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

Kairos cursed under his breath.

It seemed that his ability had saved him once more. Though it was quite a long while since his last vision, it seemed that whenever his life was truly in danger, the ability would warn him.

He decided to ignore the state of the city for now, as he was in far more trouble than them. His first fireball made his position more than obvious to whatever it was targeting him, and it didn’t take more than a few minutes for him to channel the fire spell to that state.

In other words, that short figure not only knew exactly where he was, but was also nearby.

Though he surveyed the area around him closely, he couldn’t even catch a sign of this so-called mysterious figure. It almost made him feel like he was just insane, like some overly paranoid person that was scared by nothing.

However, he definitely had no plans of dropping his guard. This wasn’t the first time his future vision had warned him. He had heeded the warning every single time before and did not plan to change that now.

…Though it really did feel like he was just being stupid.

He moved to the center of the roof, so that he couldn’t easily just be pushed off the building, and make it a bit harder for anyone to sneak up on him. This continued on for several minutes.

In the meantime, he saw a couple of system notifications.

[Multi-Kill (Type – Lesser) – 0.1 points awarded] x 5

Kairos took a peek at the state of the city and saw that the giant monsters had gotten to the city walls. Because one was launched back, it had to walk through the pit of fire that Kairos had created. As such, it was having trouble walking closer to the wall. Though, it was still moving forwards nonetheless.

Along with that, it seemed like many of the monsters foolishly walked into the fire pit from the system notifications that Kairos was getting. That or the monsters had no choice but to move forward as they were pushed by the ones behind them.

Unfortunately, it would only thin their numbers by a certain amount, as the fires were slowly being extinguished by the monsters throwing themselves in.

But before he could think about it any further, he suddenly felt his neck, heart, and ankle get cut through with a sharp knife.

It was the pain he felt from his future vision.

Recognizing that, Kairos immediately brought his spear up and twisted it to cover both his neck and chest.

Two heavy clangs rang out, along with the rip of flesh.

Kairos was able to block the attack heading for both his neck and chest, but was unable to guard the ankle as well. While cursing himself for not watching out for this, he spun around to see his attacker.

It was the small figure he saw in his vision. It was just barely taller than a meter, the same height a child would have. It was hard to make out whether the figure was a monster, human, or even a living being because its entire body was coated tightly by some black cloth.

The only thing that was uncovered were the two eyes, which were both in narrow slits to match the tiny gap provided by the cloth.

In the cloaked figure’s hand was a small red dagger, and it clutched onto it tightly. From the way it was holding said dagger, it seemed to be very familiar with it.

Kairos stared it down, not planning on making the first move.

From what he saw in his future vision, all three slashes happened in less than half a second. In other words, it was able to attack extremely quickly, and even from different angles as well.

However, Kairos was honestly surprised he was actually able to block those strikes. Logically speaking, if the cloaked figure was able to slash that fast, it should also be able to divert those strikes too.

But it didn’t.

From that, Kairos guessed that the cloaked figure had used some sort of skill that allowed her to attack like that in a predetermined way, not in one where it itself was actually slashing.

It was a bit of a risky assumption to make, but if this wasn’t the case, Kairos wasn’t sure if he could deal with the thing’s agility. Especially because his ankle was slashed through, impairing his movement.

It was a very clean cut, and thanks to that, Kairos could feel that it was slowly healing. As such, he was willing to draw out this standoff.

Though, it seemed that the cloaked figure realized Kairos’ plans, as it suddenly disappeared.

Using his future vision, Kairos felt that his left arm, right shoulder, and lower back were all cut through. Along with that, he saw a small black blur flit by his vision.

Kairos bet on the assumption he made. He hunched over slightly, so that his shoulder wouldn’t be hit, while he twisted his spear at an angle that defended both his back and arm.

Two clangs resounded, while Kairos felt some wind brush by his shoulder. It seemed to be as he expected. The cloaked figure really couldn’t change where it originally attacked.

He couldn’t actually confirm that his tactics worked, because of the brief moment his future vision warps when he does something different because of it. That brief moment was enough for him to be completely clueless as for what happened until it actually did.

The cloaked figure backed off once more after another unsuccessful attack.

Kairos turned to face it and remained still once more.

His ankle was on the verge of healing completely. In just a few minutes, it should be as good as new. It also felt quite hot, making him want to take off his sock to let it air out.

Though, he wasn’t going to do something as stupid as that right now.

The cloaked figure seemed to hesitate, not jumping back in to attack immediately.

It seemed to be confused as to how Kairos was able to avoid all of its attacks. However, after a few moments of hesitation, it decided to go back in, slashing at him.

This time, it slashed through his eye, lung, and liver.

The pain rushed through Kairos, nearly enough to take off his focus for a split second. However, this was a pain that he was relatively familiar with from his self-stabbing sessions, and thus wasn’t fazed by it.

He threw his head back, letting the blade brush past his face, while his spear twisted at an awkward angle to block the ones going for his liver and lung.

Once again Kairos deflected the strikes.

This seemed to frustrate the cloaked figure. After a brief pause, it attacked once more.

Kairos constantly twisted himself around and twisted his spear around, almost like he was doing some sort of eccentric dance as a street performer.

Left ear, collarbone, right hand, nose, right thigh, left foot.

Kairos continued to either dodge or fend off the strikes. It was still quite difficult at first, but he was gradually getting used to it. The cacophony of clashing sounds and whips of wind filled his ears.

For some reason, he almost felt it sounded like a melody, with the steady three attacks, where a random two would hit against his spear.

Though, he didn’t get immersed in it just yet.

Kairos’ ankle had healed fully. It took slightly longer because he forced it to move, but it worked out in the end.

At that time, the cloaked figure backed off once more, standing several meters back, staring at Kairos.

Both of them seemed slightly fatigued.

Kairos was beginning to sweat a little, but he would still be able to keep going for a while. With that in mind, he rushed forth to try and finally counterattack for once.

Unfortunately, the moment he took a step forward, the cloaked figure easily retreated at double the speed. Kairos immediately recognized that it would be pointless, and thus gave up. Though, the cloaked figure didn’t seem to want to give up, rushing toward him.

As it was charging toward him, Kairos swung his spear in an attempt to hit it, but it dodged the attack just as easily as before.

Right after, the cloaked figure blurred before doing the same three attacks in succession once more.

Now used to it, Kairos was able to block or dodge all three.

It seemed that his enemy was faster than the speed he could swing his spear, meaning it wouldn’t be the most effective weapon in this situation.

But still, he had half of his mana, and three spells to use them on.

While the cloaked figure was attacking him, he began channeling mana for the pulse spell. Since it had a quick charge time and had a large area of effect, it should be quite effective against this particular opponent.

Blue mist began to form around his hand, and right that instant, the cloaked figure suddenly disappeared.

Kairos furrowed his brow when he noticed this.

He hadn’t even channeled it for half a second when it suddenly left. One way or another, it was able to tell that Kairos was channeling the spell.

He stopped casting and held the spell. The mana slowly dissipated from his hand, until it was gone entirely.

A few minutes or so afterward, the cloaked figure reappeared.

Kairos narrowed his eyes.

“…You really aren’t going to make this easy, huh?”

It did not respond. Not that he was expecting it to.

If the thing was somehow able to sense the flow of mana, then Kairos wouldn’t be able to cast any spells without it noticing.

However, he wasn’t going to make that assumption just yet.

With how fast the cloaked figure was, the pulse spell would be best. However, it would preemptively flee if he prepared it. That then left the fire and gale spell.

The fire spell would be even more useless, as it would simply be too hard to hit.

As for the gale spell, it still had a fairly long channel time, but it was also really hard to see.

Since there wasn’t anything else for him to use his mana on, Kairos decided to try it.

The cloaked figure continued trying to slash at him, while he kept one of his hands down at his side casually.

Since the only thing he needed to do to begin casting the gale spell was keep his four fingers together, it didn’t look like he was channeling at all. And while that was happening, the cloaked figure continued attacking Kairos, not noticing at all.

Unfortunately, it didn’t go too well for him, as focusing on the mana for the gale took away a decent amount of his attention. That made dodging considerably more difficult.

It wasn’t too bad at first, but then he slipped up, and the side of his stomach was slashed open. A few moments later, his shoulder was slashed as well.

Several more cuts appeared all over his body, now making him a bloody mess.

Though, none of them hit anywhere too important. Kairos would let himself slip on other areas, but focused intently on any areas that could directly lead to his death.

After putting half of his remaining mana into the spell, he decided it was enough.

Kairos’ focus sharpened several times over, as he predicted he would only have one chance to do this. If he missed, then the cloaked figure would definitely be on guard, and there was practically no way he would hit it.

Kairos decided to do something rather brave.

The cloaked figure attacked him once more, seemingly encouraged by the previous successful hits. Perhaps the smell of blood from Kairos’ body energized it further.

It attacked once more, one towards his leg.

But that was blocked.

Then, another to his right arm.

But that was also blocked.

Yet, right after that, it went straight for his heart.

However, Kairos already knew that it would show up there, thus had his four fingers pointing right where it would’ve been.

And then he released the gale spell.