Chapter 128 Standoff

Kairos felt his pupils constrict to a point.

He had confidence that his gale spell would hit. After all, from what Kairos had seen, the cloaked figure was unable to stop itself once it had done those three attacks. Though he would've preferred to release the gale spell while it was in the middle of attacking, the cloaked figure simply moved too fast.

Kairos would've had to take into account the travel speed of the gale spell, which was one he had hardly used before.

As such, this was the option he was left with. Releasing the gale spell right when the figure was in front of him.

The sharp wind shot out from his four fingers, heading straight for the cloaked figure's head.

In less than a tenth of a second, her head would be pierced through. That was all that was required.

Kairos could feel his focus sharpen even further, making time seem to slow down tremendously. From how the cloaked figure's eyes looked, Kairos saw that it noticed the gale of wind coming towards it.

Nonetheless, it was still very fast. The gale of wind pierced through the bandages, and then through its eyes. In just a few moments, large amounts of blood would surely come out.

But right when Kairos felt like the fight was finally won, the cloaked figure disappeared.

Quite literally vanishing out of thin air, almost like it had never existed in the first place. Though, a few drops of blood fell down, splattering on the ground. With that, Kairos was easily able to recognize it wasn't some sort of illusion, but rather reality.

He whipped his head around, but he couldn't catch a glimpse of it.

Kairos was feeling a little anxious now. His breathing was heavy, which was natural considering how badly he was injured. Though he was bleeding from the countless cut wounds spread all over his body, that was not his main concern.

Rather, it was that his one opportunity to catch the cloaked figure off guard was used up. Now, it would be expecting that. And as such, it would be several times more difficult to do anything.

Kairos doubted he would even be close to hitting the thing if he tried the same thing.

His eyes did a swivel, as he spun around.

But there was nothing to see.

Once again, Kairos felt like he was a paranoid man, desperately looking around to catch sight of the monster. Like he was putting so much into looking at his surroundings that he didn't even give thought as to what he would do upon catching sight of the monster.

The mana in his body seemed to chill, almost as though it had been reacting to the monster.

For some reason, despite not seeing anything around him, he couldn't help but feel like a presence was gradually closing in on him, and it was definitely not one that had any good intentions.

Kairos' eyebrows seemed to dig into his skin with how hard they were furrowed.

He kept looking again, and again, but he legitimately couldn't see anything other than the bare roof. At some point, he felt he must've been imagining things. After taking an injury, the cloaked figure probably retreated.

However, he still sensed something was getting closer, prompting him to continue looking. The two viewpoints clashed in his mind, one telling him to look, and another telling him everything was fine.

Kairos wondered if this was how paranoid people felt.

Though, right as he was thinking that he felt a strange cold, and prickly sensation on the back of his neck. It strangely felt heavy, though he was sure there was nothing there.

Though, this was all something he saw in his future vision.

Nonetheless, he instinctively lunged forth and twirled around, to see the cloaked figure once again.

It had its dagger raised up in the air, ready to bring it down almost like it was actually a hatchet. The appearance of the cloaked figure was quite unsettling, with a horizontal cut across its face, right where the eyes were.

Under normal circumstances, people would instinctively close their eyes even if it wasn't something that helped. However, this monster kept its eyes wide open, fully revealing cut open eyes.

The insides of the eye looked red, while some clear gel that Kairos didn't recognize was flowing out. If it wasn't for its noticeable viscosity, he would've believed that they were tears.

The cut across its face had torn the black cloak, just barely some of the cloaked figure's skin. And it was very clearly red, indicating that it was a monster. Though, it definitely seemed too intelligent to be the usual one.

In the back of Kairos' mind, he connected the monster to a few others he had seen before.

The monsters under The Red Priest. Disciples, that man seemed to call it.

But... it didn't seem to be as strong as the other ones. From what he remembered, the monster with tough bones was far more terrifying with its size and unreasonably strong durability.

Yet, right as he was thinking that, the cloaked monster in front of him suddenly blurred, before appearing behind him the next second.

In his future vision, he felt his neck get cut through, prompting him to bring his spear up and block it.

A clear clang resounded, while Kairos found himself stumbling forwards.

Though, he had no time to rest, as he immediately felt a knife pierce into his lung.

Kairos once again repositions his spear to block it.

It was only after the clang resounded did he realize that cloaked monsters appeared to his side. But right after, the figure blurred once more.

This continued for quite a while. Kairos was getting fatigued quickly, as the wounds on his body were weighing him down pretty badly. He then decided he may as well extend his future vision to two seconds.

He didn't really want to use it, as he knew that the resulting headache would strain his focus badly, but now that was the least of his problems.

Now that Kairos was able to see several seconds ahead, dodging became much easier, as he could even see the second attack while the first still had yet to happen. He wouldn't be able to last for that much longer, but at least the situation was under control for now.

Kairos began thinking about how he could escape this situation, but for whatever reason, he suddenly found that he couldn't see the cloaked figure at all.

It surprised him quite a bit, but the pain from a knife slashing through his neck immediately woke him. He quickly blocked it so that the knife didn't slash through his neck in reality.

Kairos looked at the place where he felt the knife collide, but didn't see anything at all.

He couldn't help but sweat slightly. If it wasn't for his future vision, he honestly had no idea what he would do against this kind of enemy that could just turn invisible at will.

Nonetheless, he was still able to manage. Unfortunately, this meant he would have to wait for the feeling of pain from a slash before reacting.

Perhaps if someone saw him right now, they would think he was doing some sort of mime play, or like some sort of kid pretending he was in an epic fight. Though, maybe it wasn't that similar, considering how much blood was pouring out of him right now.

While he was still thinking of a way out of this situation, he saw in his future vision that despite blocking, the attack cut through his arm.

He immediately recorrected himself again, holding the spear at a different angle.

Thankfully this time, the knife hit his spear with a clang.

​ If his future vision wasn't extended to two seconds, he wouldn't have noticed it still slashed him until it happened in reality. But from this, he realized a problem. He had no inkling of the actual trajectory of the attack since it was invisible. If he messed up twice in a row, then he would be hit directly.

As he felt his body beginning to strain, he ended up messing more and more.

He messed up again, but was able to block it in the end. But right afterwards, he messed up a little too much.

The dagger slammed into his liver in reality. Kairos cursed internally, before getting out of the way and continued blocking.

As for his options to get out of this alive, he could only think of two. The first one was jumping off the building, then improvising from the way there. The second was delaying for Tori to come save him.

If he did choose to jump off, it would be quite difficult for Tori to find him, thus he decided he should just stall for time.

But as he messed up a little too much one more, receiving a slash on the side of his face. His entire body felt like it was on fire. No, he had to change something if he wanted to stall for time. At this rate, he would be done for in just a few more minutes.

Kairos forced himself to calm down. There had to be something, just not what he was thinking of right now.

Then after calming down slightly, was when he noticed a very faint whistling sound. It was the sound of the dagger moving.

Kairos twisted his spear to block it, and sure enough, he was able to deflect the blow on his first try. He felt a little relieved with his small victory and continued on this way.

Yet, something strange happened right after. He could hear the whistling of wind coming from two separate directions.

It made him confused, but he didn't question it for now and moved his spear to block one. In his future vision, he saw that his arm was slashed, while his spear hadn't hit anything. Quickly correcting it, he twisted it the other way in reality, then blocked it.

Sweat began forming on Kairos' forehead once more.

He complained internally about how unfair this was, but continued blocking. It was far more difficult, but the increased adrenaline just barely let him continue on without taking too many hits.

Then, he could feel one going straight for his neck.

He felt one gust of wind coming from his left, while another came from the right. He attempted to block the one on the left, but saw in his future vision it was a dud. Ignoring the pain from getting slashed in the neck, he changed it, blocking the right instead.

But then his neck got slashed again.

It was at this moment Kairos realized the slash actually came silently from the front, while the other two were diversions.

There was no longer any time for him to block with the spear, so he reached out with his hand, blocking it roughly that way.

The knife pierced through his hand, making his palm appear to suddenly burst out with blood. Right afterward, he gripped the invisible dagger as hard as he could, despite how it was ripping it apart his hand.

He then used his other hand to forcefully stab the invisible figure where it should've been, but unfortunately, he only hit the air.

He continued to try and swing his spear, and from the jostling he felt from the dagger, the monster was definitely moving, he was just unable to hit it.

The situation had quickly become worse.

Kairos still had one green orb left, and truly wished that he could use it, but knew that if he tried, he would be killed while doing so. He thought that maybe if he injured it, then he would be able to take advantage of the brief moment if backed up.

But he just... couldn't hit it.

Kairos gradually felt himself sinking into despair as his hand split apart further and further.

At this rate, it would get to his neck.