Strongest Nova: Path of Vengeance

Chapter 283: A Stack of Rocks

Stanley stopped running some 15 minutes later when he was far away from the wall and they were no longer in danger.

Red was now wrapped up in his dead arm, holding on for dear life, while the old woman Yellow seemed stunned enough that she didn’t know what to do or say.

Stanley let the two of them down, and they immediately started shaking from the cold alone. Running the chilly night had made their faces freeze.

Stanley took some deep breaths while looking back at the giant wall in the distance. Its approach seemed to have slowed down by now, but it was hard to say if that was only what it looked like because they were far away.

"We can’t sleep tonight," he said. "Well have to keep watch."

The two girls could barely speak or react to even give some form of affirmation. They remained silent, shivering, and slightly panicked for a long enough time that Stanley had to check on them.

"Are you guys okay?" he asked. "I’ll see if I can find something to burn."

The two women slowly nodded.

"That would be wonderful," Red said. She seemed to be having an easier time dealing with the situation than the old woman, but not by a lot.

Seeing two of the people she had been together with dying one after another had made her very afraid as well.

Stanley looked at the two and left to go find some dried wood. He looked around at the area they had arrived in. They were in the woods, dense for the most part with tall trees surrounding them.

There were thankfully no bushes for anything to hide in and Stanley found a few small sticks that could be rubbed together to create fire. He gathered what he could, but they were still too little, and he didn’t want to go very far either, just in case.

He stuck around the area, searching for some more when suddenly a vision of his death passed through his head.

In the vision, Stanley saw himself die from something that struck his feet first and then his entire body. It was an attack that came from below.

Stanley immediately stopped moving and slowed down time before looking around to see who attacked him with full alertness. Red’s night vision aid hadn’t yet lifted, so he could see things quite clearly, and from what he could tell there was nobody there.

’Are they hiding?’ Stanley wondered and tried to walk to the back of the tree in front of him and see who was there. When he tried to do so, he saw the horrible future once again. Only this time, he could see the future held no human, just a random explosion.

’Like a minefield?’ Stanley thought. He had read about those things back in the AAA and looked down to see if there was anything sticking out from the ground.

The first thing that caught his eye was a stack of 4 stones on top of each other, placed in a precarious position. Just walking by would likely cause them to fall. Were they hiding the mine? Or were they the mine?

Stanley backed off far enough and took a small stone before tossing it at the stack of rocks.

Instantly, the ground shook with a massive explosion that sent a shockwave passing through Stanley even though he was far away. Tiny rocks battered all over him, but none were thankfully large enough to hurt him.

Had it been any other person though, they would have likely been bruised all over by those rocks.

Stanley shook his head in awe. Who had done this? Who had prepared such a thing? And how many were there around here?

He needed to be careful.

Stanley decided to return with the small pile of sticks he had gathered. There wasn’t much point in staying around much longer, and the women would be scared by the sound and most likely looking for him.

Stanley arrived back and as expected, they were extremely worried. He told them what had happened and how he had found the stack of rocks.

"You realized it was someone’s power?" the older woman asked.

"It had to be," Stanley said, putting down the pile of sticks to the ground. The ground they had stopped was dry enough without any snow, and that would have to do for now.

Stanley looked to the sky and saw no stars today, fearing that either rain or snow was on its way again. "We’ll have to find proper shelter soon," he said. "Tomorrow, at first daylight, we need to find a place to stay. Or the rain will kill us in this cold."

The older woman looked to the sky and frowned too.

"Is this it?" Red asked while squinting her eyes to see in the dark, sorting through the sticks. "I don’t know if they will last us at all."

"They will have to," Stanley said. "There’s not much timber around here, and I didn’t want to leave far away."

Red sighed when she heard that. "I’m cold," she said softly. "How do we even light this fire? We don’t have any embers to help us."

"I’ll try rubbing the two sticks together," Stanley said. "That should help us a b—"

"No need," the older woman said while rubbing her arms in the cold.

"Sorry?" Stanley asked. "We don’t need fire?"

The woman glared at Stanley for a moment before sighing. "That is clearly not what I said. I said we don’t need to rub them together to create fire. I can help you burn it."

Both Stanley and Red looked at the woman with a confused look, wondering what she was talking about when suddenly they saw a light glow around her hand. Something appeared out of her hand, small and compact.

They had seen the woman do this before to create small snacks for the group to eat. After all, her powers were to create food. However, what she had created right now wasn’t food at all.

They were matches.

The woman gave a small smile and looked at Stanley. "You’re not the only one who hid what their real powers were."