Kairos did think of the fact that spending so many points would make him extremely hungry, but he figured that he could deal with that later and fight with the creature right now. Considering that he had already been hungry because of how little he had eaten before, the effects were magnified several times over.
Unfortunately, he had vastly underestimated the effects of using so many points and overestimated his own capability to withstand it.
In fact, it seemed that his body was on the verge of breaking down because of excessive energy consumption, and he didn’t even have his backpack with all his food in it. Kairos began to regret his decision, but also did not think that his current stats were even enough.
He was hoping to somehow be able to bear it, but that turned out to be too much for him.
Kairos couldn’t even make sense of the world around him, or even his own actions. What he did not realize was that he had begun crawling on all fours, toward one of the monsters’ dead corpses.
In his blurry state, he was vaguely aware that his mouth had been opened. Driven by his instincts, he could not stop himself from biting down.
Since Kairos still had a hole in his cheek, blood and chewed-up flesh ended up spilling out from that side. Nonetheless, he was forcefully shoveling hard enough that most of the flesh and blood went down his throat instead.
And like this, Kairos began eating the flesh of the monsters like an animal. He ripped and tore through it with his teeth and hardly bothered to chew before swallowing. The monster’s flesh was quickly disappearing, and it did not take long for him to reach the bone of the arm and the rib cage too.
There was still a bit left to eat from that monster, but Kairos had no need to be picky. There were several corpses stacked up here, thus he took giant bites out of all these fresh corpses. He was being even more wasteful than actual monsters themselves.
If someone ate chicken wings like this and posted a photo of the aftermath on the internet, they would be heavily condemned.
It did not take long for Kairos to get through nearly all of the corpses below him. And by the end, he was a bloody mess. It was even difficult for him to open his eyes, while the feeling of his clothes sticking to him felt quite uncomfortable.
However, by the end of it all, he seemed to recover some semblance of sanity.
Kairos gradually took in the situation around him.
Ling pressed himself up against the very edge of the miniature cage they were stuck in. It seemed that he had tried to slip through the gaps, but was unable to for whatever reason. As for the creature that created the cage in the first place, it was just a few steps away now.
Kairos’ status panel was still open next to him through the entire thing.
[Status]
[ID: 345315364923]
[Rank: 467/1500 Evolution Energy – 500 required for Rankup]
[Objective: Gain 33 Evolution Energy]
[Proof Of Perfection Points: 0]
[Stats –
Strength – 11.0
Endurance – 10.0
Agility – 11.6
Willpower – 4.9
Mana Capacity – 9.0
Magic Affinity – 7.2]
[Special Abilities: Fire Spell (F), Pulse Spell (F)]
[Inborn Abilities: Shattered Truth (F)]
[Hide]
Along with his now increased stats, despite being in a muddled state, something else stuck out to him like a sore thumb.
[Rank: 467/1500 Evolution Energy – 500 required for Rankup]
He remembered that it was not too long ago that he didn’t even have a hundred evolution energy, yet here he was with nearly five hundred, just about ready for the energy he needed to rank up.
If Kairos wasn’t careful with how he managed his evolution energy in the future, then he may find himself exceeding his cap without having the points he needed to properly evolve.
Though, that was a problem for the future. As of right now, he had to somehow deal with the lanky creature in front of him.
For whatever reason, the creature did not act right away. Instead, it simply observed Kairos with its bright green eyes that were dazzling like emeralds.
Kairos tried to extend his future vision, but the pain in his mind was far too sharp, making him lose focus, making it not worth the effort. He had already abused it too much, making the mental burden too much for him to bear, especially because he did not have his glasses on.
Nonetheless, a second was still nothing to scoff at, though it still hurt his mind. The newly added stats made Kairos feel like an entirely new person, like his strength could allow him to easily overpower many new things.
But he was also pretty sure that was a delusion caused by his sudden increase in status points.
While the creature was still staring at him, Kairos decided to try and forcefully break through the cage in his future vision.
After pulling back the glaive that now felt like a feather, he whipped it forth.
Then it snapped.
Kairos hurriedly stopped himself from swinging the glaive in reality, quickly realizing that while the glaive was well made, it was still a normal weapon. It wasn’t made to withstand so much strain.
The lanky creature slowly tilted its head to the side as it observed them. Its pale white face almost looked like it was lighting up in the dark.
Kairos decided to try something else, balling his hand into a fist. He bent down on one of his knees to prepare for his next strike. Then, in his future vision, he bolted forth before slamming his fist against the black branch.
The immediate sensation was like hitting steel. The black branch had cracked, but Kairos felt like something cracked in his own arm as well.
He quickly stopped himself from doing so in reality, then began sweating.
It seemed that he should’ve put more points into strength in order to break down the branches, but it was too late for regrets now.
Kairos then tried to rush through the gap between the black branches, mostly to see what would happen if he did.
There wasn’t anything that repelled him directly, but he could feel his body being sapped of the mana inside. He didn’t think anything of it at first, but he could feel that he was losing something else along with that mana.
As such, Kairos once again stopped himself from performing such an action in reality.
In the end, he decided his only chance was to forcefully break the black branches, though it would probably set the creature off. With that in mind, he pushed off the ground before slamming his fist against the branch opposite to the creature.
A dull bang rang out along with a soft crack.
Kairos could feel that his fist was trembling ever so slightly while a strong pain snaked through the bones in his hand. The black branch gave in ever so slightly, but it was not enough to break it.
And as for the creature, the casual smile on its face quickly turned into a frown.
It let out an ear-piercing strange cry. The pavement below Kairos began cracking, spreading out very quickly.
Seeing this, Kairos ignored the pain and punched the black branch once more.
This time, it shattered completely. The skin on Kairos’ knuckle had peeled back, revealing his flesh, but he could care less about that right now. In his future vision, he saw that the ground below him caved in, becoming a giant sinkhole.
Seeing this, he did not hesitate in leaving through the hole he had made before jumping up into the air.
Right as he did so, the sinkhole formed, and Ling ended up falling down it helplessly.
Kairos focused on getting as much horizontal distance as possible to get out of the range of the sinkhole, but as he was flying through the air, he suddenly stopped in place while a strong pain filled his chest.
The black branches snaked through the air and pierced through him.
Kairos saw it happen, but there was essentially nothing he could do because he was mid-air. The mana in his body began seeping into that black spike, and it felt as though his vitality was being sapped away as well. He couldn’t help but feel a sense of despair from his situation. He could vaguely hear some concerned cries coming from the building above.
In fact, Tori even ended up flying down to try and save him.
But it was too little too late.
The black spikes dragged him down the sinkhole, plunging him into darkness.
Kairos attempted to struggle the entire time, but it seemed like the black branch that pierced through him doubled as a form of restraint, locking up the functions of his body.
He even decided to try and channel his mana to form a spell, but he saw that in his future vision that his body would only implode if he attempted that.
In the end, Kairos could only be taken away.
He could tell that he was moving very quickly, and it wasn’t just in the downward direction. It seemed that the creature was taking him away somewhere, but as for where that was, he did not know.
Quite a bit of time passed by.
Though Kairos couldn’t tell how much it was, at the very least a few hours had passed. The entire time, he was skewed to the black branch. Thankfully, it didn’t seem to be draining his mana during the travels.
But then, it stopped moving.
And with that, Kairos felt his mana and vitality slowly begin to drain. Naturally, he didn’t want to just sit there and take it, but no matter how hard he struggled, his limbs just wouldn’t move faster than a sloth.
It had been a while since Kairos had felt this powerless.
He was beginning to give up hope.
But just as that sentiment arose, he could feel someone grab his hand. It was a tiny hand, but one that held conviction as it yanked on him.
Kairos burst out of the ground and was greeted with the face of Ling, who had one eye closed. The eye that Ling had open was the one with partial heterochromia, half light blue, half hazelnut. Upon pulling Kairos out, his other eye fluttered open.
He still looked nervous, but seemed a bit relieved upon seeing a familiar face.
Kairos immediately felt control over his own body coming back to him. The glaive that he had on him from earlier was lodged into his leg, causing quite the messy wound. He hadn’t actually realized he had been pierced until seeing it for himself.
Kairos blinked a few times.
“Thanks.”
Ling did not respond. Instead, he looked in a certain direction with fear.
Kairos followed his gaze to see the creature from earlier, but it was not facing him as of now. It seemed to be tending to something, but as for what, that was not clear.
Kairos decided to take this time to take in his surroundings.
They seemed to be on some sort of field, covered with grass. All around them were these black trees coming up and out of the ground. They looked quite unsettling as each of them vaguely had the pattern of a distorted face on their bark.
As for the leaves that came out of these trees, they were very thin, like hair, and were also red in color.
Kairos’ gaze shifted up, and that let him see a person.
It was a young man skewered by the black branches, like Kairos was. His eyes were wide open, while a thin line of blood was overflowing from his mouth.
It was hard to tell, but the man was still alive.
After a few moments, the creature let out a strange cry, and the body slowly descended from the air before being buried into the ground underneath a sapling.
Then, it began to grow as a face formed on the bark and red leaves appeared as well.
