Kairos smiled bitterly.

“It has worked for every other living thing before, telling me the moment that they were considered dead. I figured that it would be the same for the things down here.”

Nyoka put a hand on his neck and moved his head to the side until a loud cracking sound resounded. There was a wide smile on his face.

“Didn’t I already tell you that things here are already dead? Of course you wouldn’t get any indicator, as they weren’t even alive in the first place.”

Kairos clicked his tongue. His gaze drifted to the side until it landed upon the house that had been there. However, it was now a crumpled version of itself. After looking closely, he noticed that there were quite a few vines and leaves poking out of it. In other words, the house that they initially approached was a replica that the flower had created.

“This place certainly is strange.”

Nyoka laughed loudly after hearing that.

“Oh, that’s one of the more normal things around here, to be honest. These kinds of flowers are considered one of the lower monsters, especially because they show up on all the other layers as well.”

The corner of Kairos’ lip turned up.

“At least I know I won’t be bored in my time here.”

Nyoka smiled.

“You can count on that. Anyway, that monster has a bit of black blood. Since it doesn’t matter all that much to me, I’ll let you have it.”

Kairos shot him a glance.

“Ah, thanks. What part of this thing even is black blood anyway?”

Nyoka scratched the back of his head.

“Er, for starters all of those petals have some black blood inside them, though not much. As for the eyeball, though it looks grayish, that’s actually where the highest concentration of black blood is. Though… it’s going to be a little hard for you to try it now.”

Kairos looked down at the mess of gray blood splattered across around him, then sighed.

“Well, at least I don’t know the value of what I lost, so it doesn’t make me feel all that bad.”.

Nyoka shrugged his shoulders.

“That is one way of looking at it.”

Kairos looked down at the wilted leaves, then tore one of them off randomly. Black blood began dripping down one end. The texture didn’t look all that appealing, but it seemed to be some universally desired thing among the “living” things down here.

After a moment of hesitation, he tried to drink it. His immediate impression was that it tasted just as bad as it looked. In fact, he would go out of his way to say that it was rancid. He was definitely not expecting this because the black ball of blood he had eaten earlier tasted nothing like this. It didn’t actually have any taste.

After a few mouthfuls, Kairos stopped. He looked at the leaf with furrowed brows and noticed that it still had a lot of black blood remaining. With a frown, he slowly turned to Nyoka.

“Um, is this actually what people want so bad? It tastes awful.”

Nyoka stared back with a flabbergasted impression.

“Huh… most people have trouble stopping themselves after they start. But it looks like you can barely even stomach it. That doesn’t make much sense.”

Kairos blinked a few times.

“I guess it’s because I didn’t get converted into whatever the tainted thing you’re talking about is. Are you seriously not joking with me?”

Nyoka tilted his head to the side. He didn’t respond, instead lost in thought. After a few moments, he eventually spoke up.

“Oh, wait… I think I remember the first time I drank black blood it did taste kinda bad, but it was hard to notice because I had a lot of emotions at the time.”

Kairos stared back blankly.

“…So basically, since I’m an untainted it’s always going to taste this nasty.”

Nyoka shrugged his shoulders.

“Guess so. Though black blood is also what people use to evolve. If you don’t want it then… I guess I can take it.”

Kairos sighed. He took another look at the petal in his hands, now dripping its black blood down his arm. After a few moments, he grit his teeth.

“Fuck it, I’ll try to eat as much as I can. I mean, that ball of blood did give me this form earlier, so it does seem to benefit me…”

His nose instinctively constricted like he was smelling something awful. Then, he opened his mouth once more and began drinking as much as he could. He focused on drinking it faster so that it would be over quicker and committed to it even when he felt like gagging.

As the black blood was siphoned out of the petal, it began shorter and more rigid. Soon enough, he was finished with the petal which became what looked like a blade that was awkwardly shaped, with an unnaturally fat base.

Though, Kairos couldn’t focus on all that.

He threw the petal on the ground, which slammed down with a loud clang. He proceeded to cough violently with a fist to his mouth. His eyes were slightly bloodshot, while his breathing was erratic.

He only recovered a few minutes after, and by then he simply shook his head.

“I don’t know if I’ll be able to do that ever again.”

Kairos felt the black blood in his stomach swirling around, almost like a dog that was stuck in a cage. Though, it did not take long for it to settle down and assimilate to be part of his body.

It was a very subtle feeling, but he could feel energy coursing through his body, in particular in his muscles. He had definitely gotten stronger, even if it wasn’t by much. Though, this only made him click his tongue.

“…It does seem like I actually do get stronger from this stuff.”

Nyoka threw his head back in laughter.

“Why are you saying that like it’s a bad thing?”

A bitter smile formed on Kairos’ face.

“Because that means I have a reason to continue trying to drink this rancid stuff.”

Nyoka smiled helplessly.

“So are you going to have the rest of it?”

Kairos grabbed onto the side of his head in serious contemplation. In all honesty, he didn’t really want to. Especially because that meant starting now basically meant committing to the unpleasantness further down the road. Though he did want to be stronger, it was more for the sake of survival rather than the power itself.

He was really tempted to just deny it and try to cascade past these three months peacefully.

Yet, at the same time, he remembered the thing he always told Nicole. That they had to focus on getting stronger before anything else. And that was why they didn’t have time to spend with each other.

Though he was technically here for his promotion mission, thus was doing this for the sake of getting stronger, slacking around was being a hypocrite to him. And one of the things he hated the most was being a hypocrite. After taking in one of his deepest breaths yet, he decided that he wasn’t going to waste his month down here.

“I’ll finish it. Or… at least I’ll try my damn hardest at it.”

Nyoka smirked.

“I thought you would say that.”

Kairos clicked his tongue and ripped off another petal.

“Don’t act like you know me or something when we just met.”

Nyoka’s smile only widened.

“Oh, sorry. I can’t help but remember someone saying that we were the same kind of person earlier. What was all that about?”

Kairos sighed.

“Being the same kind of person doesn’t mean we actually know each other. Now shut up, trying to stuff down this stuff is annoying enough.”

Without waiting for confirmation, Kairos began eating, even though every fiber of his being was protesting against it. The entire time while doing this, he wished that it was physical pain instead of disgust. If it was just pain, then he would bat an eye as he had already become far too accustomed to it.

But he hadn’t really trained himself to eat disgusting things. The farthest that ever went was forcing him to stomach vegetables, which was incomparable to how the black blood tasted.

And just when he felt like he was about to pass out, he finished drinking the blood from all the petals. There was definitely some waste here and there, with blood spilling onto the floor, but Kairos decided to count it as him eating it all anyway.

After wiping his mouth, he cursed.

“Fuck.”

Nyoka stared at him with one hand on his chin. He looked to be quite interested and filled with curiosity.

“You know, it’s a really strange sight to see someone drinking black blood that much. I mean sure, there have been people that have difficulty in getting themselves to do so because that blood came from a friend that just died in front of them. But once they start… it’s like they completely forgot that their friend wasn’t just a tasty meal.”

Kairos smiled bitterly.

“Wow, thanks for telling me that. It made me feel so much better.”

Nyoka bowed like he was on a stage.

“No problem, my good sir.”

Kairos slowly closed his eyes and felt the changes happening to his body. Although the entire process was painful, he now could feel noticeable gains from it all. His strength was increasing by a notable amount.

It was hard for him to determine exactly the increase, but it felt as though he had gotten a tenth of a point in stats.

And once all of the black blood was subdued, a notification appeared in front of him.

Special Ability has been upgraded | Abyss Form (F-) -> Abyss Form (F)

He blinked a few times before pulling up his status panel.

Status

ID: 345315364923

Rank: D

Objective: Survive

Proof Of Perfection Points: 43.1

Stats –

Strength – 30.0

Endurance – 30.0

Agility – 30.0

Willpower – 30.0

Mana Capacity – 30.0

Magic Affinity – 30.0

Special Abilities: Alone (D), Water Spell (E), Pulse Spell (E), Gale Spell (E), Darkness Spell (E), Fire Spell (F), Abyss Form (F)

Hide

His eyes fixated on the points he had, a little over forty. What if he used those points to upgrade the Abyss form directly? Then wouldn’t that mean he didn’t have to struggle nearly as much?

Putting those thoughts into action, he pressed the status panel. Yet, a devastating system notification popped up.

Unable to upgrade Abyss Form (F) with evolution points

Kairos frowned. As for Nyoka, he looked at him strangely.

“What are you doing?”

Kairos shook his head.

“Shut up. Just bring me to your friends or whatever, I want to think about something else.”

Nyoka continued to stare for a few more moments before letting it go.

“Uh, sure.”