As soon as night fell I awoke.
My senses as sharp as they could be. Currently I was in my room within the house where all of us guys were placed. The girls were in their own house just next door.
The sheets rustled as I moved to stand. I stretched, the slumbering bones in my body popping as they awoke.
I had slept through the afternoon as well as past dinner but I didn't feel any hunger. This was the effect of evolution. The more one's body and soul advanced, the less they would need on daily supplements such as food and even excretion and according to the [Beginner's manual] after a certain threshold even sleep wouldn't be required at all. Well not that I would ever stop sleeping, nothing felt as good as that.
I moved towards the windows and opened them as quietly as I could. I needed to do what I was about to do alone after all. The night air hit me as it filled up the room. It was dark outside with the only source of light being from the moon above.
I stepped out onto the ledge. My room window was 3 meters above the ground. I jumped off hurtling towards the ground but before I could make contact with the grass below if folded into a soundless roll.
I exploded in a silent speed as I weaved between houses and buildings in the silent of the night. Everyone was indoors sleeping so it wasn't much of a problem. Until I reached close to the gates that led out. There were guards patrolling. And as I got closer and closer the amount of guards seemed to increase.
'Well this might be a bit tricky but I have no choice now' I thought before sinking into the shadows below me.
'
The world around me shifted as I looked at it from within the shadow pocket of this space. On the outside world a round an inconspicuous round shadow moved through the ground. It was fast and extremely difficult to notice. The guard on the front gate was filling in for the night shift after Jeoffrey and Xander, the two guards we had fought briefly today.
I weaved past them undetected.
I was now out of Camp White but I didn't cancel
It would deplete my Shadow Art but it would be worthwhile.
With that in mind I traveled further from the camp and into the direction of the Woodland Reserves. When I was a good kilometer away from the camp, I finally cancelled
As soon as I felt the ground beneath my feet I exploded with speed. Letting my full agility loose. I felt the air resistance try to drag me down but it was futile. With my current stat being 94 points it was safe to say that I was currently 9 times faster than your average human and probably 7 times faster than the best athlete before the apocalypse.
This air resistance might as well have been a paper weight trying to stop a raging truck.
Dust kicked up behind me as I continued forward at a constant pace.
I didn't run for long though.
Not because I couldn't but because I chose not to. Less than ten minutes into my run and I encountered something bizarre…
Vines.
They stuck out of the tarmac as though remnants of forgotten trees and yet the flowers budding along them proved that they were very much alive.
'I'm getting close' I thought as I continued to move forward with caution. It would no doubt slow me down but rushing may very well lead me to my death.
I traced the vines to their origin. And as I continued to follow them the vines started to become thicker. This wasn't the only thing that was changing though. The ground was starting to become more and more grassy with less and less buildings or remains of buildings.
And the biggest change of all was the quality of the air. It felt fresher, cooler, lighter as though I were stepping into the cool breeze after a long day spending walking through the desert. It was refreshing.
I continued to move, raising my caution even further.
Soon enough I arrived at my goal.
…
The Woodland Reserves was standing right in front of me except it didn't look anything at all like what I remembered.
Trees stood tall…taller than they had ever been before and even reaching up to heights of 20 meters, some even exceeding that. Their branches formed thick canopies creating green domes that shielded the forest floor from the moonlight. The deeper I looked inside the darker it seemed to become.
For a moment it reminded of that night.
That night when Charlotte had turned into a demon and had tried to killed me for something that I presumably had. I haven't really thought about that night since then. It still made me uneasy and seeing the newly formed forest thick and dark with trees and vegetation…it just felt like I was back to that night.
Back when I was lovestruck and naïve.
Back when I was powerless.
I looked down at my hands they were shaking.
Charlotte…the demoness with dark ash-grey skin, curving horns sticking from her face and a thin long tail with a heart-shaped tipped. She had cast a powerful spell that night planning to rip me apart. It had felt overwhelming and if that attack had landed then I certainly would have died.
How powerful had she gotten since then? I wondered.
But then…
'How much stronger have I also gotten since then?' my voice resounded in my head like thunder.
While Charlotte had been powerful then, how could the current me be compared to my past self?
So what if she was powerful? I'd just have to catch up and even surpass her.
"I'll get stronger much more stronger than I currently am and when we meet again…" I said out loud. "…I'll give her a good spanking"
With my heart steeled and my mind clear I stepped into the forest