Ki Horizons - [Litrpg, Adventure, Power Levels]

The walk with Cooler was, terrible.

This man wasn't some outside enemy that had decided to rampage in broad daylight. He was an experimental subject that had slipped control after three decades when the closest things he had to friends and family had been dying not more than a few hours ago.

His gaze would linger on more than a few metal cell doors and I could practically hear his heart crying. Once, he reached out to one, as if he was about to tear it open, before tearing his gaze away. I didn't blame him. At his level of power, he had more than just good hearing or other good senses. Everything had Ki and if he couldn't sense any beyond the door…

Better not to see the sight with his own two eyes.

I could attest to that.

If the sadness and death of loved ones weren't enough, the horror and gore were another factor. Cooler hadn't efficiently killed these scientists, he'd torn and blasted them all apart in a fit of rage, before finding himself in a store of all things and being knocked around by the police the moment he got out of here. It was depressing and I felt my soul feel like it was dying every step of the way. Already, my boots were ruined and I was having to rapidly adjust to the sight and smell of so much blood. For some reason, the sight of a torn apart android hit me the hardest.

It had no blood and for some reason, that made everything feel worse. As if they were just a thing.

I had no sympathy for them as people. They were horrible, and deserved what had happened to them. That didn't mean I liked death or destruction or killing. It only reminded me of my own past and brought back horrible memories at best. At worst… I didn't want to tread down that road of mental erosion again. Evil had to be killed and this was a good thing. But the fact it had to happen at all was… awful. Depressing and awful.

Good that followed bad was necessary but sour.

Would this be how I felt when I finally killed Vega? Not happy and glorious but just, awful, tired, and sad? Maybe. It needed to happen but hopefully, when that day came, I could at least muster up joy when I tore his head from his body.

"Cooler."

"Yes?"

"Where are we going anyway?"

We had been walking forward but… it seemed like since getting back down here that Cooler actually had a goal.

"I left in a rage and it caused more issues than I would have liked. This is an opportunity now. I shall destroy every piece of this location I can and salt everything down to ash. Then we may journey upwards and avoid the attention of those who do not understand or do and would see me dead and you by proxy."

I nodded along with that and then tilted my head.

"Cooler, you don't seem like someone who has been stuck underground for three decades and since birth. You seem so… informed."

He nodded.

"Physically and otherwise isolated, we were, but we were meant for longevity. Our point of existence was in discovering the secret to eternal life. As such, beyond experimentation, they had a vested interest in keeping us healthy. Many, many died…" He grimaced. "All of them died. But we were at times more pet than subject. The Kitsune are naturally born with wisdom and by allowing those in power to indulge in their baser pleasures without resistance, I was able to obtain information, including read only access to the internet for an hour a day."

I nodded along and then froze.

Wait.

I paled as the words formed a picture in my mind. I looked at Cooler, truly looked at him. His handsome features, his stone cold and icy expression, his kimono.

"Cooler… they…" I couldn't finish the sentence and Cooler didn't so much as nod. If anything, his face was a stone statue as he continued to walk forward.

I didn't even realize I'd froze until I saw his back as he kept walking ahead. I hurried to catch up. Part of me begged to question further, to find out what I had just heard was a lie or I had misunderstood somehow. But the other part of me…

"Those motherfuckers."

"Indeed. I am glad they are dead."

The walk through the horrible hallway finally ended and more of this section of the base opened up. It didn't surprise me too much, but directly across from the big empty room and down the hall from the prison seemed to be a kind of… guard station?

I looked to Cooler.

"It made sense to keep us together but longevity seems to follow strength and vice versa. They were careful when letting us move around. Not careful enough however."

There was vindictive glee in those calm words.

We continued and the moment we were past the guard station-

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

Every sense my body had nearly exploded. It had nothing to do with the normalish looking room we'd just entered.

Cooler had turned around and my whole body could feel the energy he was producing. I felt like I was next to a living bomb. I actually began to skid back, the air itself being pushed away as a slight white aura began to surround him. I stared in shock, as he put his hands together in front of him, taking a similar pose as I'd seen earlier. The red markings across his fur and hair seemed to glow and then-

A red, blue, and black beam of destruction rocketed from his hands, larger than I knew was even possible for someone at the triple digit stage. I barely noticed as my body flew backwards, pushed into the wall. I was in awe of what I was seeing. The beam had to be the size of a house and it was… extending all the way back from where we'd fallen down!

There was an explosion and then, even more horrifying, a lack of it as it seemed like all the air at once was either blown away or sucked in.

And then my ears were bleeding and my eyes were blind as I fell to the ground. My face felt like it'd been burned by being so close to the energies, even though none of it had been directed at me. I groaned in agony, trying to put my senses back together.

Slowly, painfully, my senses came back to me. First, my hearing, which was ringing so loud I felt like I was suffering from the worst hangover of my life. Then, my vision. Splotchy pieces of sight in total darkness. As I came around, I realized I was on my hands and knees, and getting up was virtually impossible. Even raising my head was a monumental struggle. I managed but-

The sight before me was even more shocking than the blast had been!

The entire hallway, the entire front of the room, and everything downwards… was just gone. It was like a god had carved a canyon through the earth. Cooler, always collected, was bleeding from his mouth, eyes, nose, and ears, collapsed on the ground. His hands looked burnt. Even scarier than if he had been gasping like a fish, he was instead barely breathing, his mouth hanging open and eyes nearly devoid of energy.

Just as I barely began to get a foot underneath me-

"Good…bye…Seventy Five…"

His eyes rolled into the back of his head, just the whites showing, as he continued bleeding.

I stood there, stunned at what I had just experienced. Before looking at the path of destruction and my nearly dead ally that was supposed to protect me from the police and security.

"What the fuck am I supposed to do now?!"

*****

"Stupid asshole. Stupid dumb emotional Kitsune. Stupid suicidal idiot. Stupid damn guy…"

I continued to mutter under my breath as I carried Cooler away. His weight wouldn't normally be a problem but carrying something while having a collapsed lung, broken ribs, bullet wounds, and four massive furry tails in my face was. Despite my best efforts, I was now intimately familiar with the taste of kitsune fur in my mouth. I was not a fan.

I'd amped up my pain tolerance quite a bit from my training but what had been annoying had become very annoying after Cooler had obliterated my senses. My ears were still ringing painfully, every light felt too bright down here, and my headache was approaching migraine levels.

"You couldn't have at least waited till I was out of the room?! Gods…"

I was passing by tons of areas and while I didn't have Ki to work with, my strength wasn't zero. I spent a good fifteen minutes destroying every ounce of any computers or expensive equipment I saw. And there was a lot of that. This place wasn't small and I really wish Cooler had aimed that blast in the other direction. Fancy monitors, work stations with computers, a horrifying area that looked like a cross between a mad scientist's kitchen and a hospital, machines with twenty arms that half ended in syringes, big tanks that bubbled, and more.

I broke as much as I could. My fists hurt like hell. Seeing my fist fly through metal was beyond shocking but then I'd try with a different thing and I wouldn't even be able to dent it. Thankfully, importance and sturdiness weren't the same. I knew I had truly screwed the Smile Company when I'd finally found a server room.

I'd gotten my legs stuck a few times but feeling and seeing my legs crush those giant computers like they were nothing was going to be one of my favorite memories.

Now if I could just find a way out of here.

"Ughh…"

"Yeah yeah, just recover."

Cooler had been groaning for the last ten minutes and while I was relieved he was coming around, I was also starting to feel some real fear and panic.

It'd been too long.

The Smile Company, the Police, they had to know Cooler wasn't dead. At the very least, someone should've come down here.

The fact that no one had yet… said one of two things.

Either the Smile Company had intervened and stopped the police to prevent all their dirty secrets getting out, and were now just 'waiting and hoping'...

Or…

Someone or something was coming. Someone that could deal with Cooler.

I wanted to be as far away as possible by that time. Luckily, Cooler seemed to be recovering pretty damn fast. Another few minutes and he should be on his feet. I walked towards a different room, one sealed by not one but two actual airlocks for some reason. I doubted it was a way out but there wasn't exactly a map anywhere.

After going through and hearing that strangely terrifying hiss from the seal, I was finally-

I dropped Cooler.

W…what.

What.

My mind went blank. This was impossible. How? No, no, what? What?!

I stumbled forward, putting my hands against a healing tank.

Inside floated a body. A nude body.

"W-Why? WHY?!"

The body…

Was me.