Alice appeared to be quite uncomfortable, stammering over her words. Then, her eyes began to widen, to the point it was a little creepy.
Kairos didn’t think too much of it, but he still couldn’t help but feel a little unsettled.
That was when Alice slowly parted her lips.
“I… was raped.”
She stared at Kairos with eyes that resembled a dead fish.
“…I just don’t want it to happen again.”
Kairos felt a little speechless. However, he still mustered up the words to respond.
“…Sorry, but I’m not helping you.”
The corner of Alice’s lip twitched.
Her head tilted to the side. Then, she dangerously brought her karambit against her neck, letting a line of blood drop to the ground.
“Then… could you at least watch over my body and stop it from being defiled?”
Kairos shrugged his shoulders.
“No.”
Alice’s eyelid twitched.
“…You are an awfully cruel person.”
Kairos held out one hand.
“If you have to mourn every single person in this world that dies, then you would have to mourn for your entire life and still be severely behind. And that holds true for times of peace.”
Alice blinked a few times.
“But I’m not asking you to mourn for everyone, just to watch over my body for a few moments.”
Kairos shrugged his shoulders.
“That would be hypocritical then. Plus, how are you so sure that I wouldn’t defile you?”
Tears began overflowing from Alice as she slowly removed the knife from her neck.
“…I see. It seems I didn’t make a correct judgment of your character.”
Kairos turned around and began walking away.
“Frankly, I don’t think anyone has made one of those yet.”
He didn’t even spare another glance as he continued walking down the hallways. The only reason Kairos didn’t push open the doors next to him was that he thought that Alice might try to close them while he was inside.
Then when Alice was clearly out of sight, he began exploring the rooms once more.
Eventually, he was able to find another one of the rooms that had a mana figure with decent techniques. As such, Kairos once again did the usual and fought with it.
His injuries had gotten pretty bad at the end, with him profusely bleeding.
However, right after killing it, Kairos pulled out a green orb and drank it.
As his senses gradually returned to him, he came to notice that there was a bright blue beam at the center of the room.
Kairos blinked a few times, before putting away the shell of the green orb in his pocket.
After shaking his head, he once again looked at the shining blue pillar in the center of the room. It looked pretty much exactly like the pillar from the first floor that led him to the second.
Kairos rubbed his chin before turning to the door behind him. He tried to unlock it, but it remained locked shut. He tried to put more force, but it didn’t even slightly budge.
Kairos pulled back his fist before abruptly launching it forwards.
A dull bang resounded in the room, while the door was completely unharmed.
It seemed that there was no way to turn back now.
After brushing off his fist, he counted the green orbs in his bag, which amounted to five. He also kept a tight grip on the handle of his spear, before diving headfirst into the pillar.
A familiar sensation came to him, like he was being wrapped around with water that wasn’t wet.
And when he opened his eyes, he found himself in a room.
There was a familiar projection standing at one side of the room, right next to him. However, there wasn’t a single system notification, despite Kairos expecting to see several.
Though that was far from his main concern.
After all, there was some rather loud screaming coming from the other side of the room.
Well, it wasn’t really a room.
Because it was larger than a kilometer wide.
Currently, two people were engaged in a rather intense battle on the other side of the room.
There was a man with a head full of red hair, staring down… a rather grotesque being.
The man had gathered a large amount of mana, which had coalesced into the form of a giant ball of red lightning. He held it out with his hand. However, it seemed his body ended up suffering backlash simply from channeling the spell.
His arm was terribly wounded, with many gashes that were bleeding profusely, while the hand holding onto the ball of lightning seemed to be reduced to mush.
Arcs of lightning constantly discharged, hitting the ground and singing it, showing how unstable and powerful it was. Though, the ground did heal immediately after.
On the other side… was a monster. Except, the eyes had shone with clear wisdom.
There were countless wounds over its body, some of which looked to be infected and even leaking pus. However, the expression on its face was completely calm. Along with that, five large bones extended out from its back.
They looked awfully similar to fingers, just enlarged and almost seemed to be trying to grasp the monster.
The man with red hair yelled as his hair began floating up as though he were underwater.
“I will avenge all of my fallen comrades, even at the cost of my life!”
As he spoke, the corner of his mouth began tearing open because the overall integrity of his body had dropped considerably. Yet, the man continued to speak, even as blood filled his mouth.
“Die, monster!”
The giant ball of lightning suddenly burgeoned before compressing into a small dot. And from that dot, a strong torrent of lightning suddenly burst out.
As for the monster, it used the five bones jutting out from its back and wrapped its body within.
A deafening bang resounded once the lightning slammed against the monster. Even after, the crackle of lightning continued, sounding almost like a dragon roaring.
The monster was blown away, smashing hard against the other side of the wall. As for the lighting, it sprayed out in a cone, causing massive damage to the nearby walls, shown by thick, erratic scorch marks.
The spell gradually began to lose power, while the man that had casted the spell now looked like he had been burnt.
His body was charred severely, seemingly the effect of just being near the magic that he had cast. The arm he used to hold out the lightning had disappeared, only leaving an awkward stump.
As for his eyelids, they completely burned away, leaving his eyes wide open.
There was originally a neutral expression on his face, but as the lightning cleared, it gradually became one of despair.
He seemed to want to speak, but could only make awkward gurgling sounds before falling over.
The damage caused to the walls rapidly healed, as though it never happened. And from the last remnants of lightning, a body rose up.
The five bones unwrapped from the monster’s body to reveal that his body had been charred, but not nearly to the extent that the man’s had been
Kairos blinked a few times.
The man seemed to have died simply from the excess lightning going over to him, which also showed the power behind them. However, he didn’t seem to have those same problems while casting the fire spell despite the fire being so close it should’ve burned him.
Though Kairos felt he was onto something, he decided to think about it later, as it wasn’t really time to be pondering over the mechanisms of magic.
Just taking a glance around him, he could see a few other dead bodies. Most of them had already been mostly consumed by the dungeon, so he couldn’t really make out anything of them as they sank.
The only one that was still more or less intact was the one next to him.
It was of a woman with dulled eyes.
Her lips were slightly parted as she mumbled something to herself.
She had carried a wooden staff in one hand, but there was a crack that caused the bat to hang awkwardly. As though to match that, her body was badly bloodied.
Kairos walked a little closer to hear her mutters.
“Hopeless. It’s hopeless. Why did we even try? I knew it would end up like this. I always knew.”
Her body let out a faint tremble, before suddenly freezing.
“…That thing can’t be killed.”
The woman’s body slumped over and then was slowly consumed by the floor underneath.
Kairos cast his vision upwards and saw what looked like a massive diamond hovering near the ceiling of the room, right at its center. It was slowly rotating, as faint blue pulses continuously came out from it.
It was at this point the monster slowly turned towards him.
Kairos panicked, immediately heading to the projection behind him.
“Open the shop.”
A familiar set of items appeared, but he didn’t care about that now. He pressed the more option before selecting the one that would let him trade his currency for evolution points.
[Dungeon Currency – 35 – 0 | Points – 27.8 – 62.8]
Then, Kairos opened his status panel.
[Status]
[ID: 345315364923]
[Rank: 493/1500 Evolution Energy – 500 required for Rankup]
[Objective: Clear Dungeon]
[Proof Of Perfection Points: 62.8]
[Stats –
Strength – 14.9
Endurance – 14.9
Agility – 14.9
Willpower – 14.9
Mana Capacity – 14.9
Magic Affinity – 14.9]
[Special Abilities: Fire Spell (F), Pulse Spell (F), Gale Spell (F)]
[Inborn Abilities: Shattered Truth (F)]
[Hide]
Kairos frowned. Though he now had many points, he also couldn’t use them for anything. His stats were already maxed out, while he still didn’t have enough evolution energy to evolve.
Kairos found this somewhat ironic, as his original main concern was that he had too much evolution energy, which was caused by eating those monsters.
However, it turned out that the tower ended up giving him an extremely large amount of points, making the entire problem turn on its head. Kairos had to admit that while the dungeon felt rigged in many ways, it still gave a massive boost in his strength.
Yet, as he watched the monster slowly walk towards him, he couldn’t help but feel it wasn’t enough.
Although Kairos had trained hard to learn techniques, the biggest problem here was that technique probably wasn’t going to help him beat the thing in front of him.
He cursed internally, wondering what the point of this floor even was.
Without much other option, Kairos began channeling the mana for the pulse spell. It was a good opportunity while the monster didn’t seem to care that much for charging toward him.
He wasn’t sure if it would work, considering the previous lightning attack hardly hurt the thing just from it bundling up.
However, there wasn’t really any other option.
The mana for the pulse spell gradually gathered towards his palm while the monster began walking closer.
Kairos strangely felt a sense of familiarity when he looked at the monster in front of him, but couldn’t put his finger on exactly what made him think that way. Just as he was about to cast those thoughts away and focus all his attention on the spell, the monster spoke.
“You… are… same…”
Kairos’ eyes widened as he suddenly recalled who this monster was, taken back to the time he first heard the monsters speak.
It was one of the cult members.
Under The Red Priest, who led what he called the church of evolution. From what Kairos could surmise, this was one of the disciples, but this one didn’t directly see him attacking The Red Priest.
Betting on this fact, Kairos spoke, trying to delay for time.
“Ah, I think we know each other from somewhere.”
The monster stopped in place.
“Yes…”
The corner of Kairos’ lip twitched.
“So uh, I wonder where it’s from. Do you recall?”
The monster didn’t seem to notice his words. Instead, his lips slowly parted.
“…Traitor.”