New technique

'The previous king?' 

When Tom heard Midas call the wise monkey before them like that, his eyebrows furrowed in a frown.

'Isn't he supposed to be dead, what is he doing here and why did he come out of the current king's corpse?'

The previous king of the wisemonkies: Midrid

From what Midas had told him, he had died a few years back due to a wound inflicted on him by the king of the cristallite, so what the f*ck was he doing here ?

The questions Tom had kept piling up as he stared at the previous king of the wisemonkies flex his muscles.

"Midas, you seem even more old than the last time I saw you" suddenly said Midrid.

"Y-Yes" stuttered Midas.

"I saw what happened through my son's eyes, I knew that this day would come, but don't you think that you were too hasty, you should have waited at least a few more months" scolded Midrid.

Hearing his words, Tom's frown deepened.

'What is going on, does Midas know something?'

Doubt toward Midas started to arose in Tom's heart, but when he saw the confused expression on Midas face, he understood that the old wisemonkey didn't have a clue about what the king was talking about.

"Is it..."

"He looks like him"

"Didn't he die ?"

Murmurs coming from the onlooking Wisemonkies started to emerge as the wisemonkies starred with a bewildered expression, their previous king standing before their eyes.

"Yes, that's me, my people. I have come back; your king is finally here!" exclaimed Midrid with wide arms.

"It's really him!"

"Waaaah"

The wisemonkies shouted in joy as they witnessed the return of their beloved king that they had thought had died.

'Wait, hold on. Why are they cheering for him? This guy, presumed dead, suddenly emerges from the remains. No, from the way he speaks and acts, he is the one who caused his son to become a pile of bones. So why the hell are they cheering for him like he's some f*cking hero returning from war?' frowned Tom as he observed the wisemonkey tribesmen's reactions.

If only it was just cheering, it would still be fine, but these guys actually started to kneel to Midrid!

'Wait, wait, wait, if they are kneeling to him, doesn't that mean that they recognize him as their chief?' Tom's expression suddenly darkened.

'There is no way I'm going to allow this bastard steal the glory after I was the one who did all the work!'

One might say that Tom's train of thought was wrong because the one standing here was the previous ruler of the wisemonkies, it was natural that they considered him as their chief since it was during his rulership that their tribe had flourished.

However, Tom didn't see it that way, for him, he was the one supposed to become the king of the wisemonkies; Since he came into this world, many months had passed, months during which he had constantly struggled. He struggled to become stronger. He had struggled to defeat the wisemonkies and transform them into his subordinates. He had struggled to create an army of wisemonkies. Likewise, he had struggled to defeat the current king. All of that for what ? So that someone else could appear and suddenly take all the credit?, there was no f*cking way he would allow something like that to happen!

It happened when Tom was about to make his move...

"Why aren't kneeling ?" Asked the king as he looked in a certain direction.

Tom followed his gaze, and his eyes landed on Mooglie and his other subordinates, who were the only ones standing amongst the sea of kneeling wisemonkies.

"Why would we kneel to you ? We don't recognize you as our boss" replied mooglie.

"I understand" said Midrid before turning to look at Tom for the first time.

"It seems that you refuse to kneel because of this furless creature, if that's the case..."

A split second after he said this, Midrid appeared at Tom's side and slapped him with the back of his hand, as if swatting away a fly.

Despite that, the strength in that slap was so powerful that Tom's body was sent flying through the air at such speed that Mooglie and the others couldn't even see him pass. However, perhaps it was for the best because had they seen what Tom looked like currently, their hearts would have sunk to the bottom.

"....he isn't here anymore, so, kneel" ordered Midrid.

***

A few seconds after Midrid had sent him flying, Tom came to a stop after he crashed against a tree.

"Cough... Cough" Tom coughed blood as he slumped on the ground.

'With just one hit, I'm in this state. Did all my training really amount to nothing?' wondered Tom in a self-deprecating manner as his vision flashed red from the blood covering his eyes.

Tom's was...a mess, that's the least one could say.

Blood oozed from his mouth, nose, and ears. His left hand was distorted unnaturally, his ribs were broken, and some of his internal organs were injured.

His current state was so bad, very, very bad, and the most despairing thing was that he couldn't heal himself for a simple reason.

He had practically no etherium left.

Tom's eyelids grew heavy, he knew what this meant because he had been in the same situation months ago.

'I'm dying' thought Tom as he struggled to keep his eyes open.

Contrary to the first time that he nearly died from hunger, and he had accepted death, Tom was very unwilling to die this time.

'I don't want to die,' thought Tom as tears started to pool in his eyes.

After those months passed, here he had come to form friendships with the wisemonkies. He also missed his sister dearly and didn't want to die before seeing them again.

However, what could he do? With each second that passed, he felt himself dying. He could even see it as if it were happening before him: his personal time coming to its end.

His personal time that represented his longevity was about to extinguish, but Tom didn't want that, he couldn't allow that.

In the hope of keeping his personal time from extinguishing, Tom did something he had never tried, something he had never thought of.

He used temporal stasis on himself.

"Ah, nothing...is...happenin-" 

Before Tom could finish his words, a voice entered his ears, a voice he thought he would never hear again.

[You have created a new time manipulation technique]

Just after the voice spoke, Tom suddenly felt a flood of etherium running through his body.