In retrospect, the battle had been fierce, but its conclusion came quickly. The confrontation ended just a few seconds after it began. With the right tools, a new Spectrum, and a great deal of luck, Nova managed to come out alive—though far from unscathed.
He was still lying on the ground, trying to gather enough strength to stand up.
'Ow. This hurts way too much. I've never been this injured after a battle in my entire life.'
If one thought about it, Miyu, Elara, and Rober were usually the ones who got hurt. Nova had always been the support, waiting in the rear, giving orders and empowering his allies. Very rarely did he take a hit strong enough to knock him unconscious or a cut deep enough to draw blood.
Now that he had fought alone on the front lines, he finally understood how difficult battles were for those whose Spectrums were focused on combat.
'Seriously… I need to apologize to Rober for all the times I mocked him for blowing himself up alongside Aberrations.'
Groaning, he rolled over on the snow. He knelt, and part of the snow covering his body fell away. He took a deep breath, a small cloud of vapor escaping his mouth. Finally, he stood up.
He staggered a couple of times, disoriented and wounded. His clothes were in tatters—his shell backpack and his staff lay buried in the snow.
Wincing in pain, he approached his belongings and inspected them more carefully. Among them, the shield stood out for a very specific reason.
"I thought the shell would be tougher."
Perhaps the serpent far surpassed the Sand Octopus in terms of power. The shell couldn't withstand the titanic strength of that giant reptile and had cracked across its surface. The staff had taken the worst of it—only shattered splinters remained.
"Well, I can still use it," he said, directing his gaze toward the tree. "The portal is still there, but it's smaller. How many days have passed since I fell unconscious?"
The last time he had been able to keep track of the days was before his communicator ran out of battery. By then, a little over twenty days had already passed. Counting the additional days he spent moving through the tunnels, it had probably been more than a month since he arrived in this desert hell.
He had been far from home for quite a while.
'Anyway. Looks like I won't starve to death.'
The tree standing gloriously amid the serpent's corpse looked more epic than one might expect. The light from the stone in the ceiling turned the scene into a kind of frozen oasis in the middle of nowhere, painting the stone floor white.
Among the tree's branches, Sweet Flakes waited to be harvested, and on the largest branch rested the portal. This mystical phenomenon, generated by the excess energy in the environment, had grown smaller as the days passed, but it was still large enough for a person to enter.
He moved toward the tree. Limping and enduring the pain of his broken bones grinding against each other, his feet sinking into the snow up to his knees, he managed to reach his goal. He placed a hand on the trunk and used his foot to start climbing.
The tree's trunk was incredibly thick, as if it could be encircled by twenty people standing together. Additionally, the snow—radiating a fresh, healing sensation—seemed purer than that of the tree left on the surface.
'All I have to do is get some of these fruits.'
He stretched out his hand, gripping the protrusions along the trunk. In fact, that tree had always had a very peculiar shape. It was as if dozens of branches twisted together in a spiral as they climbed upward, forming those bumps that made it easy for a person to climb.
'What—?'
All of a sudden, Nova felt his throat fill with liquid. Clinging tightly to the tree, he coughed and stained the trunk with blood.
'Damn it… Am I completely wrecked on the inside?'
How could he not be? A battle was a battle. Without injuries, there was no gain in strength. In that regard, Nova had become a bit more resilient. Of course, he had the right tools at the right moment. If not, he would be three meters under the sand—or inside the belly of a giant Aberration.
With misfortune often came experience. And that experience, if properly distributed, could be turned into power. Just as botany had become the signature ability of Nova's energy control, combat movements or the generation of killer plants could come with time.
For now, Nova needed to climb that tree, eat the fruits to heal, and move on.
Thus passed the hours—perhaps days. Nova needed to recover, so that was exactly what he did. The portal kept getting smaller, but nothing seemed to emerge from it, making it partially safe.
At some point, he took the time to search for the boot he had lost during the battle. Aside from that, he used a few bandages on the wounds covering his body, mostly on his torso, and stored all the fruits he could carry.
Sitting on a rock, he looked at the sword embedded in the remains of the frozen Aberration.
"It's been a while, huh. You and that black gas disabled my Serenity, but thanks to that, I now have the Spectrum of Anticipation."
He could insult the serpent in countless ways, but in the end, that battle had taught him many things.
'Now let's see how my mind has organized the information.'
He looked at the cold snow and summoned the Personal Information window. However, when the ethereal screen appeared, he opened his eye wide in shock.
"What is this?"
The screen showed nothing but a single question.
[Who do you think you are?]
Nova fell silent, staring at the display. After everything that had happened, he should have been beyond surprise—but this caught him off guard.
"Who am I? Is this some kind of joke?"
Angry? No. Confused? Yes—very much so. His questions were accompanied by a bitter smile. And it seemed as though the screen was reacting to the meaning behind that question.
The words glitched, replacing the previous question with a new one.
[How far do you want to go?]