Strongest Nova: Path of Vengeance

Chapter 314: The Dead Remain Dead

"Why is it not working?" Stanley shouted, pain filling his voice. "She’s already healed. Why is she not breathing? Why won’t she wake up?"

Stella looked at Stanley’s frustrated voice and down at the young woman who had been fully healed and yet remained dead.

She did not understand what was happening. Why wouldn’t the woman come back to life now that she was healed?

"Life is more than just the body. You need more than just the body to live," she said. "Where is her soul?"

Stanley paused, looking toward Stella. He slowly came to understand what had most likely happened. "We took it," he said. "Either you or I took it."

"Took it?" Stella asked with a confused look.

"You know," Stanley explained. "Because we’re Novas."

Stella’s eyes widened in great surprise. "You know I’m a Nova?"

Stanley nodded. It seemed Red truly was dead then. He could not turn back time for her because he could not bring back the soul to her body. It was already destroyed by either his or the woman’s power, and he did not have the capability to create souls.

He simply sighed and looked at the woman, or rather a girl, before him. "You don’t remember anything, do you?" he asked.

The woman shook her head. "I made that white sword and then gave up my years and memories for it. I don’t even know what I was doing back there. Did they attack us because we’re Nova?"

"No, that was... it’s too long to explain. We were placed there to fight in a death game. This is us escaping that game," Stanley said. "Hopefully. There may be people up ahead, ready to kill us."

Stella grimaced but nodded.

"Who are you then?" she asked. "What’s your name?"

"My name is Stanley," he said. They had planned on never telling each other their name, but... "and what is your name?"

"I didn’t tell you?" she asked. "Stella. My name is Stella."

"It’s good to meet you, Stella," Stanley said, now certain that she was the old woman from before, somehow having lost all of her memories. "Thank you for the sword."

"You must’ve needed it badly for me to have made it for you," she said. "Take good care of it. It is a very special sword."

"I kind of got the idea already. It is so light and yet it is so durable."

"It will never break," Stella said. "It is harder than anything in existence. It can go as dull as you want or as sharp as you want. Similarly, it can even change its weight as per your wish."

Stanley was surprised. "It can change its weight?" he asked, quickly grabbing the sword and willing it to grow heavy. As Stella had said, it did grow heavy.

It quickly reached over 100 kilograms and there was still room for more. But he paused at that moment as he couldn’t create too much weight inside of the carrier. It could cause some major troubles.

Instead, he changed its sharpness as he willed and found it to truly be dull as a staff. This was a fantastic sword.

"You should find a sheath for that sword. Sorry, I didn’t think about how you would keep it around on the spot," she said.

"No, no. This is already way more than I can hope for," Stanley said. "Thank you for the sword."

Stella nodded. "So... are you a Nova of time?" she asked.

Stanley nodded. "And you are a Nova of..."

"Conversion," Stella said. "I can convert either my energy or other items into objects."

Stanley nodded. "You did create a bunch of snacks," he said.

"I did?"

"You wouldn’t remember," Stanley said as he laid back against the wall of the small compartment where they were staying at.

"Why don’t you heal your own arms?" Stella asked.

"Can’t," Stanley said. "My power doesn’t work on myself. I will probably have to wait for it to evolve."

Stella nodded. She looked around awkwardly and then looked down at herself. "How old am I?"

"You look as old as me," Stanley said. "So the tail at of being a teenager."

"And... how old was I before?" she asked.

"In your 40s or 50s," Stanley said. "You were old enough to be a grandma."

"Oh..." Stella said. "I must’ve lost a lot of age then. I wonder if I had a husband. Or children."

Stanley wanted to say something in response but paused. If she had family, then they might’ve been caught in the explosion too. He couldn’t imagine how he could bring up such a topic.

"Let’s focus on now. We’ll deal with everything else later," Stanley said.

He used Retrocognition on the ship and saw its recent past. Once again, they saw the ship where it had come from, in the middle of the ocean. It remained in a hanger of some sort, with people all around.

’They are voluntarily bringing us back,’ Stanley thought. ’Are they going to kill us? Most likely. The outcome, whatever the case, won’t be good.’

He needed to prepare for it. He made up a plan with Stella on what they would do. Since he couldn’t slow down time until he killed 100 other people, he would have to be careful all around.

He saw shadows around the thick paned windows at the top of the compartment through which light entered and realized they had arrived.

’How long has it been?’ he thought. ’10 minutes? We weren’t that far off, were we?’

They had also so easily gone past the shield that he hadn’t even thought about it. The carrier slowly landed inside a dark hanger, and Stanley took hold of his blade.

"Get ready," he told Stella. "We will have to fight a lot of people from here on out."

She nodded.

Stanley wanted to wait no time for the carrier to open for the people to shoot them through it. He would make his own exit.

He increased the weight of his sword and cut through the thick metal on the side of the ship, opening a gaping hole.

He then jumped out, expecting to see a lot of people ready for him.

Instead, what he saw was chaos.