Chapter 609: Toppled [Bonus]


    ?


    Ss no longer found the pressure to be an issue. The closer they got, the more refined his fusion of Will and Aether became until they meshed as though they were just a single existence. He had a feeling that the previous limits on his telekinesis, though still there in part, would most definitely be lessened by a good margin.


    A part of him even wanted to see what sort of effect it might have if he used the Gluttony Seed right this moment. However, he chose not to bring it out.


    He was already forced to slow his speed down in order to remain behind Lauren and her group, and he also didn''t know how much someone at Lauren''s level could sense from him. If it wasn''t necessary, he would keep his Gluttony Seed hidden for now.


    If he was correct, Lauren was a person who had also had her fair share of experiences off of Earth. In that case, her eyes were much sharper than those that Ss hade across until


    now.


    Unfortunately, these weren''t the only problems that Ss had to contend with.


    He turned his attention to Jake.


    By now, his parents had seemed to have recovered a bit, but Jake himself was struggling. The boy had quite some tenacity, holding on with grit. But it was also clear that he might copse at any moment.


    And while Cole and his wife seemed to be doing somewhat better, that was only rtively speaking. Cole''s wife seemed to be performing better than he was, but Cole himself didn''t seem to have improved very much.


    ''Interesting... in that case, their Twin Moon Healer ss works a bit differently than I thought. I can see why he would want to hide that from me as well. But regardless, it isn''t a big deal.''


    Ss wasn''t a fool. He didn''t expect Cole to outright trust him with everything. The status screen move was clever, but only someone ipetent would think that that meant he had a grasp of all of Cole''s cards.


    His wife might be precisely the reason Cole dared to do such a thing. And if their ss worked like Ss thought it did, he might even have some clever cards up his sleeve.


    However, regardless of what they were thinking, their weakness was obvious and still on the tail end of puberty.


    Unless Jake was an actor so great he could fool even Ss'' eyes, nothing about this situation would change.


    ''It doesn''t matter.''


    Be strong...


    Those were the only words that mattered in the end.


    Jake suddenly coughed and swayed.


    "Jake!" his mother called out to him, trying to get him to stay focused, but she had already done this several times by now. Eventually, it would just fall on deaf ears.


    Ss gave Alex a look and thetter understood.


    The two had been working together seamlessly all the while. The only reason Alex could use Skills in the first ce was because Ss'' Aetherflow had taken control of the region and allowed him to.


    Tendrils of darkness caught Jake before he fell off of his tform, tying him down.


    Unfortunately, this didn''t help the young man''s situation very much. Although his life was saved, because he was no longer standing on his feet, the pressure increased on him.


    It was like he was a runner who had already reached the end of his road, copsing to the ground, but someone was artificially forcing his heart to continuously pump again, again, and again.


    Ss knew that he could do something about this. He could help them more directly deal with the pressure by increasing the power of his Aetherflow.


    But he didn''t.


    If Jake died here, then he died here. As far as he was concerned, it would be one less burden to consider.


    The teenager proved to be quite tenacious, though. He couldn''t seem to control his body anymore, but he was protecting the flickering me of his Will fiercely.n/?/vel/b//jn dot c//om


    Ss found himself watching the boy more than he was the road ahead.


    Jake didn''t say a word, and he seemed to have tuned out the world, even the worrying voice of his mother who continuously spoke in hopes of giving him something else to focus on.


    ''Interesting...''


    By this point, Jake should have unlocked a Flexible Will by now, the first stage of evolution. His tenacity was certainly there. It had only taken Ss one brush with death to reach that level.


    But for some reason, Jake couldn''t leap over that hurdle. It was like his Will was stuck in a permanent state of inferiority.


    Ss looked toward his parents and then seemed to be enlightened by something.


    His Madness Comprehension was his greatest trump card, and the greatest boost to his overall battle strength. At this point, it provided him with telekinesis so powerful that it made his Physical stats look like a joke.


    But did he ever truly understand it? He still didn''t even quite understand why some people could use telekinesis while others couldn''t.


    This time, though... if he was correct, the reason Jake couldn''t take that step was because he was living in a shadow. Ironically, that shadow was his own parents.


    Madness grew more powerful as one came to understand themselves more. But how could a teenager truly understand themselves? And how much harder would it be for them to do so if they were constantly being coddled by their parents? And how much harder than that if their parents were so much more powerfulpared to them?


    The interconnected nature of Will, self-belief, and understanding of one''s own thoughts and feelings was something that Ss had almost taken for granted.


    Maybe it wasn''t even that he had great talent for Will, but rather that he had such self- assuredness that it manifested in that way. Maybe that was the only "talent" for telekinesis


    that you needed.


    Jake had the Will. He justcked the maturity.


    Ss gave Alex another look. But this time, Alex didn''t seem to understand what to do immediately, mostly because he didn''t think Ss would choose to offend the parents of Jake


    so soon.


    But when he saw that Ss was sure, Alex hesitated for a moment before heplied.


    The dark tendrils snapped off and Jake tilted off the side of the tform, toppling over toward his death under the sudden screams of his mother.