Tree

The group continued at a fairly brisk pace, going down the street. Tori took up the front and was able to take care of all the monsters that came for them. Compared to how it was like before, the journey was quite smooth.

Although killing monsters would attract more, so long as they didn't stay in the same spot to try to farm points, not too many would come at once.

But that also meant that they couldn't afford to take a break and settling down at a location would also be difficult. It truly seemed that their only option was to make it to the wilderness, unless they wanted to settle down somewhere and face an unending horde.

Eventually, Sydney was able to run on her own. However, it seemed more like she was running to deal with the stress rather than overcoming it. As for Nicole, her eyes were still murky, but she continued to run while holding onto Kairos' hand as though it was the only thing keeping her above the water.

Kairos was rather anxious that something else would pop up once more. This was mostly in part due to the fact he didn't have any mana, and the regeneration process was far longer than he thought it would be.

At the rate that mana entered his body, it would take roughly half a day for it to restore completely.

Thankfully, his worries were unfounded. It seemed there were only so many unlucky encounters that they could come across. They traveled for quite a while, slowly cutting their way through all of the monsters. At first, Chase was occasionally forced to partake in fending them off with his fists or even his arrows. However, the number of monsters decreased significantly as they continued.

As for the road, it switched from pavement to a dirt trail. Even the occasional farm had appeared. Some were rather large, and others modest.

However, as they were running, Kairos ended up furrowing his brows as he took in the scenery around him.

That was because he could see a couple of strange red plants, some of which were moving around in an extremely life-like way.

Kairos didn't think about it before, but he realized that it wasn't only humans that would evolve. He still had the mentality that this was something more like the 'zombie apocalypse'. Where essentially only humans were infected, and for some reason the occasional dog.

He shook his head and quickly changed his mentality.

Even random objects could evolve, such as the watch that Nicole was using. That meant it really wasn't a stretch to say that other living beings could too. The only thing that reassured Kairos was that it seemed only the occasional plant would evolve.

As for the other plants, they either died or remained the same.

In other words, not everything would evolve even if they had the capability to do so.

Eventually, they came across a place that was filled with a relatively large amount of trees. They had made it to the wilderness.

Tori let out a sigh of relief.

"...Can we finally take a break?"

They really had been running for quite a while, so this was a fairly reasonable request. However, Kairos shook his head.

"Let's find a more plain-like area with water first."

Chase clicked his tongue.

"And what if we don't find it?"

Kairos let go of the black carapace for a moment to wave dismissively.

"I've been here before. I don't remember where exactly, but there was a camping spot with a nearby river. Once we get there, I can build a pretty big base we will very likely be safe in. Otherwise, it would be a waste of energy from this prism."

He narrowed his eyes.

"...It was a long time ago, but it should still be here."

Chase sighed.

"Alright then."

The group continued to walk at the precipice of the forest. Though Tori and Chase seemed to want to walk, Sydney was still running, thus making the rest of the group do the same to keep up.

It took nearly another hour, but the group eventually made it to the plain that Kairos was talking about. By now, everyone was extremely tired and hungry. It had already reached late afternoon, soon to be evening.

It seemed like it was finally time to relax.

There was a plain along with a river in the distance. Unfortunately, there was also a large tree with red leaves randomly in the middle of the plain. Its roots extended across nearly the entire place, almost appearing to be veins.

Tori cursed.

"What the hell is that?"

Chase took a deep breath.

"...I suppose we found the plain."

Kairos furrowed his brows.

"Can you kill it?"

Chase shrugged his shoulders.

"I can try shooting three arrows. If that doesn't kill it, then there isn't anything I can do."

Kairos was confident in the power of Chase's arrows. However, he took another look at the tree. It was nearly fifty meters tall, which wasn't anything too crazy for a tree. However, the trunk was extremely thick, reaching a diameter of nearly thirty meters.

Although Chase's arrows did a large amount of damage and had strong piercing power, they did not have the pure destruction one would need to take down such a large tree.

Kairos furrowed his brows.

"Hold on, let me test something."

He let go of Nicole, who ended up taking a few steps forward, but didn't say anything as he went off alone.

Kairos walked a little closer, setting foot onto the plain. One of the roots of the tree were nearby, but compared to how thick they were at the center, it was really tiny here, at the width of the average straw.

Kairos picked up an arbitrary rock before throwing it at the root.

It bounced off harmlessly.

That seemed to be a good sign, so Kairos decided to try stepping onto the root. As he was doing so, Nicole took a step forward.

"Wait! You can't!"

Kairos snuck a glance behind himself, seeing Nicole's pleading expression.

"Just trust me."

Nicole's grip on the fire axe tightened considerably.

"But... but..."

Kairos took a deep breath.

"I promise I will be fine."

Nicole seemed a little shocked. She reached out with her free hand with lackluster. But in the end, she put it back down.

"O-Ok."

Kairos then resumed taking a step down onto the root, paying close attention to his future vision. Yet, he was overthinking it.

As nothing happened.

There was one last test that Kairos wanted to do. And if it worked out, then he was willing to temporarily set up a base here, ignoring the tree for now.

Kairos reached down to touch the root with his bare palm.

Considering that even stepping on the root gave no reaction, he didn't think that it would be any different with his palm.

He saw himself put his palm down on the tree root.

It was fine for a split second, but at the next moment, a sudden fresh pain assaulted his mind. Almost immediately, several separate spiky roots shot up from the tree, piercing into hand and also binding it down.

Kairos immediately stopped himself from putting his hand down on the root as cold sweat formed on his forehead.

"...We have to deal with this tree first."

Chase pressed his lips together.

"Alright."

He then looked towards the tree.

"And how exactly do we do that?"

Kairos blinked a few times.

"Let me try something."

He had thought of the fire spell. Kairos didn't want to burn down the entire forest, but it would probably be fine since the tree was pretty far from any others.

By now, his mana had recovered to less than a third of its initial capacity. Not wanting to waste it, he decided to see if he could get away with the bare minimum, just barely injecting mana into the fire spell.

And that's what he did.

After a few seconds, he was able to form a tiny fire at the tip of his finger, just about a few centimeters in diameter.

Then, he shot that fire out towards the root.

It looked promising at first, causing the root to light aflame and begin burning. However, after a few seconds, the branch lifted itself off of the ground and slammed itself onto its sides rather violently, until the flame was eventually extinguished.

Tori's eyebrows raised.

"It can move."

Chase nodded.

"It seems we may have to find another place..."

Kairos took a deep breath.

"...Give me one last try."

He took a few steps back, pointing his finger towards the trunk in the middle of the plain. This time, he was going to use as much mana as possible.

Kairos began casting the fire spell, slowly gathering a fireball at the tip of his finger. One thing that he noted during the process was that it took much longer than the pulse spell. Even a fully charged pulse spell would only take a few seconds, while weaker versions would be close to instant.

On the other hand, despite not casting the fire spell to its full potential, it already took nearly twenty seconds.

In other words, it couldn't be used as a quick response in a fight.

However, within these twenty seconds, the fireball had expanded to quite a large size, a decent amount more than a meter wide. Kairos could feel the pain of having the mana drained from his body. Wanting to put his all into it, he continued to push the last bits of mana still in his bloodstream but quickly found a pain aching throughout his entire body.

Kairos didn't go too far, stopping when it became painful.

Tori couldn't help but comment on the side.

"That looks quite frightening."

Chase nodded while holding onto his chin.

"Though it is quite small compared to the tree."

Kairos let out a grunt before sending the fireball forth, letting it streak through the air towards the tree.

Though it wasn't at the speed of a bullet, or Chase's arrow, the fireball was still fast, tearing through the air with its flames. Kairos began heaving after casting the spell and watched as it shot through the air.

The fireball looked rather large at first. However, as it continued to travel, it quickly turned into what looked like a tiny dot, which seemed like nothing compared to the tree.

The corner of Kairos' lip twitch. For a moment, he couldn't help but think that he was scammed into taking this fire spell. Yet, once he saw the results in his future vision, he ended up raising an eyebrow.

The fireball landed onto the side of the tree and exploded, unleashing a large amount of flames, almost like a molotov. The explosion only had a five-meter radius, but the fires that formed on the tree spread very, very quickly.

It was far faster than fire on a normal tree, that was for sure.

For just a second or two, the tree didn't respond. And in that time, the fire had spread to the majority of the entire tree trunk. Suddenly, all of the roots of the tree were pulled out of the ground, flinging a bit of dirt into the air. It reached towards the trunk, slamming against it in an attempt to put the fire out.

However, the fire was already too much. The only thing slamming its roots against itself did was spread the fire onto those roots, speeding up its demise. If the tree had vocal cords, it would probably be screaming out in agony.

The tree put up a futile struggle, slamming its roots against the ground, scattering soil around violently.

Until eventually, it could no longer move.

The tree continued to burn more and more. The fire caught onto the leaves, releasing even more smoke that slowly billowed up into the sky.

And once it was finally over, there was only a pile of ash where it used to be. Unlike normal wood that would've been turned into charcoal after burning, there was hardly anything left of the tree to prove that it had existed.

[Killed Creature - 0.1 points awarded]

Kairos was a little surprised that such a large plant was still considered the same rank as him, but didn't think too much about it.

Tori raised an eyebrow, quite surprised at the sight before her.

"That works."

Chase blinked a few times before nodding.

"Yeah, it really does..."

Kairos took a deep breath.

"Now... let's build that base. I'm really damn tired."