Though it would only take a few seconds for Kairos to gather a decent amount of mana for his spell, the monster was going to reach him at an even faster rate.

Kairos’ eyes narrowed.

He spikes shoot out from the monster, thus threw himself back. However, he soon calmed down. When the monster had its spikes extend out, they ended up getting caught in the side of the walls. Although they pierced through to a certain extent, the monster seemed to be unable to extend its spikes further or even move.

Kairos saw this as an opportunity, thus got closer.

The monster retracted its spikes and even took a step back, almost like it wasn’t expecting something to come towards it.

The monster let out a growl, leaping onto the other wall all the while watching closely.

Kairos was about to take a step forward, but stopped when he saw that the monster would’ve retreated out onto the streets with his future vision.

Although the alleyway would make it hard to dodge the monster’s attacks, especially the spikes, it would also go the other way around. Considering how fast it leaped back and forth between the walls, he decided limiting the thing’s movement would help quite a bit.

Especially since he only had one chance to use the pulse spell before his mana would be depleted.

Once Kairos stopped moving forward, the monster looked intently, its head abruptly tilting to the side and back. It would occasionally lift up its arms or legs one at a time, almost like it was moving, but would stay in the same location.

Kairos then tried to take a step back, and the moment he did, the monster lunged towards him, screeching. When it was a few meters away, the spikes suddenly extended out once more.

Kairos could see them coming with his future vision, thus threw his body to the side in order to avoid it. The spike lodged themselves into the walls around, causing more cracks to form in the wall.

But also keeping the creature in place.

Kairos pounced forth once more, sticking out his free hand and intending on using the pulse spell. The monster retracted its spikes quickly, but the palm was already in front of it.

However, Kairos suddenly grit his teeth and stopped himself from casting the pulse spell.

He saw in his future vision that the spell would let out a tremendous force, cracking the floor and walls around him.

…But the monster would be fine, before shooting out a spike and piercing his body.

Kairos cursed internally as he pulled back.

The monster promptly shot out its spikes, brushing by the side of his abdomen. Kairos felt his eyes widen as adrenaline filled his body. He did not think that he would brush by death like this already.

He thought through various possibilities as to why his pulse spell seemingly did nothing.

Unfortunately, his thoughts were cut off before he could come to a conclusion. After retracting its spikes, the monster lunged towards him. This time, it had its jaws wide open, trying to bite down on him. It looked quite creepy with the top of its head being a dark black while the bottom was instead red.

Kairos wanted to use the pulse spell once more, but stopped himself.

He saw in his future vision that the monster’s bottom jaw would be obliterated, but the important parts would still be intact. In the instant, he switched to swinging with his fire axe.

With a clear bang, it slammed down hard on the creature’s forehead and forced it back. One thing that immediately became apparent to Kairos was that not even a dent had formed on the creature’s forehead.

It became quite clear to him that the blackened section of the monster was some sort of super armor. In other words, he should target its underbelly. The only problem was that this monster moved on all fours, keeping its vulnerable spot covered.

After letting out a low growl, it shot its spikes out once more.

Kairos blocked using the side of his fire axe. A fairly big dent appeared on the side of the weapon, but it was able to divert the spikes. After that, he decisively dropped the fire axe before reaching out towards the monster with his now free hand.

Though the monster was locked in place because of its own spikes, it didn’t plan on just letting Kairos do what he wished. Its mouth opened wide, intending on biting down. However, with the help of his future vision, Kairos was able to trick the monster into extending its neck out one way and biting down.

His hand swerved to the other side and grabbed onto the monster’s neck.

Despite the monster not being that large, he could immediately feel that it was quite heavy. However, he had already committed to doing this and wasn’t going to back off now.

Kairos frowned, tightening his grip around the monster’s neck to the point that his fingers whitened and his hand was trembling. At the same time, the monster retracted its spikes and grabbed onto Kairos’ wrist with its own hands, desperately trying to remove the grip.

However, It was already too late.

Kairos had lifted up the monster completely, meaning that its back was now facing the opposite direction. This didn’t stop it from shooting out its spikes anyway, however, none of them could even come close to hitting him.

Kairos moved his free palm towards the abdomen, then let the spell loose.

A faint whip rang out before a deafening bang resounded.

It slammed hard against the monster, causing its body to essentially turn into mush. Kairos lost his grip on it due to the force, thus letting its corpse shoot back. The surrounding walls and pavement were cracked from the residual impact.

[Killed Creature (Challenge Kill – One Rank Superior to Killer) – 0.3 points awarded]

Kairos couldn’t help but think that all of this effort was definitely not worth the amount of points he gained. Though in the end he wasn’t fighting it for the sake of points, but to survive.

And considering that he came out on top, it was the ideal situation.

Chase who was watching from afar nodded

“Nice kill.”

The monster’s black carapace was undamaged, though it was also blown away. Kairos was about to run away with the others, but suddenly thought about how useful it would be to have a shield that was that durable.

And as such, he rushed over to pick up the black carapace, ignoring all of the blood that had been mushed up inside it.

As he did so, he could make out quite a few monsters in the distance running towards him. Considering how he had almost no mana at all now, making him feel quite deprived, Kairos really did not like the sight in front of him.

He picked up the black carapace, retrieved his fire axe and placed it inside that. Then, he pulled out the red prism, letting it hover above his hand. Once more, he slowly formed those stone bars up from the ground, slowing down all of the monsters’ approach.

The black carapace was surprisingly heavy, prompting Kairos to drag it along the floor. However, it wasn’t heavy enough to significantly impair his speed.

It did not take long for Kairos to catch up with the rest of the group, but due to the constraints of the alleyway, he could no longer take up the front. Thankfully, Tori took on that job, killing the occasional monster that blocked their way.

Nicole couldn’t help but comment on the giant thing that Kairos was dragging along.

“Why are you bringing that along? It’s kinda loud!”

In response, Kairos shrugged his shoulders.

“Sorry, but this stuff is tougher than concrete. It would be too much of a shame to leave it behind.”

Nicole seemed a little hesitant, but agreed in the end.

“Ok!”

Tori got out onto the streets after looking both ways.

“There doesn’t seem to be anything blocking our way this time.”

The group followed behind her hastily.

Out on the open streets were a few monsters here and there, but most were currently distracted by some of the leftover flesh still on the floor.

Kairos heaved a sigh.

“Let’s try to navigate a way back to the wilderness then.”

But that was when his eyes were attracted to a random red dot that had appeared on Nicole’s head. Harold was behind her at the time and noticed it too. He seemed to understand what it meant, thus he shoved her away.

However, Harold put too much into it, thus getting into the sights of this red dot himself.

Kairos saw Harold’s head explode in his future vision.

Immediately, his body was shot full with adrenaline as he understood what Harold’s death meant. Nicole and Sydney would become extremely unstable, which was really bad considering they were the only two people he could somewhat trust right now.

Kairos swiftly reached for the fire axe within the black carapace, focused his senses to the limit in order to time this perfectly.

Then threw the axe.

Yet, right when he did so, Kairos’ eyes widened.

“Motherfucker.”

The fire axe flung through the air. Though he was not used to timing things like this, he ended up doing so perfectly, blocking the path of the bullet with the middle of the fire axe.

However, the bullet directly tore through it.

The fire axe ended up forcefully mangled into several pieces, unable to stop the bullet in the end as it whizzed past.

Harold’s head exploded into a pile of mush, while his body continued to move forward, bleeding heavily from his neck.

Almost immediately Sydney yelled out.

“HAROLD!”

Harold’s body ended up collapsing onto Nicole’s side. Some of the brain matter had splattered onto her face, while parts of the skull had cut into her skin. To make things worse, after Harold’s body landed on her side, the blood spewing from his neck ended up drenching Nicole as well.

She had completely frozen up. Not able to process the situation.

Kairos cursed internally. Though he thought that someone would die eventually, he didn’t expect it to be so soon.

Not to mention, considering it was by a bullet, they were killed by some other human. He couldn’t understand why someone would be not only willing to waste a bullet, but make a loud sound that would attract monsters to kill some random person.

Nonetheless, this person seemed fully intent on killing the others as the red dot began focusing on Sydney. Kairos yelled as loudly as he could while throwing the black carapace up ahead.

It seemed Sydney’s survival instincts had taken over to a certain extent. Despite her frazzled state, she ducked behind the black carapace, and the bullet slammed hard against it.

The carapace was dented, but it held on strong. Chase and Tori seemed to get the same idea, throwing themselves behind the carapace as well. The only exception was Nicole, who was still frozen in shock.

The red dot began focusing on her head. Chase and Tori held the carapace up, but it wasn’t exactly the largest thing. Kairos pushed off Harold’s body and wrapped his arm around her shoulder to bring her down behind the carapace.

It wasn’t exactly the largest thing, meaning that they had to group up in order to get behind it. Even the slightest movement out of the way could lead to disastrous consequences considering how little space they had from behind it.

Unfortunately, Nicole began screaming very loudly.

And frantically struggling as well.