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

Kairos pointed his finger towards the monster underneath him. A fireball gradually began to form. He put as much mana as he possibly could in order to make it as large as possible, but it was only able to have a measly few meters in diameter.

Of course, it wasn't as though that was small, but compared to the fireball that was larger than the giant monster itself, it was quite underwhelming. Not to mention, that fireball from earlier still wasn't enough to kill said monster.

While he was doing that, not everybody just sat there waiting.

Eric tossed his ball connected to a string up into the air, and it rapidly began expanding into a large ball with a giant maw, lined with a large number of teeth.

Then, that large ball came down with its maw wide open, heading straight for the giant monster's head.

It crashed into the monster, sinking its teeth deep. It covered up the majority of its head and seemed on the verge of directly biting through half of it. Unfortunately, it seemed like something stopped it after biting through somewhat.

Nonetheless, Eric didn't seem panicked.

Nick lifted his microphone stand up into the air, and it slowly changed to become a giant sword without a hilt, and with a long chain at the end. He threw that sword up, in a similar way to Eric, before gripping hard onto the chains before flinging them.

The unhilted sword drew an arc and swept downwards before cleanly slamming into the left side of the monster's neck. Yet, just like the ball with teeth, it was unable to pierce that far into the monster.

Upon seeing this, Nick turned to Jenny.

"Your turn, yo."

Jenny blew out of her mouth, making a sound that somewhat resembled a fart.

"My style ain't suited for these fatties, y'know?"

However, despite saying that, she pulled back her paddle all the way. Then, she slammed against the ball with all her power, causing it to shoot out and expand rapidly. She then grabbed onto the string as it descended downwards, causing it to suddenly shift trajectories, and slam hard against the right side of the monster's head, causing it to tilt exaggeratedly.

At the same time, Eric let out a grunt before tugging hard on the string with both hands. He even got down on one knee and leaned backward just to get a little bit more strength.

The giant ball that was attached to the head began to pull hard, causing the monster's head to tilt even more.

It was at this point Eric looked a little unsettled, but more or less retained his composure. He shot a glance to his side.

"You're up, Kairos!"

Kairos had more or less used up most of his mana to create a fireball that was four meters wide. He was honestly extremely dizzy at this point, one of the reasons being his mental exhaustion, another was his injuries, and the final one was being devoid of mana nearly made him feel like passing out.

In fact, he hardly even heard what Eric had said. If it wasn't for his future vision replaying it twice, he would've been unable to decipher its meaning.

However, he held on.

It was his turn, or so Eric said.

Kaios wasn't exactly sure what the three were doing, and wasn't paying all that much attention. However, he intuitively felt it upon seeing the monster's head tilt.

He aimed his fireball at the right side of the monster's neck, which was readily exposed from the other three's efforts. Then, he let it loose. The fireball shot through the air, leaving a light trail of smoke.

A loud explosion resounded.

Upon crashing into the side of the monster's neck, it exploded. The monster was forced to jerk to the right even more because of the force, causing it to push into the sword that was embedded in its neck on the left.

Because of that, the neck was forcefully cut through.

The entire time, Eric did not give up on pulling up the monster's head, which began giving after the explosion from the fireball. And soon enough, when most of the neck was cut through, the head was ripped right off, soaring upwards until it reached up high into the sky.

It was almost like that head was a trophy.

[Killed Creature (Challenge Kill - One Rank Superior to Killer) - 0.3 points awarded]

A flash of surprise colored Kairos' eyes when he realized he was the one that was credited for the kill, but didn't care too much about it. As for the others, they didn't seem to notice or even care.

Jenny couldn't help but let out a suave whistle when she looked at the head flying up into the air. As for Nick, he let out boisterous laughter, and Eric had a proud smirk on his face.

As for Tiana, she let out a relieved sigh.

"Nice work."

The monster's body collapsed onto the ground, causing everything to rumble.

Afterwards, the head slammed down onto the top of the wall, next to them. It was quite a grotesque sight, to say the least. The head released uncomfortably large amounts of heat even though it was dead, and there was even a faint sizzling sound that came with it.

The regeneration of the head began to slow quite quickly, while the bubbling did not stop. This caused the head to rapidly deform, quickly becoming a mass of blood and pieces of flesh.

Eric let out a chuckle.

"Looks like I caught a big one!"

Nick laughed in response.

"Is that why it stinks so bad?"

Jenny clicked her tongue and put her hands on her hips.

"That's why I said bigger isn't better!"

Tiana cleared her throat.

"Sorry to interrupt, but there are still many monsters down there to take care of."

Eric waved his hand dismissively in response.

"Ey, chill gal! We gettin' to it."

While he was saying that, he walked over to the ledge, but was facing backward. Both Nick and Jenny did the same, as though they perfectly understood his intentions.

Then, all three of them did a synchronized and cheeky salute.

They gradually began to fall, starting off by slowly tilting before rapidly falling. Right before they were out of vision, Eric flashed a smile.

"Seeya!"

Chase smiled bitterly.

"They are... quite excessive."

Tori had a smile on her face.

"But they seem so fun!"

As for Kairos, he wasn't really paying attention to anything else. His condition was really bad, making him want to fall asleep then and there, right on top of the wall. However, he forced himself to remain awake and checked up on Nicole.

She was no longer screaming, however, she was still on the ground, writhing in pain with both hands on her head. It almost seemed like she was a baby throwing a temper tantrum if it wasn't for her deathly pale and pained expression on her face.

Nicole still seemed to be suffering from the aftereffects of using her ability.

Kairos kneeled down next to her, trying to keep his focus to see if her situation was too serious. He considered using the green orb, but noticed that Nicole gradually seemed to be recovering, thus deemed it to be overkill to use it here.

After a bit of hesitation, he put a shaky hand on Nicole's shoulder, wondering if that might comfort her. This caused her eyelids to flutter rapidly. Then, without warning she reached out with both hands and grabbed onto his arm, pulling it down. After that, she even wrapped her legs around it.

It was as though Nicole was drowning, and his arm was the only thing she could hold on to if she wanted to stay afloat.

Nicole's breathing was quite ragged, but gradually calmed down as she held onto Kairos' arm. Eventually, she calmed down even to slowly open her eyes.

She slowly came to realize the situation she was in.

"A-Ah, sorry."

Nicole reluctantly let go of Kairos' arm, and seemed to want to get up, but fell back down on the ground. Seeing this, Kairos let out a small chuckle.

"You really overdid yourself out there. I thought I told you just to watch from afar."

Nicole pouted.

"And I'm glad I didn't listen! Why were you even so far away from the city like that?"

Kairos sighed.

"It was a requirement for one of my spells."

Nicole puffed up her cheeks.

"That was still too dangerous!"

Kairos scratched the back of his head, but still smiled weakly.

"Sorry, sorry."

Nicole dropped the angry expression almost like she was bipolar, before breaking out into a smile.

She then caught sight of the ghastly pulled up wound from his wrist.

"Ah! Your... hand. How did that happen?"

Kairos waved his hand dismissively.

"Don't worry about it so much, you just held on a little tightly."

Nicole blinked several times with surprise.

"I-I did that?"

Kairos shrugged his shoulders.

"I guess?"

Nicole pressed her lips together.

"S-Sorry..."

Kairos rolled his eyes.

"You were the one that saved me, remember? Why are you now fretting over a little wound?"

After saying that, he used his other hand to slowly pull down the flesh that had bunched up. His expression twitched slightly in the process, and once it was completely pulled down, it hardly covered half of where it was pulled up.

In the end, the wound didn't look that much better.

Nicole covered her face.

"...Sorry."

Kairos sighed.

"I told you it's fine."

He then placed his hand on the back of her head and tried to slowly bring her up. Nicole was more or less cooperative, but once she was on her feet, she stumbled, falling onto Kairos.

"U-Um... I don't think I can stand right now."

Kairos nodded before setting her back down on the floor.

While the two of them were doing that, Eric, Jenny, and Nick were all doing their best to eliminate the excessive amount of normal monsters still charging towards the city walls.

Eric had his ball expanded out like normal, with its giant jaws swallowing up as many as it could. But despite that, if any monster came close, he didn't hold back in hitting them in the face with his fist.

As for Jenny, she also let her paddle and ball loose, causing the giant spiked ball to rip through the pavement and slam into all the nearby monsters. She also was making a finger gun with her other hand and shooting invisible bullets to take out even more.

As for Nick, he was slamming his microphone stand on any monsters that came near, sometimes uppercutting them and sending them up into the air. He was also flinging his microphone around, wrapping the cable around a monster's leg before sending them up and slamming them back down.

Altogether, they were killing many monsters, but if it was just by themselves, they would still get overwhelmed due to the sheer numbers there truly were.

But thankfully, they weren't the only ones fighting them. While still standing on top of the walls, Tiana was still helping out. She had her eyes closed tightly, and was even sweating slightly from the concentration she was putting in.

Every second, roughly ten thin metal spikes would shoot out of the ground and pierce into the various normal monsters, before sinking into the ground. Once the metal spikes did sink into the ground, the monster it had pierced would soon collapse as well.

Like this, the four continually killed all of the monsters rushing toward them like a mob.

In the middle of this process, Tiana couldn't help but mutter to herself with a bitter smile.

"The amount of points for killing is hardly anything compared to the basic management of the city."

Despite his muddled state, Kairos caught onto that. From that statement, he quickly came to realize how Tiana had gotten so strong despite seemingly staying in the city all the time.

Simply managing the city gave her points...

As he was thinking about that, Tiana let out a sigh.

"...It's finally over. Those three really did their fair share."

She took a deep breath.

"Let's go back."

Nicole smiled awkwardly.

"Ah, I can't... stand, still."

Kairos proceeded to carry her by her back.

"Alright, then I'll just carry you."

Nicole couldn't help but blush.

"O-Ok..."