Strongest Nova: Path of Vengeance

Chapter 289: Plea

Stanley arrived back outside and looked at the man who was getting back up. Even with a hole in his shoulder, he was standing up, seemingly to fight.

His right arm was seemingly useless due to the wound on his shoulder, but his left arm was fine. Not that it mattered when he was going to fight against Stanley.

Stanley stood outside, but he didn’t move away. The person in the trees had to still be there.

He waited for the man to move, but the man didn’t. Instead, he only grunted where he stood and looked at Stanley with wild anger in his eyes.

But his words were different.

"Wait, don’t attack me!" he shouted, staring at Stanley and his dangling left arm. "Let’s team up!"

"You just tried to kill me," Stanley said.

"And you nearly killed me, but look at me trying to move forward. Don’t you want someone on your team other than those two girls who can’t even fight?" the man asked.

"Say it to my face, you big fuckface!" Red came out cursing. "Can’t fight? Let me carve your skin out of your skull."

He brought out her dagger from behind her.

"Stay back," Stanley said softly. "The other one is in the trees, and hiding."

Red got a little worried at that moment and looked up toward the trees, but she saw nothing. The cold wind blew at night, and that was the only sound they heard. Not even their fire inside the tent was making much noise.

The man held onto his hurting arm. "Please, I’m not fighting anymore. My team left me and ran away already, let me just join your group."

Stanley narrowed his eyes. Attacking someone who had already given up wasn’t a good feeling, so he didn’t want to do anything right away.

"What is your power?" he asked.

"Why are you asking him for his power? Just kill him," Red said. "He tried to kill us."

"He did, but I will consider letting him go once I’m certain his power isn’t a threat to us," Stanley said.

"It’s not a threat," the man quickly said. "Look."

He pulled on his ear, and his ear stretched. It stretched about 4 times its original length before snapping back like a rubber band.

"My body parts are elastic. That is all that is," the man said. "I’m no threat to you at all. Please, trust me. I will not—"

Stanley saw a spurt of blood fly past him, sparkling brightly in the tent’s light. Time slowed and his head immediately turned and saw a knife in the air that had cut through Red’s neck.

And weirdly enough, the knife was floating in midair.

"Interesting," Stanley thought. It was a good thing he had kept his future sight active at this time, or he would not have seen Red’s death incoming.

He turned back around and time flowed back to normal for 2 more seconds.

"— be seen by you again if you let me go."

And time slowed down again.

Stanley fully turned around this time and saw the flying sword that was about a handspan away from Red’s neck. He reached out slowly grabbed the blade and stopped it.

However, when he tried to pull it away, he felt a surprisingly huge amount of force making it so that Stanley had to drag the knife away.

Momentum was a tricky thing to deal with in slowed time surely, but this seemed preposterous. Was this the same as the arrow from before? Was this the person in the tree?

The trajectory seemed wrong, but maybe the person had already dropped to the ground.

Stanley didn’t bother to snatch away the knife and instead redirected it so that it went to the other man who had tried to keep him occupied by speaking.

He was most certainly doing it on purpose.

Once the knife was well out of Red’s way, Stanley let time flow back to normal once again.

"Aaah!" Red screamed all of a sudden as something hit her. She fell to the ground, and the knife that was meant to be flying straight to the other man had fallen to the ground.

Stanley felt confused for a second and went to pick the knife back up, only to have the knife move around on the ground like a fish out of water.

At the same time, he heard soft grunts coming from the ground than just the knife and quickly realized what was happening.

Someone was there. Someone had slammed into Red and had fallen to the ground in front of her.

’It wasn’t a knife with great momentum,’ Stanley thought. ’It’s a guy who is invisible.’

He moved instantly, smashing his leg down on the knife’s handle. The man on the ground screamed out in pain as his fingers were crushed beneath Stanley’s feet.

The man punched Stanley without any effect and only kept screaming.

Stanley leaned down to grab the sword and suddenly saw the future where he was shot with another arrow.

Time slowed once more and Stanley picked up the knife in time, turning around to meet the incoming arrow.

The arrow was mid-flight when Stanley had turned around, and he grabbed it again. Once again, it was an arrow with a strong momentum.

’It is definitely a different person,’ Stanley thought. He turned the arrow around, following the trajectory where he thought the arrow had come from, and threw the arrow back at them.

The tree exploded high above into bits of timber, showering everyone with leaves and wood. The resounding boom caught everyone’s attention and Stanley took the chance to stab the man in the head with the knife.

He let out a single grunt and then died, his naked body becoming visible under the dim light now that he was dead.

Stanley ignored Red’s sudden gasp at the appearing body and turned to look at the man who was still standing in front of him in stunned silence.

Stanley flipped the knife in his hand, ready to throw. But just as he was about to, something loud caught his attention.

Then, a gorilla ran into their midst.