Edward looked back at Kairos with a rather tired look. It seemed that he had been asked the question of how this spell worked so many times it triggered something within him. But regardless, he answered.
“When I cast that, I am relying on the mana close by in the air in order to form it. I don’t know how to use my own mana for the actual formation, so I gather a small amount of mana and swirl it, letting it grow larger and larger.”
He shrugged his shoulders.
“This naturally takes a long time. However, the mana that gathers, the stronger the pull, causing a snowball effect. Now that most of the mana in the area is gone, it will take several times longer than usual to do the same thing.”
Kairos rubbed his chin before giving a small nod.
“So something like this?”
[0)ᴠʟ He began revolving the mana in his own body around. It was noticeably more difficult to gather mana, but since mana concentration in his body was high, the pull was also fairly strong. A decent amount of mana was pulled and funneled into his body. Though, it did not take long for him to be full on mana, meaning he couldn’t absorb any more.
Edward normally didn’t have much of a reaction to anything, but his eyes widened slightly out of genuine surprise.
“Huh. You know how to do it as well? And you can even manipulate the mana inside your own body?”
Kairos shrugged his shoulders.
“I guess so, but I don’t know how to manipulate mana outside my body like you. If anything, it feels like you know more than me, able to harness all the mana around you.”
Edward raised an eyebrow.
“Huh. So you can move mana inside your body, while I can do it on the outside. Well, regardless of whatever is more impressive, it gives me an idea.”.
He raised his hand up to the sky.
“Can you stand behind me and begin gathering mana?”
Kairos gave a small nod, already understanding what he had in mind.
“Alright.”
He was already full on mana, but began circulating it. However, before any of the mana could even reach his body, it was instead pulled away to Edward’s palm. In just a matter of moments, a rotating sphere of mana formed in his hands.
Both he and Kairos continued to gather mana, which was mainly supported by Kairos at first. However, once just a minute passed by, the ball of mana was already attracting more mana than him. He kept circulating, though the difference he was making very quickly became less and less significant.
Once two minutes had passed, he didn’t bother with channeling anymore, as the ball of mana next to Edward had already become massive, swirling like a hurricane. Edward peeked up at the sphere, and his mouth hung slightly agape, showing his shock.
“That was fast…”
A few moments later, he stopped circulating, and instead pulled it back, compressing it in between his two hands, turning it into a bright dark blue ball. And it was noticeably larger than last time.
From there, he let it loose once more, wreaking havoc on the soldier army. In fact, Edward was rather brutal, even attacking parts of his own town, razing down walls, houses, and even people on his side that were still alive. Kairos made sure to get out of the way as Edward was turning around, and it was easy to do so as he was moving slowly.
It was rather vicious if that attack wasn’t bad enough already. However, because of that apathy, he ended up killing every single soldier in sight. All that remained was a charred outside and countless toppled buildings in the distance. Strangely enough, all of the rubble and debris formed a rickity barrier around the place.
Kairos blinked a few times after witnessing it all happen.
“Huh. It kinda feels like old times, where we just had that strange synergy with each other.”
Those words weren’t really filled with any intention. They somewhat just slipped out as he thought about it. Hearing this, Edward didn’t respond for a good few seconds. But eventually, a small smile formed on his face.
“Yeah… it kinda does.”
The two of them stood in silence for the next few seconds. As for all of the other people within the town, they were similarly silent staying in place. But that was because they were all in shock by the devastation. Though most of them knew what Edward could do already, seeing that first shot was enough to rattle them. But then he followed up with an even stronger one that seemed to take far less time to cast.
It was a mountainous amount of power. One that was on the level of natural disasters yet was just at the fingertips of one person.
In this silence, Kairos eventually spoke up.
“By the way, I’m going to be going away for roughly a month. If you want to talk, it’s going to have to be with Tiana. She can hear us right now, and I’ll just hand the communication crystal off to her.”
Momentarily after, a small metal claw appeared on the ground underneath them. Kairos took out the blue crystal and laid it there, after which it promptly retracted underneath the ground once more.
Edward gave a small nod.
“I see.”
Once again, they fell into silence. Both of them involuntarily began thinking of their times as children, where there was practically never a moment of silence between them. But now…
A clamor began to rise among the people in the city, in particular, the stronger ones scaled the sides of buildings and got up next to Edward with big smiles on their faces.
“Nice work, Edward! You basically just soloed the entire damn army!”
“Edward! You’re so damn strong, you’re basically a nuclear weapon at this point!”
“I always knew that you were powerful, but never in my life did I imagine you were this good at it!”
Kairos smiled bitterly before turning to Edward.
“Seems like you have your hands full now and the army is already dealt with. I’ll be going.”
Edward gave him a nod without even looking at him. Kairos wasn’t offended by it and just left, avoiding the crowding group that was forming around Edward. He leaped off the buildings one after another until he eventually left the city.
He continued on past, venturing back into the city. While the village was still in view, he gave it one last glance before going forth once more.
His destination was where Kian had told him to meet. Kairos went a little bit of a long way, but using several sights he remembered he was able to make it back there rather easily.
Upon getting there, he saw countless trees planted, all with vaguely horrified faces on their trunks.
Kairos gave a quick glance before yelling out.
“Hello? Kian, are you there? It’s Kairos.”
There was no response. His eyebrow twitched as he called out a few more times, but once again there was nothing. He let out a helpless sigh and looked around the place. After a moment, he came up with the idea of leaving a note. He went to a nearby tree that wasn’t one in the garden and carved a message using his spear.
“I will be gone for roughly thirty days at the point I have made this message -Kairos”
After looking it over, he let out another sigh. He currently only had fourteen of the nature cores, which was far from his ideal count. But at the same time, he had no plans of waiting for Kian when he may very well never show up.
Perhaps that was a reckless decision, but he really did want to get the promotion mission done and over with.
With that in mind, he only stood there for a minute or so before decisively leaving. He made his way through the forest, walking until he felt like nobody was around. With that, he opened up his status panel.
“After everything… I’ve finally gotten to this point.”
From there, he called for teleportation, after which he felt a giant void underneath him. He intuitively understood what he had to do.
Fill it up with mana.
And that’s exactly what he did. As he had done before, he began circulating his mana, all the while also channeling mana into this void. There was nothing at first, but he realized something underneath him gradually lit up.
It was a tiny spot of bright blue, just barely peeking out from underneath his foot.
Seeing that, he just continued on without much thought. His eyes surveyed his surroundings for any monsters in the distance that might interrupt him. The few insects that were nearby were driven away once they sensed a fairly strong concentration of mana.
Time continued to pass, and the bright blue shining underneath him gradually spread out into branches.
After a little while, he just barely caught onto a monster far in the distance. As it got closer, Kairos got ready to stop channeling and fight. Yet, strangely enough, the monster suddenly backed off.
He thought about it for a few moments before realizing that it was scared of the mana. It seemed that for whatever reason monsters were naturally afraid of too much mana. While coming to that revelation, he found that was rather convenient for his current situation.
And so, he wasn’t disturbed for quite a while.
As the pattern underneath him began to form, he realized that it was slowly becoming a giant intricate pattern, almost like a snowflake. The closer he looked at it, the more he realized that it was even more complicated than he expected.
This made him think of his first encounter with a teleportation circle. It was near the start of the apocalypse, and it was with The Church of Evolution. Somehow or another, they had access to incredibly complicated magic right at the start.
He let out a sigh and shook his head.
At the very least, for the next thirty days, those people probably wouldn’t be a problem.
After a few hours had passed, he found that the magic circle was finally on the verge of being completed. The mana was rather overbearing on him, creating quite a bit of pressure. And that was despite the fact it wasn’t being used offensively.
But despite that, he caught onto someone in the distance from the corner of his eye.
It was a girl with white hair and a bloody body. However, that blood was dark green. She screamed at the top of her lungs.
“WAIT! PLEASE WAIT FOR ME!”
Yet, black hands suddenly appeared out of the ground and pulled Kairos into the ground.