Strongest Nova: Path of Vengeance

Chapter 291: Regrow

The land was still wet from the rain the other day, and the cold wind blew through the forest as everyone prepared to leave the place.

Stanley was returning from the stream after washing himself, lost in his own thoughts at the moment, trying to understand what had happened to him overnight.

He had gained a new power.

The power to speed up the aging of something, or completely halt it had been something he had only just awakened a few days ago.

And now, it seemed he had gained the last third of the power, in the other direction.

He gained the power to turn back time for a single object. The rate at which it turned back time, however, was the regular rate at which time flowed forward.

So, to change something back 5 seconds, it took him 5 seconds.

Thankfully, it seemed he could speed up that process by slowing down time. Since he was now capable of slowing down time up to 100 times, the rate at which he could turn something back sped up just as much as well.

There were various other limitations to this power, that was a lot more information than what he received when he awakened most other powers.

Stanley needed to experiment with this.

He took the knife by his waist and cut off a thin branch from one of the low-hanging trees. Once the branch fell to the ground, he broke it into two using his leg and picked them up with his single working hand.

Since he had only just broken it off, he wondered if the two parts would join back together if time was reversed for them.

Of course, he could only use the power on one of the two broken branches, but he intended to join them together when using it.

Stanley took a deep breath and activated the power.

As he activated his powers, the splinters of the branch, right at the section where it was broken into two seemed to reform and almost regrow to fill up the space.

The tiny shards of the wood that had flown off when he broke it couldn’t be brought back to join them, so there was new matter grown at the place where it was destroyed.

Stanley stopped using his power and looked at the branch. It was no different from how it looked just a moment ago, with even the wetness on the branch returning to it.

Stanley then used his powers again, this time on the entire branch. He wanted to see if he could somehow reattach the branch to the tree.

In this case, the tree would have to grow out of the branch.

He used his powers, but the branch didn’t accept it at all. It could not grow a tree out of a mere branch.

Stanley next tried to join the tree to the branch, but alone, it was impossible. Instead, he decided to not use the branch. He chucked the branch away and placed his hand on the tree.

He made sure neither of the three were close and then used his power.

At first, nothing happened at all. It almost appeared as though the power wasn’t working at all.

But Stanley knew that a while had passed since he broke off the branch, so he needed to wait. Once enough time passed, he saw the changes.

From the stump where the branch had been cut off, a new branch grew out, like limbs regrowing from a human body. The new branch that grew out was exactly the same as the last one, almost as though nothing had happened to the tree at all.

Stanley let go of the tree once it was out and moved back. He stood back and looked at what he had just done.

He couldn’t help but smile at the sight.

He quickly looked down, looking at his own left arm. With how destroyed the arm was, he wanted to turn back his own time to the day when it wasn’t destroyed.

He grabbed his left arm and stopped. Then, he sighed.

It was one of the limitations of this power. He could not use it on himself.

The other limitations were simpler. He couldn’t use the power on something that was dead. And he couldn’t use it on something that was smaller than the actual object it belonged to.

That was why when he turned back the time for the branch, it reformed to how it was, but it could not attach to the tree. He always needed to go for the bigger object.

’I can’t heal myself, but I can heal the others when they get hurt,’ Ning thought. That was helpful enough with this power for now. Any power was better than nothing after all.

Stanley returned to the campsite, and they were all ready to leave.

"How close is the barrier?" Red asked.

"Let me check."

Stanley jumped high in the air and looked at the wall in the distance for the brief moment he was in the sky and landed back down.

"Remember the place where we were stuck in the mud?" he asked. "It’s come close to that point."

"Dear lord!" the old woman said in fright. "Is it because we killed 4 people yesterday?"

"Maybe," Stanley said. "But we couldn’t have been the only ones killing. Many more must have died. And what is worse is that I can see the wall curving already. We are at most 2 kilometers away from the center of this thing."

The old woman frowned. "Difficult times are ahead."

"So... what is the plan for the remaining people?" Rey asked. Now that he wasn’t a gorilla, or was anxious in any way around them, he had opened up quite a bit.

"Either join them or kill them if they wish to fight us," Red answered. There was no in-between for her.

The old woman frowned but said nothing. She continued walking.

Since there were only 2 kilometers to reach the center, they could do that in just an hour or 2.