Chapter 70: Pause

Kairos recalled Sam's description of his mother, Ananta, earlier. He said that there were red tentacles sprouting from her body, and each should have had considerable amounts of power.

As for the monster chasing them, it also had tentacles.

Though they were far more massive than Kairos could've ever imagined.

And as he expected, once the monster got closer, he was able to confirm that it really was his mother. Except, she looked quite different.

Ananta used the red tentacles to walk as though she was a spider, crushing through buildings and rushing through the air very quickly. It looked as though the entirety of her back was no longer there, replaced by a hole that held tentacles larger than her.

As for her body, it was significantly reddened, to the point it was on the same level of actual monsters. There were also large bulging blue veins snaking through the entirety of her body, almost looking like cracks.

If nothing else, she would have a normal size body assuming you ignored the tentacles.

Unfortunately, from her bloodshot eyes and open mouth with fangs, she seemed far from friendly.

Though Kairos' goal was technically to find her at one point, he was hoping to be a little tougher during that time, with at least one card to bail out of the situation. On top of that, he was mostly depending on Sam to do the talking.

But he was unconscious right now.

Realizing that running was pointless by now, Kairos turned around and faced her. He brought his father down from his shoulder and tried to hold him up in a fashion that she could see.

From there, he tried to talk.

"Wait, Mother! I am your son, and this is your husband right here!"

Most of the group turned around to look. Some of them looked afraid, but most of them looked pretty hopeful after hearing those words.

Unfortunately, the results didn't match up with those hopes.

Kairos' mother had her eyes right on Kairos and Sam, but it was as though she was looking right through them. Her mouth was open, with her teeth bared like an animal. There were even sharp fangs to match, really making her play the role.

Though Kairos saw that it didn't exactly work in his future vision, it wasn't like he had much of another choice.

With each step closer that Ananta got, the strange pressure bearing down on them increased exponentially. By the time she was five hundred meters away, it felt like their very souls were being crushed.

Kairos yelled at the top of his lungs as he lamented over how helpless he was in this situation.

"It's me! Your family is right here! You care about us, right?"

Countless beads of sweat formed on his forehead, especially because he saw in his future vision that Ananta didn't even flinch. As she got even closer, nobody was able to even move.

In fact, they could hardly stand.

Chase grit his teeth, and tried to will whatever power he had seen in his memory into reality. Though he wasn't sure that it would even be close to enough, it was better to try anything at this point.

Unfortunately, it just wouldn't activate.

Chase didn't understand what the conditions were for it to trigger, so he just stood there helplessly. He kept trying to urge his mind, almost like a little kid trying to activate their final form.

But it felt pointless, in fact, he couldn't even marginally sense something.

Kairos was beginning to despair as he watched Ananta close in.

The pressure even began to make his vision blurry. And then, for whatever reason...

His future vision paused.

It wasn't that the ability deactivated, but just that the future vision he was seeing was actually just a stationary frame. Almost like he was lagging really badly in a video game.

He was quite confused as nothing like this had happened before.

And before he knew it, his own body froze up as well.

It was at this point Kairos connected the dots to realize that it wasn't his future vision freezing, but that he himself had frozen in time.

The others behind them weren't able to even comprehend that as their expressions were still frozen on their faces.

As for Kairos, a mind-numbing pain assaulted his eyes.

In fact, they even began to bleed.

The frozen frame that he initially saw suddenly shifted to another frozen frame after a second. In this frame, he saw Ananta right next to him, while the red tentacles surrounded him, making it look as though he was in a death trap.

Kairos felt that he had the ability to move, and he really did want to move, whether that was to make another attempt to talk, or to nudge Sam awake. However, he also felt that the consequences of such an action would be dire for his body.

Everything in his mind was telling him not to do so, similar to how it does when one begins to overuse their muscles, but on a larger scale.

This strange fear was quite crippling, and in the end, Kairos didn't act in that second.

Two lines of blood fell down from his eyes, and connected by the chin. And then, he saw another frame.

This time, it was of all the tentacles swarming towards him, while Ananta herself had stepped up right next to her face.

At this point, Kairos felt like he had to move.

He desperately tried to command his mouth to open and speak, but his mind continued to hold him back, making him unable to do so.

In the end, another second passed, and the frame shifted once more.

However, he was not dead like he expected.

Rather, Anata was standing right next to Sam, looking at his face. Kairos' vision was blurry, but at this distance he could still make out her expression.

While her mouth was still open, showing off her fangs, there was more of a curious expression.

The red tentacles were still nearby, but they had relaxed by now.

By the next second, Kairos saw Ananta smiling, while staring intently at Sam. This alleviated a great amount of anxiety Kairos had, though the pressure bearing down on him was still hurting him quite a bit.

He then saw a series of frames where Ananta had a variety of child-like expressions. Sometimes joyful and sometimes curious.

There were times when she was clapping happily, while other times she tilted her head to the side with beady eyes.

Ananta then pried Sam out from Kairos' grasp using her tentacles. She looked at her newly acquired person almost like it was a toy. With her actual arms, she hugged the man as though he was a stuffed bear and rubbed her face against his.

From there, she abruptly took off, heading out towards the distance.

Kairos thought that there might've been a case for him to do something to improve the situation, but frankly, he was just too afraid of pissing his mother off.

It seemed that her mind had regressed tremendously, but despite that she still seemed to remember Sam. Whether or not that was some sort of instinct, Kairos did not know. However, the threat was finally gone now.

Unfortunately, so was his father.

At the very least it was unlikely that Sam would be in any danger, assuming he did not upset Ananta. Kairos doubted that there was anybody even close to Ananta's strength right now.

This strange state of half frozeness continued for a while, even after Ananta had left.

It lingered for about ten minutes or so, which was pretty tortuous to Kairos, but his increased willpower just barely let him stand it.

Though he definitely didn't want to experience something like that again.

Then, everything became normal once more.

Kairos' future vision returned to normal, and made it very clear to him that his eyes hurt. He hurriedly took off his glasses, letting the blood spill out from his eyes naturally.

"...Fuck."

As for the rest of the group, they were all stunned.

They had their eyes wide open in shock, standing in place. That shock turned into confusion just a few seconds later.

Nicole looked around.

"What? Where did it go?"

Sydney had one hand over her heart while gasping for air.

"Was it... a dream?"

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The corner of Tori's lip twitched.

"How can we all just have a dream together like that?"

Chase frowned deeply.

"...One of our members has gone missing."

Kairos was taking deep breaths one after another.

"Yes."

He slowly turned around, and once he did, a few shocked expressions appeared.

Nicole ran over to him.

"Are you ok?"

Kairos waved his hand dismissively.

"I'm fine now, though the blood that is seeping from the tear in my cheek tastes really bad."

Chase blinked a few times.

"Do you know what happened?"

Kairos frowned.

"...It was my mother."

Tori nodded.

"I do remember your father talking about the tentacles... they are much scarier in person compared to a story."

Kairos sighed.

"I'm fairly certain she has the ability to pause time. That's why it looks like everything suddenly changed."

Chase sucked in a cold breath.

"That... is just too strong of an ability, no? We wouldn't have even been able to know that we died if she killed us."

Kairos massaged his temple with the tip of his finger.

"I was able to sorta see what happened, probably because I was right next to her. She was about to kill me, but then suddenly stopped after looking at Sam. I think that was what saved me."

Sydney looked quite downcast.

"Ah... then she took him away?"

Kairos took a deep breath.

"She took him away after staring at him for quite a while. The way she made expressions made it seem as though she was a child. She even rubbed her face against his like he was a toy."

Chase raised an eyebrow.

"Her intelligence has regressed?"

Kairos nodded.

"I think so. Though considering how much power she has, that is probably a pretty small price."

Chase chuckled.

"That's... very true."

Nicole furrowed her brows.

"Why did she take him away?"

Kairos shook his head.

"I don't know. But thankfully, it seems we survived because of that."

Nicole blinked a few times.

"...Will you be ok?"

Kairos took a second to respond.

"My father is now with my mother. If nothing else, they will both be fine."

Though he said those words, it didn't sound like he was all that reassured. It was almost like he was saying that to try and convince himself.

Kairos shook his head.

After a few moments of deliberation, he spoke.

"We need to become stronger."

He narrowed his eyes.

"Much, much stronger."

Chase shrugged his shoulders.

"I don't think we've been doing that bad lately, no?"

Kairos clicked his tongue.

"The progress is still far too slow. Just compare us to the two things we fought earlier. We were completely outclassed."

He then grit his teeth.

"But each time we increase our rank, gaining points also becomes harder, as everything we kill gives less points."

Chase looked rather solemn after he said that.

"But there is nothing we can do about that."

Kairos frowned slightly.

"There has to be some other way. This is way too slow."

Tori ended up opening her status panel and let out a small gasp.

"Speaking of... I can evolve now."

She reached out with her finger, about to press the button.

That was when Kairos called out.

"Wait."

Tori looked at him with a bit of confusion.

"Didn't you say we should evolve to become more powerful?"

Kairos nodded.

"Yes... but could you let me try and look at the status panel?"

Chase raised an eyebrow.

"And why is that?"

Kairos blinked a few times. He hesitated for a moment.

"Well, I can see other options in the status panel for evolution."

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