Strongest Nova: Path of Vengeance

Chapter 327 - 3 Days

Stanley sat in Sheila’s room, watching her slowly breathe in and out while she was asleep. Caleb had looked through the data they had collected from Nexus and had come to the conclusion that it almost always took between 45 and 50 days.

It was unclear why it was that long, but it had been 47 days now. So Sheila should be waking up anytime now.

He sat by her bed, resting as he watched her. It was not just for her that he was here, but also for himself. No one bothered Sheila who was resting. Because of that, no one bothered him either.

It was peaceful here.

He had barely gotten any free time the past month and a half, having to go through many smaller missions one after another, with no real rest.

He had people talk to him all the time and it wasn’t very fun for him.

His power of active foresight had come back during this time, but his power to slow down time hadn’t just yet. He knew he killed around 40 or 50 people in the ship itself.

But after that, he hadn’t killed many people. In most places he went, the enemies surrendered before he could become violent. And he didn’t want to kill someone who had already given up.

He did not want to become a monster who killed people because it was fun. The moment he surrendered to the fun, he would stop being himself.

He still wanted to more or less remain the son his mother thought of him as. The person his brother cared for.

He thought for a bit and got curious. "Computer, how long has it been since I arrived at the AAA?"

The computer in the room began speaking. "You arrived at the AAA exactly 172 days ago."

Stanley thought for a bit and asked, "How long ago did Sheila go missing in Eyland?"

"This information is outside of your authorization," the computer said.

"Request Authorization," Stanley said and waited for a bit for someone higher up to see what he was trying to look at so he could be authorized.

Stanley waited for a moment and the computer replied. "Authorization accepted. Agent Sheila went missing in the western zone of Eyland exactly 362 days ago."

Stanley took a deep breath as his suspicion came true.

’I knew it,’ he thought. It had been nearly a year since the time when Sheila had gone missing in Eyland. Which meant, it had been almost an entire year since his mother’s passing.

’3 days,’ he thought. In 3 days, it would be his mother’s death anniversary. He wanted to go visit her grave once again. It was unlikely that he would find her grave after what had happened to the place, but he still wanted to go visit it.

He felt an obligation to do so.

’I’ll have to ask the director for a break for that,’ he thought.

Stanley felt his wristpad buzz at that very moment and looked at it. He saw Caleb’s head inside of it and clicked on it to let him talk.

"Brother Stanley, where are you?" Caleb asked.

"In Sheila’s room, why?" Stanley asked.

"I thought so. Miss Amy is waiting for you at the top. Why haven’t you gone to her just yet?"

Stanley touched his arm a little. "She is waiting to heal my arm?" he asked.

"Yes," Caleb said.

Stanley had been waiting so long for that. "I will go visit her right now," he said, getting up.

"Oh, and when you’re on the way there. Stop by the engineering too. They have a mask for you," Caleb said.

"Mask?" Stanley asked, confused. "What mask?"

"Uhh... they said you requested for it," he said, quickly pulling up something. "Yeah, you did. It says you complained about not being able to breathe properly or something."

"Ah!" Stanley finally remembered. "Yes, I did. I will stop by there on the way. Thanks."

"Okay," Caleb said. "I need to get back to dealing with this new AI. See you later."

The communication was cut off and Stanley stood up, ready to leave. He needed to go to the Engineering and then to the Medicinal lab to see Amy.

He looked back at Sheila who was sleeping with her chest barely moving. Any day now, she would wake up. He wondered what sort of powers she would get.

He walked out of the room, thinking about his own powers. In the last month and a half, he had evolved two of his pre-existing powers and had gained one new power.

The change had happened nearly a month ago now, so everything was beginning to appear stable again. He wasn’t sure when a new power would come or an old one would evolve.

Both his power of Time Stop —which allowed him to stop time for one single non-living object— and his power of Time Reversal —which allowed him to reverse the time of a single item other than himself— had evolved so that they didn’t need him to touch it anymore.

So long as they were within his sight or less than 2 meters away from him, it would work.

The other new power he had received was the power to mark someone or something. He could mark upto 3 things at once, and anything he marked, he could use his powers on it regardless of where it was or when it was.

There was still that one power that turned back time for many hours for him. He wondered when he would get that power, or if it would remain hidden forever.

Or if he had to kill a lot of people to achieve that power. He hoped that was not the case. He didn’t want to kill more people if he could afford it.

He was on his way to the lift when he came across Stella.

"Stanley!" she said in a cheerful voice. "I heard you were back!"

"Hey, Stella," he said, a genuine smile forming on his face at the sight of her. "How is life?"