Kairos’ eyelid twitched.
“…Shit.”
He realized he had been found out by the monster a while ago. In the end, he only had a few seconds to channel the pulse spell. While it would still create quite a large impact, Kairos doubted it would be enough to kill the monster.
The only chance he had was to channel it to completion. From his predictions, that would take roughly ten more seconds.
Though, it looked like the monster had no plans of giving him those ten seconds.
It abruptly rushed forth, charging towards Kairos with the five bones stretched taut behind him.
The monster swiped forth, while the bones also made their varying slashes.
There was no way Kairos could block all of them, so the only natural course of action was leaping away.
He was able to dodge the strikes, before immediately turning tail and running away.
Unfortunately, despite having maxed out his agility, the monster somehow seemed to be a decent amount faster. Kairos peeked behind him as he fled, and was able to catch the monster using the bones jutting out of its back as extra legs, to further propel him forth.
Kairos cursed internally as he saw a large bone come crashing down on him. He brought up his spear to block by a narrow margin.
A crisp bang filled the air.
Kairos tried his best to use the recoil force to further push him ahead, but most of it pushed him down. It caused his knees to buckle just for a moment, which was enough for the monster to slash at him with its claws.
A fresh wound ripped into Kairos’ back, tearing the only part of his shirt that was still somewhat intact. Bright red blood poured out of the several gashes that had appeared.
Kairos grit his teeth and pushed onwards, continuing to run as best he could.
Thankfully, it seemed like attacking made the monster slow down, thus giving him a tiny bit of reprieve.
Though, that didn’t change the fact that the monster was right on his heels.
Kairos was forced to block again, but this time it wasn’t an overhead strike, allowing him to move a little more freely. He stuck out his chest just enough to avoid the follow-up slash that came for his back.
Right afterwards, he spun around, thrusting his spear towards the part of the monster where its leg and foot connected.
With a snap, it pierced through, prompting him to then twist, causing several cracking sounds to resound. This was one of the techniques he picked up by paying the price in blood.
However, despite hitting the monster, he immediately turned around and continued running. The monster tripped and fell, while its foot appeared to have been pulled out. Yet, it reconnected nearly instantly, letting it continue to chase.
Kairos pressed his eyelids together tightly.
The time left for his pulse spell was about eight seconds…
Like this, he slowly counted down the seconds while being chased by the monster behind him.
During this cat-and-mouse chase, the monster’s attack seemed to be delayed. Just as Kairos began wondering, he saw a large bone shoot out to his front before ripping into his chest.
His instinct was to back up to dodge, but he knew that would be a terrible idea. After all, to dodge one bone, it would make him go towards four more and even the claws.
Kairos grit his teeth and pushed on with bloodshot eyes.
As expected, the bone slammed into his ribcage, threatening its integrity. Right afterwards, it slid off before piercing into the gaps between the bones.
With a loud splash, his blood splashed out.
A hole was torn in his lungs, not only making his breaths painful, but making it hard to even do so in the first place.
However, Kairos pushed on. He took in larger breaths to compensate for the hold in his lung, despite how much it hurt. Simply because he was not a person afraid of the pain. He had been familiarized to it in more ways than one.
Faint blue mist began coalescing around his hand as it glowed faintly.
Five seconds…
Kairos soon saw another bone shooting out, trying the same thing as last time, but just on the other side. He grit his teeth as he twisted his spear around, slamming it onto the side of the bone.
With some force behind it, he was able to not only push the bone away from his chest, but also divert it to slam into the monster’s own skull. Kairos had come up with this move at the spur of the moment, based on another technique.
He was initially feeling quite proud, but quickly noticed that other than a thin line of blood that dripped down from the monster’s forehead, it was completely uninjured. The only thing it did was slightly delay its next attack.
Kairos clicked his tongue before continuing his desperate escape.
He remembered that this particular monster was the one that had particularly strong bones. Though, that much was obvious at this point.
But more importantly, there were only two seconds left for the pulse spell.
His hand was now bright blue, and some of that had even snaked up onto his arm. It trembled ever so slightly, as though the power within could hardly be contained.
The monster had caught up, attempting to swing its bone once more.
Kairos narrowed his eyes, throwing his body to the side. Though he was able to dodge the attack, by doing so to the side gave the monster a great opportunity to come closer, which it immediately took.
However, Kairos had no intention of distancing himself.
He spun around, meeting the monster face to face.
As he got a closer look, he noticed that the monster only had one eye, while its face seemed to have a neutral expression.
Yet, despite that expression, its rage was shown clearly in the way its claws reached out to tear into Kairos’ flesh. Along with that, the five bones closed in from behind, wanting to pierce through him like a skewer.
Using his future vision, he was able to hold off the bone that went for his neck and the one that went for his heart. Though, he was still stabbed in three other areas.
However, Kairos could hardly focus on all that. While his body was being mauled, he stuck out his glowing blue palm, pressing it against the center of the monster’s chest.
His palm was vibrating so violently, that even the monster began vibrating as a result.
And then, the pulse spell was released.
A deafening bang resounded.
Kairos felt his mind go blank for a moment.
Cracks suddenly snaked out, crawling up towards every part of the room as fast as lightning bolts.
The monster’s body streaked through the air like a bullet before slamming hard against the side of the wall, lodging itself inside and further embellishing the cracks lined up in the walls.
Debris from that explosion shot up into the air, causing large amounts of dust to cloud the air, blocking vision.
Though, Kairos’ eyes were hardly even functioning at the moment, so that hardly affected him. His breaths were labored, while his body was trembling slightly.
Underneath him, a massive crater had formed, while quite a bit of blood had fallen down into it.
Kairos initially couldn’t hear anything, but a ringing sound seeped in, before continuing to grow louder and louder, until it felt like he was a machine releasing some sort of alarm.
However, Kairos didn’t focus on that now. He blinked several times, clearing up his vision slightly.
The bag with green orbs inside had been torn open, causing the contents to spill out. However, all five were still not too far away from him.
Though he hadn’t gotten directly injured from his spell and the indirect injuries were minor, he was still badly hurt. The monster had ripped into him several times after all.
Kairos immediately grabbed a nearby green orb and cut it open with his spear.
After tilting his head back to drink, he let the fluid nourish his body once more. He hadn’t even realized that his chest felt extremely tight from lack of mana, but once it was restored, Kairos felt he was being brought back from the dead.
His wounds rapidly recovered to restore his state to be more or less optimal. As for his mana, it unfortunately wasn’t enough to restore it completely, but it was still able to give him half.
At this point, the dust from the debris began to settle. The severe damage the place had taken gradually repaired itself, almost like time itself was rewinding.
Kairos suddenly felt the air around him felt… strangely clear.
Which was quite ironic considering how dirty it was right now.
He looked up into the air and saw many glittering shards slowly falling down from the air. His eyes widened as he realized what happened. The diamond slowly rotating near the ceiling had shattered.
Now, its pieces were falling down.
And… Kairos’ mana was quickly being restored.
When it was originally half, he could feel it go back to full naturally in just a matter of seconds. The density of mana outside seemed to be extremely strong, which then forced itself into his body.
It was slightly uncomfortable, but there was also a refreshing feeling that came with it.
Kairos took his focus off that, focusing forwards as the dust had cleared enough for him to see. He noticed that the monster’s body was still lodged into the wall. The bones from its back were still sticking out awkwardly, and large spiderweb-like cracks extended out from it.
Kairos was breathing fairly heavily, but it gradually calmed down once he noticed the monster wasn’t moving.
As more dust settled, Kairos was able to make out most of the monster’s flesh was directly blown off of its body.
The bones of its limbs were visible in most places while many of its internal organs were visible from the outside.
As for the monster’s face, it was essentially peeled off. However, the single eye that it had remained. Along with that, none of its bones even had a scratch on them. However, so long as the thing was dead, Kairos could care less about the bones.
Although the tenacity of living beings had skyrocketed after the red sun rose, these kinds of injuries were still far too great for even exceptional things to survive.
That was why Kairos initially assumed it was dead.
But there was a bad feeling in the back of his mind like he somehow jinxed it.
His eyebrow twitched.
And at the same time, the monster’s body twitched.
Kairos cursed once more, before gathering the nearby green orbs and stuffing them into what was left of the bag, and tying it together in a makeshift way.
The monster’s body popped out of the wall before slamming into the ground.
Kairos hesitated, wondering if he should rush forth.
However, the monster’s body simply lay there motionless. While Kairos was wondering if it was actually alive, the monster’s body suddenly rose up into the air.
Without anything to support it.
What was left of its limbs dangled in the air as it rose as though picked up.
And then, it fell back down onto the ground.
Yet, the five bones from earlier were still hovering in the air.
Kairos blinked a few times.
He was trying to comprehend what exactly was going on.
Upon closer observation, he had to admit that the five bones now separated from the body really did look like a hand altogether.
And as he was thinking that, the bones suddenly bundled up, like they were a hand clenching.
After that, another set of bones began peeking out, gradually creating another set of five bones. They both clenched hard.
Then, the very fabric of reality began tearing open, revealing a massive bright green eye behind it.