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

Kairos was in the middle of a forest. His towering form made him the same height as the trees, even surpassing them if he were to stand on his hind legs. After growling, he rampaged through them, directly smashing down the surrounding trees and running through.

He soon came across a monster. However, this one appeared quite different from the usual humanoid one. Like him, it walked on all fours, though its head was instead just one giant mouth, lacking any sort of facial features or other extremities.

Without hesitation, Kairos slammed down on it, causing a rather large crack to resound.

However, it wasn't immediately smashed to death. While gravely injured, it writhed and struggled. Using its mouth, it bit down as hard as it could into his limb. The teeth were big and sharp and did end up ripping into his shell, though the damage was still relatively minor.

This wasn't anything new to him, so he simply slammed the creature again.

[Killed Creature - 0.1 points awarded]

He didn't pay any heed to the notification, instead rabidly consuming the flesh of the monster on the ground. A few seconds later, he continued to rush through, soon coming across a clearing.

A suburban area was within sight, which he rushed over to, possibly because it appeared familiar. He navigated on top of the few houses that remained standing, traversing through it.

There was a noticeably smaller amount of monster density compared to before he had gone down to clear his promotion mission requirement. On top of that, none of them were humanoid.

Though the few he could find, he killed and ate.

[Killed Creature - 0.1 points awarded] x 4

Eventually, he came across a monster that rivaled his size. However, what was a tad bit peculiar was that this one was very humanoid. It was muscular, but lean, with proportions very similar to a human. On the sides of its head were two dark red horns that appeared to gleam.

Though what was most peculiar, was the behavior. Unlike normal monsters that would be aggressive, wandering around when they were awake and attempting to kill things, this one was simply sitting on top of a house.

It didn't appear to have any intentions of leaving any time soon and even had a fist under its chin in contemplation. If it wasn't for its exaggerated size, it would've seemed like a person wearing some sort of demon costume.

The demon glanced over at Kairos for a brief moment but lost interest in the next moment. As for Kairos, he stared at the demon for a few seconds, strangely giving it thought when normally that wasn't the case.

Because for some reason, the demon looked familiar.

However, the thoughts quickly disappeared, as the one driving force replaced them. To kill and consume whatever he could.

With a roar, Kairos rushed over towards the demon. It did give another glance but didn't seem to care much at all, not even lifting up its head from the fist underneath it. This lack of ambition didn't phase him though, as Kairos simply did the same thing he had always done, throwing hands.

The demon lazily raised one hand, blocking it.

With a crash, the house he had been sitting on was smashed into pieces. However, the demon itself was completely fine. Without anything to sit on anymore, it stood up, looking at Kairos curiously. It didn't seem to mind suddenly being disturbed.

But while its behavior was becoming increasingly strange, Kairos' efforts had remained the same. With wild abandon, he opened his jaws and attempted to bite down, trying to get an early taste.

However, the demon deftly dodged to the side, easily avoiding the all-in attack.

Following that, Kairos continued to wildly swing and bite over and over again, clearly not having any sort of plan. The closest thing that could be called one was to attack until one side was dead.

However, it didn't seem that would happen, as the demon effortlessly sidestepped and just barely got out of the way of every single one of his attacks. It wasn't even focusing on dodging, instead rubbing its chin while observing his wild attacks.

After nearly ten minutes of a pointless back and forth Kairos stopped attacking. He panted while observing the demon in front of him. In turn, it reached over. While he had run away, it was pointless as there was an extreme difference in speed.

However, it ended up being a false alarm, as the demon simply patted his head as though he were the common well-trained house dog.

For a moment, Kairos remained there confused, but then once more attacked aggressively. This time the demon didn't bother dodging, allowing his claw to dig deep into its side, causing blood to splatter.

Though it didn't appear to have any effect, at the very least the demon appeared to not even recognize anything wrong. It simply continued to look on, inspecting rather closely. After a while it spoke with a gravel-like voice, almost sounding like the world's calmest roar.

"I see me... in your mind..."

It was quite hard to decipher any sort of words from what he had been saying, and if one were to hear it, they might've simply thought the sounds coincidentally sounded like words. However, Kairos couldn't process any of that, deciding to pull out the claw and attempt another attack.

Though before he could do so, the demon grabbed onto his front legs, holding them in place firmly. It let out a small, but deep sigh while easily lifting him up.

"It seems... we aren't too different..."

While Kairos was confused, it twirled around in a circle, violently taking him along with it. It almost seemed like a parent with their child doing something for fun. The demon muttered softly.

"Go back... to your friends..."

Before he had a chance to respond, not that he would, Kairos was flung off into the sky, smashing through a house in the process. The howling wind was piercing, the only thing he could sense with that was how wildly he was being thrown around. It was incredibly disorienting.

As for the somewhat sane part of him residing in his mind, because of how intense the sounds were, he could actually hear it as though he was standing outside in the middle of a windy day.

And it brought back memories to him.

Of the times that he had been outside. The wind specifically reminded him of when Nicole was dragging him along in terribly windy weather, a time when most normal people would stay inside.

They ran against the current, the wind wildly causing their hair and clothes to flap around.

Despite the fact air was technically forcing its way down into his lungs, it was terribly hard to breathe. It was incredibly hard to keep up, even if Nicole was pulling him along. There was a short moment when he wondered why in the world they were even doing this in the first place.

But despite technically choking, the wind against his face felt amazing.

Nicole was laughing, though she too choked in the middle of those laughs, having a hard time breathing. Although it wasn't really anything special at the end of the day, Kairos couldn't help but smile slightly.

From that day on, it had become a semi-frequent habit of theirs where they would run as fast as they could, just to try and feel the wind like it was that one day, as far as the experience was compared to the first time. And whenever it was a windy day, Nicole had practically never failed to show up.

The writing on the walls had faded somewhat, though the traces of them were still on the wall.

As what was happening to Kairos, he slammed into the side of a still-standing high-rise building, toppling it over. The hit was enough to daze him, leaving him on the ground among the rubble for a while.

There was a rather large crack over his body, spreading out like a giant spider web. Blood leaked out from those cracks, showing the severity of his wounds. Still, his body in this condition was incredibly resilient, allowing him to get up despite all of that.

Even while this injured, his instinct was not to hide and recover but to continue fighting. To find something to kill once more like a rabid animal. Though perhaps he truly was a rabid animal at this point.

He ran through the roads of the city with a fierce expression. Yet, only after moving for a few seconds, he froze up. The place was as quiet as ever, almost as though it was an abandoned ruin.

But despite the lack of a living thing in sight, there was a deep sense of fear within him.

His animalistic instinct caused him to freeze up, simply in the hopes that he wouldn't be noticed, despite being the most noticeable thing in the vicinity.