Chapter 104 Forced Evolution

It was at this point that Kairos remembered.

If he didn't see the system notification, that meant he didn't kill the enemy. Although the body he thought he was fighting was now lying motionlessly on the ground, That thing seemed as good as dead.

However, he gradually came to the conclusion that the body was never actually alive in the first place. Rather, it was only something controlled like a puppet on strings.

As for the thing controlling it...

That would be the owner of the giant eye that was currently staring at him.

From what it looked like, the two large bony hands began peeling away the fabric of reality, slowly revealing that the eye was part of a skull. This thing also only had one eye, just in a different socket from the other body.

Peeling back further, the full skull was revealed, while part of the background was also shown, which looked awfully similar to the static one would see in a tv without reception.

Kairos frowned as he watched the hand continue to stretch out the fabric of reality to reveal the massive skeleton behind it.

After making a hole large enough, the skeleton took one step through, before bringing out the top half of its body.

Kairos took off, trying to increase the distance between the two of them. However, there was only so far to run in this enclosed space. He decided to stay roughly ten meters away from the wall just so he wasn't backed up against it.

As for the skeleton, it finally pulled its other leg out from the place filled with static before letting the place shut.

The skull slowly turned around to Kairos, until its one green eye began staring straight at him. It was over twenty meters tall and simply stared at him as though observing.

During this time, Kairos had noticed there was also a blurry status panel next to it, like with the other players.

He extended his future vision for a brief moment to see what it looked like.

[Status]

[Floor Level: 2]

However, it would turn out that the information was as good as nothing. Kairos furrowed his brows, deciding it would be better to not think about it for now.

It was fairly clear that the skeleton would be extremely durable. After all, it was only a hand earlier on, yet his pulse spell was unable to damage it whatsoever.

Because the mana density of the surrounding area had skyrocketed, having mana wasn't going to be an issue, but the problem was that there was nothing to truly do with said mana.

He simply couldn't cast spells strong enough to harm it.

Suddenly, the skeleton began running towards him.

Kairos' mind abruptly went into overdrive, processing countless thoughts in just a brief moment. He began thinking about every possible option he could use to survive this encounter.

Kill the monster.

But there was no way he could in his current state.

Escape.

But there was nowhere to go within this enclosed area. In fact, he had no idea what this floor was even supposed to be. Other than appearing in a room, there was nothing else for him to do.

Perhaps that was just the way this system was, being awfully vague of whatever he was supposed to do.

And as such, that option didn't really exist.

There was also another option.

Make peace.

However, he doubted that was possible. Although the monster was intelligent enough to have rational thought, it didn't change the fact he was technically a traitor, so their relationship was already extremely bad.

No matter how he looked at the situation, they all seemed to go to dead ends.

Kairos furrowed his brows.

He attempted to expand his thinking, not wanting to be weighed down by the assumptions he made.

Why didn't fighting work?

Because he couldn't cast a spell strong enough.

But what if there was a way to cast a stronger spell?

Kairos' eyes widened.

If he evolved, that meant he could increase his magic affinity and therefore increase the power of his spell. He was only a few evolution energy away, but there was no easy way to get that evolution energy.

That was when a sudden thought filled his mind.

If he ate the body of the monster, then he would be able to gain evolution energy easily. It would definitely be a rather uncomfortable experience given that it was not only the flesh of a monster, but it had been charred by lightning and also mushed up by his pulse spell.

Though, he already had considerable experience in this regard.

Which was quite the strange thing, now that he thought about it.

Kairos quickly snapped out of his stupor as he heard the thumps of the footsteps the skeleton was taking toward him.

He had come up with his solution, though it wasn't the prettiest, it was also the only chance Kairos saw that would let him survive this situation.

First, he had to get to the body.

The skeleton rushing towards him was large, there was nothing to say about that. It had hunched over and spread out its arms so that it could easily snatch Kairos up.

Looking at this, Kairos could tell there was no way he could get past the sides of the monster. The main reason being, it was simply far too large. Even if it was much slower, Kairos doubted he would be able to.

Yet, it was nearly at the same speed as him.

Though he would've considered going above the skeleton, he also didn't have a single ability that contributed to flight in any fashion. The gale spell sounded promising, but it acted more like a bullet than anything else.

That only left...

Going underneath.

For some reason, Kairos couldn't help but think of the past at this point.

He remembered the time that a teenager with short blond hair stopped these two kids from bullying him. Though he appreciated the gesture, it didn't turn out the best way afterwards.

The two kids instead brought their older brothers, declaring that this was only fair since someone older had helped him before.

They wanted to beat him up, but Kairos didn't want to be.

As such, he decided to fight back against them.

One of the older ones rushed right at him.

The way he towered over felt an awful lot like this time. Though it wasn't that exaggerated, the size difference felt huge as a kid. As for the situation he was in right now, the skeleton was over ten times his height.

As such, this time the difference was actually huge.

Kairos rushed forth, seeing the older kid's image overlapping with the skeleton.

The adrenaline pumping through his brain made him feel lighter and even took part in boosting his confidence. He saw the older kid reach for him with both of his large arms.

But Kairos twisted to one side, evading one arm, before twisting to another, avoiding the second arm.

Then, he slid down, grossing through between the skeleton's legs.

Kairos was able to make it past.

However, he obviously did not stop there.

He continued running to the sound of his steady footsteps slapping the ground. Steady breaths came in and out of him, while some sweat poured down from his hair that was dancing in the wind.

Kairos heard the lumbering footsteps coming from behind, pressuring him to go faster. Thankfully, it seemed turning was quite hard for the skeleton, letting him get to the body without too much trouble.

Then, Kairos remembered what he did.

He decided to punch the kids that were his own size first. His logic was that way he would be able to lessen the numbers, making the fight easier. And naturally, that meant he had to attack the weaker targets.

Though it would turn out even if they weren't the older kids, it was still quite hard to fight two on one. Despite having his future vision, he was only able to get a few hits off on each of them before one grabbed onto his arm, locking him in place.

That was when the other kid did the same, essentially locking him down.

Those kids had realized that they only needed to stall for time so that their brothers could do all the work for them.

Kairos had become quite desperate at that point.

But not for one moment did he consider calling for help.

Sure, there was the teen that had helped him before, and he was grateful. But in the end, that didn't change his situation. In fact, it only made it worse.

Almost nobody had tried to save him before, yet the only time that someone had, wasn't beneficial.

It made Kairos feel isolated, like he was the only person he could rely on. It was him against the entire world.

That's just how it was.

And so, while both of his arms were locked up, Kairos fought using the only option he had left.

Kairos' mouth opened wide, before suddenly lunging forth.

And then he bit down on the neck of the kid to his side.

He was able to just barely pierce through the skin. Unfortunately, it was tough.

Kairos could feel strong signals of pain coming from his teeth. As fragile as humans were, their flesh was still surprisingly tough while they were still alive.

Kairos shook his head.

Though, the corpse he was currently feasting off of was dead. However, it was still quite tough from how it was charred by lightning. As for the pulse spell, it broke it up into pieces, but those individual pieces seemed to be compressed.

Kairos frowned as he continued forcing himself to eat the flesh, as disgusting as it was.

He had felt like he was degrading back into the mentality of an animal.

Kairos shook his head.

It also seemed like the kid he had bitten was feeling that same way, screaming at the top of his lungs while trying to push Kairos away. However, he latched on like he was a dog, refusing to stop until he had torn a piece of flesh away.

He wanted to continue, but the sounds of footsteps behind him told him to run.

And so, after scaring the two kids, he was able to break free of their grasp and run free.

Kairos shook his head.

He opened up the status panel, hoping that it was enough.

[Status]

[ID: 345315364923]

[Rank: 503/1500 Evolution Energy - 500 required for Rankup]

[Objective: Evolve]

[Proof Of Perfection Points: 62.8]

[Stats -

Strength - 14.9

Endurance - 14.9

Agility - 14.9

Willpower - 14.9

Mana Capacity - 14.9

Magic Affinity - 14.9]

[Special Abilities: Fire Spell (F), Pulse Spell (F), Gale Spell (F)]

[Inborn Abilities: Shattered Truth (F)]

[Evolve]

[Hide]

Kairos smirked as he pressed the evolve button.

[Use 10 points for stable evolution? Yes/No]

[Use 15 points for natural ability? Yes/No]

[Use 10 points for Water Spell or Frost Spell? Water/Frost | Yes/No]

[Confirm]

Kairos had quickly picked yes for every option available, as despite the situation he was unwilling to give up on any of those options. As for the choice between the water spell and frost spell, he made it in a split second, deciding to go with water.

It was more so because it had a stronger impression on him compared to anything else.

Then he clicked confirm.

He felt a strange feeling course through his entire body like his very being was getting reassembled. However, Kairos did not have the time to sit down and enjoy it, as his main focus was currently to run away as fast as possible.

Before he even felt the changes settle down, he attempted to open the status panel.

[Unavailable during evolution process]

Kairos clicked his tongue, figuring that would be the case. Nonetheless, he continued trying to call for the status panel, prompting that notification to appear several more times.

Until finally, it opened.