Read I See One Second Into The Future: Loner In The Apocalypse Chapter 71 online for free - AllNovelFull
Tori looked at Kairos with a bit of confusion.
"What do you mean, you can see other options?"
Kairos wiped the blood off of his face.
"I found out when I was helping Sydney earlier that I can select a different spell for you, rather than the one that is displayed."
Tori tilted her head to the side.
"But the spell here says lightning, it sounds pretty cool, so I don't think I'd want something else."
Kairos shrugged his shoulders.
"Just let me take a look, maybe I'll find something you would like more."
Tori scratched the side of her head.
"Um, ok."
Kairos walked over and took a look at her status panel.
[Status]
[ID: 133543657645]
[Rank: 52/100 Evolution Energy – 50 required for Rankup]
[Objective: Evolve]
[Proof Of Perfection Points: 31.9]
[Strength – 4.9
Agility – 4.9
Endurance – 4.9
Willpower – 4.9
Mana Capacity – 0.0
Magic Affinity – 0.0]
[Special Abilities: N/A]
[Inborn Abilities: N/A]
[Evolve]
[Hide]
Kairos clicked on the evolve option. Though Tori looked a little uncomfortable, she decided not to interfere.
[Use 5 points for stable evolution? Yes/No]
[Use 10 points for natural ability? Yes/No]
[Use 5 points for Lightning Spell or Wind Spell? Lightning/Wind Yes/No]
[Confirm]
Kairos rubbed his chin.
"I can see a wind spell available. Do you want to consider it?"
Tori scratched the side of her head.
"Uh, which one is better?"
Kairos shrugged his shoulders.
"I have no idea, honestly. But take a second to think about what kind of spell you would like."
Tori rubbed her chin with her thumb and forefinger.
"Huh…"
Chase shrugged his shoulders.
"There isn't too much of a point in overthinking it. In the end, we don't know what either of them do."
Tori turned to him and proceeded to smirk.
"Then maybe the wind spell is better for me so that I can sweep you off of your feet."
Chase's face twitched.
"…Then I suppose I have no choice but to be swept up by my dashing white knight."
Tori giggled.
"Alright, I have decided! I choose the wind spell!"
Kairos pressed his lips together.
"Um, are you sure you want to make your choice so… arbitrarily?"
Tori shrugged her shoulders.
"Thinking too much has never done me any good before, so I'm not going to get so hung up on it."
Kairos blinked a few times, then nodded.
"Alright, I can't fault that."
He didn't want to spend too long just for her to make a decision anyway. With that in mind, he selected the wind spell and hit confirm.
The status panel changed, and Tori ended up shivering in surprise as well. Her body reddened slightly, but it calmed down soon after. She took a few deep breaths, sucking them in as though it wasn't enough for her.
After thirty seconds or so, the changes seemed to stop. Tori let out a small sigh.
"Wow, that feels… refreshing."
She proceeded to open up her status panel.
Kairos had wiped off the blood on his face before putting on the glasses.
[Status]
[ID: 133543657645]
[Rank: E-]
[Objective: Survive]
[Proof Of Perfection Points: 11.9]
[Strength – 4.9
Agility – 4.9
Endurance – 4.9
Willpower – 4.9
Mana Capacity – 0.1
Magic Affinity – 0.1]
[Special Abilities: Wind Spell (F), Wing Spell (F)]
[Hide]
Kairos raised an eyebrow.
"Wing spell?"
Chase blinked a few times.
"Hmm… a white knight with wings, huh?"
Tori kept her eyes on the status panel, but was already opening up her backpack to take out various snacks that were stored inside. Kairos noted that some of them seemed rather luxurious, such as caviar. He was a little confused on where she got it from, but decided not to question it right now.
Nicole seemed quite excited.
"Does the wing spell mean you can fly?"
Tori spoke while chewing on her food.
"I really hope that's not all that it does. I don't really care about flying anyway."
Nicole let out a soft gasp.
"But!…"
Sydney tilted her head to the side.
"There might not be that many practical uses of being able to fly."
Chase narrowed his eyes.
"It does sound situational, but we shouldn't be so fast to judge its effects, no?"
Tori nodded.
"It has to be something good! I spent so many points for it."
Without a second thought, she activated the wind spell. Wings suddenly sprouted out of her back, but far from traditional ones that birds would have. These wings were not only red, but appeared to be bat wings.
They were not all that large, spanning a length that was less than her arms.
Tori looked over her shoulder and raised both eyebrows.
"Wow, I wonder what I can- ah!"
The wings suddenly retracted on their own, while she ended up gasping for air.
"What? Why did it suddenly stop?"
Kairos blinked a few times.
"You need mana in order to cast these spells. Since you just evolved, your mana is at the bare minimum, so it's only natural you can't keep it up for long."
Tori let out a muffled groan while still chewing on her food.
"That's lame."
Kairos' eyebrow twitched.
"But also relatively reasonable."
Tori opened up her status panel, then without hesitation began putting points into agility. Kairos was honestly a little surprised, he imagined that she would at least try to put a little bit into mana.
After watching her continue to press the same button over and over again, Kairos couldn't help but speak up.
"Wait, wait, don't you want to put at least a few points into your magical abilities?"
Tori did not stop increasing her agility even as she responded.
"Eh, I can do that later."
Kairos tried to reach out to her hand, but saw that Tori would easily dodge out of the way, then decided to continue trying to convince her.
"If you have too much of one stat, then the rest of your body won't keep up! I already tried adding many points into the magical stats, and ended up coughing blood after using a spell."
Tori nodded.
"Ah, that makes sense."
Though she agreed, Kairos couldn't help but feel a little aggrieved.
"You…"
Because she was still adding points in agility. Chase's mouth was agape ever so slightly.
"Haha, you are very… independent."
Tori smiled proudly as she put both hands on her hips.
"Hehe, of course!"
Her body was essentially glowing red at this point while sweat poured down almost like a waterfall. Her clothes were soaked more or less instantly.
She tapped her chin with the tip of her finger.
"Hm. I can't add any more points."
Kairos looked rather speechless, then proceeded to shake his head.
"I guess you maxed it out."
He peered over at the panel and saw that her agility value was now at 14.9 points, seemingly the new maximum of this rank.
Tori smiled slightly.
"See? I almost have two points left over! Now I can increase my magical stats."
Kairos raised his hand.
"Wait, if you already put so much in agility, you might want to increase your other physical stats so that they can keep up with your agility."
Tori shrugged her shoulders.
"Well, it's already imbalanced, so why does it matter?"
Without waiting for the others to respond, she began increasing her magical stats equally.
Kairos opened his mouth, wanting to say something, but then closed it right after. She was more or less right anyway, her stats were already severely imbalanced, so it didn't matter too much anymore.
By the end, Tori looked at her status with a satisfied smile on her face.
"I like how this looks!"
Kairos looked over at the status panel.
[Status]
[ID: 133543657645]
[Rank: E-]
[Objective: Survive]
[Proof Of Perfection Points: 0.0]
[Strength – 4.9
Agility – 14.9
Endurance – 4.9
Willpower – 4.9
Mana Capacity – 1.0
Magic Affinity – 1.1]
[Special Abilities: Wind Spell (F), Wing Spell (F)]
[Hide]
The new giant stat for agility was very easily noticeable. And from there, she had spent her points more or less equally on the two magic stats.
After doing that, Tori continued to stuff her face with various snacks and began casting the wing spell once more.
Suddenly, the red wings appeared on her back once more, but were also notably much larger than last time, nearly reaching double her arm length.
The others ended up taking a few steps back to make some room.
Sydney seemed a little apprehensive.
"Oh my…"
Tori took a glance at her wings and smiled.
"Ah, these look quite nice."
With that, she raised the wings and flapped them. A strong gust of wind blew down, while Tori herself soared up into the sky like a bullet.
Kairos was quite surprised, and from Tori's bewildered expression, she also seemed to share the same sentiment.
Within just a few seconds, she had already soared up thirty meters into the air.
Tori then soared around in the sky, swooping up and down as though she was a bird.
"Woooooooo!"
Kairos called out.
"Don't forget you have a limited amount of time!"
After hearing that, Tori shot towards the ground at frightening speeds, prompting the rest of the group to flinch.
Chase's eyes widened.
"Slow down, slow down!"
Tori didn't seem to listen, still catapulting down at the same speed. When she was a meter away from the ground, Nicole couldn't help but look away, not wanting to see someone splatter onto the floor.
Yet, there was no sound of collision.
Right before hitting the ground, Tori's wings flapped, killing most of the momentum. She then touched the ground with one hand and turned it into a cartwheel. After a few rotations, she stopped and jumped up to her feet.
Tori smiled brightly as the wings retracted back into her body.
"I take it all back! Flying is way too cool!"
The rest of the group looked at her with a bit of shock. Chase let out a soft sigh.
"Well, you don't exactly fit the image of a white knight with those wings."
Tori smirked confidently.
"Hehe, then I can just be the demon king that kidnaps you, the fair maiden."
Chase rolled his eyes.
"It seems like I won't be able to do anything if you can move that fast."
Kairos decided to ignore the weird interaction these two people had with each other.
"Tori, do you still have mana to test out the wind spell?"
Tori nodded casually.
"Ah, right! That thing."
After saying that, gusts of wind began stirring around her. Her clothes flapped wildly with the wind along with her hair. These winds circulated at roughly two meters around her, thus they didn't affect the others.
Soon, the winds died down.
Kairos blinked a few times, and mentally compared that spell to his fire version.
"…Maybe I shouldn't have suggested that spell to you."
Chase let out a soft hum.
"Perhaps you could use it along with your wing spell to propel you at extreme speeds?"
Surprisingly, Tori didn't respond right away. Instead, she seemed to be in a partial daze.
"I feel like I can shift the winds in many different directions at the same time. If I get close to someone, I could probably make it really hard for them to move, then propel my katana as well."
Chase nodded.
"There seem to be a couple uses then."
Kairos hummed.
"I suppose there are a few uses, but it looks more so like a support spell."
Tori rolled her eyes.
"Why do you sound so concerned? It's my spell, and frankly, I like it."
Kairos raised both his hands up as though surrendering.
"Alright, alright."
Chase clicked his tongue.
"Damn, I want to evolve too, but I'm still missing a few points."
Tori raised a finger.
"Ah, I remember seeing a large swarm of monsters chasing something when I was flying. Let's go there!"
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Kairos raised an eyebrow.
"Chasing something? What were the monsters after?"
Tori tilted her head to the side.
"I'm not sure, it was too far away to see clearly."
Kairos sighed. He closed his eyes for a few seconds before responding.
"I suppose… we can't do much else. Let's go then."
With that, Tori led the way while the others followed. They ended up walking through several alleyways and awkward entrances because Tori wasn't the most flexible leader, but they were able to get to where they desired, which was what mattered most.
The sun was gradually beginning to hang rather low, casting the sky with a faint orange glow. In other words, it would soon become night. Soon, they started to hear the roars of monsters and the sounds of their footsteps.
Along with that, they had come across a fairly big clearing. It was a rather large parking lot, with quite a bit of scattered rubble that presumably came from destroyed buildings.
Within that clearing, were countless monsters, just like what Tori had said before. And they were all chasing something.
Or rather, someone.
It was a relatively old man holding onto a glaive, which was essentially a spear with a blade at the top of the pole instead. The pole itself was black in color, while a red tassel hung just below the blade.
As for the old man himself, he had a fairly long gray beard. His clothes seemed to be some sort of robe, but it was hard to make out what they really were because of the thick layer of blood coated over them.
There were over a hundred monsters in the parking lot alone, and all the commotion seemed to be attracting even more monsters. However, their target, the old man, didn't seem to be all that concerned.
He was jumping around rather deftly, leaping up on top of cars and twirling his glaive around, beheading many of the monsters.
The old man suddenly turned to look at Kairos and the others. From the looks of it, the sight of other people made him incredibly vigilant.
"Ni men yao si ma?"
Tori raised an eyebrow.
"Uh, what is he saying?"
Kairos blinked a few times.
"…I think he is speaking Chinese, but I can't really make anything out other than him saying something about us."
After a second, he turned to Nicole, whose eyes were open wide.
"Um, he is asking what we want."
Chase chuckled.
"I assume that it is in a sarcastic way."
Nicole scratched the side of her head before nodding.
"Yeah… should I tell him that we mean no harm?"
Kairos rubbed his chin.
"Tell him that we would like to kill some of the monsters."
Nicole nodded promptly and proceeded to convey that mention to the man, speaking in fluent Chinese. The old man seemed a little surprised once he noticed that Nicole was speaking with the proper accent as well.
He immediately became much more amicable and spoke casually while he continued to fend off the monsters coming for him.
While the two of them were talking, a few monsters from within the horde broke off from their initial target and came towards the group.
Kairos had pulled back his sharpened bone, but didn't end up swinging it.
Because a soft gleam flashed by him before all of their heads came off.
The monsters collapsed to the ground powerlessly as blood spilled out. It seemed like they didn't even realize that they had died in the first place.
Kairos turned to look at Tori, who was cringing slightly.
"…I told you it would hurt to have imbalanced stats."
Tori was holding onto the wrist of her other hand painfully, almost like she couldn't bear to hold onto the weight of the katana.
"I already knew that part!"
On the other hand, it seemed that the talk between Nicole and the old man was going rather smoothly. After a few moments, Nicole turned to the others rather excitedly.
"He said that he wasn't going to kill all of these monsters anyway, so we can join in! Also, apparently, there will be a lot of monsters when it becomes nighttime, so we get out of here soon as well."
Upon hearing that, Chase took the bow off his back.
"Alright then."
A mana string coalesced around his bow, while he reached out. However, just moments later, Chase suddenly covered his stomach with his arm. A frown formed on his face.
"Damn, I thought it healed up by now."
A bit of blood seeped out from his stomach. Though he was injured, it didn't seem like he was willing to give up on killing some of the monsters.
And as such, he pulled back on the string of the arrow using his teeth like last time. A mana arrow formed before launching forth.
A large line of monsters all had the skulls split open, but the arrow was not done after just that. It proceeded to turn around and cut through another line.
Nicole had put on her red watch and rushed in to join the fight as well.
Though she could only kill them one by one, she was able to stably do so while avoiding their attacks. Sydney joined in as well, but was far more reckless, not caring if she had gotten hit in the process of killing the monsters.
Tori also partook in the fight, but would only slash every twenty seconds or so before trying to recover. Each slash of hers would take out several monsters, but in the end, how fast she could kill things lowered considerably.
Kairos didn't want to be left behind either, thus joined in.
[Killed Creature – 0.1 points awarded] x 15
Altogether, they cleared through countless monsters, causing the corpses to stack up rather quickly. However, there was a constant flow of monsters that replaced them, making it so that they just kept coming.
It did not take long for Chase to run out of mana, leaving him standing there awkwardly with an arm on his stomach. As for Tori, she had also given up on swinging, opting to take a break to rest her arms.
Perhaps it was only Sydney that continued to gain momentum, swinging much faster compared to when she just started. Her breathing was heavy, while veins began bulging in her skin.
The sun was on the verge of setting, about to disappear altogether.
It was then the old man called out.
Nicole let out a soft gasp before passing on what he said earlier.
"He said that he's leaving now and that we should do the same!"
Kairos felt somewhat reluctant as he felt like he hadn't gotten many points at all. However, he figured there should be a reason for his advice.
"Let's find a place to take shelter then."
Everyone had begun retreating from the swarming monsters.
Well, everyone except Sydney.
It didn't seem like she had even actually heard the others speak. She was swinging her sharpened bone wildly and even using her free hand to grapple the monsters and smash them against the sides of cars.
The old man had already hopped rather far away, but didn't leave just yet. He said something, which Nicole promptly translated.
"Um, he said that we can go with him, but we need to hurry!"
Kairos looked towards Sydney and frowned slightly.
"Hold on, I'm going to try and get her to wake up."
Because Sydney was fairly deep within the group of monsters, Kairos had to rush through them to get to her. He ducked when one of the monsters tried to bite down on him and swung his sharpened bone to behead another that was charging towards him.
[Killed Creature – 0.1 points awarded]
While weaving past two claws that swung towards him, he jumped on top of a car, prompting the monsters to climb up on as well.
He stepped on top of one of their heads before leaping towards Sydney, landing rather close to her. Kairos' sharpened bone whipped around, killing all of the monsters next to him, and giving a second or two of reprieve from being attacked.
[Killed Creature – 0.1 points awarded] x 3
Then, he grabbed onto Sydney's shoulders.
"Hey, we are going now."
Almost immediately, Sydney spun around and swung her sharpened bone behind her. In his future vision, he saw the bone tear through his chest. While enduring the pain he quickly backed up, avoiding it.
At the same time, he kicked away several monsters that were approaching him before turning back towards Sydney.
"You already bit me before, are you going to do that again?"
Sydney was in the middle of swinging her sharpened bone towards him, but suddenly stopped. It seemed that those words caused her eyes to light up with both sanity and a bit of guilt.
"A-Ah! Sorry!"
Kairos let out a soft sigh as he continued to push back the monsters.
"Apologize by leaving this place already."
Sydney nodded.
"Ok!"
She ran back, rushing through the monsters rather forcefully. Though the monsters were able to slash her, they were also forced back. It was as though she had become a spearhead, leading the way and clearing a path.
Kairos followed behind and swung his sharpened bone towards any monster that was about to attack him.
[Killed Creature – 0.1 points awarded] x 5
It did not take long for them to push through the horde and appear on the other end. The old man had his eyes wide open as he saw how many ugly gashes were on Sydney's body, to the point that part of her bone was revealed.
On the other hand, while the others seemed slightly uncomfortable, they weren't all that concerned. Nicole seemed to notice the old man's reaction and quickly reassured him of Sydney's wellbeing.
The old man didn't seem to believe her at first, but after seeing how fast Sydney's wounds regenerated, he eventually nodded with widened eyes.
From there, he gestured to follow him, which everyone promptly did.
The old man deftly ducked behind a building, hopping on top of a dumpster before leaping onto a building opposite to the dumpster.
Everyone was more or less able to perform the same act, though Chase's bleeding began to worsen slightly because of the pressure he had put onto it. As for the monsters, some of them began to jump to try and chase after them.
However, most of the monsters just barely weren't able to make it to the roof. That was because they did not bother to use the dumpster to help boost them up slightly. Instead, they opted to just jump up normally.
Though that didn't mean they were completely unable to get on the roof, and the old man seemed to notice this. He gestured hurriedly to follow after him as he rushed forth. The actual roof of this place had little space compared to the large building, because there was another section, like a smaller block placed on top of a large block.
The monster ended up stacking to a point that they could jump on top of each other in order to reach the top of the roof.
Kairos made sure to kill any of them that did get up on the roof, before kicking their corpses back down, interrupting a few others that tried to jump up.
[Killed Creature – 0.1 points awarded] x 4
While that was happening, the old man picked up a ladder before setting it up on the side of the wall. He quickly climbed up while urging everyone else to do the same.
One by one, everyone climbed up. Chase cringed a little more from his wound, but didn't complain. Kairos was the last person to get to the ladder as he was taking care of the monsters behind all of them.
He ran towards the ladder once everyone else had climbed up, while several monsters followed him closely from behind. Kairos was getting ready to fight as he climbed the ladder, yet once his hands grabbed onto the bars, the old man lifted up the ladder, pulling Kairos up as well.
Upon reaching the upper roof, he looked towards the old man with a bit of surprise.
"That is a pretty smart way of doing it."
The monsters gathered on the roof, and began to stack up. However, before they could form a pile big enough to jump off of, they ended up sliding back down.
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Kairos continued watching the monsters continue to try and get up, but due to their lack of coordination, they slipped on each other and tumbled back down.
The old man had a proud smile on his face as he watched them slip back down. He said something, but it was in Chinese so the others had difficulty in understanding. Nicole let out a small laugh and responded with her own remark.
The old man raised an eyebrow then turned to Kairos.
"Eh… Thanks, thanks very much."
He slurred the "s" sounds and had to pause between each of the words, but was still able to more or less articulate the words so that they had meaning.
Kairos was a little confused, not understanding why he was being thanked.
Nicole leaned over and whispered.
"I told him that you said that was smart, and he thanked you."
Kairos turned to the old man.
"Uh… mai guan shi."
He turned to look at Nicole.
"Did I say your welcome right?"
In response, she smiled softly.
"Just a bit weirdly pronounced, but yes, you did."
The old man laughed rather heartily and began talking at a rather fast pace. Nicole nodded occasionally and would respond to him as well. As for everyone else, they were more or less standing on the roof awkwardly.
Chase lightly nudged Sydney with his elbow and spoke softly.
"Hey, do you understand what they are saying?"
Sydney smiled bitterly.
"Um, no. She learned her Chinese from her father."
She bit her lip and took a deep breath.
For a second, Chase wondered why that sounded a bit off-putting to him. Then, it suddenly clicked. The person she was talking about was dead. Not only that, but he died not too long ago.
Chase decided to keep quiet.
The rooftop was somewhat dirty, but considering the standards that they were in, it was pretty clean. Someone had taken the time to sweep the place. Along with that, was a table that had various cutlery on top.
Next to it was a rather large cooler which almost seemed like a treasure chest.
For some reason, there was even a weapons rack that held a few glaives. Next to it was one that was resting on the floor.
There were also two blankets laid out on the floor. Both of them looked used, but only one of them had large dark brown stains from dried blood.
Tori tilted her head to the side as she looked at the cooler.
"Hm… what are you doing, little one?"
"Eeep!"
A startled cry came from behind the cooler.
The old man turned to look towards the cry and seemed a little annoyed. He muttered something before getting behind the cooler and pulling out a boy. He said something before pointing at Kairos and the others.
Nicole let out a soft giggle.
"He said his name is Tai and is also nagging at his grandson to introduce himself."
The little boy bowed awkwardly, with a forced smile on his face. It was fairly clear that he was afraid and wanted nothing to do with this situation.
"Um… Hi, my name is Ling."
Unlike his grandfather, he was able to pronounce English fairly easily and with the proper accent. He had short black hair in the form of a bowl cut. His irises were hazelnut, except for this one small patch that was light blue instead. Ling had partial heterochromia. The contrast of dark and light colors made it fairly noticeable.
Kairos waved rather leisurely with his eyes slightly out of focus.
"Hey, my name's Kairos."
The others also introduced themselves, and everyone got to know each other's names. Tai would occasionally point to someone and repeat their name in a curious tone, trying to confirm if he understood it properly.
Sometimes it took a few tries, but everyone politely repeated their names for Tai to hear, prompting him to nod with a smile.
It was getting rather dark, making it difficult to see clearly, though it was still enough to make out the general figures of the environment and the figures around them.
The various growling sounds of monsters and footsteps below them began to die down.
Chase was the first to lay down with one hand over his stomach.
"I think I'm going to go to sleep a little early. If I take a watch, could it be at the end? I'm hoping my wound will heal by then."
Kairos lightly rubbed onto the side of his cheek. It definitely hadn't healed, though it seemed to be making progress. It seemed that opening his mouth to talk had delayed the process by quite a bit.
"Speaking of, I think I have to take a break from talking to heal this wound in my cheek, so I'm going to go to sleep as well. Do you guys mind taking watch?"
Tori, Sydney, and Nicole didn't seem against it.
With that, he laid down on the ground. Though, he did end up taking out a snack before he went to sleep. Tai decided to strike up a conversation with Nicole and was rather loud at first.
However, he soon quieted down after Nicole mentioned that some people wanted to go to sleep.
Ling sat down on the blanket that wasn't bloodied, but did not go to bed. He clearly wasn't comfortable enough to sleep yet.
Tai happened to turn and see him sitting on the blanket, then immediately chastised him for not giving up the blanket to one of the guests. From there, he urged Nicole to use it instead.
Ling seemed to be against it internally, but got up and out of the blankets anyway. As for Nicole, she hurriedly denied Tai, though he kept insisting.
It took Nicole to firmly state that she really did not want to sleep in the blankets that someone else had for Tai to back down.
While the two of them were having their own conversation, Tori couldn't help but talk to Ling.
"Hey, what rank are you?"
Ling seemed a little surprised that someone decided to strike up a conversation with him. He scratched the back of his head awkwardly.
"Um… what do you mean?"
In reality, he had understood the question. However, he hesitated which made him take a few extra seconds to answer, and that pause made him feel like he couldn't say the answer.
Tori blinked a few times.
"The rank that shows on your system. What else would I be talking about?"
Ling cleared his throat awkwardly.
"Ah, it's um, F with a plus at the end."
He brought up the status panel, showing its contents. Though the night was dark, the status panel was still visible to everyone. It ended up attracting quite a bit of attention, prompting the others to look at it.
The immediate thing that was noticeable was how low the stat points were.
They ranged between 1.1 and 1.5. Although it would be enough to be on par with other professional athletes before the apocalypse, as of now, it was simply far too low.
Upon seeing the status panel, Tai chastised Ling and told him to close it. Though Ling didn't really understand why, he did so.
Tai ended up breaking off from Nicole and dragged Ling to a corner. He began whispering to him, while Ling listened half-heartedly.
Suddenly losing the person she was talking to, Nicole decided to walk over to Kairos' side and sit next to him. As he began tucking away the wrappings of his finished snack, Nicole spoke up.
"Those two are really close, haha."
Kairos blinked a few times. Though he said before that he wouldn't talk, he couldn't help but do so.
"What? They are?"
Nicole tilted her head to the side.
"Ah, I guess it does look kind of weird, but this is kind of just how caregivers show their love in more asian parts of the world."
Kairos raised an eyebrow.
"By… yelling at them alot?"
Nicole shrugged her shoulders.
"Well, when you say it like that, it does sound kind of weird, but yes."
She let out a soft sigh.
"Tai is actually quite a nice person. Though he has been brought up in the traditional ways where the child would commonly be beaten if they did something wrong, he can't bring himself to hit his grandson."
Kairos rubbed his chin, pondering over it.
Nicole then pointed towards Ling.
"And as for Ling, he is always listening to what his grandpa says. In fact, if you pay attention, he is actually seeking out answers from his grandpa, using his word as a guide to follow."
Kairos turned to her with both eyebrows slightly raised in shock.
"Since when were you actually sharp?"
Nicole couldn't help but giggle.
"What do you mean, sharp? This much is obvious."
Kairos tilted his head to the side.
"…It isn't obvious to me."
Nicole shrugged her shoulders.
"Maybe it's because I was raised by a Chinese parent while you weren't."
Kairos looked down.
"I guess…"
Nicole was talking rather energetically earlier, but abruptly fell silent. She suddenly became rather lethargic.
"Haa…"
She hugged her knees and rocked back and forth slightly.
"I wish… I still had my father."
Kairos let out a soft sigh.
"He always had the best of intentions."
Nicole smiled bitterly.
"To be honest, I didn't know why I was so excited to talk with him. But now I realize it's because I felt like he somewhat resembled my father. The fact that he had a grandson amplified that fact even further."
Kairos slowly nodded to acknowledge her statement.
Nicole's breathing became ragged.
"I… I've been trying so hard not to think about it. But it keeps coming back. I-It hurts so much."
She took a few deep breaths, more or less recovering herself. Nicole then whispered so that only Kairos could hear.
"Sometimes I wonder how my mom is taking it, but I'm too afraid to ask. Not because of her response, but just because I don't want to think about it."
She ended up leaning a little closer. Not enough to touch, but enough to feel the other's body heat.
Kairos reached out and laid his hand on her knee. His lips parted ever so slightly.
"It's painful to think about, but keeping it inside would only worsen it. You have to face it eventually, so it's better to face it right now."
He then said one other part in his head.
'Though I am being a big hypocrite by saying that.'
Nicole tightly grabbed onto the hand that Kairos had placed on her knee. She bit the bottom of her lip.
"O-Ok."
Though Kairos could not see, there was something in the way that Nicole was faintly trembling that told him she was crying.
It was quiet.
Very quiet.
But Nicole was definitely crying.
Tai was still lecturing Ling, when Sydney decided to walk up and wave her hand sheepishly.
"Um, sorry, but I think it would be better to sleep now."
After being asked to, Ling translated for Tai.
Upon understanding what she meant, Tai hurriedly bowed.
"Sorry, sorry."
He ushered Ling to the blanket and slept in his own blanket.
But before everyone could fall asleep, the person who everyone thought was asleep, Chase spoke up.
"That child must make a decision."
Tai asked Ling for a translation, but the person in question didn't understand it himself.
After a few moments, Ling said it word for word.
Tai was confused and got Ling to pass on his question.
"Um, what do you mean by making a decision?"
Chase did not respond immediately, making a strange silence hang in the air.
"You are far too weak, Ling."
Everyone else was a little surprised.
Tai asked for a translation, but Ling ignored him and responded on his own.
"I can become stronger! I've been practicing with the glaive almost all day now!"
Chase sighed.
"I don't mean your stats, or your skills."
He sighed.
"When I say weak, I mean you are too naive."
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Ling seemed rather offended by Chase's statement.
"I-I'm not naive!"
Sydney smiled bitterly.
"Chase, he's just a child. What more could you expect out of him?"
Chase let out a soft sigh.
"He may only be a child, but it's not about what one should expect from a child. It's about what is required from him because of the environment."
Tai sensed the tension in the air, but could only look back and forth between Ling and Chase awkwardly due to his lack of understanding.
Tori cleared her throat.
"I uh… do think that you won't be able to stay alive long with the way you are right now."
Ling clenched his fists as they rested at his sides. There was a clear frown on his face.
"But… but…"
Kairos decided to interject.
"There is a miniature city that we came from."
Everyone quieted down somewhat, letting his voice come out a little clearer.
"In that place, people that are at the lowest rank have the opportunity to farm in order to live. It won't be the easiest as you will have to give ninety percent of everything you farm to the city, but it is the best way to guarantee a food supply."
Ling pouted.
"I don't need to become a farmer!"
Chase spoke up.
"Have you ever killed a monster yet?"
Ling crossed his arms.
"Yes!"
Chase followed up with another question.
"And was it with your old man's help?"
Ling did not respond.
Chase spoke passively.
"You can either choose to go and be a farmer for the rest of your life, or learn how to defend yourself."
Ling still seemed rather angry.
Chase continued.
"You can't rely on him forever."
Ling's expression froze on his face. It took him a little while, but he did respond.
"I… I know that."
Tai seemed to be unable to stand it at this point, grabbing onto Ling's shoulder and anxiously asking what they meant. Though he didn't seem to be the most willing, Ling complied.
He was rather timid while explaining, and by the end, Tai gave him a hug.
Nicole had calmed down somewhat and muttered lightly to Kairos.
"I'm kinda jealous, to be honest."
She sighed.
"…Are you also jealous?"
Kairos blinked a few times.
"Not really. Their situation isn't all that different from ours."
Nicole seemed a little confused.
"Eh? What do you-"
"Uh, you name Chase?"
Tai spoke up over Nicole.
Chase let out a soft hum.
"Yes."
He looked a little heavy-hearted and gave a small bow.
"Ling is… only family. I can protect."
Chase sighed.
"Ling, tell him that even if he wants to protect you, he can't. Assuming you want to live for longer than a few days, this is a choice you have to make."
Ling seemed a bit perturbed, but did so without much restraint.
Tai seemed rather worked up first, but fell silent soon after. It seemed he wanted to declare that he would be able to protect him, but soon realized that would be a fake promise.
Ling ended up asking Tai for his opinion on what choice he should make.
Tai opened his mouth.
But no words came out.
Chase did not understand the language they were speaking but was still able to make all of that out.
"You have to make the choice by yourself."
Ling frowned slightly.
"Alright! I… I will become strong enough to protect myself!"
To such a determined answer, Chase seemed rather disdainful.
"No."
Ling seemed quite confused.
"E-Eh?"
Chase sighed.
"You have made your choice far too early. This isn't something you can just make a decision on."
He paused.
"First try and see what it is really like to go out and fight. Only if you understand how that works, will you ever be able to come to a decision."
Tori tilted her head to the side.
"It almost sounds like you are the mother of that child or something."
She smiled soon afterwards.
"Hehe, glad to see my fair maiden is so caring."
Chase didn't snap back this time, opting to remain silent.
As for Ling, he took a deep breath.
"Then… I will try."
Chase closed his eyes.
"Mhm."
Then, he fell asleep.
The tense situation seemed to die down rather fast, with most of the people deciding to try and get some sleep. Nicole clenched onto Kairos' hand a little tighter.
"I guess… everyone is struggling."
Kairos muttered.
"That was always the case, even before everything went to crap."
After saying that, he decided to get some rest. Rather than tired, he was more so hungry. However, Kairos imagined that it would be really annoying to try and eat while his cheek was torn open. As such, he just hoped that it would heal by morning and that he could try again at that time.
Nicole coughed awkwardly.
"Um, I will take the first watch then."
With his head down, Kairos then tried his best to fall asleep. Though it didn't come easily, it came soon enough.
He found himself in a dream. When he first came to that realization, he couldn't help but feel afraid. After all, his previous experiences with dreams were all fairly bad and consisted mainly of the red sun.
Ironically enough, Kairos had been getting the best sleep in a while when the apocalypse had started.
Nonetheless, as unpleasant as those dreams of the red sun were, they were also a warning. As such, Kairos snapped to attention, paying close attention to his surroundings.
Though, his surroundings made it hard to care that much.
He was sitting on a bench, in the middle of a city. The streets were dirty, but they were also filled with people walking to and fro. It was definitely not the apocalypse, that was for sure.
After watching all these people walk past, Kairos gradually lost interest. He gradually discarded the possibility of this dream being a warning of some sort.
"…Huh, is this a normal dream?"
Kairos wasn't familiar with this kind of dream as it was either nothing, or a painful dream. He heard somewhere that some people thought of dreams as some sort of representation of their life or concerns.
Though he didn't see anything like that, so he just decided to lay back on the bench and relax. He figured that it might be one of the few times he could do so, even if it was actually just in a dream.
His eyes gradually shut.
Just a few moments after, he could hear someone sitting down on the bench next to him. Kairos slowly opened his eyes to be greeted by a blurry figure. It was a person that was a little taller than him, but had a similar hairstyle. As for the clothes, they were pure black and slim.
This blurry figure was quite noticeable considering that everyone else in the crowd was clearly visible.
He was looking at Kairos and waved his hand in greeting.
"Mhhm."
Like his overall appearance, even his voice was extremely blurred, making it hard to make out. Kairos blinked a few times, wondering if this was to represent something to him.
"Um, who are you?"
The blurry figure made various gestures and let out various words that sounded like intense vibrations rather than anything coherent.
After not getting a response, the figure seemed to realize that there was a problem in his form of communication. He rubbed his chin with his thumb and forefinger. After a few moments, he raised his index finger and let out a muffled gasp.
The figure seemed to come up with an idea.
It turned to look at Kairos and grabbed onto his chin. As the person being grabbed, Kairos couldn't help but feel a little uncomfortable with how touchy that person was being. Before he could say anything else, he suddenly found himself locked in place.
Suddenly, the figure's eyes lit up. They had become exceedingly clear, to the point that it was somehow more visible than everything else. They shone with a myriad of bright colors that constantly alternated and shifted. It was similar to a rainbow, but the saturation of the colors were too low for it to be considered as such.
Nonetheless, they were exceedingly bright, but not in a way that would make one want to squint. Instead, they just seemed to hold a strange kind of beauty.
It did not hold the kind of appeal that made one admire it, but rather the kind that would make one want to stare at it for a little longer, almost like they were fascinated.
That was what happened to Kairos, but right after, a mind numbing pain traveled through his entire body. It was incredibly horrible, especially so for his eyes. The pain was far greater than the time he had those dreams of the red sun. This was also taking into consideration his increased willpower which surpressed the pain by a considerable amount.
Kairos thought he would be able to finally escape those painful dreams, but it turned out that he still had one in the end.
During this painful experience, he saw many things flash by one after another. They hardly even stayed for a tenth of a second, making it extremely difficult to pick up on them as well as remember what they were. But despite the torturous pain, he focused as hard as he could on them. Kairos was able to make out a few events.
It was him in the apocalypse.
But the key thing was that they hadn't happened yet.
He could just barely make out various giant monsters, and many different forms of explosions and spells colliding with one another.
And he also saw dead people.
In particular, the ones that were in his group such as Chase, Nicole, and even Tiana.
By the time they all settled down, Kairos felt rather exhausted. There was a still lingering headache, and when he began to understand his situation, he realized that he was crumpled down on the floor.
He took in a few deep breaths as the world gradually came back into focus.
"Hey, can you hear me now?"
There was a voice from above that was quite nonchalant.
With one hand on the side of his head, Kairos looked up to see that the blurry figure had become quite clear. His eyes were still the same alternating colors that he had seen before and a cocky smile was on his face.
The people that were walking on the street didn't seem to notice Kairos' state, walking by as though they hadn't seen anything. Though, he wasn't sure if they actually couldn't see him, because he doubted anyone would actually bother sparing a glance even if they did.
With a sigh, he got back on the bench and turned to the young man sitting next to him.
"I can hear you now."
The young man clapped a few ties.
"Ah! That's great, that's great."
Kairos blinked a few times.
"It's not the greatest for me."
The young man had a shocked expression, though it was fairly clear to see that he was faking his shock.
"Well whatever could you mean by that?"
Kairos massaged his temple with the tip of his finger.
"Making someone go through that experience isn't exactly the most courteous thing."
The young man held onto his chin and looked like he was pondering.
"That's strange, I would actually think of it as a very kind thing."
Kairos waited in silence for a few seconds.
"Are you really a person in my dream?"
The young man switched back to his cocky smile faster than someone that was bipolar.
"Sort of, but not really."
Kairos clicked his tongue.
"Could you give any more of a vague answer?"
The young man laughed.
"It's complicated, alright."
Kairos sighed.
"What the hell do you want?"
That was when the young man awkwardly fell silent. After a few seconds, he opened his mouth, but then closed it again.
"Haha…"
The young man and Kairos ended up sitting on the bench for quite a while in silence.
Kairos let out a small sigh.
"Did you really do all that just for this?"
The young man still didn't speak for a while.
Kairos clicked his tongue.
"Who are you, anyway?"
The young man seemed more comfortable with this question.
"Haha, someone you know very well."
Kairos raised an eyebrow.
"…Are you my father's younger self?"
The young man rubbed his chin as though pondering over it.
"What makes you think that?"
Kairos blinked a few times.
"Well, he has some sort of ability that seems to be related to the past, and you also resemble him by quite a bit."
The young man laughed.
"I must say, it is a very reasonable guess."
Kairos' light blue eyes flickered.
"…So you aren't going to tell me?"
The young man shrugged his shoulders.
"You will figure out soon enough."
Kairos didn't really like talking to this person already.
"You are really annoying, you know that?"
The young man burst out into laughter.
"Yes, yes. It's something I've become, you could say."
Kairos adjusted his glasses.
"I don't really like the way you smile. Is that something that has become of you as well?"
The young man shrugged his shoulders.
"More or less."
Kairos rolled his eyes.
"You know, some of the people that smile all the time are completely oblivious to the real world."
The young man didn't seem offended. Rather, his tone dropped significantly.
"And some people that smile all the time, have seen too much."
He still held that same casual smile, but there seemed to be a dreary air that came with it. For some reason, Kairos couldn't help but feel unsettled.
Nonetheless, that strange air disappeared soon as the young man proceeded to laugh once more.
"Anyways… let me answer that question you had from way back, the whole reason I'm doing this in the first place."
Kairos nodded.
"Alright."
The young man paused for a few seconds.
"I just wanted to let you know, as bad as things are, they can get worse. Far worse."
Kairos blinked a few times.
"You did all that just to lecture me?"
The young man shrugged his shoulders.
"That wasn't the plan, but it somehow just turned out this way, so…"
He coughed into his fist.
"Bye."
Without so much as another word, he got up and flicked his hand in parting. Then, the young man walked away.
Kairos raised an eyebrow.
"…Weird."
He was left alone on the bench, and with that, the dream began to dissolve.
"Wake up, Kairos!"
Two tiny hands were on his shoulders and gently jostling him back and forth. He woke up to see Nicole with slightly bloodshot eyes. She seemed to have just woken up too, having difficulty in keeping her eyelids up.
Kairos snapped to attention.
"What happened?"
Nicole let out a tiny gasp.
"Your eyes are so… bright."
She quickly shook her head, wondering why she said that out of the blue.
"Ah, you finally woke up! Apparently Ling ran off, and then someone went to go find him."
Kairos was originally quite concerned but suddenly found himself not caring as much.
"Who chased him?"
Nicole rubbed her eyes.
"Um, I think Chase was the first one to go, then Tai followed soon after."
Kairos narrowed his eyes.
"Chase went?"
Nicole nodded.
"Y-Yeah!"
Kairos clicked his tongue and suddenly sat up. He still had a faint headache, prompting him to grab onto the side of his head. It was the dead of night, with only an extremely faint illumination coming from the moon.
Tori and Sydney were both standing awkwardly, seemingly concerned but not doing anything.
As for Ling, Chase, and Tai, they were all gone.
Kairos muttered to himself.
"Did this guy work at a daycare center before?"
He sighed as he got up.
"Did you guys see where they went?"
Tori sucked in a sharp breath and hesitatingly pointed in a direction.
"I… think they went this way? I was still half asleep when it all happened."
Kairos sighed.
"Then we might as well go off that to find them."
The blankets were scattered around messily, while most of the weapons on the rack had disappeared. However, there was still one more glaive there. After a second of hesitation, Kairos ended up taking it.
Tori seemed surprised.
"Eh? Isn't that theirs?"
Kairos rolled his eyes.
"They might die, why is your first priority to maintain the integrity of not being a thief?"
Tori let out a soft gasp.
"Oh."
Kairos crouched down to jump off, but suddenly froze.
It was because his future vision seemed… off.
For whatever reason, it extended further into the future. It was only for a moment, but instead of being two seconds, it was one.
And in those extra two seconds, he saw that several monsters would try to ambush him the moment he got down.
After a moment of confusion, Kairos slid his glasses a little down before opening up his status panel.
[Status]
[ID: 345315364923]
[Rank: 72/1500 Evolution Energy – 500 required for Rankup]
[Objective: Gain 428 Evolution Energy]
[Proof Of Perfection Points: 3.7]
[Stats –
Strength – 4.9
Endurance – 5.5
Agility – 4.9
Willpower – 4.9
Mana Capacity – 9.0
Magic Affinity – 7.2]
[Special Abilities: Fire Spell (F), Pulse Spell (F)]
[Inborn Abilities: Shattered Truth (F)]
[Hide]
Kairos quickly scanned through his status panel and almost missed a very tiny minute change. His inborn ability, Shattered Truth, had changed from rank F- to F rank. He couldn't help but recall the strange dream that he had, where that random person looked into his eyes like that.
There seemed to be some sort of relation there, but he couldn't spend that long pondering over it.
"Kairos?"
Nicole seemed a little confused by why he just paused. Kairos took a deep breath.
"Hold on."
He walked to a different side of the ledge, before trying to push his future vision to go longer. Kairos could feel a noticeable strain on his mind as he tried to perform this, but it wasn't too much for him.
He maintained this state for a few seconds, where he could see two seconds into the future. Then, he saw himself jumping off, and right below him were a few monsters.
From there, Kairos jumped off in reality. With the glaive in one hand, he beheaded the monster below him a little awkwardly.
[Killed Creature – 0.1 points awarded]
From there, he swung his sharpened bone to the side. A cruel crunch resounded as he pierced straight through the skull of another one.
[Killed Creature – 0.1 points awarded]
The monsters had originally been extremely silent and even took advantage of the direction of moonlight to obscure their figures in the shadow. But now, they had been found out.
It seemed that they realized this, and roared out.
Sydney was the first to jump down, slamming both her sharpened bones into the heads of the monsters. Tori and Nicole jumped off after, also dealing with the monsters. Nicole remained rather aggressive, while Tori spent a few seconds in between every attack, still having difficulty in controlling her attacks properly.
[Killed Creature – 0.1 points awarded]
Kairos killed a few creatures before looking down strangely.
"Hey."
Nicole looked over after splitting the skull of the last monster in two.
"Ah, what is it?"
Kairos rubbed his chin.
"There seems to be far more monsters than usual."
Tori looked over the ledge and let out a small gasp.
"Ah… you're right."
The streets were teeming with monsters, nearly filled to the brim like a can of sardines. There had been a horde of them before, but it was nothing compared to this.
Kairos furrowed his brows.
"How did they even get anywhere with so many of them?"
Tori tilted her head to the side.
"Maybe they were attracted by them going onto the streets."
Kairos clicked his tongue.
"…This will be a little difficult."
Far off in the distance, was a rather bright light. Because of how dark it was, it stuck out like a sore thumb. Kairos and the others took a closer look at that bright light, to find it was the glow from Chase's blue mana arrow as well as some strange sort of yellow energy coming from Tai.
Chase's mana arrows looked distinctly different from usual. Normally, he would create fairly thin ones, with the intention of piercing. However, this time, he was coalescing a large amount of his mana to create a giant arrow. Unlike normal, when it would take a matter of seconds to create the arrow, this time it was taking nearly a minute to form.
He was standing at the back, hastily retreating as he pulled back the arrow.
Ling was on Chase's back, holding on while panicking by a considerable amount. He still had a glaive on his back. And at the front, was Tai.
He was swinging his glaive like last time, but there was a far greater intensity in his strikes compared to before. Along with that, his blade was glowing with a bright orange, and every time he would swing, a bright energy would shoot out of it and continued to cut through more monsters behind.
With Tai spearheading the way, they were just barely able to push forth, but several gashes had already appeared on both Chase and Tai.
Kairos pointed his finger out towards him, letting a fireball coalesce at the end.
For a moment, he thought about releasing it closer to them so that they could cut their way back over, but then thought about the residual flames. The fire spell was quite nice because of both the initial explosion causing damage as well as the lingering flames. However, that lingering flame could easily end up damaging the people that weren't supposed to be attacked.
With that in mind, Kairos redirected the fireball to go towards where they were retreating.
As the fireball continued to expand, Tai couldn't help but freak out a little, but that didn't stop him from slicing through the monsters in front of him. On the other hand, the corner of Chase's lip turned up.
Once the fireball had expanded to become a little larger than two meters, Kairos figured that it would be enough. Although he didn't have his full mana capacity right now, it was close enough.
As such, he was rather liberal with his mana.
The fireball glowed in the dark night conspicuously, almost like the sun hadn't actually set. The visages of all the bloody monsters in the street were much more visible, with thin veins snaking across their bodies.
Kairos could feel the heat emanating contained within the fireball, which stirred up light winds that caused his clothes to flutter.
Then, he released it.
With a whoosh, the fireball snaked through the air before landing roughly twenty or so meters behind Chase and the others. An explosion shook the earth and the flames brightened the place up considerably.
[Killed Creature – 0.1 points awarded] x 40
[Multi-Kill (Type – Normal) – 0.3 points awarded]
The explosion itself made Chase sweat a little, both because of how close it had gotten as well as the heat. There was also a fire that began spreading, finishing off the monsters that were only partially charred and even claiming the lives of the monsters far off. Many painful roars emanated from the horde.
[Killed Creature – 0.1 points awarded] x 10
[Multi-Kill (Type – Normal) 0.3 points awarded]
While Chase was still charging up his mana arrow, a flaming monster rushed toward him. With a small frown Chase stuck out his foot before kicking it back into the pit of flames and letting the zombie burn alive.
It was then he called out to Ling.
"Hey, tell your grandfather to get ready to jump!"
It seemed that Ling was still in a partial daze, still too shocked to respond.
Chase frowned.
"LING!"
The sudden shout made him flinch.
Chase frowned.
"If you can't even do this, I will personally kill you right here."
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Tai furrowed his brows with confusion. Though he understood very basic English, they were just a random assortment of words that he just so happened to learn with the help of his family.
Unfortunately, one of those words was not jump.
As such, he did not understand what Chase was screaming about, and needed Ling to translate. Ling himself had been shaken up considerably, feeling too afraid to say anything.
After all, he was a child, and a very timid one at that.
When Chase yelled at him, while it did break him out of his stupor, he was still having trouble. Frankly, Ling was just not a brave person in general.
In the end, he still couldn't say anything.
Chase was panicking because the reprieve brought by Kairos' fireball would soon disappear, meaning he couldn't carry out the next part of his plan.
Though Tai didn't understand exactly what was going on, he could tell that Ling was troubled. He suppressed his grunts as he cut through the monsters.
"Ling."
Tai spoke rather solemnly, almost like he was cutting through monsters like a farmer culling wheat.
"I believe you always try best."
He spoke in English, despite the fact that they were both fluent in Chinese simply because he knew Ling was more used to it.
"I never blame you."
With broken English and in a poorly spoken accent, he spoke as best he could, trying to get the meaning out.
Ling pressed his lips together. Though it wouldn't be easy to understand exactly what his grandfather meant for the average person, he had gotten used to his broken grammar by now. As such, he fully understood what he was trying to say.
Tai was basically saying that he didn't blame Ling for all the times that he had messed up.
Although Ling had gotten quite used to being yelled at, there was still a part of him that felt insecure because of all of that yelling and berating. It made him feel quite incapable, that he should be blamed.
In fact, Ling was also the reason why his parents died.
He was too afraid to say anything when he saw the monster when he was the only one that saw it. And because of that, his parents ended up getting torn apart and eaten. Ling could only hide away and cover his ears, trying to deny the experience.
With all those thoughts in mind, he came to realize that this was not the person he wanted to be.
So even though it was scary, he spoke.
Ling told his grandfather to jump.
Tai did not understand why he was saying so, and even thought that was a terrible idea. However, he followed it without hesitation, leaping into the air and doing a backflip.
That was when Chase whipped around, with his giant mana arrow at the ready. While his hair was still in the air from the sudden turn, he let the arrow loose.
Grazing just under Tai's back, the mana arrow shot through the air, creating a miniature vacuum. While traveling through the air, it began to destabilize, becoming far bigger than it was originally and losing its form. It looked as though the arrow was actually made of sugar and began dissolving in water.
But as messy as it was, it was powerful.
It had reached over five meters in width and pulverized any of the monsters that were in its way, and even killed some of them that were just barely caught at the side.
The mana arrow gradually lost momentum as it traveled, and by the time it got close to where Kairos and the others were, it had dissipated entirely.
When Tai landed on his feet, he quickly realized what happened. A path had been cleared for them, though it would only last a little while.
Tai rushed forth, keeping an eye on the monsters nearby.
Chase followed closely from behind and spared a glance at Ling from over his shoulder.
"See? You can do it if you try."
Ling was trembling slightly.
"Y-Yeah."
The corpses of the monsters that had been hit by the mana arrow were all torn into pieces, but those pieces were pushed towards the side and had gathered quite a bit. It wasn't something that Chase was expecting, but it was a nice surprise as it made the monsters have difficulty getting over it.
However, it wasn't as though it was an actual wall, so the monsters had soon gotten past it.
Tai swung his glaive at the nearby monsters, but didn't use the orange energy this time. He was under far less pressure compared to before. Even more so than the smaller count of monsters, the fact that his footing was clear helped far more.
Earlier he had to step over the corpses he killed to make any progress, forcing him to split his attention lest he slipped.
Kairos was watching all of this happen from above. Though the people below were in danger, he couldn't help but think of all the points he had gotten. From his rough calculations, he got more than five points from just a fireball.
While he would get double from just barely entering the top ten for some achievement and he had gotten even more from recklessly killing the monsters in the freezer, those situations were different.
Kairos was quickly realizing that as one rose in rank, the difference in power between ranks grew immensely. Along with that, meant it would be harder to kill those that were at a higher rank.
As a consequence, while they would need more points to max their stats, it would also be harder to get those points. This made him incredibly tempted to cast more fireball spells, but he held himself back for now.
Kairos watched as Chase and the others ran back. A small frown formed on his face.
"…As powerful as that mana arrow was, I don't think that it was enough to get them all the way here."
The monsters were closing in again, while there was still quite some distance from the building.
Tori tilted her head to the side.
"They should be able to just barely make it. They were doing fine before too, right?"
Kairos sighed.
"But the problem is they have no reliable way of getting up here. It will be difficult to do so while surrounded by monsters."
He looked toward Tori.
"It seems that we are going to need your wing spell. Quickly add as many points as you can to mana capacity."
Tori was slightly taken aback, but acted quickly.
She opened up her status panel before pressing on the mana capacity option rapidly.
Soon, it reached from its original 1.0 to 4.2.
Kairos let out a soft sigh.
"Alright, you're going to need someone to help clear the nearby monsters so that they don't get to you instead. I will take care of that while you focus on flying the others up."
He then turned to Nicole and Sydney.
"You guys stay here, if you go down there, we will have more people that need saving."
Though Nicole seemed reluctant, she also understood that by going down there she would probably only be a burden, thus she kept her mouth shut.
Tori looked at Kairos, then at the ground.
"Alright, so when are we moving?"
In response, Kairos took a deep breath.
"Whenever I say go."
He took off his glasses and threw them to Nicole, who promptly caught them. Along with that, he set his sharpened bone down on the ground. Kairos took a deep breath, pushing his future vision to become two seconds long. The strain in his mind was immediately apparent, but that extra two seconds let him see far more.
He jumped off and used the pulse spell in his future vision, testing out how large of an effect various amounts of mana would have.
Channeling for a second and a half would kill almost all of the monsters in the vicinity, and also cause a massive crater to form on the ground. However, that was also probably a waste of mana.
He then tried it for slightly less than a second.
This had similar results, but the ground was more or less unscathed in this scenario, but the monsters were still dead.
Kairos then jumped off.
"Go."
Mana began channeling in his hand, causing a faint blue mist to appear. The monsters saw Kairos and rushed toward him, but were none the wiser to their fate.
When he was only a meter above all of the monster's heads, he let the pulse spell loose.
A deafening bang ensued.
[Killed Creature – 0.1 points awarded] x 29
[Multi-Kill (Type – Normal) – 0.3 points awarded]
The monsters underneath him were turned into bone fragments and a bloody paste, while thin cracks appeared on the pavement below.
For a second, the surrounding monsters took a step back and froze, perhaps a bit shocked by the sudden death of so many. But right afterwards, they charged in recklessly once more.
Tori landed by his side at the next moment.
Kairos pointed towards Chase and the others who were getting near.
"You take care of the monsters towards them and pick them up when they get close. Try to save as much mana as possible."
Tori nodded and faced in that direction.
Kairos preemptively rushed forth. He took into consideration that his glaive had a miniature spike on the other end, which meant he might accidentally hit Tori by accident if he didn't make some space.
He tried to recall how the old man used the glaive, holding his hands in the same position. Though, he still felt a little out of place because he didn't really know how to use the glaive.
To remedy this, Kairos extended his future vision to two seconds and tried out a slash. He was able to behead two monsters, but it still felt a little clunky. Kairos stopped himself from doing so, causing his future vision to warp.
Then, he tried something else.
In the end, he was able to try out four different swings before needing to actually act. In those swings, Kairos found that the glaive was relatively heavy, which made downward swings a little cleaner. Though he could still overpower it easily because of his points in strength.
Kairos held the glaive low, sweeping upwards in a diagonal slash before quickly following up with a diagonal downwards one.
The sound of flesh being ripped open filled the air.
[Killed Creature – 0.1 points awarded] x 5
At the same time, Tori's katana flashed.
Over ten heads flew into the air. It seemed as though the monsters didn't even realize that they had died once before it had already happened. Tori's arm was trembling fiercely after that attack, but she still held onto the katana firmly.
The monsters were pushed back, while Chase and the others had gotten closer.
Tori was panting heavily, but forced herself to swing once more. As for Kairos, he was finding it easier to use the glaive the more he did so. It quickly became apparent to him that the range it provided was very useful, especially so against these monsters.
[Killed Creature – 0.1 points awarded] x 7
That was when Tai had finally broke through the monsters, meeting up with Kairos and Tori.
He was not in good condition to say the least.
There were several claw wounds across his body and even a nasty chunk bitten out of him. Chase himself wasn't in much of a better condition. The only person relatively better was Ling, who had a few scrapes over his body.
Kairos called out.
"Take them, now!"
Tori's wings suddenly appeared out of her body. Without explaining, Tori sheathed her katana and reached out to pick up Tai. While still half in a daze, the two of them shot into the air.
Kairos sighed.
"Now all we have to do is wait for our turn."
Yet, as though that was a signal, a strange cry suddenly came out from the distance.
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The strange cry in the distance made Kairos unsettled, almost making him mess up swinging the glaive to hold off the monsters around him.
Though, as unsettled as he was, it was nothing compared to the presence his mother gave off, or even that strange monster with six eyes.
Nonetheless, it was still something to be concerned about, especially when there were so many monsters already. Honestly, Kairos thought that this could've just been an opportunity to get many free points. He hypothesized that the monsters preferred to come out at night, and was even planning to take advantage of this fact on other days.
However, it probably should've been a given that with so many monsters, a stronger one would lurk among them.
It wasn't immediately apparent as this monster didn't seem to be much larger compared to the other ones. As such, they only knew the general direction.
Nonetheless, Chase was already having extreme difficulty in dealing with the monsters next to him. Not only was he wounded badly, but he was even carrying Ling on his back.
He began panting heavily while one hand was still on his stomach. Some mana coalesced around his bow, but it quickly dispersed afterwards.
He had no mana left.
Chase frowned as he sidestepped a monster's claw.
"Could you help me out?"
Kairos clicked his tongue.
"Alright, alright."
After slashing the monster in front of him, he gathered mana for a pulse spell. His free hand shot out behind him, going underneath Chase's arm.
An ear-piercing bang rang out.
[Killed Creature – 0.1 points awarded] x 15
The monsters were blown away, blasted into pieces by his pulse spell. Chase let out a soft sigh.
"Thanks."
The strange cry from earlier resounded once more, but this time it sounded more aggressive. It seemed attracted by the pulse spell.
A faint glimmer appeared in the sky, quickly followed by several more. Or at least, that was what Kairos saw at first. After taking another closer glance, he could see that they were actually pitch black spikes.
They emanated at a spot roughly fifty or so meters away, growing erratically. The spikes were almost like the branches of a tree, growing out before changing directions randomly and splitting off at random sections.
Kairos clicked his tongue.
"Could you hurry up, Tori?"
"I'm trying my best here!"
Tori landed down on the ground next to them. She immediately noticed how badly Chase was hurt and ran over to pick him up. Yet, when she tried to pull him up, Tori couldn't help but cry out in pain.
Her wrists were too badly damaged from her reckless swinging earlier.
She shot a glance towards Ling, who was on Chase's back.
"I can't carry you both, get off!"
Chase frowned, and forcefully pushed the hands holding onto him, making Ling fall to the ground.
"Take the kid first!"
Tori flinched. She looked towards the kid, who only had minor wounds on him, then at Chase who seemed to be at his dying breath.
Then without saying another word, Tori picked Chase up by the shoulders, flying into the sky.
Chase seemed against it, saying something, but his voice was caught by the wind.
Kairos let out a relieved sigh and continued to cut through the monsters around him, gaining a decent amount of points. As for Ling, he took the glaive off of his back, holding it in the proper position along with the right footwork.
It was clearly something he had practiced quite a bit.
Unfortunately, while he was proficient in using the glaive, the only thing he could do was tremble while the monsters continued to close in. Kairos noticed this, and if he was willing to get hurt a little, he was fairly certain he would be able to protect the boy.
However, he did not even try.
A monster lunged toward Ling, about to bite down on him. Kairos fully expected to see him die. Yet, that did not happen.
Ling suddenly snapped out of it at the last moment, swinging the glaive in a smooth curve, beheading the monster in front of him. Warm blood splashed onto his face, and he seemed to be in slight shock that he had actually done that, but did not have the time to do so considering that many more monsters were approaching him.
Despite the situation looking unfavorable, Ling was able to bring himself to swing the glaive and kill the monsters around him. His strikes were neither fast, nor strong. However, he truly did have an extremely refined technique that let him get past these barriers to kill the monsters anyway.
Kairos raised an eyebrow while watching this. He supposed that he had underestimated Ling, but still didn't care too much for him. Not even Nicole needed so much encouragement to start attacking, thus in his eyes, Ling would have many problems in the future.
Tori did not delay in coming back down to fly another one of them back up.
Though it put a relatively heavy burden on his mind, Kairos was still maintaining his extended future vision, letting him see two seconds ahead. And that was when he saw Tori get skewered by the strange black branches from earlier.
It seemed that she hadn't seen the faint glimmer that they gave up.
Kairos immediately called out.
"Stay back!"
Tori did as told, suddenly stopping her descent.
"But why?"
Kairos clicked his tongue.
"There are some strange black spikes in the air, you will get caught by them if you come closer!"
Tori furrowed her brows, but let out a gasp soon after.
"I see them! They… are moving around really fast though. I should be able to dodge them."
Kairos frowned.
"Are you sure?"
Tori shrugged her shoulders.
"If I don't, then who's gonna save you?"
Kairos could not argue with that point, but other problems soon found him. With a clear bang, one of those black branch-like things slammed into the ground, cracking the pavement.
Though it seemed quite strange, because it was over three meters away from Kairos and Ling. Not to mention, it did not even hit a monster.
However, as though to answer the confusion, several more of these black branches rapidly slammed into the ground, all three meters away from Kairos. In just a second or so, a circle of black branches had surrounded them.
Though it was made to be like a cage, all of the black branches were spaced out to be about half a meter away from each other. Even someone with particularly wide shoulders wouldn't find it too difficult to squeeze past them.
Kairos had seen this happen in his future vision, but gave up on escaping it because there were simply too many monsters in the way.
The monsters outside of the cage seemed to want to approach Kairos, but were also too scared to enter it. As for the ones already in the cage, their movements became a little sluggish, but were otherwise unaffected.
Kairos wasn't exactly sure what had changed, but made swift work of the monsters around him. Ling did the same and was panting heavily by the end.
They had finally gotten time for a breather.
The roars of monsters were coming from all around them, yet none of them decided to take a step into the cage that had formed. Though it was technically not the worst situation in the world, Kairos felt it would still be better to break out.
In his future vision, he channeled his pulse spell.
However, he quickly found an extremely strong rebound force, causing his arm to explode into a mass of blood and flesh.
Kairos immediately stopped himself from channeling the mana as he tried to shake off the prickly sensation of pain that continued to reverberate in his arm. With the feeling of needles piercing his skin, he quickly turned to Tori and called out.
"Don't come!"
Tori had taken a long route around to avoid the black branches in the air. She intended to slip past the entrance of the cage to pick them up, but stopped in the air.
"What? Why?"
Kairos frowned deeply.
"There is something wrong with the mana in here, if you come in, you will be hurt very badly."
Tori blinked a few times in surprise.
"Then what do we do about you and Ling?"
Kairos clicked his tongue.
"I'll just have to figure something out! You go back for now and conserve your mana. There's no point in more of us getting trapped here."
Tori hesitated for a second, but ended up flying back up anyways. Kairos imagined she would get an earful from Chase who suddenly took a liking to some random kid, but did not bother himself with it right now.
After all, his situation was worse.
Several of the monsters in one direction suddenly stiffened up awkwardly. Their limbs bent at strange angles, clearly not in the way that the body was supposed to be.
Suddenly, their skin distorted. Then, numerous black spikes burst out from all of their bodies, causing blood to spew out. The monsters split up into tiny pieces and fell onto the ground, leaving a black spike structure behind that looked awfully close to a tree. The other monsters all coordinated in taking a step back, despite being such a large horde.
The black spikes slowly sunk into the ground, and then revealed the thing responsible.
It was very noticeable compared to the rest of the monsters. That was because this one was not red, but mostly black, with a few thin white veins visible. The face of the creature was a pale white, while a casual smile rested on its face. As for its eyes, they were bright green, seemingly glowing in the night. It also had short green hair that matched with its eyes.
As for the body, the proportions made it seem as though it was tall, with lanky limbs. However, it was actually quite short relative to other monsters, not even reaching two meters in height.
For a second Kairos thought that it might've been a human. However, the countless black appendages extending out from its body made him think differently. It was far more creepy looking than any tarantula could be.
This strange creature was roughly ten or so meters away, and was slowly walking towards them.
Ling couldn't help but tremble like a sheep.
As for Kairos, countless things flashed through his mind. He was quite confident in his strength, even if it was far from the peak. However, that was with the consideration that he could cast spells.
Without that, he wasn't so sure anymore.
Unfortunately, that was the situation he found himself in.
After gritting his teeth painfully, he decisively opened up his status panel.
[Status]
[ID: 345315364923]
[Rank: 72/1500 Evolution Energy – 500 required for Rankup]
[Objective: Gain 428 Evolution Energy]
[Proof Of Perfection Points: 17.3]
[Stats –
Strength – 4.9
Endurance – 5.5
Agility – 4.9
Willpower – 4.9
Mana Capacity – 9.0
Magic Affinity – 7.2]
[Special Abilities: Fire Spell (F), Pulse Spell (F)]
[Inborn Abilities: Shattered Truth (F)]
[Hide]
He had garnered quite a few points from killing the monsters earlier. It had been a while since he had so many.
And then, Kairos added all of his points into physical stats while the creature was still slowly walking forth.
[Strength: 4.9 – 11.0 Points: 17.3 – 11.2]
[Endurance: 5.5 – 10.0 Points: 11.2 – 6.7]
[Agility: 4.9 – 11.6 Points: 6.7- 0]
Despite his rushed actions, the creature did not seem all that concerned, still approaching at the same pace. On the other hand, Kairos' body reddened significantly, to the point that he matched the same hue as the monsters.
Sweat poured down his face messily, while his skin wrapped around his muscles tightly. Nearly all of the fat of his body disappeared, which almost made him look like a model of a human with their muscles exposed.
However, Kairos could not sense all of this.
Rather, the only thing he could, was an unbearable hunger.
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Kairos did think of the fact that spending so many points would make him extremely hungry, but he figured that he could deal with that later and fight with the creature right now. Considering that he had already been hungry because of how little he had eaten before, the effects were magnified several times over.
Unfortunately, he had vastly underestimated the effects of using so many points and overestimated his own capability to withstand it.
In fact, it seemed that his body was on the verge of breaking down because of excessive energy consumption, and he didn't even have his backpack with all his food in it. Kairos began to regret his decision, but also did not think that his current stats were even enough.
He was hoping to somehow be able to bear it, but that turned out to be too much for him.
Kairos couldn't even make sense of the world around him, or even his own actions. What he did not realize was that he had begun crawling on all fours, toward one of the monsters' dead corpses.
In his blurry state, he was vaguely aware that his mouth had been opened. Driven by his instincts, he could not stop himself from biting down.
Since Kairos still had a hole in his cheek, blood and chewed-up flesh ended up spilling out from that side. Nonetheless, he was forcefully shoveling hard enough that most of the flesh and blood went down his throat instead.
And like this, Kairos began eating the flesh of the monsters like an animal. He ripped and tore through it with his teeth and hardly bothered to chew before swallowing. The monster's flesh was quickly disappearing, and it did not take long for him to reach the bone of the arm and the rib cage too.
There was still a bit left to eat from that monster, but Kairos had no need to be picky. There were several corpses stacked up here, thus he took giant bites out of all these fresh corpses. He was being even more wasteful than actual monsters themselves.
If someone ate chicken wings like this and posted a photo of the aftermath on the internet, they would be heavily condemned.
It did not take long for Kairos to get through nearly all of the corpses below him. And by the end, he was a bloody mess. It was even difficult for him to open his eyes, while the feeling of his clothes sticking to him felt quite uncomfortable.
However, by the end of it all, he seemed to recover some semblance of sanity.
Kairos gradually took in the situation around him.
Ling pressed himself up against the very edge of the miniature cage they were stuck in. It seemed that he had tried to slip through the gaps, but was unable to for whatever reason. As for the creature that created the cage in the first place, it was just a few steps away now.
Kairos' status panel was still open next to him through the entire thing.
[Status]
[ID: 345315364923]
[Rank: 467/1500 Evolution Energy – 500 required for Rankup]
[Objective: Gain 33 Evolution Energy]
[Proof Of Perfection Points: 0]
[Stats –
Strength – 11.0
Endurance – 10.0
Agility – 11.6
Willpower – 4.9
Mana Capacity – 9.0
Magic Affinity – 7.2]
[Special Abilities: Fire Spell (F), Pulse Spell (F)]
[Inborn Abilities: Shattered Truth (F)]
[Hide]
Along with his now increased stats, despite being in a muddled state, something else stuck out to him like a sore thumb.
[Rank: 467/1500 Evolution Energy – 500 required for Rankup]
He remembered that it was not too long ago that he didn't even have a hundred evolution energy, yet here he was with nearly five hundred, just about ready for the energy he needed to rank up.
If Kairos wasn't careful with how he managed his evolution energy in the future, then he may find himself exceeding his cap without having the points he needed to properly evolve.
Though, that was a problem for the future. As of right now, he had to somehow deal with the lanky creature in front of him.
For whatever reason, the creature did not act right away. Instead, it simply observed Kairos with its bright green eyes that were dazzling like emeralds.
Kairos tried to extend his future vision, but the pain in his mind was far too sharp, making him lose focus, making it not worth the effort. He had already abused it too much, making the mental burden too much for him to bear, especially because he did not have his glasses on.
Nonetheless, a second was still nothing to scoff at, though it still hurt his mind. The newly added stats made Kairos feel like an entirely new person, like his strength could allow him to easily overpower many new things.
But he was also pretty sure that was a delusion caused by his sudden increase in status points.
While the creature was still staring at him, Kairos decided to try and forcefully break through the cage in his future vision.
After pulling back the glaive that now felt like a feather, he whipped it forth.
Then it snapped.
Kairos hurriedly stopped himself from swinging the glaive in reality, quickly realizing that while the glaive was well made, it was still a normal weapon. It wasn't made to withstand so much strain.
The lanky creature slowly tilted its head to the side as it observed them. Its pale white face almost looked like it was lighting up in the dark.
Kairos decided to try something else, balling his hand into a fist. He bent down on one of his knees to prepare for his next strike. Then, in his future vision, he bolted forth before slamming his fist against the black branch.
The immediate sensation was like hitting steel. The black branch had cracked, but Kairos felt like something cracked in his own arm as well.
He quickly stopped himself from doing so in reality, then began sweating.
It seemed that he should've put more points into strength in order to break down the branches, but it was too late for regrets now.
Kairos then tried to rush through the gap between the black branches, mostly to see what would happen if he did.
There wasn't anything that repelled him directly, but he could feel his body being sapped of the mana inside. He didn't think anything of it at first, but he could feel that he was losing something else along with that mana.
As such, Kairos once again stopped himself from performing such an action in reality.
In the end, he decided his only chance was to forcefully break the black branches, though it would probably set the creature off. With that in mind, he pushed off the ground before slamming his fist against the branch opposite to the creature.
A dull bang rang out along with a soft crack.
Kairos could feel that his fist was trembling ever so slightly while a strong pain snaked through the bones in his hand. The black branch gave in ever so slightly, but it was not enough to break it.
And as for the creature, the casual smile on its face quickly turned into a frown.
It let out an ear-piercing strange cry. The pavement below Kairos began cracking, spreading out very quickly.
Seeing this, Kairos ignored the pain and punched the black branch once more.
This time, it shattered completely. The skin on Kairos' knuckle had peeled back, revealing his flesh, but he could care less about that right now. In his future vision, he saw that the ground below him caved in, becoming a giant sinkhole.
Seeing this, he did not hesitate in leaving through the hole he had made before jumping up into the air.
Right as he did so, the sinkhole formed, and Ling ended up falling down it helplessly.
Kairos focused on getting as much horizontal distance as possible to get out of the range of the sinkhole, but as he was flying through the air, he suddenly stopped in place while a strong pain filled his chest.
The black branches snaked through the air and pierced through him.
Kairos saw it happen, but there was essentially nothing he could do because he was mid-air. The mana in his body began seeping into that black spike, and it felt as though his vitality was being sapped away as well. He couldn't help but feel a sense of despair from his situation. He could vaguely hear some concerned cries coming from the building above.
In fact, Tori even ended up flying down to try and save him.
But it was too little too late.
The black spikes dragged him down the sinkhole, plunging him into darkness.
Kairos attempted to struggle the entire time, but it seemed like the black branch that pierced through him doubled as a form of restraint, locking up the functions of his body.
He even decided to try and channel his mana to form a spell, but he saw that in his future vision that his body would only implode if he attempted that.
In the end, Kairos could only be taken away.
He could tell that he was moving very quickly, and it wasn't just in the downward direction. It seemed that the creature was taking him away somewhere, but as for where that was, he did not know.
Quite a bit of time passed by.
Though Kairos couldn't tell how much it was, at the very least a few hours had passed. The entire time, he was skewed to the black branch. Thankfully, it didn't seem to be draining his mana during the travels.
But then, it stopped moving.
And with that, Kairos felt his mana and vitality slowly begin to drain. Naturally, he didn't want to just sit there and take it, but no matter how hard he struggled, his limbs just wouldn't move faster than a sloth.
It had been a while since Kairos had felt this powerless.
He was beginning to give up hope.
But just as that sentiment arose, he could feel someone grab his hand. It was a tiny hand, but one that held conviction as it yanked on him.
Kairos burst out of the ground and was greeted with the face of Ling, who had one eye closed. The eye that Ling had open was the one with partial heterochromia, half light blue, half hazelnut. Upon pulling Kairos out, his other eye fluttered open.
He still looked nervous, but seemed a bit relieved upon seeing a familiar face.
Kairos immediately felt control over his own body coming back to him. The glaive that he had on him from earlier was lodged into his leg, causing quite the messy wound. He hadn't actually realized he had been pierced until seeing it for himself.
Kairos blinked a few times.
"Thanks."
Ling did not respond. Instead, he looked in a certain direction with fear.
Kairos followed his gaze to see the creature from earlier, but it was not facing him as of now. It seemed to be tending to something, but as for what, that was not clear.
Kairos decided to take this time to take in his surroundings.
They seemed to be on some sort of field, covered with grass. All around them were these black trees coming up and out of the ground. They looked quite unsettling as each of them vaguely had the pattern of a distorted face on their bark.
As for the leaves that came out of these trees, they were very thin, like hair, and were also red in color.
Kairos' gaze shifted up, and that let him see a person.
It was a young man skewered by the black branches, like Kairos was. His eyes were wide open, while a thin line of blood was overflowing from his mouth.
It was hard to tell, but the man was still alive.
After a few moments, the creature let out a strange cry, and the body slowly descended from the air before being buried into the ground underneath a sapling.
Then, it began to grow as a face formed on the bark and red leaves appeared as well.
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Kairos narrowed his eyes as he watched the young man essentially turn into a tree.
It seemed like that would've happened to him if Ling didn't pull him out.
As for the lanky creature, it was still working away doing random things such as stroking the red leaves of the tree or patting the soil. It would be very fitting if the creature began casually humming.
For whatever reason, the creature didn't seem to notice them even though they weren't the quietest or sneaky about things.
Kairos frowned and looked down at his leg. The handle of the glaive he took earlier was comfortably sitting in his leg. With a frown, he began pulling it out. Though he imagined this would exacerbate the healing, he would rather have a weapon right now.
The stress in his mind was still pretty bad. On top of that, most of his mana had disappeared, not solely from casting the spells, but because those black branches had drained it out of him.
Kairos definitely had the option to extend his future vision to two seconds and considering it was a dangerous situation, there was also reason to do so. However, he did not have his glasses with him. They were with Nicole.
As such, he could quickly find himself needing to close his eyes just so that he wouldn't blackout from the stress if he abused it.
Kairos took in a deep breath as he took the glaive out of his leg, feeling it grind past his leg bone. As expected, the bleeding got much worse, but that was not enough to stop him. Eventually, he was able to pull the entire thing out, and his blood began seeping into the ground.
Ling looked surprised at his actions, but did not say anything, opting to stand still.
Kairos took a deep breath and pulled the glaive back.
In his future vision, the creature didn't notice anything at first, but as Kairos' blood continued to seep into the ground, it suddenly froze in place awkwardly.
From what Kairos could tell, there was no time, thus he acted.
In his future vision, he threw the glaive, causing it to shoot with frightening velocity. Unfortunately, numerous thin black branches shot out of the ground, creating a net that blocked it. There was a tiny gap, but the blade was too large, causing it to bounce off.
Kairos immediately stopped himself from throwing the glaive in reality, while the creature slowly turned around. There was a confused look that shone through its bright green eyes.
Though it quickly turned into a deep frown.
Adrenaline shot through Kairos' worn down body, allowing him to move quicker. Without hesitation, he broke the glaive on his knee in half, doing so without much difficulty because of his strength.
Ling looked rather distraught, but he couldn't care less right now.
Then, he took the half of the glaive that only had a tiny sharp end before throwing it with all his strength. That broken half of the glaive whipped through the air like a bullet, tearing through the air.
Numerous black branches shot out through the ground, while the creature itself tried to move out of the way. However, despite being in a life-threatening situation, the creature moved incredibly slowly, essentially making no distance in the time that the broken glaive took to travel.
Kairos saw in his future vision that it pinged off one of the branches, thus he quickly stopped himself from throwing it in reality. Then, with the memory of where the branches were, he tried once more.
The same events occurred, but this time the glaive slipped through a tiny hole before piercing straight through the creature's head.
Green blood spilled out of its head as it snapped backwards. The mini spear had pierced through rather easily, while the shaft ended up stuck halfway through.
For a few moments, Kairos panicked as he did not see the notification that told him he had killed the creature.
However, it seemed that the damage done was quite significant.
Because its head had snapped backwards, it ended up looking into the sky, almost like someone that was asking god for the meaning of their life.
Green blood continued to drip down its face before it eventually began tilting as though it was blown down by some sort of light wind. With a light thump, it landed on the ground.
Ling stammered.
"I-Is it dead?"
Kairos blinked a few times.
"You're going to jinx it, you know?"
But as though wanting to contradict him, a system message popped up.
[Killed Creature (Challenge Kill – One Rank Superior to Killer) – 0.3 points awarded]
It seemed that while this particular creature was incredibly strong, it also had glaring weaknesses, such as its lacking mobility and incredibly weak body.
Kairos sighed.
"Well, I guess we survived without too much difficulty."
Yet, right after he said that, his face twitched awkwardly.
Kairos instinctively moved to the side, pushing hard on the leg that was gushing out blood. Right when he did so, a black branch shot out of the ground and towards the spot he just was.
He furrowed his brows intensely both from the pain from his leg as well as the confusion on how they were still moving.
That was when numerous ear-piercing screeches began ringing out one after another. The faces on the black trees began twisting as though they were real faces twisted in agony.
Kairos couldn't help but mutter to himself.
"It seems I jinxed it."
Countless black branches burst out of the ground, but thankfully they weren't necessarily targeted at him. In fact, Ling froze in place and just so happened not to get hit by any of them.
Kairos grit his teeth as he threw his body to the side, evading another black branch.
The black branches thrashed around, smashing up large amounts of soil and also hitting other black trees. One thing Kairos noticed was that some of them seemed to be peeling away at their own bark, as though wanting to kill themselves.
While Ling didn't have much trouble coincidentally evading the black branches, Kairos was constantly on his toes, forced to move around like he was stepping on hot coals.
Though it really did feel like he was stepping on hot coals because of how much pain his leg was experiencing in the process. Kairos was confident that he could endure it, but the fact that his body was taking damage by this process was inevitable.
He had tried to swing the other half of the broken glaive to break some of these black branches, but found that while he would be able to break through the branch, the part connecting the blade would be heavily damaged, cracking in the process.
He figured that it would just barely be able to destroy two branches before becoming useless, and thus didn't want to recklessly do so.
Though, it would be wrong to say that he had the luxury to wait around still.
Kairos slowly made his way toward one of the trees, dashing from side to side to avoid the branches shooting out of the air. Then, he swung the glaive horizontally, trying to cut it down.
A dull thump resounded.
The glaive ripped through the tree messily, but was just barely able to get through most of it, while the remaining part ended up falling on its own.
The trunk of the black tree wasn't nearly as hard as the roots, but because of the overall thickness, it still put heavy pressure on the part connecting the glaive and handle, causing a few cracks to form.
The tree had been cut down.
But unfortunately, the tree itself was still shrieking, while the black branches continued to move around with the same vigor it had before.
While Kairos was cursing internally, he caught Ling trying to say something from the corner of his eye. His head snapped to the side to look, and Ling was indeed mouthing something.
However, the loud shrieking drowned out any sound he made completely.
Kairos frowned before yelling.
"If you have something to say, speak louder! I can't hear you!"
He then whipped his head back, dodging a branch that shot down from the sky.
As for Ling, he did try to speak up, but it made no real difference.
Kairos grit his teeth.
"For fuck's sake, can you at least try to be louder?"
It was then Ling finally spoke up loudly enough for Kairos to just barely hear. In fact, he had missed most of it the first time, but because of his future vision, he was able to hear it twice and just barely piece together the message.
'I think you have to hit them higher.'
Kairos narrowed his eyes as he twisted his leg to avoid another black branch.
"Where exactly? And speak louder if you even slightly care about us making out of this alive."
Ling hesitated for a second, but thankfully spoke loudly enough.
"A little bit above their faces! There's a thing there!"
Kairos' gaze snapped to the tree he had just cut. The branches at the top continued to thrash around while the thin red leaves that made it up trembled almost like it was shivering from the cold.
As for the face, it was just above the place where he had cut.
Kairos decided to follow Ling's advice, putting all his strength into the glaive and cutting just above the face.
The result was a bright blue explosion once the glaive got halfway through. The tree had exploded, scattering black bark everywhere. Kairos was able to block most of it, while Ling had gotten cut up a bit.
As for the branches at the top of the tree, they stopped moving entirely. On top of that, several branches that had shot out of the ground suddenly fell limp.
The pressure Kairos faced fell significantly as the number of attacks in this area decreased greatly with the death of the tree. Unfortunately, the glaive ended up breaking in the process of cutting that one down. Not only did the blade snap off the hilt, but it even cracked itself.
Kairos walked over to Ling.
"Where is your weapon?"
With a small pout, Ling lowered his head.
"I don't know."
Kairos furrowed his brows.
"Where did it go?"
Ling scratched the back of his head.
"When I fell down that giant hole that formed earlier, I saw these bright lights coming for me and swung my glaive at it, but then they wrapped around the handle and dragged me away. I held on for super long and let go once we came above ground, but the glaive was buried somewhere underneath.
Kairos blinked a few times, shifting his gaze towards Ling's hands. They were severely reddened and even bloodied from the torn skin. In fact, there were even red marks on his arms.
It was clear that he held on desperately.
One small thing that Kairos had picked up on earlier was what Ling had said about bright lights. Though it didn't seem particularly important, he found that it was strange. After all, there shouldn't have been any lights from what he could remember.
"What do you mean by lights?"
Ling blinked a few times.
"Um… the bright blue stuff around us."
Kairos looked around, and did not see what he was mentioning.
"I don't see that."
Ling seemed slightly surprised.
"Eh? Really?"
Kairos rubbed his temple with the tip of his index finger.
"Yes, why would I be lying to you in this kind of situation?"
Ling furrowed his brows.
"…Oh. I think…"
He tapped the side of his head a few times.
"One of my eyes can't actually see."
He pointed towards the eye with partial heterochromia, the one that was half blue and half brown.
"But even if I close the other eye, I can see these blue flowy things in the air."
Kairos raised an eyebrow.
"…You can see mana."
Kairos furrowed his brows, thinking about the implications of a person being able to see mana. Ling didn't seem to understand what he was talking about at first, but as he began pondering it, his eyes lit up in realization.
"Oh… that makes so much sense then. That's why nobody ever saw those bright lights like me."
Kairos couldn't help but feel a little baffled, as it sounded like this was an ability Ling was born with, yet he couldn't even tell that he had it after so long.
Nonetheless, he wasn't going to spend this time questioning the kid's intelligence.
"…What kinds of blue lights do you see?"
Ling looked around the place.
"There is like, a ball just above their faces, which then goes into a lot of tiny little strings that go up and down."
Kairos rubbed his chin.
"How big is the ball? Show me with your hands."
Ling scratched the back of his head.
"Uh…"
He held his two hands apart to be roughly ten or so centimeters apart. Kairos couldn't help but raise an eyebrow, thinking that they were quite tiny for the size of an explosion that happened earlier.
Then, Kairos looked out towards the other trees that were still relentlessly destroying everything around them. Though now that he had some time to look around, there was one tree that had remained still. It was the one that had just grown, the one that Kairos and Ling watched grow from a person.
He walked over to it.
The face seemed to be in agony, but more than that, it showed confusion. Kairos wanted to test something on this tree, but he still needed some sort of weapon to do so. He considered his options, but there really weren't many at all.
However, he did think of one.
Kairos pulled out the red prism from his pocket. Thankfully, it hadn't fallen out yet.
He saw its status panel appear.
[Status]
[ID: 1/10]
[Energy: 1/1000]
His face twitched when he saw the incredibly low energy value. He remembered when he last used it to clear out a space, it had run out of energy entirely. The fact that it was one right now thankfully meant that it could recover on its own, but it seemed that the rate was unbearably slow.
Kairos sighed, but was thankful that it even had energy in the first place. From there, he began growing a thin pole out of the ground with sharp ends on both sides.
Ling seemed rather fascinated, but also creeped out.
That was probably in consideration with the red veins bulging around it.
Kairos focused on creating a suitable length while maintaining sharp ends. He also wanted to make it thicker, but found he could only just barely do so before running out of energy.
In the end, he made a rod that was very thin and had two sharp ends, one of which was lodged into the ground. It was essentially a miniature spear.
Kairos wrapped one hand around the hilt, and immediately felt uncomfortable. This was in part because of how thin it was, but also because of the bulging red veins that appeared on it.
He then casually attempted to pull it out, but to his surprise, it remained in place even though he tugged on it with a decent amount of strength.
Kairos furrowed his brows before clenching a little more tightly, causing his knuckles to whiten. With a muffled grunt, he pulled hard onto it.
His hand began trembling, while his feet actually began sinking into the ground. Though it was dirt underneath him, it was tightly packed. In fact, the black roots of the trees underneath actually made it even more solid, despite all of their thrashing around.
Yet, the spear did not even budge.
Kairos clicked his tongue before wrapping both arms around the spear and taking on a proper stance to pull it out. Even when using everything he had, the spear was unbelievably difficult to pull out.
However, he could just barely feel some give.
Kairos wasn't sure if it was his imagination, but considering he felt that tiny bit of movement twice, he was fairly sure that it was working.
And so, he continued to pull with more enthusiasm.
By now, both of his feet were submerged in the ground. On the other hand, several cracks had formed in the earth around the spear. These cracks originated from the spear's location and snaked outwards.
It was then that the very earth itself was pulled up.
And finally, when Kairos nearly found himself knee-deep in the earth, the spear had come out. He was panting heavily by the end and took some time to inspect his newfound weapon.
"…I never knew the Excalibur was a spear."
Ling let out a surprised gasp.
"Eh? It is? But it looks a lot like a sword."
Kairos looked at him strangely before ignoring him. It seemed like the spear was somehow attached to most of the ground beneath it, despite being so thin.
Kairos couldn't help but wonder how difficult it would be to uproot a large platform created by this red prism if it was so hard to do so for such a tiny spear. Though it was definitely inconvenient for him in this situation, he couldn't help but feel assured that a base created with this red prism in the future would be very strong.
Kairos let out a soft sigh as he tested swinging the spear around. It made very clear whipping sounds as it traveled through the air. Though it was very thin, it still had some weight to it. Not an exaggerated amount, but definitely more than one would expect from its size.
Kairos then looked at the black tree in front of him that still seemed confused.
"Sorry about this, but it would probably be better for you anyway."
He looked at Ling.
"Can you put your hands on the tree to show me the size of the blue light you see?"
Though confused, Ling compiled, putting his hands roughly ten centimeters away on top of the tree's face.
Kairos then rested the side of his spear at the top of where Ling indicated it.
"Alright, step back."
Ling hurriedly stepped back, watching on in curiosity.
Kairos gradually pulled back the spear, but made sure to keep it at the same elevation. Then, the spear whipped through the air.
An uncomfortably loud snap filled the air from the sound of a sonic boom.
The spear ripped straight through the tree, appearing on the other side rather easily. The severed half of the trunk did not immediately fall down. Instead, it abruptly shifted to the side while still on top.
Then, it gradually began tilting from the force of gravity before smashing onto the ground.
The face on the trunk of the tree didn't seem to realize what just happened, but still seemed rather aghast, like it could somehow sense that something bad had happened to it.
Kairos nodded to himself as he looked at the spear. The red veins had been damaged, but they were already regenerating and had recovered completely by the next second.
Because of how thin yet durable the spear was, it could also double as a sword.
After that, he climbed on top of the newly formed stump and took a look at the thing in the center.
There was a bit of light green faintly glowing in the center.
Kairos gently pried around it with his spear, pushing away the bark to reveal more of it. What he discovered was that the tree had a small green ball inside of it. After a few more moments of observing it, he forcefully dug through it.
Kairos was definitely not showing the proper care considering that this thing exploded on him last time, digging away without much concern.
This was because of his future vision.
However, to Ling, it seemed as though Kairos was completely unafraid. At first, Ling thought he was being a fool, but seeing as nothing happened, his opinion shifted to Kairos being an expert.
It really wasn't that though.
Kairos had accidentally damaged the green orb earlier and quickly stopped himself, but realized that damaging the green orb wouldn't cause it to explode while exposed to air. Instead, a cyan liquid would rush out very quickly but was otherwise harmless.
Once most of the green orb had been exposed, Kairos grabbed onto the orb and began to pull.
The tree below him suddenly started screaming in agony. The branches that had been unresponsive all this time suddenly started to thrash around, though their coordination was quite off, sometimes jittering around in place, and other times awkwardly bending in random directions.
Kairos obviously knew that the tree was in pain, but that didn't seem to concern him. In reality, he saw this as mercy. While the tree seemed to be calmer than the rest, it would probably end up freaking out like the rest once it realized it had become a tree.
With those thoughts in mind, he pulled out the green orb.
[Killed Creature – 0.1 points awarded]
The tree suddenly stopped moving, and the black branches fell limp.
Ling shivered and shifted his gaze away slightly so that he wasn't directly looking at Kairos, but enough so that he could still see.
As for Kairos, he took a closer look at the green orb in his hand.
He didn't actually have the slightest clue what it was, but the reason he went through all this effort to extract it was because of the potential offensive nature. After all, the explosion from earlier was enough to shatter the blade of the glaive.
Unfortunately, it seemed that the explosion was mostly caused by built-up pressure, so they wouldn't really be able to work as bombs by themselves.
However, Kairos wasn't willing to give up on it yet, as shown by him holding it in his hand.
When he had punctured it accidentally earlier in his future vision, he couldn't help but think about drinking whatever liquid it was. Though that kind of mentality was rather suicidal, Kairos had his ways around it.
Despite the massive mental strain, he extended his future vision to two seconds. He nearly blanked out, but was able to hold on.
Without delay, Kairos slashed open the orb and tried to drink the liquid within.
He did not even try to do it slowly, as that would be counterintuitive.
An overly sweet taste filled his mouth.
Though Kairos wasn't one to deny a sugary treat, the sweetness of this liquid was far too overbearing, to the point that it made him want to vomit. However, he held on.
A second passed as the liquid continued to make its way down his throat.
A warm sensation had spread through his body. Although it could be considered comforting, Kairos couldn't help but feel slightly unsettled.
But within this myriad of feelings, he could also feel the pain in his leg numb significantly. Even his mind felt a little clearer.
Before another second passed, Kairos quickly stopped himself.
The spear in his hand shot towards the green orb, before abruptly freezing.
Kairos took a second to deliberate over the risks.
His head was hurting really badly, impairing his judgment, but he tried his best to push through it.
From what he could tell, the liquid from the green orb didn't seem to have any immediate harmful effects, other than being too sweet. Though, there could be ones that only came afterwards.
Kairos massaged his temple using the tip of his finger with clear frustration.
The stress was making it hard to think.
His mind couldn't help but wander to the refreshing feeling he felt, though it was only for a split second.
Kairos let out a soft sigh.
He decided he was going to drink it.
His justification was that his current injuries would make it hard to survive anyway, so he might as well take this gamble.
And so, Kairos punctured the green orb.
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