“What can I say, I’m just too good,” Alchemist sighed it with a wide grin on his face.
“Quit lying, it’s just that I literally couldn’t at that moment!” Domination sighed, the heart beating in front of its chest sending vibrations through the void, “Well, doesn’t matter.”
“Host!” Domination looked directly at Stark, “So how was the apostle and godless experience?”
“A good 2 out of 10, only giving the two points because it felt good to see their faces when I defeated the ape.”
“Makes sense,” the crimson doppelganger laughed.
The three kept exchanging small discussions among themselves, speaking of the apostles, the godless demon and how he knew about Stark’s existence, as well as all the apostles they currently knew off/had the location.
He couldn’t see the rest of the apostles because those he hadn’t seen were hidden by some sort of shadow veil, while those he saw weren’t, but if you think about it, there were only 4 apostles he currently didn’t know anything about.
All those on the second line had their locations revealed to him, and he actually even knew the exact moment he would be able to get to them.
The first three when the [Devil’s Abyss] was found, the fourth when the second semester of the academy starts as that was when the colosseum would open, and the last was in the last [Domination] trial.
And even though he didn’t know where the [Great Serpent] was or when he would fight it, the fact he saw it and its abilities was enough to judge how bad this would get.
And so just like this, an hour, then two, passed
“Huh… isn’t this taking too long?” he had never stayed this long in the void, because usually time passed much quicker than in the real world.
Weren’t just twenty minutes in this place equivalent to a week in the real world…?
“Do not worry,” Domination’s expression darkened, “One more hour and you’ll be able to leave.”
“Huh?” Stark was confused.
“Aura is like a toxin,” Alchemist explained, “And you were exposed to so much of it that its already a miracle you didn’t instantly pass out, any other domination users even at your level would have surely been knocked out and killed, which is why they were probably so surprised when you stood your ground and even killed the guardian ape.”
“HUH?!”
“Basically, you need to rest so that your very own aura takes over the other, and it should take around 3 hours in here.”
“But wait a minute… three hours here means…”
“Yes, 3 months in the real world.”
“OH COME ON!”
“Don’t worry, when you wake up, there will be around two days before the second semester, you should be fine,” Domination shrugged.
“That’s not the problem- you know what forget about it,” maybe they couldn’t understand that losing three months of your life was bad, but to be honest a classifier’s age with the [Domination] class doesn’t go that far, so he guessed he shouldn’t worry.
Maybe using [Domination] took some of his life span away each time he used it, who knows, but for now he didn’t care.
Another hour passed, one where the doppelgangers as well as Stark discussed future strategies.
And when it was finally time to leave…
Ding! Ding! Ding!
“Alright, time to get up, host,” Alchemist and Domination smiled, “Be sure to destroy those apostles.”
“…” Stark didn’t answer.
Domination and Alchemist faded, and soon enough Stark lost consciousness.
…
Stark opened his eyes, for him it had been only three hours, so he remembered perfectly, but in the outside world it had been three months, and he immediately noticed it by the smell and color of the water.
The massive amount of blood coming out of the guardian ape tained the water in weird redish color, and the smell from the decaying corpse was overwhelming.
Surprisingly no items had dropped from the boss, and he was thankful since he really didn’t want to look for them, immediately leaving by going through the portal at the end of the sunken valley.
The aura from the apostles and godless demon should have disappeared, that’s what domination said as it was overtaken by his own aura, yet Stark could still feel this feeling around him: a chilling one, the feeling of death.
He didn’t know why or what, but something inside of him had snapped.
His face darkened, and his eyes looked more tired, and it was’t even from tiredness: this was just his new look from now.
Was it because he saw the power of those he needed to fight? Or was he just fed up?
In the end, none of it mattered, because something was certain: Stark was tired of this shit, and from now on he would kill all of them without a hint of hesitation, and much faster than before.
“…” be it human, monster or apostles, he wasn’t going to play anymore.
Did he lose emotions? No, otherwise this feeling of excitement of going back to meet Lana wouldn’t be there, but strangely, he didn’t have any feelings towards the concept of fighting.
Fwish!
Stark passed the portal, and found his way back to his apartment complex.
The excitement of battling was almost gone, and now all he wanted was to end all of these battles quickly.
Fighting the apostles? He would absolutely obliterate them before they even realized.
The academy? Not even a challenge at this point, anyone who tried to get in his way was dead.
Domination trial? Didn’t matter, he just needed to survive, just like before.
Stark felt such a strange calmness it was scary.
But one thing was for certain: Stark would remain normal on the outside, but the moment he entered a rift/battle, he would completely change, displaying a ruthless version of him no one would want to meet, not even the godless demon.
Click! Clack!
He opened his apartment’s door using his keycard, and immediately was greeted by the sight of a cooking Lana.
“S…S-…STARK?!” she dropped everything in her hands and rushed toward him, hugging him tightly, “ITS YOU, RIGHT! RIGHT? I’M NOT IMAGINING IT?!”
“…” Stark didn’t say anything for a few seconds as he looked down at Lana, who was crying, then he breathed in and out and changed his expression to a more “Stark-like” one, “Yeah, It’s me,” he smiled.
“OH MY GOD, I-IT’S BEEN THREE MONTHS!”
“Yeah, my bad.”
“A-And that execution three months ago was insane, even now people are talking about it, where in the hell did you go?!”
He couldn’t tell her he met with the apostles of the godless demon, and the big boss himself, so he invented, “You know… huh… just fighting and leveling up, I got stronger!”
This was technically not a lie!
And Lana could definitely sense it in Stark’s aura: he was much stronger than before for some strange reason, and also… more handsome.
Her emotions got the better of her, and so she rushed in for a kiss.
“…?!” Stark was taken aback, but after going through everything, he still kissed her back.
After around a minute of intertwining their tongues, Stark pulled himself out as Lana would have probably kept going, “What about… the food?”
“O-Oh yeah,” she blushed, “Let me finish dinner then we can… um… continue.”
‘…?’
What the hell does she mean by continue, wasn’t this all?
Or maybe she wanted to… Oh!?
