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n

nKairos dragged Ling before he could say anything, running towards the hole in the dungeon wall.

nLing seemed quite surprised, but remained confident.

n“Don’t worry, I can protect you!”

nKairos rolled his eyes.

n“Come on, look at how big that thing is. Are you really sure you can beat it?”

nThe corner of Ling’s lip twitched.

n“Well… I didn’t think I could do a lot of things before, but I found out that I actually can do it. I want to at least try.”

nKairos sighed, but he couldn’t help a smile from forming on his face.

n“Don’t be dumb. I get that you want to challenge everything because you got through some challenges earlier. In fact, I’m like that a lot too.”

nAgainst Ling’s will, he dragged him out before leaping through the hole in the dungeon wall.

n“But sometimes, you can just run away.”

nIt was at this point Kairos’ confident smile froze on his face.

nNot because of the giant skeleton. It rushed over towards them, but just as it was about to reach the hole in the wall, it had stopped. It simply began observing them and there also seemed to be quite a bit of hatred in his gaze.

nRather, the thing that made Kairos a tiny bit uncomfortable was that they were a few kilometers in the air.

nAs in, below him, he could see a thick layer of clouds. And the gaps between those clouds was the ground below.

nKairos blinked a few times.

n“…Since when did I get so high up?”

nLing looked towards him with slightly widened eyes.

n“Eh? Did you not climb up the mana crystal?”

nKairos tilted his head to the side.

n“Well, sort of. But there was some teleportation involved that probably made me go far higher up than I imagined.”

nThey began to free fall, slowly speeding up as they went.

nBoth of their hair fluttered wildly, while the winds began to howl in their ears.

nKairos cleared his throat.

n“Say, how did you even get up here in the first place?”

nLing didn’t seem to be paying full attention. His breathing was quite labored, while his brows furrowed in pain. It seemed that the air was quite thin, making it hard for him to concentrate.

nKairos definitely found it harder to breathe, but it wasn’t too big of an issue for him. It seemed that the added stats could even help for things like this.

nAs the speeds got quicker, Ling eventually shook his head, coming out of his stupor. Then he spoke. However, Kairos could not hear despite being really close because of how loud the winds had become.

n“What? The winds are way too loud, you gotta speak up.”

nLing strained himself to take in deeper breaths and shout.

n“I… got a spell called free bird… it lets me fly really fast.”

nKairos nodded.

n“That makes sense. You can use it to slow our fall, right?”

nLing continued to take in more breaths.

n“Yes… but I don’t have too much mana… I used almost all of it getting up… but I got some mana from somewhere.”

nKairos recalled that he had shattered some sort of crystal in the dungeon which then released large amounts of mana. If they had stayed in that room a little longer, then Ling would’ve had a chance to charge up on a bit more mana.

nUnfortunately, it was a little too late for that now.

nLing closed his eyes tightly as they continued to shoot down towards the ground.

nThey shot past a cloud, which felt like almost nothing. During this time, Kairos couldn’t help but feel a little relaxed, which was not what he was expecting. Despite the fact he was essentially skydiving, it didn’t really shoot his veins full of adrenaline.

nWhen he thought about it, Kairos still found it was more frightening to face off against the giant skeleton, where getting directly hit even once would at least cripple him, and if it hit him the wrong way, it would just kill him.

nIn the end, the difference between the immediate threat of the situation made it feel relaxing. And that was although Kairos was acutely aware of the fact that they would probably be unable to get out of this unscathed.

nOn the other hand, Ling seemed to be struggling intensely.

nThere was a forest of many tall trees below them, and they were rapidly approaching. Eventually, when Kairos saw that there were only maybe five seconds left before they hit the trees, he spoke up.

n“Hey, I think you should use your ability now.”

nLing immediately opened his eyes after hearing that, though they were bloodshot from the wind pressuring them. Using less than a second, he confirmed that they were indeed very close to the floor and activated his ability.

nKairos suddenly felt a strong tug on his arm, yanking him upwards, though it was not enough to stop their downward momentum.

nThere were no winds or anything at all that seemed to gather around Ling to explain his sudden experience of lift. If it weren’t for the fact the two of them were still falling really fast, Kairos would’ve thought he was superman or something like that.

nThough, before he could’ve thought about it any further, they slammed into the tree branches. A loud cacophony of sounds resounded, consisting of snapping, rustling, and cries of pain.

nLing continuously used his spell for a few seconds, continually slowing down their fall. However, they were still cut and bruised badly as they slammed past the branches.

nAt one point, Ling landed hard on one of the bigger branches. He had the wind knocked out of him, while a cracking sound came from the branch. However, it held on.

nLing draped himself over the branch with powerless limbs. Though, he still gripped onto his spear fairly tightly. The ground was just below him, not even a meter away.

nAs for Kairos, he had landed down on the ground, knocking up a great deal of dirt and creating a miniature crater. However, while some concerning cracking sounds had come from his knees, he was more or less fine.

nLing found himself unable to breathe, which made him panic.

nKairos looked up rather obliviously.

n“Hey, you ok?”

nLing didn’t respond, though that wasn’t out of his own choice. If it was the him of just a few days ago, he would’ve probably remained there, hoping that Kairos would help him. In fact, even if Kairos wasn’t there, he would probably just remain there, too afraid of the pain.

nBut Ling was a vastly different person now. Instead, he jostled his body back and forth. He had a pretty bad wound on his stomach, meaning that jostling was severely painful. Yet, Ling simply grit his teeth and continued.

nKairos was a little confused as to what Ling was doing, but he seemed to have it under control, thus didn’t do anything.

nLing slowly increased the speed of his rocking until it was enough to directly fling himself off the branch. He landed onto the ground below with a soft thump, after which, he forced himself to breath in.

nKairos looked at the green orb in his hand, then at Ling. In complete honesty, he was quite reluctant to give it, but considering that Ling had quite literally saved his life, it was more or less deserved. Though, Ling was the whole reason he was even separated from the others and in this situation in the first place.

nBut Kairos decided to ignore that.

n“Hey, you should use this to heal your injuries.”

nLing slowly looked up to the green orb before shaking his head.

n“I don’t need it.”

nKairos blinked a few times.

n“Well, maybe not need, but it would be quite useful for you. I have enough stats to heal from these injuries in a matter of hours, while the scarring process for you will probably finish after a day.”

nLing wanted to speak, but ended up coughing up blood before he could talk. After shaking his head, he continued.

n“Sorry, when I said that I meant I don’t want it.”

nKairos raised an eyebrow.

n“Didn’t like the taste?”

nLing took in a controlled deep breath before shaking his head.

n“I want to face this pain instead of getting rid of it.”

nKairos blinked a few times.

n“…I can understand where you’re coming from, but that’s quite the stupid thing to do.”

nLing pouted slightly and did not respond.

nAfter a few seconds, Kairos let out a sigh.

n“How did you even find me anyways?”

nLing tilted his head to the side.

n“I remember seeing really bright blue lights in that direction.”

nKairos raised an eyebrow.

n“Didn’t you say it was always bright?”

nLing nodded.

n“But it was flashing to be even brighter. I just felt like it had to be somehow related to you.”

nHe gently reached over with his free hand towards his tightly shut eye that was still leaking out blood.

n“I remember seeing an unbelievably strong flash of light, which made my eye… break.”

nKairos raised both eyebrows.

n“…Oh, so that’s what happened to you.”

nLing scratched the side of his head.

n“Yeah, my mana vision doesn’t really work properly after that now. I can only see mana faintly if it is really strong.”

nKairos lowered his head slightly.

n“Sorry, I’m probably responsible for that.”

nLing shook his head.

n“It helped me find you, it’s ok. When I flew up there, I saw a hand made out of mana through the walls, which made me realize it was you. If it was like normal, then the light would be too bright for me to see anything.”

nHe scratched the side of his head.

n“So I’m glad.”

nKairos was a little surprised he was taking it so well. After all, the kid basically just lost their eye.

n“You’ve changed quite a bit, haven’t you? And it’s only been maybe… a day or two?”

nLing let out a faint hum.

n“It should be about three days.”

nThe corner of Kairos’ lip turned up slightly.

n“Regardless, you went through a rapid shift of character.”

nLing shrugged his shoulders.

n“I just… realized some things.”

nThere was a moment of awkward silence. Kairos let out a grunt and put both arms high in the air to stretch.

n“Well anyways, we should try to find a way to get back to the others. It’s been quite a while and they are probably worried about us.”

nHe began walking, but Ling did not follow. After taking a few steps, he turned around to look at Ling, who was still on the ground, sitting up. His eyes were on the floor, not looking at anything in particular.

nKairos coughed.

n“Do you need a break to recover?”

nLing shook his head.

n“No, I’m fine.”

nKairos pressed his lips together.

n“Then… do you plan on getting up any time soon?”

nLing looked up.

n“Yes. But not to find the others.”

nKairos paused for a moment.

n“…What are you talking about?”

nLing shook his head.

n“I’m not going to go back.”

nKairos clicked his tongue.

n“Why not? Instead of just dealing with me, you’ll have your grandpa to support you and even Chase because he took a liking to you for some reason.”

nLing shook his head.

n“I can tell that they look down on me.”

nKairos looked at the kid deeply before sighing.

n“I am grateful that you have saved my life, but I’m not going to hold my tongue. Looking down on you is only natural for your actions.”

nLing nodded.

n“I know.”

nKairos didn’t know how to respond to that.

nAfter a moment of silence, Ling spoke softly.

n“Do you want to hear a story?”

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