Kairos saw that while Ines had fallen quite far, she was still able to land back onto the spiral staircase. Practically immediately, she began scampering up once again. However, as fast as she was, it would still take quite a while for her to get back up.
Kairos hesitated for a moment, but turned around before rushing down the bloody pathway.
From how he saw it, this was a good opportunity while they were separated to finish one of them off. Since Darren seemed pretty badly injured, that was naturally the one he wanted to go fight.
Not to mention, he didn’t have any contingency plan if he fell down the spiral staircase, so he had no plans of trying to fight with Ines for now, who was more or less fine.
Kairos squinted slightly. After walking a decent distance into the bloody path, he found his eyes felt uncomfortable. There seemed to be some sort of faint mist lingering in the area, almost like a light foggy day.
It obscured his vision somewhat, but he was still able to see one hundred or so meters ahead of him.
Though most of the blood was dried and nearly black, there was still a line of fresh blood. Kairos assumed that there was left by Darren, and thus followed it.
The trail was initially straight, but eventually became a rather large splotch of blood. From there, there was no longer any bloodstain. Kairos furrowed his brows.
He began considering if it was possible that Darren had somehow died and was then swallowed up by the dungeon, like how it did with the other corpses.
But then again, it would probably be much faster for blood to be swallowed up rather than an entire corpse.
As Kairos stared at the blood in front of him, he witnessed it rapidly disappear.
He quickly came to the conclusion that Darren was still alive, and somehow able to stop the bleeding. Kairos furrowed his brows before looking around him.
There were no signs, so he decided to randomly choose to go to the left. His rationale was that Darren probably went to the side rather than fleeing directly away since he worked so hard to get rid of the trail.
After a moment of hesitation, Kairos went left.
He jogged briskly, squinting his eyes because of the uncomfortable mist. Eventually, he was able to come across sounds far off in the distance. Thinking that it was a good sign, he shifted his direction slightly to get closer to those sounds.
Along with the clear tapping sounds of his footsteps, roars came from the distance.
Kairos presumed that these were the monsters. Which then led him to wonder how strong they were exactly.
Soon enough, he found himself able to see the situation for himself.
There were two little children fighting against a massive ogre-like monster.
Kairos cursed internally once he realized that he had completely lost Darren, but decided to stay to watch the scene go down.
The monster was nearly ten meters tall, but while it was high, its bloated shape was far more notable. It seemed that this particular monster was obese, though it was definitely also muscular. Along with that, its skin was in a darker shade than usual, and red veins snaked through its entire body, squirming strangely.
There was a giant club in its hand, which was at the same height as it. As it swung the club around, violent gusts of wind would follow right after. The weight was clear, but the monster was swinging it around like a toothpick.
Unlike other monsters, this one seemed more human, mostly because…
“Hahaha, some little kids want to try and kill me?”
It was talking, and also the cocky smirk on its face as it fought. This was quite startling to Kairos, as he imagined most monsters to have completely lost their rationality.
At any rate, it was even difficult for people that were considered humans to retain coherent thought, which made it that much more impressive.
The ogre-like monster swung its club at a little boy, who was hovering in the air. The club was by no means slow. If Kairos wanted to dodge, he would probably only be able to do so by using his future vision.
Yet, that boy glided through the air, suddenly soaring upwards, and dodging it. He had short and rugged brown hair. Though practically nobody tried to maintain their hair in the apocalypse, from how messed up it was, it seemed like he had always had extremely messy hair.
“Judging people by their age is the first mistake many make.”
Despite being engaged directly in a battle, there was a rather monotone expression on his face. It appeared as though he was bored. In fact, his eyelids were hardly open, almost like he was on the verge of falling asleep.
Yet as though to contrast that fact, there were bright green pupils underneath, that gave off light almost like it was a wolf’s at night.
Along with that, the kid was holding a long chain in his hand, which was over three meters long. At the end, there was a meter-wide scythe.
Kairos couldn’t help but wonder where someone could even find a weapon like that.
The chain almost seemed to be dancing in the air. In fact, it seemed alive, almost as though it was actually an eel navigating its way through the ocean. There was a dangerous glint coming from the blade as it abruptly shot towards the monster’s neck.
However, despite how large it was, the monster was also agile, able to step to the side, avoiding it entirely. In fact, its steps were essentially silent, which was quite strange for such a large being.
Despite not having landed a hit earlier, the monster’s confidence was as strong as ever.
“Hahaha, you have some sort of inferiority complex because of your age, don’t you? Frankly, even the people you would consider to be old grandpas look just like children to me, so no need to take it to heart, brat.”
Its club whipped through the air, which the little boy was confident to dodge. However, the corner of his lip quickly turned down as he watched the club fly through the air.
It was heading for his chains, rather than him.
The boy let out a grunt, trying to whip his chains out of the way, but it was simply too long. The club smashed against the chains, wrapping them around it. The blade even ended up hooking itself onto it.
The boy furrowed his brows as he felt the chains suddenly stretch taut. As for the club, it continued to snake through the air. At this rate, the weapon would be forcibly pulled out of his hand.
Yet…
“So you’re saying that you’re nothing but a feeble old grandpa, huh?
A deafening bang resounded.
The club was knocked away, while the chains were forcibly stripped off. A little girl pulled back a giant war hammer, nearly four meters in length. It looked quite strange given that it was several times her size, but that didn’t seem to bother her.
She had fairly long purple hair that came down to just above her waist. There was a very similar bored expression on her face, which would make most connect the two that they were related in some capacity.
Her eyes also glowed brightly, but were blue instead.
She definitely looked more muscular than most kids, but that didn’t change how slender her body was. Her child-like features were still what stood out most.
Yet, the way that she easily wielded the hammer, that fact almost seemed like an illusion.
The boy let out a soft breath while twirling his chain and scythe around in the air.
“I almost thought you weren’t coming, Lucy.”
Lucy clicked her tongue.
“You were the one that always brags about being able to stand on your own, don’t you Oliver?”
Oliver chuckled.
“Ok, ok.”
The monster grunted while holding both hands around the handle of its club. It was straining its hands to regain control over the club, as it was flung to the side from Lucy’s strike earlier.
The monster narrowed its eyes as it took a step forward, swinging its club once more.
“You really think you have time to be arguing in front of me?”
Lucy and Oliver suddenly split apart, letting the club swish through the air between them. They only had rags covering their bodies, with countless old tears and stains that seemed to have seen years of use. There were no wings, so their ability to fly seemed to directly stem from some sort of magical spell.
On top of that, they swooped through the air more deftly than actual birds themselves.
The monster scoffed before a cocky smile returned to its face.
“Don’t think you can evade forever!”
As Oliver glided through the air, he twirled his chain and scythe before sparing a glance at Lucy.
“Hey, there’s another roach trying to take our kill.”
Lucy let out a sigh.
“I already know that. I will take care of it later.”
Kairos quickly realized that they were talking about him. He snapped out of his stupor, realizing he had just been staring awkwardly.
He waved his hand nonchalantly.
“Ah, I’m not trying to steal any kill. Rather, I’m trying to kill this guy with short blonde hair.”
Then, he tilted his head to the side slightly while holding onto his chin.
“Ah, speaking of, have you seen that guy?”
Oliver raised an eyebrow before pointing off into the mist, close to the direction that Kairos had come from earlier.
“Darren? That asshole is right over there.”
Kairos turned to look, but could only see the mist.
“You can see that far?”
Oliver shrugged his shoulders.
“Yeah, I’m not blind.”
Lucy clicked her tongue.
“Oliver, you just gave out that information for free when we could’ve used it to our advantage!”
Oliver rolled his eyes.
“I don’t like that Darren guy anyway, and I’m too lazy to kill him myself.”
After saying that, he suddenly dipped down, letting a club soar over his head.
The monster ground his teeth noisily before shouting.
“Dammit! Don’t ignore me!”
As its club glided through the air, Lucy had already raised her hammer up high in the air and was just above the club’s trajectory.
When it whipped around to her, she let out a grunt before letting her hammer slam downwards.
A deafening smash resounded, while the dungeon shook slightly.
The club slammed down onto the ground, causing a large line of cracks to appear around it.
At that time, Oliver shot towards the monster’s legs before letting out a soft sigh.
“Finally.”
Kairos began running towards the location pointed earlier, but couldn’t help but turn back to look at their fight.
Oliver whipped the chain in his hands forth, causing it to wrap around the monster’s legs. He ended up abandoning the end he was holding entirely, instead catching the other side as the scythe whipped around.
The monster let out a deep roar.
“This won’t work on me!”
It began to struggle, trying to separate its feet. But while it was distracted in doing that, Oliver tossed the blade of the scythe upwards. Somehow, it began to automatically extend itself, reaching up all the way to the top of the monster before starting to wrap around his neck.
The monster realized that, and abandoned its club so that it could use both hands to cover his neck.
The chains ended up wrapping around, while the blade pierced through the monster’s flesh, but only its hands.
Despite its predicament, the monster still seemed confident in itself.
“This won’t work! It’s simply too weak!”
It began to forcibly break out of the chains that wrapped both around its legs and hands.
However, Oliver wasn’t panicked in any way. He had one hand on his hip as he called out to Lucy.
“Hey, it’s my turn to get a point.”
Lucy rolled her eyes.
“Yeah, I know.”