While Scar was talking memories with the cause of the time loop they had found themselves stuck in, the rest of his adventuring party - and now fellow prisoners - were busy once more in the search for their target.

However, it was leading nowhere. They thought that they had made some progress when they discovered that, while there were no missing people, that didn't mean there were no empty houses for him to hide in for the day.

So they searched the houses of those at work, and thoroughly staked out the house of a man who had been taken to the local doctors early in the morning - much earlier than when they had appeared - and was spending the day there.

Yet these empty houses were just that, empty. It got to the point that they started to seriously consider if they had been tricked. That if, somehow, Cratos learned of the prison-like nature of the town and set up a trail to lead any pursuers here to be trapped.

It was a plan that required a terrifying amount of cunning and foresight. However as Alexandra was moping about the possibility, talking endlessly about how wickedly cunning their target was, Cynthia had another idea.

What if he wasn't intelligent and cunning, having crafted the perfect trap. What if he was just... an idiot. It was a strange thought, yet it stuck in her head and just wouldn't remove itself. The more she thought about it, feeding the idea, the more she considered that it could be more likely than Alexandra's dramatic cunning villain mindset.

Without mentioning her idea to Alexandra as she was too dead set on her current idea, Cynthia darted out of the house they had been squatting in. She shed her human shape, becoming a streamlined droplet that sped through the streets faster than most could track with their eyes.

To these folks, she was little more than a brief cyan blur that they assumed to be a trick of the light, that is if they didn't miss it by blinking at the wrong time.

They had spent all their time searching the town for clues, focusing on houses and alleys, places he would be able to plant himself for the entire day and generate his power. Instead of wasting more time on that, Cynthia searched the edge of the town.

She searched the area loops circumference, focusing entirely on the areas where one would appear at the very start of the loop. It might seem like a completely idiotic idea, but that's what she was banking on.

Cynthia barely searched half of the circumference, before she finally found what they had been searching for.

Standing in the middle of an open field, almost like a scarecrow, was a half dressed man with an odd backpack. Tubes extended from the backpack, dangling uselessly from it and brushing against the long grass the wind was playing with.

The man didn't notice her approach, as he stood with his eyes closed and hands beside him. He was like a soldier at attention, who had then fallen into the deepest sleep imaginable.

Seeing him standing there completely motionless and oblivious, Cynthia couldn't help but let out a soft laugh to herself.

"I was right... He really is just a meat headed idiot."

Her theory had been like this, Cratos' mutation was - as far as they knew - based on power conservation. He lost strength with every movement, and gained it with stillness - although they suspected that it wasn't an equal measure of gain to loss.

After the battle, they had found the coffin in which the Lightbringer had kept him. It had been filled with medical equipment, mainly IV's filled with nutrients to keep the body alive and functioning.

Alongside that there had been other... less appealing medical equipment usually made for those who were in a coma, or were completely bed ridden. Whilst his 'bed' was actually a metallic restraint built so snug that his fingers weren't even allowed to so much as twitch.

As his power had increased it seemed the prison had lost its effectiveness, as a finger twitch was enough to crumple the metal, but it still performed its duty of keeping him in place and alive. All of this fed their understanding that Cratos had to remain still to gain his strength and that any movement, even including breathing or blinking, would sap his strength.

It was this theory that had led them to search places where he could bunker down and work on conserving his strength. Yet it was those same reasons Cynthia found him in this field, completely asleep.

You see, in his many months trapped in that cell, with nothing but a psychic in his head to keep him remotely sane, Cratos had developed a talent for meditation. He called it meditation, but it was more like shutting his brain off and going into a deep sleep that conserved as much energy as possible.

In this state, he felt very little of his surroundings and it got to the point that his body would naturally reset itself back into his state if he ever woke from it accidentally.

Thus, when Cratos arrived in the town, he did in fact bunker down in one of the empty houses that they had previously searched. Only, he didn't know about the loop. He simply entered his deep sleep, hoping to become even more powerful than before, and let time pass him by.

The checkpoint reset, and he was forced back to his entry point just like every other outsider. However unlike those outsiders, his body automatically kept him in his deep sleep, just like it was trained to.

The only thing that would usually wake him, without medical assistance, was bodily functions. Hunger, urination, dehydration.

Of course, when you are in a time loop, those feelings get reset every single day. He never got the chance to become hungry or forced to stop for a pee. He was kept in that sleep, unaware of the resets happening around him.

Most ironic of all, just like his hunger was being reset, so was his strength. He had spent close to a year in this town, building his strength through complete meditation and stillness, just like the cultivators of old.

Yet he had barely increased in strength at all.

He was blissfully meditating, dreaming of all the things he would do with the monstrous power he was accumulating by simply doing nothing. When he finally felt a sensation urging him to rouse from his slumber, it was not one he had expected.

It was not hunger, nor the urge to urinate. Instead, it was the need to breathe.

Cratos' eyes snapped open in horror when he realised what that urge was, but by then it was far too late. The first sensation he felt after dragging himself from his meditative state, was the feeling of a long, cold tendril snaking its way down his throat.

On instinct he choked and gagged, but the slimy tendril simply deformed itself to suit his changing throat as it forced itself deeper. Two more tendrils grew from the original, like branches of a tree, and plunged into his nose.

Panic overwhelmed every fibre of his being as he desperately grabbed at the tendril forcing its way into his mouth, yet his fingers harmlessly passed through the gelatinous substance. Unable to get even the slightest of grip, never mind one firm enough to use his monstrous strength.

He collapsed to his knees, choking more as his face started to turn the same blue as the invading tendril. His eyes bulged from their sockets and turned bloodshot as they finally latched on to the perpetrator of this horror.

Standing a few metres ahead of him was the slime girl he had killed a year ago, one of her arms held forwards as it transformed into the tendril that was violating his perfect sanctuary of a body.

That... that couldn't be possible. How was she here?! Argh, who cares? She will just die again. He was much stronger than last time. Killing her again would be like childs-play.

Cratos clenched his fist and thrust it forwards, expecting the wind to blast forwards from the sheer force of even this half hearted punch. He expected complete and utter annihilation, to turn everything before his eyes into nothing more than dirt and rubble.

Yet none of that occurred. All his punch managed to do was slightly disturb the wind, but not nearly enough to even reach Cynthia at the distance she stood. Even a fart could do better.

Her gelatinous face twisted into a truly sinister smile, one that stretched inhumanly wide and almost seemed to split her face in half.

"Don't worry... I won't kill you. Not yet at least. You still have to face my girlfriends reckoning before you can be allowed to die. However... I'm suddenly feeling quite hungry. A small snack won't hurt."

Her twisted smile grew even wider as Cratos' began to lose consciousness again, this time in a way he simply couldn't rouse himself from. The last thing he saw as his vision turned black, was the harmless slime girl growing in size.

Her body lost its human proportions as everything extended and warped into a creature of his darkest nightmares. The entire time, keeping that sadistic smile on her twisted, monstrous face.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.