I See One Second Into The Future: Loner In The Apocalypse



Just a few seconds in, Kairos immediately found that he may have bitten off a little more than he could chew. Dodging the arrows on such an unstable platform in the first place was already incredibly hard, but he was also going as far as to maintain the stability of the other platform by holding onto the spear properly.

Although he did have his future vision, which at least gave him a chance to succeed, three seconds was far too little time for the grand majority of people to process all of that. Part of the reason he was even able to hang on for the first few seconds was his mind was already heavily tempered by processing double the information normally.

Though one saving grace was that he was fairly good at improvisation. The difficulty was lowered considerably after he had an idea of how the platforms themselves moved. But he couldn't get too happy about it.

After all, Sara said before that this was just the start, and it was supposed to get far harder. Not to mention they didn't see it to the end, so its difficulty could ramp up to be far greater.

But there wasn't much else he could do but keep trying.

He furrowed his brows and continued dodging the arrows the best he could. As for Sara, she was dodging them all methodically and easily. It was quite clear that this was far from the first time she was doing something like this, even if Kairos was holding the platform quite still.

Since she was using minimal movement to dodge, it was also a lot easier for Kairos.

For the next few minutes, the attacks simply continued on. It was definitely quite rickety at the start, but Kairos more or less got an idea of how the platform moved and how fast the arrows were.

Yet, just as he let his guard down, he saw a knife pierce through the side of his head in his future vision. Although it didn't actually happen, the pain was very much real. For a second, he faltered, nearly letting go of the spear and even letting a black arrow hit his abdomen.

Thankfully, his brief fall at least let him dodge the knife that suddenly shot past.

Kairos quickly composed himself, ignoring the leftover phantom pain, and straightened back up. Sara was almost tripped up as her platform had also moved considerably, but improvised by shifting her weight to one edge.

It was at this point that Kairos found out why Sara said 'weapons' would fly out of the walls and not arrows. It was because there were more than just those. Though the main thing Kairos wasn't prepared for was the additional speed that they had.

But he planned for this to be the last time that he gets caught off guard.

Several knives shot out, but Kairos was able to barely dodge them. Soon enough, he got used to their speed. When he found an opportunity, he ripped the arrow out of his abdomen so that he could better focus. However, he ended up preemptively dodging another attack, not realizing that it was slower than usual until he saw it pass by in his future vision.

Because there were still arrows being fired.

In reality, the actual shape of the projectiles didn't do too much to change the difficulty. However, because they were being fired at different speeds, it suddenly became several times harder. For Sara, she had to either judge how fast the projectile going to her was, or what shape it had to know when to dodge.

But that was easier said than done.

Even if the platform was stable, there were also multiple projectiles being fired at the same time. It was practically impossible for some average person to do it even if they had one hundred tries.

This showed as Sara was already showing some signs of struggle. Though at the very least she was dodging everything. Kairos could be considered losing in this battle as he was already hit, but the wound had already healed. Although his previous constitution was pretty strong, it definitely wouldn't have been this fast normally.

It seemed his Abyss Form was helping him in that regard.

Taking an injury wasn't good by any means even if it healed, as it put pressure on the mind. However, Kairos realized that he could afford to get hit a few times. So long as the rope wasn't severed and the injury didn't severely impact his mobility, then he could let the weapon hit him.

Sometimes getting hit would be better than letting the platform get too unstable, or make him unable to dodge a more important attack.

Though after continuously dodging for several more minutes, Kairos found that unnecessary. While it wasn't easy by any means, dodging the arrows was enough practice for him to just barely dodge the knives as well.

Though just as he was starting to get used to it, a new set of weapons flew out.

They were swords. They first came out at a rather slow speed. As such, they weren't much of a surprise.

However, while the arrows and knives had nearly straight trajectories, the swords took a diagonal arc in order to make it to them. While they may not have been the fastest, it took more processing power to predict where they would end up.

Kairos found himself panting hard and his mind scrambling to keep up.

Things were progressing just a little too fast for him. If he was just given maybe five more minutes to practice each stage, then he would be much more confident. However, things were progressing just a little bit too fast for him.

It was like he was running after someone, desperately trying to keep up, but slowly slipping further and further behind.

Still, Kairos didn't plan on giving up just because things seemed to be heading towards failure. So long as he avoided lethal hits, there was no harm in trying. While thinking that, he leaned to the right, just barely dodging one of the swords, but not so much so that he would be hit by the knife.

As for Sara, she definitely wasn't as composed as before. Her movement became much wider and more aggressive. Granted, there wasn't much of another way to dodge them, though that also meant that Kairos' platform was starting to get more unstable.

But all things considered, Sara still showed great skill dodging all of the weapons without the ability to see a few seconds in the future constantly.

Kairos began wondering exactly how many weapons that Sara had gone through before, but quickly got rid of those thoughts as he narrowly dodged an arrow. He chastised himself and gave a reminder that there was no time to be distracted.

As they continued on, even more weapons were added.

The next were spears. They were an in-between of the swords and arrows, still having an arc, but it was a small arc due to it being faster. Although Kairos didn't feel too good about things getting even harder again, he was at least thankful that dodging the swords somewhat prepared him for the spears.

Sara too, was holding up, even if it was just barely.

Even though Kairos nearly messed up badly several times, and was actually grazed by blades several times, he was starting to feel pretty confident. While he wasn't sure he would be able to do it this time, given a few more tries he felt like it would be a matter of time.

But then, the new 'weapon' came. It was two large iron balls attached to each other by a chain. A tool used to bind a person's leg so that they would be unable to get away. Unlike the others, the shape definitely made a difference here.

But what was even worse, was that it somehow took a curveball trajectory to them.

Kairos was already winded but began sweating even harder when he saw that. He was already starting to get a headache from how much he had to process, and now there was this element.

Still, he was able to dodge them.

But he caught something he didn't expect in his future vision. Sara was hit by the ball and chain on one of her legs. Although the attack wasn't lethal by any means, the restriction it provided was essentially a guaranteed fail with how many things there were to dodge.

There was a part of Kairos that almost expected Sara to dodge everything, but it wasn't as though she was absolutely perfect. For her to even make it this far was a testament to her impeccable coordination and judgment, even if she had done this before.

At this point, Kairos realized that it may not be so easy after all. Even if he could get used to this, there was a limit to whoever his partner would be. He saw that Sara was being pushed to her absolute limits already.

But while he hadn't put it into action yet, he still had a plan for this.