Red Prism

The Red Priest seemed a little confused by Sydney's question. He laughed.

"What do you mean? Don't be ridiculous, it is a rare blessing to be among the few that see the word of our god straight from the source."

Nicole pressed her lips together.

"But-"

Kairos raised his hand, cutting her off.

"Though I don't truly understand what this baptism is, I am willing to give it a try."

Nicole looked at him with a bit of despair. However, Kairos simply flashed a calm smile.

"Trust me, ok?"

Nicole nodded with a bit of hesitation.

"O-Ok..."

The Red Priest laughed.

"Wonderful, it appears you are truly eager, and that is only natural!"

Kairos put on a courteous smile.

"Of course!"

As he walked up, Chase took the bow off of his back. However, he didn't do anything special, he just began casually inspecting it.

Kairos began sweating slightly. He really didn't want to be hit by that red light from the bead. The room was silent, save for Kairos' echoing footsteps.

He walked around the pillar in the center, not even taking a glance at the red prism in the middle. Kairos' eyes widened slightly.

He was in full focus, ready to do something if his future vision told him something unfavorable would happen. However, even when he got up next to the man, The Red Priest did not act. Instead, he spoke.

"Now, kneel down child."

Kairos nodded.

He ever so slowly did the kneeling motion as The Red Priest lifted the red bead.

Then out of nowhere, Kairos lunged forwards and swung with his axe, straight towards the man's neck. He fully intended on killing him.

At the same time, Chase immediately pulled up the bow and let a mana arrow form on it.

Yet, right when that happened...

"Insolent!"

The Red Priest took a step back, avoiding the axe. He had his eyes narrowed, but now, they part open with anger, revealing two blood-red eyes.

There was still a smile on his face, but it was no longer friendly.

Kairos intended on following up on his previous strike, at the very least intending on shoving the man into the teleportation circle if nothing else worked.

However, he suddenly fell down to his knees.

For some reason, his eyes began burning up painfully, making him lose focus.

One second later, a screech of agony rang out, almost as if that person was thrown into the fiery pits of hell itself.

That was Tori.

She had dropped her katana and collapsed onto the ground. Her body was spasming violently, like she was having a heart attack.

As for Chase, the mana arrow that formed immediately dissipated while he himself also dropped his bow, falling down onto his knees. His confident smile was nowhere to be seen.

Instead, his eyes had widened as sweat poured down his forehead. His breathing was both rushed and erratic. Chase was grabbing at the center of his chest, almost like he wanted to peel out his own heart.

As for Sydney, her legs buckled as she grimaced in pain. She held onto the reddened part of her arm and ended up taking a few steps back before hitting the wall behind her.

Nicole furrowed her brows and ended up grabbing hard onto the section of her arm that usually wore the red watch.

The only person that was unaffected in this whole thing was Harold, who looked around with clear confusion.

The Red Priest spoke with the same gentle voice, but dragged his words a little and did not try to hide his hostility.

"I don't understand... how can you not understand the truth when it is so clear."

Harold looked at everyone in pain and began sweating in anxiety.

The Red Priest took in a deep breath.

"All of you may not understand now, but as part of the blessed, you must learn to open your eyes to our true god."

He shook his head and sighed.

"It appears that ignorance truly is too terrifying, making one turn on the very being they were supposed to worship."

The Red Priest closed his eyes.

"But no matter. Once all of you are educated... you will understand."

Harold grit his teeth and held onto the metal pipe a little tighter. He took another look at everyone else in agony and realized that he was the only one standing.

He decided not to question why he was the only one unaffected, and thus charged towards The Red Priest, raising the metal pipe high in the air.

"AHHHHHH!"

The Red Priest's eyes widened considerably.

"A heathen?"

Harold responded by running towards him while gritting his teeth.

The Red Priest seemed considerably confused.

"How was a heathen able to pass the trials? That is..."

At this time, Kairos was covering his eyes with both hands. However, that did not stop the painful sensation. Though that didn't mean he was fully experiencing it.

In fact, Kairos was overreacting a little.

That was because the glasses were able to block a large portion of whatever was assaulting his eyes with great pain. He covered his eyes, but that was mostly to push the glasses onto his face a little closer.

The pain really was intense despite being blocked.

However, Kairos quickly removed his hands once he heard Harold's scream. And with his future vision, he saw The Red Priest lunge for the red prism hovering above the pillar in the center.

And so, Kairos moved.

He too lunged for the red prism, but also pushed against The Red Priest's body, pushing him back.

The Red Priest was immediately incensed.

"You vermin! How dare you disgrace the Church of Evolution!"

He clearly struggled intensely. However, the strange thing was that his strength was not much more than the average human.

Kairos took full advantage of that fact, first seizing the red prism. However, he also saw with his future vision the red bead glow with an unbelievably intense light.

His entire body felt like it was lit on fire.

Kairos decisively kicked The Red Priest as hard as he could, sending him flying towards the teleportation circle.

The Red Priest's eyes were bloodshot.

"You! All of you will all pay for-"

Then, his back landed on the magic circle, causing him to disappear entirely. Suddenly, all the pain disappeared, and the situation stabilized.

Kairos had a frown on his face. Honestly, he wanted to try his luck and kill the man. After all, it was better to have corpses as enemies, unless they are a necromancer, of course. However, not only did he drop his axe, but there was simply no time unless he was willing to suffer the consequences of that red bead.

But the most important thing was that he believed the source of their pain was from their evolved body parts. Since that red bead would force evolution, then the consequences were obviously extremely frightening.

Kairos let out a sigh, then rubbed his eyes, pushing up his glasses in the process. Though he didn't have it as bad as everyone else and had a high willpower stat, he still teared up quite a bit, showing how bad it was.

As for the others, they were all panting, recovering from the painful sensations, other than Harold that is. Tori was still spasming slightly and even frothing at the mouth. As for Chase, he had both hands on the ground.

Sydney and Nicole seemed to be fine after a little while though.

Harold looked at the magic circle, then at Kairos, then at Sydney and Nicole. He ran towards them.

"Are you all ok?"

Sydney nodded a few times as she took a deep breath.

"Y-Yeah."

Chase spit out a mouthful of blood.

"...That was an unpleasant experience."

As for Tori, she still seemed to have just gotten out of hell itself.

"Wh... Where am I?"

Kairos pushed up his glasses.

"You're in heaven."

Tori suddenly sat up.

"What! I can't be dead!"

Then, she looked at her surroundings and blinked.

"...Oh, I'm not dead."

Tori massaged her temple with one hand and picked up her katana with the other.

"What happened to that weird guy?"

Kairos shrugged his shoulders.

"I kicked him into the magic circle. He's wherever that thing leads to."

Chase laughed.

"Thankfully you dealt with that quickly..."

He still had one hand over his heart, but slowly removed it.

Kairos sighed.

"Wasn't able to kill him, but... I was able to get this thing."

He held up the red prism closer to himself. The bottom part of the red prism had a spherical indentation. It seemed that it was somehow related to the red bead.

Suddenly, a status panel appeared in front of Kairos.

[Status]

[ID: 000000000001]

[Hide]

That was all that it said. It took Kairos a second to process, but he quickly realized what it was.

"This prism has its own status panel..."

Chase's eyes widened. He walked over and took a look at the status panel as well.

"...It does not tell much, though. Though the ID might be special in some way."

Kairos rubbed his chin with his thumb and forefinger.

"There is definitely some use for this. However, there isn't any instruction manual that tells me what to do..."

Nicole walked over to Kairos with a bit of an anxious expression.

"A-Are you ok?"

Kairos looked up, a little confused by the question.

"Uh, I think so? Am I wounded somewhere?"

Nicole blinked a few times.

"Ah, no, no. I just... you were so close to that guy..."

Kairos waved his hand dismissively.

"It's all ok now, don't worry so much."

He shifted his gaze towards the prism and narrowed his eyes.

"Instead... we should find out what this does."

Then, Kairos tucked it away.

"But before that, we need to get out of here just in case those guys can come back."

The others were more or less in agreement, thus with Kairos in the lead, they got out of the cave. He had remembered the order they used to get into this place, and decided to just use the same order to get out. From there, they walked up the steps and out of the cave, finally back into the neighborhood they were familiar with.

Nicole took a deep breath.

"...It's so strange to think that there's actually just a giant cave right underneath us."

Kairos rubbed his chin.

"I don't think that was naturally formed, at least not man-made."

Chase chuckled.

"The red veins, right?"

Kairos nodded.

"Yes. I think... I think that this prism should be able to replicate that. Unless the creation of the cave was actually one of their special abilities or something."

Tori raised both eyebrows.

"That... that would be so strong!"

Nicole tilted her head to the side.

"Would it?"

Tori scratched her hair with frustration.

"Yes. It is really hard to create a genuinely safe space, in any building, especially because of the windows. If you don't barricade them really well, then the monsters can just break through them. And even if you do barricade them well, they can still break through with a bit more effort."

She looked towards the prism in Kairos' hand.

"If... If that can create tough walls, then it means we can make a safe base anywhere."

Kairos slowly nodded.

"That does sound pretty nice."

He looked towards the others.

"Also, I'm feeling really hungry right now. Why don't we get to another grocery store and hope that it is not looted? Maybe then we can see if this prism really works and hole up there if it does."

Nobody was against it, and with that, the others set off towards another grocery store.

Sydney led the way as she was pretty sure she knew where the next one would be. Along the way, they met a few small groups of monsters. They were nothing too big to deal with, such that Nicole, Sydney, and Harold were enough to take care of them.

Kairos decided not to interfere because the points wouldn't have much use for him right now.

By the time it was relatively late in the afternoon, the group came across another grocery store.

But this time, there were corpses scattered across the ground.

A bloody battle was happening right at this moment.