The moment he ate the ball, he felt it lose form in his mouth, quickly spreading out and giving a strong iron taste, just like blood. He didn’t wait in swallowing so as to make full use of his future vision.
In the first second, he felt an instinctual rejection from it. This gave him a bad feeling.
By the next second, he felt this blood directly enter his bloodstream somehow, almost like it was alive. Whatever it was, it made him feel like parasites had entered his body.
At the third second, he could tell that the black blood was actively trying to attack his body like it wanted to seize control. His body tensed up automatically and began instinctively fighting against this force.
By the fourth second, Kairos was ready to stop himself from eating the ball of black blood. Whatever it was, it seemed to be rather harmful. However, one thing he noticed was that the black blood was rapidly getting suppressed and backed off voluntarily, almost like a dog that realized it was trying to antagonize a lion.
In the end, he decided to commit to eating it, letting the black blood coursing through his system.
The black blood put up a small fight for a few moments but eventually gave up on trying to take over his body. From there, it simply remained dormant. The strong sense of life it previously had suddenly disappeared, making it seem as though it had somehow died.
Once Kairos felt it all settle down, a notification suddenly appeared in front of him.
[You have obtained a new special ability – Abyss Form (F-)]
The voice next to him seemed rather exasperated.
“What? Why isn’t anything happening to you? Did you somehow spit it out?… Am I the idiot for trusting you with something?”
Kairos chuckled.
“Hold on, I definitely gained something out of that. Just wait a moment.”
The method to activate this ability was already imprinted in his mind, and he was pretty sure that it wasn’t even because of the system. It was just something natural. And so, he acted upon it.
He suddenly felt the black blood within his body act up. It had coursed through his entire body rather thoroughly. The first thing it did was go up close to the surface of his body and begin combining with the surface layer of flesh..
He could feel his skin mutating strangely, expanding slightly. It coated his entire body, like a second layer of skin. And as it did so, he gradually felt his vision clearing up. After a bit of time, he found that he was actually able to see for once.
He looked down at his own arms, noticing that they had completely blackened, becoming rough. As for his hands, they had changed to become claws. His fingers had elongated considerably, but that was because his nails became far longer. The way it gleamed made it look rather deadly.
When he took a look in front of him, he saw a guy. He looked to be of a similar age to him. He had short white hair, but it was the kind that the elderly would have. His skin also looked gray, almost like he was using a filter that discolored him.
Both of his eyes were open wide. He muttered to himself.
“A monster transformation?”
Suddenly, the guy jumped backward, leaping quite the distance. Upon landing he got into a fighting stance, staring down Kairos with serious eyes.
“Are you still in there? If you can hear me, then try and resist the influence!”
Kairos raised an eyebrow, or at least whatever he had as of now as an eyebrow.
“I can hear you just fine. What kind of influence are you talking about?”
The guy did not drop his guard in the slightest.
“Oh really?… Then what is six cubed?”
Kairos blinked a few times.
“Uh… two-hundred and sixteen?”
The guy slowly dropped his arms.
“What in the world? You’re actually completely fine?”
Kairos rolled his eyes.
“And why wouldn’t I be? I can control it just fine, I’ll have you know.”
To prove a point, he retracted the transformation before going back into it once more. Seeing this, the guy rubbed his chin with clear interest.
“That’s… that’s so strange. You’re the first human I’ve ever seen able to do that. Normally only monsters take on a completely black form like that naturally. If other people see you, then they’ll probably just assume that you’re a monster.”
Kairos gave a small nod.
“So most people are gray and discolored like you?”
The guy nodded.
“Uh, yeah. Wait, are you even human in the first place? Or are you some kind of alien race that just looks really similar?”
Kairos sighed.
“No, I’m definitely human. From what you’ve said, it sounds like there are other people here too?”
The guy nodded.
“Ah, yeah. There are a lot of them. I wouldn’t recommend trying to get close to any of them though, by now nobody trusts each other.”
Kairos narrowed his eyes.
“So why were you able to trust me so easily?”
The guy did not respond for a few seconds. Eventually, he let out a soft laugh.
“…No reason.”
For some reason that Kairos didn’t fully understand, that response reassured him greatly. In fact, he couldn’t think of another response that would’ve reassured him more.
“Well, now that I can see… My name is Kairos. What is yours?”
The guy raised an eyebrow.
“Ah, Kairos. My name is Nyoka.”
He awkwardly reached out his hand, but did it half-heartedly. Kairos saw this and smiled bitterly.
“Let’s just not shake hands.”
Nyoka gave a quick nod.
“Alright.”
Kairos took a deep breath. When he looked at Nyoka, his body didn’t look all that strong. In fact, it looked like a withering corpse. However, as casual as his words were, his eyes were sharp. He could tell Nyoka wasn’t just some pushover.
“Anyway, do you mind having a spar with me? I want a general understanding of strength around here.”
Nyoka smiled bitterly. He shrugged his shoulders helplessly.
“I’m afraid you’re gonna be hit by a pretty nasty wake-up call. A newly untainted can’t even match up against the monsters in the first layer, but this is the fourth one.”
Kairos shrugged his shoulders.
“Did you not see that giant explosion from earlier? If needed, I can make an attack far stronger than that.”
That was when the way Nyoka looked at him changed. He turned serious.
“…You’re telling me that you had this ability even when you were on the surface?”
Kairos rolled his eyes.
“Frankly, it’s not even that impressive compared to other people.”
Nyoka furrowed his brows rather intensely.
“Wait… so this entire time you weren’t lying?”
Kairos’ eyebrow twitched. With one hand, he massaged his temple gently before letting out a soft sigh.
“What? I’ve yet to tell you a single lie here, alright? Regardless, I need an understanding of the strength in this place. You don’t have to, but I’d like to have a short spar.”
A sly smile gradually formed on Nyoka’s face. His demeanor had changed completely, from the curious oblivious person to a snake. He slowly took on a stance, like he was getting ready to pounce forth.
“Hmm, this is quite interesting. Fine, if you want a spar, then we can have one. I wonder if you saw through me at the start.”
Kairos narrowed his eyes.
“…I actually wasn’t able to see through it. But we can talk about it after trading a few blows.”
In reality, although he found it strange that someone so bubbly existed in a place like this, he didn’t actually doubt that was Nyoka’s character. For the first time, his intuition didn’t even slightly pick up on someone deceiving in front of him.
He cracked his neck. That fact frustrated him a little bit, so he decided to blow off some steam in this fight. Kairos rushed forth with the spear, performing a horizontal sweep. Nyoka dodged it easily, suddenly backing up.
Right afterwards, he rushed forth while zigzagging left and right. Kairos took a few steps back and continued to swing his spear, trying to keep the fight at mid-range. Nyoka didn’t force himself forwards and played it safe at a distance.
Although Kairos had his future vision, he still wasn’t able to hit Nyoka because he wasn’t fully committing to any of his attacks. For a little while, they kept up this dance. For now, neither of them had actually directly hit each other.
Although both of them could tell each of their agility was quite impressive. Though Nyoka was lacking behind by quite a bit, he easily made up for it with his frightening reaction time, instincts, and general fighting knowledge. However, they didn’t really understand the difference in strength.
As though tired of this, Nyoka suddenly sent a fist forwards. However, Kairos knew that it was a feint. He could’ve used the opportunity to sneak in an attack, but he instead similarly did a feint, pretending to block it.
Then, he brought down his spear in an overhand strike.
From there, both of them threw their attacks forwards, fully committing to them.
A clear bang resounded.
His spear slammed down onto Nyoka’s fist, landing in between his knuckles. The two of them continued to press hard against each other, trembling. However, Kairos had a clear advantage. Nyoka was getting pushed back, taking a step back every second.
Eventually, Nyoka broke off, dashing back.
Kairos stood up straight and rested his spear on his shoulder.
“Huh, you’re pretty good, but I guess I won’t have to worry that much about things in this layer.”
Nyoka had a smile on his face. After hearing that, it only widened further.
“Oh, come on. We’re just getting started.”
A shadowy figure began rising from behind Nyoka.