Kairos narrowed his eyes as he watched the young man essentially turn into a tree.
It seemed like that would’ve happened to him if Ling didn’t pull him out.
As for the lanky creature, it was still working away doing random things such as stroking the red leaves of the tree or patting the soil. It would be very fitting if the creature began casually humming.
For whatever reason, the creature didn’t seem to notice them even though they weren’t the quietest or sneaky about things.
Kairos frowned and looked down at his leg. The handle of the glaive he took earlier was comfortably sitting in his leg. With a frown, he began pulling it out. Though he imagined this would exacerbate the healing, he would rather have a weapon right now.
The stress in his mind was still pretty bad. On top of that, most of his mana had disappeared, not solely from casting the spells, but because those black branches had drained it out of him.
Kairos definitely had the option to extend his future vision to two seconds and considering it was a dangerous situation, there was also reason to do so. However, he did not have his glasses with him. They were with Nicole.
As such, he could quickly find himself needing to close his eyes just so that he wouldn’t blackout from the stress if he abused it.
Kairos took in a deep breath as he took the glaive out of his leg, feeling it grind past his leg bone. As expected, the bleeding got much worse, but that was not enough to stop him. Eventually, he was able to pull the entire thing out, and his blood began seeping into the ground.
Ling looked surprised at his actions, but did not say anything, opting to stand still.
Kairos took a deep breath and pulled the glaive back.
In his future vision, the creature didn’t notice anything at first, but as Kairos’ blood continued to seep into the ground, it suddenly froze in place awkwardly.
From what Kairos could tell, there was no time, thus he acted.
In his future vision, he threw the glaive, causing it to shoot with frightening velocity. Unfortunately, numerous thin black branches shot out of the ground, creating a net that blocked it. There was a tiny gap, but the blade was too large, causing it to bounce off.
Kairos immediately stopped himself from throwing the glaive in reality, while the creature slowly turned around. There was a confused look that shone through its bright green eyes.
Though it quickly turned into a deep frown.
Adrenaline shot through Kairos’ worn down body, allowing him to move quicker. Without hesitation, he broke the glaive on his knee in half, doing so without much difficulty because of his strength.
Ling looked rather distraught, but he couldn’t care less right now.
Then, he took the half of the glaive that only had a tiny sharp end before throwing it with all his strength. That broken half of the glaive whipped through the air like a bullet, tearing through the air.
Numerous black branches shot out through the ground, while the creature itself tried to move out of the way. However, despite being in a life-threatening situation, the creature moved incredibly slowly, essentially making no distance in the time that the broken glaive took to travel.
Kairos saw in his future vision that it pinged off one of the branches, thus he quickly stopped himself from throwing it in reality. Then, with the memory of where the branches were, he tried once more.
The same events occurred, but this time the glaive slipped through a tiny hole before piercing straight through the creature’s head.
Green blood spilled out of its head as it snapped backwards. The mini spear had pierced through rather easily, while the shaft ended up stuck halfway through.
For a few moments, Kairos panicked as he did not see the notification that told him he had killed the creature.
However, it seemed that the damage done was quite significant.
Because its head had snapped backwards, it ended up looking into the sky, almost like someone that was asking god for the meaning of their life.
Green blood continued to drip down its face before it eventually began tilting as though it was blown down by some sort of light wind. With a light thump, it landed on the ground.
Ling stammered.
“I-Is it dead?”
Kairos blinked a few times.
“You’re going to jinx it, you know?”
But as though wanting to contradict him, a system message popped up.
[Killed Creature (Challenge Kill – One Rank Superior to Killer) – 0.3 points awarded]
It seemed that while this particular creature was incredibly strong, it also had glaring weaknesses, such as its lacking mobility and incredibly weak body.
Kairos sighed.
“Well, I guess we survived without too much difficulty.”
Yet, right after he said that, his face twitched awkwardly.
Kairos instinctively moved to the side, pushing hard on the leg that was gushing out blood. Right when he did so, a black branch shot out of the ground and towards the spot he just was.
He furrowed his brows intensely both from the pain from his leg as well as the confusion on how they were still moving.
That was when numerous ear-piercing screeches began ringing out one after another. The faces on the black trees began twisting as though they were real faces twisted in agony.
Kairos couldn’t help but mutter to himself.
“It seems I jinxed it.”
Countless black branches burst out of the ground, but thankfully they weren’t necessarily targeted at him. In fact, Ling froze in place and just so happened not to get hit by any of them.
Kairos grit his teeth as he threw his body to the side, evading another black branch.
The black branches thrashed around, smashing up large amounts of soil and also hitting other black trees. One thing Kairos noticed was that some of them seemed to be peeling away at their own bark, as though wanting to kill themselves.
While Ling didn’t have much trouble coincidentally evading the black branches, Kairos was constantly on his toes, forced to move around like he was stepping on hot coals.
Though it really did feel like he was stepping on hot coals because of how much pain his leg was experiencing in the process. Kairos was confident that he could endure it, but the fact that his body was taking damage by this process was inevitable.
He had tried to swing the other half of the broken glaive to break some of these black branches, but found that while he would be able to break through the branch, the part connecting the blade would be heavily damaged, cracking in the process.
He figured that it would just barely be able to destroy two branches before becoming useless, and thus didn’t want to recklessly do so.
Though, it would be wrong to say that he had the luxury to wait around still.
Kairos slowly made his way toward one of the trees, dashing from side to side to avoid the branches shooting out of the air. Then, he swung the glaive horizontally, trying to cut it down.
A dull thump resounded.
The glaive ripped through the tree messily, but was just barely able to get through most of it, while the remaining part ended up falling on its own.
The trunk of the black tree wasn’t nearly as hard as the roots, but because of the overall thickness, it still put heavy pressure on the part connecting the glaive and handle, causing a few cracks to form.
The tree had been cut down.
But unfortunately, the tree itself was still shrieking, while the black branches continued to move around with the same vigor it had before.
While Kairos was cursing internally, he caught Ling trying to say something from the corner of his eye. His head snapped to the side to look, and Ling was indeed mouthing something.
However, the loud shrieking drowned out any sound he made completely.
Kairos frowned before yelling.
“If you have something to say, speak louder! I can’t hear you!”
He then whipped his head back, dodging a branch that shot down from the sky.
As for Ling, he did try to speak up, but it made no real difference.
Kairos grit his teeth.
“For fuck’s sake, can you at least try to be louder?”
It was then Ling finally spoke up loudly enough for Kairos to just barely hear. In fact, he had missed most of it the first time, but because of his future vision, he was able to hear it twice and just barely piece together the message.
‘I think you have to hit them higher.’
Kairos narrowed his eyes as he twisted his leg to avoid another black branch.
“Where exactly? And speak louder if you even slightly care about us making out of this alive.”
Ling hesitated for a second, but thankfully spoke loudly enough.
“A little bit above their faces! There’s a thing there!”
Kairos’ gaze snapped to the tree he had just cut. The branches at the top continued to thrash around while the thin red leaves that made it up trembled almost like it was shivering from the cold.
As for the face, it was just above the place where he had cut.
Kairos decided to follow Ling’s advice, putting all his strength into the glaive and cutting just above the face.
The result was a bright blue explosion once the glaive got halfway through. The tree had exploded, scattering black bark everywhere. Kairos was able to block most of it, while Ling had gotten cut up a bit.
As for the branches at the top of the tree, they stopped moving entirely. On top of that, several branches that had shot out of the ground suddenly fell limp.
The pressure Kairos faced fell significantly as the number of attacks in this area decreased greatly with the death of the tree. Unfortunately, the glaive ended up breaking in the process of cutting that one down. Not only did the blade snap off the hilt, but it even cracked itself.
Kairos walked over to Ling.
“Where is your weapon?”
With a small pout, Ling lowered his head.
“I don’t know.”
Kairos furrowed his brows.
“Where did it go?”
Ling scratched the back of his head.
“When I fell down that giant hole that formed earlier, I saw these bright lights coming for me and swung my glaive at it, but then they wrapped around the handle and dragged me away. I held on for super long and let go once we came above ground, but the glaive was buried somewhere underneath.
Kairos blinked a few times, shifting his gaze towards Ling’s hands. They were severely reddened and even bloodied from the torn skin. In fact, there were even red marks on his arms.
It was clear that he held on desperately.
One small thing that Kairos had picked up on earlier was what Ling had said about bright lights. Though it didn’t seem particularly important, he found that it was strange. After all, there shouldn’t have been any lights from what he could remember.
“What do you mean by lights?”
Ling blinked a few times.
“Um… the bright blue stuff around us.”
Kairos looked around, and did not see what he was mentioning.
“I don’t see that.”
Ling seemed slightly surprised.
“Eh? Really?”
Kairos rubbed his temple with the tip of his index finger.
“Yes, why would I be lying to you in this kind of situation?”
Ling furrowed his brows.
“…Oh. I think…”
He tapped the side of his head a few times.
“One of my eyes can’t actually see.”
He pointed towards the eye with partial heterochromia, the one that was half blue and half brown.
“But even if I close the other eye, I can see these blue flowy things in the air.”
Kairos raised an eyebrow.
“…You can see mana.”