W-What?"

Kairos did not respond. He just kept looking at the figure at the front silently.

Chase couldn't help but close his eyes in pity, murmuring to himself.

"…To lose both parents in one day. A pitiful child."

The flesh covering Sydney's body was twitching strangely. It moved in such a way that made it seem as though they were individually alive. Almost like they were parasites blending in to look like muscle.

Kairos suddenly narrowed his eyes.

"…She's regrowing."

Nicole gasped.

"Wh-What?"

Tori was originally looking away, but after hearing that, she paid close attention to what was left of Sydney. Although it was hard to see from how erratically the flesh was moving, it was indeed regenerating.

The process wasn't the fastest, but it was at a rate that could be seen by the naked eye, which was rather startling. It did not take long for the gaps where the bones were exposed to grow over.

Slowly, the muscles were restored to their original condition. Then, skin that was at a slightly red shade regrew on top. Even the hair slowly regrew into long yellow hair, when she was previously bald just a moment ago.

One other factor was the intense waves of heat her body was emitting. It was almost as though there wasn't a person there, but an actual fire. Despite standing a few meters away, it felt as though a warm blanket was being laid upon their faces.

Nicole was trembling slightly, overwhelmed by the rollercoaster of emotions she faced.

"M-Mom?"

Sydney raised her head slightly. It seemed that she had heard that. However, immediately afterwards, she fell down to her knees before collapsing face-first into the floor.

Nicole ran up.

"Mom!"

Kairos also hurried after her.

Nicole crouched down next to Sydney and began shaking her gently.

"Are you ok?"

Kairos lifted up Sydney's face, taking care not to be too forceful. There was a small frown on his face, as he half expected to see something horrifying.

…But it was just her normal face, currently with the eyes closed.

Sydney's nose moved ever so slightly, indicating that she was breathing.

Kairos let out a soft sigh.

"…She seems fine."

He was honestly still a little creeped out, trying to justify what he just saw. That level of regeneration just… didn't make sense. There shouldn't have been enough energy within her body to even regenerate to that extent.

Another thing that Kairos noticed was that the red mark she initially had on her forearm was now gone.

Sydney definitely looked extremely emaciated right now, but it didn't change that the amount she regenerated did not make sense.

Suddenly, Chase spoke up.

"Hey…"

Kairos looked up.

"What?"

Chase furrowed his brows as he looked off into the distance.

"I can't really tell for sure, but I think there are things coming our way."

Kairos clicked his tongue and looked at Nicole.

"Help me carry her back."

Nicole hastily nodded before lifting the side of her up. Kairos did the same, but with only one hand as he was still holding a tiny ball of fire with the other for light.

The process was a little awkward, but they were able to fit in the door as foreboding howling sounds resounded.

Kairos furrowed his brows.

"I'd rather not fight them as I've already used up all my mana."

Chase nodded.

"…Likewise."

Tori didn't seem to be against it either, so they all went inside the place. However, as Kairos was about to slide the door shut, visions flashed by his mind.

He saw the wolves eating the bunnies, tearing up their carcesses for a split second.

Then, these strange red monsters with red hairs sticking out of them feasting on the dead wolves.

Before he could get a better look at what they were, his vision shifted to himself, lying down on the floor with his eyes wide open and blood spilling out of his mouth. He was on the floor of his base, while the surrounding walls were all destroyed.

Kairos visibly shook when that happened.

His previous visions were pretty straightforward, telling he would turn into a monster if he was too exposed to either the red sunlight or red rain. However, he wasn't too sure what this one was trying to tell him.

Despite feeling overwhelmed because of that vision, he grabbed onto the side of his head and ran through various possibilities.

Nicole gently touched his shoulder.

"Are you ok?"

Kairos did not respond.

Instead, he suddenly pushed aside the door and walked outside. He pulled out the red prism while he was at it.

Kairos murmured to himself.

"…The smell of blood."

Though before, he was concerned about the usage of the red prism, not wanting to waste the energy, that suddenly changed.

Several tall walls began rising from the ground, encompassing every single bunny corpse and trail of blood. Along with that, many slightly oversized wolves came into view, running deftly.

Chase furrowed his brows.

"What are you doing?"

Tori frowned, hesitating on whether or not she should help.

Because the building of walls wasn't exactly fast, they were able to directly jump over them easily as they were being created. Their eyes seemed to glow in the dark night as they rushed over to Kairos, teeth bared.

Though there were many wolves approaching him, Kairos still focused on creating the walls.

Nicole shouted.

"Watch out!"

However, Kairos had already seen it coming. He suddenly threw himself to the side, letting a wolf brush right past him. Though there was more where that was coming from.

He was quickly surrounded on all ends by the wolves. They spent a few seconds just watching him. Chase knew that even if he wanted to help fight, there was nothing that he could do. However, he rummaged in his bag before pulling out a flashlight.

He turned it on and pointed it towards the ground so that the glare wouldn't get in the way.

Though the wolves were still staring, Kairos did not have the same intention of standing around. He suddenly lunged forth, reaching out with his hand that was holding the fireball. It shot out, hitting one of the wolves in the head, creating a small explosion and lighting it aflame.

Veins immediately began to bulge around the wolf's body. Kairos just so happened to know that when veins bulge, one of the reasons was that the body was sending blood to the surface to cool down.

However, before he thought any more about it, he whipped with his leg, smashing it against the side of that wolf.

[Killed Creature – 0.1 points awarded]

Right after, he dashed past the now dead wolf, escaping the encirclement before the wolves had any time to react.

By now, the walls were tall enough for Kairos. He began creating a roof to close it all off.

At the same time, the wolves dashed towards him.

Kairos' focus was currently sharpened to its peak. And that wasn't because of the wolves dashing towards him, but the anxiety that came from his vision. He felt that if he did not close it off fast enough, that his death was almost certain.

As the wolves closed in on him, Nicole, who still had the red watch on her, seemed unable to handle standing by anymore.

She rushed forth, but all of the attention was on Kairos. Though she was able to plunge her axe into the body of a wolf, forcing one to engage with her, it didn't change the overall situation.

But Kairos somehow seemed completely calm. He took off his glasses and threw them over to Chase, who caught onto them. And at that moment, the wolves pounced.

Similarly, Kairos also moved, dashing forwards and sliding down.

As he did so, he kicked upwards, slamming hard against one wolf's ribcage and cracking it.

After picking himself up, he came face to face with another wolf that lunged towards him. He dodged just barely enough to the side, and the wolf ended up biting down on the tail of the already injured one.

Amidst its painful cries, Kairos leaped on top of it, catching the wolves off-guard. Almost immediately, he felt the difficulty of maintaining balance, but was able to stay on with the combination of his high agility, his future vision, and peak focus.

One wolf couldn't wait and lunged forth anyway, but Kairos was able to time it so that he smashed his fist down on the top of its head. The wolf was forced down, but kept its mouth still open on instinct.

Then, it bit down on the wolf Kairos was standing on.

After taking a deep breath, he slammed down against that wolf's skull once more, causing it to crack.

[Killed Creature – 0.1 points awarded]

Kairos could feel his knuckles stinging badly from that, but he wasn't too focused on that. The wolf he was standing on began running around as it howled in pain, trying to get away from its comrades that suddenly started biting, and also trying to shake Kairos off.

But he wasn't coming off any time soon.

The wolf swerved from side to side, but it would never catch Kairos off guard. He was able to respond accordingly, and remain on top.

At the same time, the roof was nearly halfway finished, just with a hole at the top that needed to be formed.

Logically, Kairos should've felt reassured as he was almost finished closing the place off, but for some reason his anxiety was only growing.

From outside the walls, a strange muffled bristling sound resounded. It was almost like someone was running their finger down a toothbrush, but far louder and rougher.

The wolves got closer once more and would occasionally pounce towards Kairos, but he was able to bat them away. Though he could've chosen more lethal methods, he currently just wanted to close off the gap.

Soon, there was only a meter wide circle in the ceiling. Considering this would just take a few seconds, Kairos began to calm down.

However, his body suddenly tensed up.

A faint red light was cast down, coming from the hole.

That was because a giant eye was looking down at all of them from that hole. It was right next to it, and the iris itself was unable to be fully seen because of the size of the hole.

"Found you."

As soon as the red eye appeared, it was gone.

However, that didn't change how unsettled Kairos was, or the others. Though it was only for a short moment, he felt like he recognized that eye.

It was the cult leader's. The person that was a part of 'The Church of Evolution'. Specifically, The Red Priest.

Kairos gave up on closing the roof.

It was too late anyway.

He tucked the red prism into his pocket before slamming his fist down hard on the wolf he was riding.

[Killed Creature – 0.1 points awarded]

With a crack, the wolf collapsed to the floor. The skin on Kairos' knuckle was ripped off, but the job was done. The other wolves acted quickly, pouncing towards him.

However, this time he directly jumped up higher, landing onto one of the wolf's backs. Like this, he kept his balance and continued to fight off the wolves.

But this time, he was sweating slightly with a frown on his face.

When a wolf leaped towards him, his hand shot out towards its eye, before grabbing down tightly. The wolf immediately let out howls of pain as it tried to escape, but as it was struggling, Kairos punched it with all he had.

A startling crack resounded.

The wolf's struggles noticeably lessened, but it was still alive. As for Kairos, he began bleeding from his fist pretty badly, but he had bigger problems to worry about.

Once again, he threw his fist, cracking the wolf's skull.

[Killed Creature – 0.1 points awarded]

The wolf's body fell limp, but he did not drop it. Instead, he threw it towards some other wolves in the process of pouncing towards him, blocking their advance.

Still, Kairos did not pause. He didn't know exactly what the red eye meant, but he knew that he did not have time to waste.

Nicole was already killing the wolves she could while Kairos was distracting them. As for Chase and Tori, they both understood the urgency of the situation.

Chase decided to stay and hold the flashlight though. This was because there needed to be light for them to fight properly and he couldn't do much at all right now anyway. As for Tori, she charged in towards the wolves despite the fact her arm was still faintly shaking from fatigue.

Kairos focused on crushing the wolf skulls as efficiently as possible. With the rising anxiety, his blow became stronger.

He directly threw his fist at the side of a wolf's face that was pouncing towards him.

A frightening cracking sound came from both the wolf and Kairos' fist.

[Killed Creature – 0.1 points awarded]

Another one lunged for him, prompting Kairos to smash down on the top of its skull.

[Killed Creature – 0.1 points awarded]

His fists began trembling ever so slightly. They were beginning to feel a little numb and cold. The only way he knew he still had sensation was the feeling of warmth from his own blood.

When two wolves lunged for him, he grabbed them both by the neck and transferred their momentum into each other slamming their heads together. The teeth of one ripped into the other.

Kairos pulled the two away before slamming them together once more.

[Killed Creature – 0.1 points awarded]

[Killed Creature – 0.1 points awarded]

He dropped both corpses, letting them land against the floor with a thud. As for Tori and Nicole, they were already covered in blood from the rabbits, but now they had a fresh coat over their bodies after killing quite a few of the wolves.

They were pretty efficient, especially since they were all distracted by Kairos.

In fact, once Kairos smashed his fist against another wolf…

[Killed Creature – 0.1 points awarded]

He found that the only one alive was the one he was standing on.

And so, he lifted up his foot before bringing it down like a bullet.

[Killed Creature – 0.1 points awarded]

Nicole ran up to Kairos, only able to slightly open one eye because of the blood over her face.

"Are you ok?"

Kairos shook his head.

"No. None of us are ok. We have to get out of here."

Tori looked a little solemn.

"Does that mean we abandon the one that can't move?"

Nicole froze up, unable to speak.

As for Kairos, he furrowed his brows and frowned deeply.

He didn't want to give up on Sydney for multiple reasons. The primary one being Nicole might not be able to take it and the second one being that Sydney had an extremely frightening regeneration ability that made her very valuable.

Kairos closed his eyes and massaged his temple with the tip of his finger despite how badly his hands were hurting.

Was there some other option?

But they really couldn't bring a dead weight with them if they wanted to run. Even if they didn't bring her along, it was questionable if they could get away even then.

Kairos' breathing became unsteady, but he suddenly paused as he thought of the underground caves where they originally got this prism. He got an idea.

He pulled out the red prism and looked at the energy value.

[Energy: 376/1000]

A tremendous amount had been wasted on building the walls that turned out to be useless. It pained his heart a little that his decision ended up being the wrong one, but there was nothing he could do about it now.

However… it should be enough to execute his plan.

"What if instead of running away, we hide?"

Chase had jogged over and overheard the conversation.

"How exactly should we hide?"

Kairos looked down at the red prism.

"I create a place underneath the ground with this thing, then close off the top. We stay there for as long as we possibly can before coming back out."

Nicole furrowed her brows.

"…Will we have enough air?"

Kairos shrugged his shoulders.

"I stayed in my room without opening the window for weeks. I even covered the vent. Though there was still air seeping in from the gap in the door, there shouldn't have been too much."

He sighed.

"It will get stuffy, but a few days is no issue."

Tori clicked her tongue.

"That sounds like it's going to be a painful experience…"

She cracked her neck.

"My arms are killing me, I'm going to increase my endurance."

With that, a status panel opened in front of her as her shaking finger reached out to add some points. Kairos immediately held her hand back.

"No, not yet."

Tori raised an eyebrow.

"Come on… just like one point."

Kairos shook his head.

"It will use up your energy, making you eat more. We don't have that kind of food right now, especially if we are going to hide."

Tori frowned, but nodded.

"…Alright. Feels a little annoying to have so many points but unable to use them."

Kairos clicked his tongue.

"They aren't going anywhere. Come on, let's do this inside the house."

He looked up at the hole in the ceiling.

"Just in case anything else is watching…"

The group made their way back into the house. As they did so, many strange rough bristling sounds came from outside the walls. It almost sounded like an animal running through the grass, so Kairos ignored it.

Back in the house, Sydney was still laying down silently, unconscious as ever.

Kairos shut the door behind them and pulled out the red prism. Though he took back his glasses from Chase, he didn't put them on for now.

The reason was so that he could pay close attention to the energy count left in the prism. He wanted to keep at least 10 energy after the process was finished. After all, he had no plans of locking them all inside. There had to be some left over to reopen the gap.

First, a tiny hole formed in the ground, just enough for a person to fit through. He then created a room underneath it, making it a little over two meters tall and making it as wide as he could. His reasoning was so that he could stay further away from the others justifiably.

And so, he watched as the energy counter rapidly drained from the initial 376. As it got lower and lower, Kairos slowed down, until eventually, it reached an energy level of 15. From there, he tossed down his own bag, while everyone followed suit right after.

Then he turned to look at Nicole.

"Jump down first and be prepared to catch your mom."

Nicole looked down the extremely skinny hole that seemed to go down into a deep darkness.

"…Could you make the hole a tiny bit larger?"

Kairos let out a soft sigh.

"I made it small so that I could make the room a bit larger. Don't worry, the only thing waiting for you down there is stone."

Nicole seemed a little hesitant, but walked up next to the hole anyway. She slowly put one foot through after another. As she slid down, she held onto the sides of the floor with a bit of panic and slowly slid down.

One of the bulging red veins rubbed against her back uncomfortably, prompting her to frown. However, she was able to get down, albeit letting out a slight yelp along the way.

A muffled voice came from down below.

"I made it! …But it really is dark."

Kairos proceeded to pick up Sydney, bringing her over to the hole. He made sure the feet went in first, before the rest of the body. He also made sure the arms weren't caught on anything and especially so for the head.

After that, he proceeded to let go.

From down below, a soft grunt was heard. Then, Nicole called out.

"I… I got her!"

Kairos let out a soft sigh, before calling out.

"Try to get out of the way so that we can jump down too."

Nicole called out.

"Alright!"

After a few dragging sounds, she called out once more.

"It's clear now."

With that, Kairos tucked both feet in the hole before slipping down. The feeling of the bulging red veins was admittedly strange, but it wasn't harmful. He landed on the ground with a clear tap, now essentially in complete darkness. It felt a little cold, but otherwise, it was fine.

Not being able to see anything admittedly made him feel a little anxious, but he knew that the only thing down here was him, Nicole, and Sydney.

Kairos looked around, before quickly realizing he wasn't going to see anything.

"Hey, where are you, Nicole?"

Nicole let out a soft cough.

"Um, over here."

Kairos then walked in the opposite direction and called out afterwards.

"Alright, you can jump down now."

Chase landed down the next moment with a tiny grunt. He had thrown himself down without the slightest care. He then shined the flashlight down, letting everyone see.

Some of the backpacks were knocked over. Kairos promptly dragged them to the side, then called out.

"You can jump."

After a few seconds, Tori landed down on the ground.

She took a deep breath and looked around.

"…Alright. Guess we are going to have to get familiar with this place."

Chase suddenly narrowed his eyes.

"…Say, how will we deal with the need to go to the washroom?"

The room immediately fell silent.

Kairos' lip twitched.

"We can dedicate one side of the room for that."

Tori frowned.

"Oh god… it's going to smell so bad."

Kairos suddenly furrowed his brows.

"Wait."

Nicole perked up.

"You… have another solution?"

Kairos tilted his head to the side.

"Sort of? I remember I haven't needed to use the washroom ever since the red sun rose. In fact, my stomach almost always felt empty."

Chase rubbed his chin.

"…That is the same for me. I remember a similar situation when I was out in the wilderness with far less food than planned. I rationed it all out, just barely eating enough to survive. That lasted for a week or so, and I only needed to go once in that entire time."

He shrugged his shoulders.

"It seems that because our bodies are not as much energy as it needs, it refuses to let any of it go."

Kairos sighed.

"…Well, that's one less problem."

He narrowed his eyes.

"Of many."