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

Chapter 238  The Abstract

Kairos closed his eyes. Or at the very least he thought he was closing his eyes with how dark everything was. And when he did eventually feel like he was opening them...

He was greeted with his room.

Or perhaps more accurately, his mental space. Azami was just idly petting the wolf, which was also noticeably bigger. Now, it looked almost the same as the new transformation that Kairos had unlocked, just much smaller in scale.

Not much seemed to happen, prompting Kairos to speak up.

"Hey, apparently there's supposed to be a mental attack on me right now or something like that."

Azami turned to look at him strangely.

"Is it? Well, at least it doesn't involve me. Good luck."

Kairos' eyelid twitched, but he didn't say anything in the end. However, before he could rebut, he suddenly lost his footing amid the sounds of a loud crash. The room itself didn't change, but Kairos found himself seemingly falling.

Azami and the wolf weren't unaffected either, with the wolf waking up and Azami finding herself flung up. Or perhaps more accurately, it was everything else that went down.

The room started to shake rather violently, though strangely enough, all the objects in the room weren't jostling around. As for Kairos, Azami, and the wolf, that was definitely a different story.

Kairos grabbed onto something to stay stable, while Azami simply furrowed her brows, not even making the effort to grab on anything. However, she somehow remained upright the entire time.

As for the wolf, it was just panicking, wildly moving its legs around in a flurry with no real goal other than venting its anxiousness.

Strange sounds accompanied the rumbling, sounding almost technological, but glitched. They remained at a single tone, before gradually shifting to another.

It seemed that one of the walls could no longer hold its own, distorting significantly. It twisted and turned as though it wasn't actually a solid wall, but stretchy gum of some kind. It started to push outwards, almost like it was being pulled from the outside.

Azami clicked her tongue and shouted over the noise.

"Didn't you say that it was a mental attack on you?"

Kairos stared at the wall that seemed to be getting further and further before yelling back.

"I said apparently! Whether or not it dragged you in wasn't told to me!"

Azami didn't respond, instead staring at the distorting wall with a somewhat transfixed expression.

Eventually, the wall was directly ripped apart, opening up to what appeared to be the outside world. The wall itself gradually seemed to be blending into that background, almost like it was actually a painting.

As for the background itself, it looked like a relatively normal neighborhood, without all the blood and destruction that was caused by the apocalypse. However, a very notable difference was what appeared to be blurry figures in the distance.

At this point, Azami's eyes were wide open. She began to mutter to herself.

"Wait... that makes a lot more sense now. Of course, this would have to be..."

While Kairos was confused, he suddenly heard cries filling the air.

"AHHHH! IT HURTS IT HURTS IT HURTS!"

"Someone... please... kill me..."

"Why me? Why?... Why?"

They seemed to be far away and right in front of him at the same time. More than just the volume, Kairos began to feel a strong headache coming on. Without even realizing it, he had put both his hands on his ears in an effort to block it out, but to no avail.

Azami turned to look at Kairos before a small frown formed on her face.

"Um... things are pretty bad for you right now."

The wolf looked around, clearly quite puzzled, though it didn't seem too affected by the things around it. After realizing that he was covering his ears and that it was doing nothing, Kairos peeled them away slowly.

He looked over at Azami while holding back his urge to cry out painfully.

"You know what this is?"

Azami furrowed her brows slightly while looking around.

"This place is called the Abstract. To explain it properly would take too long for this situation. To summarize, just think of this place as the River Styx. You are only supposed to come here if you've died."

She crossed her arms.

"You can also think of it as your soul being in this place, even though it's more so your mind, but that would be confusing to explain."

Although she was proclaiming that she was glossing over things, she was saying a lot of unnecessary things, which was starting to tick Kairos off. Though he didn't need to express that verbally as Azami just read his mind.

She looked a bit upset about it but didn't make a fuss about it.

"To put it plainly, you're at great risk of dying right now because your mind is far too deep into the Abstract. Actually, dying wouldn't be too bad considering what else could happen to you..."

Azami took a deep breath before continuing on quickly.

"For some reason, it seems the place you entered was somehow able to bring your mind into this place, and was also the reason why you were able to consciously appear in this place as well."

Kairos did everything he could to focus on Azami's voice, trying to parse through all the countless ringing voices in his head. While he was distressed over her not getting to the point quickly, he also realized she was his best shot at enduring this ordeal.

"What... do I... do?"

Azami sucked in a cold breath.

"...I'm not sure. I've never seen this happen before. You're going to have to find some sort of solution for yourself. Both the doggy and I have resistance to this kind of thing as we are both related to gods in different ways."

She thought for a little while before speaking up.

"I'm not sure how it works for you, but I believe you have to make sure that you don't lose yourself, more than anything else. If you are taken by this place, then you will experience pain several times worse, as your body will be alive to also magnify the pain to your mind."

Kairos grit his teeth so hard that his gums began bleeding. The fact that his future vision was essentially doubling the pain that he felt didn't help either.

He backed up to the corner of the house before pointing at the various blurry figures.

"What will happen if I try to rush or attack them?"

Azami furrowed her brows, thinking over it seriously.

"...I highly doubt you will be able to injure them, as they aren't things that have the ability to be injured. The only thing that making contact with them would do is unnecessarily damage you further."

Kairos felt like crying at this point.

"Then... what should I do?"

Azami closed her eyes, thinking about the situation rather seriously.

"I would use what powers I have left to try and clear them, but it wouldn't be enough... While I can disperse them to some extent, there are simply too many. Regardless, you're going to need to get out of the Abstract."

Kairos let go of one support and pushed off the other.

"So you're saying that I should run out there and try to find my way out?"

Azami sucked in a cold breath once more as she shook her head quickly.

"No, no. This may only look like your room, but it's also the in-built protection mechanism that living people all have. If you exit it, then the mental damage that you take will increase by tenfold at the minimum."

Kairos looked at Azami with a tint of despair. He opened his mouth but was unable to get the words out. However, Azami heard him anyway.

She let out a small sigh.

"...I can feel that your room is slowly being pulled out of the Abstract. However, it really is slow. You won't be getting out of here any time soon."

Kairos let out a long breath.

"So you're saying... my best chance is to just sit here and endure it."

Azami waited a few seconds before nodding.

"From the start, that was the only real option I could think of."

Kairos slowly closed his eyes, while holding onto the side of his head.

"...Hah."

It seemed that Azami wasn't stalling just for nothing. She was just doing so in order to help Kairos distract himself from the pain, as there really wasn't any other option. Despite being someone that was fairly confident in his ability to endure pain, this one was different.

It seemed to bypass his tolerance.

Despite the fact he was someone that had grown numb to the pain, it was still fresh, as though this was the first time he had felt it in his life, even though he was experiencing that pain constantly.

Azami had a slightly pitying expression on her face, seemingly understanding what Kairos was going for.

"...If you are able to stay sane through this, I will commend you."

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