KINETIC

After traveling through the night and taking breaks when needed, Cain and Rene had finally reached their destination the next morning.

The mountain they had been trying to reach was shaped in such a way that one side had a constant gradient to the top with extremely jagged rocks all along its surface, essentially making it impossible to be traversed upon.

The other side of the mountain had an extremly vertical gradient with an almost completely smooth surface. This created a story within the local villages that the mountain had been cut in half by some powerful creature and that the other half was destroyed or moved.

On the flat and vertical side there was what appeared to be a fortress embedded into the mountain. It was a simple fortress consisting of three connected walls in the shape of a square that was missing one side. The missing side of course was where the mountain connected to the wall.

There were two small towers that had been built on the connecting points of the three walls. The wall itself was around six meters in height and made of stone.

There was a single entrance between the two towers, making it impossible to sneak through the front door without being seen by the guards.

Cain and Rene had initially arrived at the jagged side of the mountain and had to move around its edge for a while before finding the fortress. Currently they were next to the same wall that the fortress walls connected to, only about a hundred meters away.

"I don't see any guards in the towers...that makes it easier for us to get to the wall. I think I can get us over the wall using my ability but I can't make any promises." Cain said while looking at the fortress and squinting.

"What about Leo? Aren't we going to wait for him?" Rene asked from just behind Cains back.

"We can't, he told us to go in as soon as we arrived and not to wait for him. The whole reason we split up was so we could have a better chance of saving the villagers, the longer we wait the worse their chances of surviving are." Cain replied while shaking his head.

"I'm scared, Cain. I'm scared about what might be waiting for us behind those walls and I'm scared about what might have happened to Leo and those creatures chasing him."

Cain turned around to face Rene and could see the fear on her face. He placed his hand on her shoulder and could feel ber body was slightly trembling.

"Calm down. Everything will work out in the end. Leo is too fast and too strong to get hurt by those creatures and I'm not going to let anything happen to you. Besides, from what I can see there doesn't appear to be that many people in the fortress at all since there's nobody in the towers."

Cains words helped to ease Renes worries slightly but she couldn't overcome her fear that easily. Although she was afraid, she knew she couldn't stop.

She climbed onto Cains back once again, he took off towards the fortress and arrived at one of its walls without issue.

"Alright, I'm going to go take a look inside. Stay here and stay quiet, I'll be back soon." Cain said as he put Rene down and then jumped.

Due to his body being so light, his jump was easily able to bring him to the top of the wall. After waiting for a few minutes at the bottom of the wall, Rene began growing anxious.

The only thing keeping her from freaking out was the silence. If Cain had been seen then there would have been sounds of fighting, but there was nothing.

Eventually she heard something above her and looked up. Cain was looking down at her from the top of the wall.

"There's nobody here, the whole fortress looks abandoned. Go to the front and I'll let you in." Cain then disappeared behind the wall again.

Rene did as he said and walked along the wall until she found the entrance. Two large wooden doors with metal frames around their edges.

It didn't take long for one of the doors to swing open and for Rene to enter the fortress with Cain. The door was being kept closed by a large piece of wood that was placed in slots between the two doors.

"I don't know why this place is empty but there is a tunnel that continues into the mountain. The actual base is probably inside, while this fortress is just used to guard the entrance." Cain said.

Rene followed Cain as they walked through the fortress and she noticed how the buildings within were completely barren and void of life.

They quickly reached the tunnel Cain mentioned and Rene thought to herself 'Cains assumption is probably right. It does feel like the fortress was just for defending the entrance.' She gulped hard as she began to feel her fear growing.

The tunnel was dimly lit using crystals that were set up along the walls. The tunnel appeared to turn suddenly to the left after only a few meters, making the tunnels length an uncertainty.

"Come on, we can't waste any more time." Cain walked into the tunnel and Rene reluctantly followed after him.

***

Leo had spent the entire night and morning leading the horde of creatures around in circles.

After getting an understanding of their speed, he realized that he didn't need to use his Energy while running and he would still be slightly faster than them.

Upon making this realization, he started using Wind Bullet to attack the small flying creatures that the system referred to as 'Imps'.

Occasionally he would miss the creatures or they would dodge his attack but more often than not he would hit them directly in the head or chest and they would die in a single hit, awarding him with some XP.

After seeing his success with the Imps, he tried to attack the larger creatures as well. Unfortunately their skin appeared to be too durable for a Wind Bullet to deal any significant damage.

He tried using Wind Blade to see if their was a difference and there was. Wind Bullets are compressed air that hit using force while Wind Blades are shaped into a thin line that has them cutting a target rather than impacting it.

The Wind Blades managed to deal some damage to the larger creatures in the form of cuts, but even then the attacks were too shallow and barely even injured them.

Choosing to ignore the larger creatures and focus on the smaller ones, Leo managed to kill every single one of them, allowing him to reach level 13. He placed the stat point he earned from the level up into his 'Defence' stat, bringing it up to 13.

Leo's speed allowed him to run faster than the horde of creatures, this allowed him the luxury of being able to absorb some of the Energy generated by his running to replenish what he used when attacking.

This would bring his speed down to the same level as the creatures, making it an effecient method of attack.

Checking the quest he had received, Leo noticed that the time limit had almost been reached.

[Remaining time - 12 Minutes]

'Almost done. After the time limit ends and I've finished the quest, I'll head to the mountain faster than these creatures will be able to follow.' Leo thought with relief.

'It's been incredibly tedious running from these creatures for such a long time, but thanks to them you were able to level up rather easily.' Dreifus said.

'That's true. The amount of XP I got was more than I needed, so when I get the XP reward from this quest I'll just barely be able to level up again to level 14. If I consider the skill point I'll be getting as a reward on top of that, this has been a very rewarding experience that's worth the time spent.' Leo replied with a tone of satisfaction.

' I do wonder about the time limit you were given. I assumed it was because that was the time needed for your friends to reach the mountain, but the system can't account for something like that. Probably...' Dreifus sounded unsure.

'It's not important. Trying to figure out the reason behind the quests will likely accomplish very little in the way of helping us.' Leo replied.

'...'

Leo continued to run and watched as the timer went down until it finally hit 0 and he received a notification from the system.

*Ding

[Sudden Quest completed]

Leo was glad to see that the quest had finally ended and looked behind him at the horde of creatures. That's when he noticed something strange.

All the creatures had fallen to the ground and were writhing around while screeching. The screeching was similar to what he had heard from them while running but it sounded different, like they were in pain.

'What the... What happened to them?'