Kairos’ entire arm was glowing with a bright blue, which had snaked all the way up to his torso and neck. Though he could hardly feel it, he still raised his hand up, pointing it towards the giant skeleton’s skull.
Kairos wanted to aim for its eye directly, but found it was too difficult to move his arm in that direction, thus decided to just settle with the skull.
The parts of his body that were glowing bright blue suddenly retracted, almost like it was rewinding.
Then, there was a strange moment of silence.
A deafening explosion resounded.
Louder than the clap of thunder.
The very air seemed to be shaking.
The twenty-meter tall skeleton was blown away like a feather in a hurricane. Its head snapped back before carrying the rest of its body along with it, slamming into the wall and burying most of its body into it.
Cracks far larger than last time appeared on the surrounding walls, while pieces of debris directly broke off. Despite restricting it into a thinner cone than usual, there were still aftereffects from the surrounding terrain just from being near the spell.
Massive cracks had formed, but they also began to split off, almost like a disastrous earthquake was happening.
The very dungeon itself was on the verge of collapsing.
However, it just barely held on. The massive cracks were forced to stop in their place, before slowly being brought together once more. Though because of how much damage the place had suffered, it would probably take a decently long time.
As for Kairos, he wasn’t exactly in the best situation.
He could tell that the tips of his fingers had directly exploded, causing his fingernails to scatter into the air. He also had this strange sensation as though his entire body was ripping apart.
And all of this was in consideration that his senses were heavily muddled.
For an unknown period of time, Kairos could not truly process what was happening, despite being conscious. By the time he could finally gain semblance over himself, he found himself lying on the ground, with a headache like he just had a terrible hangover.
Not that he would know what one felt like.
He blinked a few times before slowly raising his head, despite feeling like he was twirling like a top.
The first thing Kairos came to realize was the devastation on his own body.
Earlier, he had used his spear to block a strike rather forcefully, which came at the cost of severely damaging his elbow and shoulder. Though, he also used his other arm to channel the pulse spell.
And it had a few more problems than just broken joints.
There was no longer any skin covering it, plainly revealing his muscles. However, all of those muscles were badly torn apart, almost like they were made into mincemeat.
He couldn’t find himself able to move it.
It wasn’t because it was too painful to move his arm, but rather he no longer had the ability to do so in the first place. Though Kairos knew he was going to get badly injured from casting the pulse spell that way or even die, this was not the kind he was expecting.
Though, from how much blood he was losing, it was only a matter of time.
However, the situation wasn’t the worst in the world, as close as it came.
His vision was incredibly blurry, making it hard to see things from far away. However, due to the contrast in color Kairos could make out his spear just a few meters away from him, along with all four of the green orbs that were no farther than two hundred meters. Thankfully, none of them fell through the cracks.
He could tell that if he didn’t use them, he would very likely die right here.
As such, Kairos forced himself up to his feet, stumbling like a drunk upon doing so. He grabbed the spear with the arm that could still somewhat move and marched onwards towards the nearest green orb.
He slowly limped, using the spear as a walking cane. Occasionally, he had to do a mini jump to walk over cracks and spilled blood everywhere as he walked.
By the time he made it to a green orb, he stabbed it with the spear before letting it fall down, also falling down onto his own knees. It did not take him long to drink the entire thing before picking up the spear once more.
His injuries definitely healed, especially so for the torn up muscles in his arm.
However, it didn’t do as much as Kairos would’ve liked.
There was still no skin covering his bones, while how weak his joints felt put a great deal of anxiety on his mind. At the very least, he wasn’t bleeding nearly as much now.
Kairos continued forth a little faster than last time, getting to another green orb. He did the same thing as last time, cutting it open and drinking it.
The muscles gradually began to repair for the most part. As for his joints, they went from feeling like loose scattered parts, to stiffened bones. It hadn’t healed fully, but at least now Kairos wasn’t too worried about them suddenly falling off.
The bleeding had fully stopped, though from the lack of skin covering certain sections of his body, he still looked like a horror show.
Kairos was honestly a little off-put by how damaged his body was, which only truly came into realization when two green orbs weren’t enough to heal him fully. Under normal circumstances, when he used them in what he considered to be a near-death state, they would heal him fully.
If it wasn’t for the extremely large amounts of adrenaline pumping through his body, he probably wouldn’t have even been able to sit up from the ground.
Before the adrenaline wore off, Kairos hurried off to another green orb, cutting it open before drinking from it as well.
The skin that had been ripped off his body had returned. Other than the fact he was covered in blood, he was basically in optimal condition.
There was still one last green orb, which Kairos rushed over to.
As he bent down to pick it up, he couldn’t help but look over to where the giant skeleton was. Since his vision was no longer blurry, he could now see it quite clearly.
It was embedded into the wall by several meters, with its head tilted back and embedded into the wall completely.
The skeleton was no longer moving, which indicated that it could’ve died.
Kairos would’ve used the system notification to confirm whether or not it died, but if there was a system notification, he would’ve been too out of it to even notice.
Though, an alternate way to check would be to see if he had gotten any points.
Since he had used all of his points earlier, then having any points at all would indicate he had killed it. Though Kairos felt nervous, he knew it was better to act sooner rather than later, thus opening the status panel immediately.
[Status]
[ID: 345315364923]
[Rank: 3/15000 Evolution Energy – 5000 required for Rankup]
[Objective: Clear Dungeon]
[Proof Of Perfection Points: 0]
[Stats –
Strength – 14.9
Endurance – 17.7
Agility – 14.9
Willpower – 14.9
Mana Capacity – 14.9
Magic Affinity – 29.9]
[Special Abilities: Water Spell (E), Alone (E), Pulse Spell (E), Fire Spell (F), Gale Spell (F)]
[Inborn Abilities: Shattered Truth (F)]
[Hide]
When Kairos looked at how many points he had, he could not help but falter.
It was zero. Meaning that the giant skeleton was still alive, even after the strongest possible attack he could possibly muster.
A sense of weakness overcame him as the realization set in. As though it wanted to hit the point home, the giant skeleton began moving. It slowly pulled itself out of the wall, causing a few rocks to scatter along the way.
Once it had returned to standing at its full height, it stumbled.
Although it was still alive, it seemed that Kairos’ attack had dealt some damage to it.
Kairos took a closer look, thinking that it might not be hopeless.
The skeleton itself was unscathed, save for an extremely thin crack at the top of its skull. It was the kind most would miss if they weren’t paying close attention.
A small sigh escaped Kairos’ lips.
The amount of effort he went through just for that tiny scratch was far too great. If he really tried to replicate it again, even assuming that it was a success, he would die.
Kairos remembered now when he was fighting against some kids while he was younger. After being caught by the two smaller kids, he was able to forcefully wrestle his way out by biting down on them.
This caused the two smaller kids to get quite scared, running away.
However, there were still two other bigger kids.
Kairos decided to try and fight them, using both his fists and teeth. However, the difference in strength was simply too huge. He might’ve been able to manage against one with the help of his future vision, but facing off two at once was simply too overwhelming.
In the end, he wasn’t able to save himself.
The only thing he could do was wait to die.
Though, he couldn’t help but smile slightly when he remembered what happened when he had lost all hope. There was a teenage girl with short brown hair that rushed over to him.
She grabbed his hand and shouted bravely.
“Let’s run!”
Then like a courageous warrior, she dragged Kairos away from the kids, turning tail and running away. It was an experience that made quite the impression on him.
In reality, he was never one that liked fleeing all that much. However, it was that girl that taught him he didn’t always have to face everything.
Sometimes it was ok to just run away.
He let out a soft chuckle as he looked at the giant skeleton gradually focusing its sight on him.
And before he could truly accept his own death, an explosion resounded.
The side of the dungeon wall blasted open, scattering debris and dust in the air.
“Kairos!”
And behind the cloud of dust, was the voice of Ling.
Kairos blinked a few times, hardly able to believe that this situation was even occurring.
“Ling?”
In response to the sound of his voice, Ling rushed over. His footsteps slowly got closer until he pushed aside the cloud of dust and revealed himself.
“You’re still ok!”
Ling looked quite different from before. The blade of his saber he held was slightly bent, while the shaft looked like it was barely being held together by cloth.
His clothes were also messed up and bloodied, but it didn’t even come close to Kairos, who basically only had his underwear left on him.
Though all of that wasn’t what stood out the most.
Rather, it was the fact Ling had one eye tightly shut, which was dripping out blood even now. It was the eye that had partial heterochromia and the one that had let him see mana.
Ling had a slight frown on his face.
The previous innocence that he carried with him wasn’t completely swept away, but it was clear that he had seen the world for what it was.
Ling’s eyes widened when he saw Kairos’ condition.
“Are you hurt? Was it by some sort of enemy?”
Kairos waved his hand.
“I’m not hurt, but…”
As the clouds of dust began to clear, it began to just barely reveal the giant skeleton.
Ling ended up turning to look at it before sucking in a cold breath.
“…I will try to kill it.”
He took a stance and even got prepared to rush towards the skeleton. However, Kairos grabbed onto his wrist before he could and gave him a soft look.
“Let’s run.”