“Now then, shall we overtake these mysterious individuals?” Virus whispered while grinning from ear to ear before picking up his speed.
As he got closer and closer to the two, they seemed to notice Virus’ existence at last.
“Hmph.”
However, with a harrumph of contempt, one of them reached out and grabbed the other one’s hand. Then, as if they weren’t even that serious before, they doubled their speed at once!
“Oh? Would you look at these two cuties?” With his smile widening even further, Virus was feeling even more amused now as he also sped up!
Once again, he was following closely behind the two. Spotting him in their tail again, a look of momentary surprise could be seen in their body language. But they quickly disguised it just like their faces as they increased their speed again.
After that, while Virus chased after them, the two continued putting more energy in their legs, concentration, and willpower as they were barely able to stay ahead of Virus.
However, if one listened meticulously, he would be able to hear the panting breaths of the two cloaked participants.
“You two finally about to hit your limits?” Although Virus was saying that himself, some droplets of sweat were also occupying his forehead.
Although he was confident about his willpower considering how he had lived for an astronomical amount of time, and during that period, he had confirmed his will again and again until he became the great rebel Virus, for some reason his willpower and determination seemed to be weakening or faltering as time ran by.
Despite him having access to a lot of willpower, for now, noticing how his determination had been influenced by that much, he was taken aback.
‘Let’s see what’s causing this.’ As this notion and doubt flickered through his mindscape, while continuing his race with the two he had respectively named cutie number one and cutie number two, he also entered a deep state of analysis as he tried to figure out the possible source that might be affecting his willpower.
At the same time, elevating his speed to another degree, Virus got closer and closer to the two until he was just about to go past them. That was when the one whose hand was being held forcefully let go and whispered, “Go.”
Since he was very close to the two, Virus could easily determine that the voice belonged to a woman.
Nevertheless, as the woman let go of the other unknown figure’s hand, suddenly, the other person’s speed intensified to a great degree as that person stormed away, creating a considerable gap between them.
‘Oh, as expected, cutie number one was carrying cutie number two before.’ As he thought that, Virus immediately left cutie number two and chased after the first cutie.
Meanwhile, as he had gone through enough data already after analyzing the current changes of his physique, Virus arrived at a possible cause of the slight suppression in his willpower.
‘Prior to time traveling to the Earth of the past, I don’t believe anything could have shaken my willpower. My willpower was all about what my mind desired and nothing else.’
‘But now, my heart seems to have also truly joined the fray for some unknown reasons. This wasn’t supposed to be possible, yet here it is happening to me.’
‘Once again, it comes to my heart!’ Indeed, just as Virus had confirmed his weakness of the heart before, now, he came to realize his heart might be suppressing or hindering his willpower to some extent again!
‘Begone!’ As he indoctrinated that to himself shortly, he also increased his speed even further.
Once again, right at the back of the cloaked figure, Virus could hear the panting noise that had crept up by another notch!
‘She’s reaching her limits and this is getting boring now.’ Determining that cutie number one was also a woman due to the tone of her puff and blow, Virus pushed every bit of speed he could muster at the moment, an amount of speed that could be maintained without being thrown off the staircase.
Instantly, his frame was like that of a blur as he overtook the cloaked person!
Behind Virus, the cloaked person seemed to have been startled beyond belief as she froze in her standing position.
“Hahaha.” Chuckling out loud for a second, Virus proceeded even higher, no longer paying any attention to his opponent who was never truly an opponent, to begin with.
Now that Virus was the one ahead of everyone else, there were only two opponents he was competing with, one was the staircase itself, and the other was actually Virus himself.
As he took continuous steps forward, internally, Virus was suppressing any interferences that might originate from the heart.
The manner he was accomplishing this was by entering a high-speed perception almost close to his special time-freeze, because, every time he activated his time-freeze and focused only on his intelligence and nothing else, Virus had this slight sensation as if his heart was falling behind and couldn’t react fast enough compared to his wit.
Of course, Virus also knew that wasn’t a permanent solution and that he needed to find a sustainable one in the future, or else this might become a big issue at some point.
In the meantime, the higher Virus went, the slower his speed became since the pressure of willpower was heightening at a pace visible to the naked eye.
Soon, the oppression was so much that Virus could no longer even sprint as he instead walked step by step.
Meanwhile, behind him, gritting his teeth, cutie number one finally reached the utmost level of her limitations and conceded to a library panel beside her staircase.
One footstep after another!
Looking ahead of him, Virus attempted to make out the highest point of this trial of stairs.
After a certain point onwards, Virus noticed that the number of books on each library panel and even the number of the library panels themselves was decreasing the more strides he took to the front.
He also determined parallel to the stair he was currently at, there were only ten panels that have been installed alongside one another. Furthermore, there were only around a hundred books on each of them.
Afterward, when he strolled even further, Virus soon came to be aware of the fact that the number of panels had decreased to eight and even more so, the book count on each panel was lowered to eighty.
‘Hmm, the highest point I can see is…’
In fact, since the participants had begun from the feet of the staircase, all they could witness was up to a specific point on the stairs and for unknown reasons, the clouds were barring their sight from perceiving any further, as if they were not eligible nor worthy enough to see past that point.
Of course, according to the ancient voice, they weren’t even worthy enough to be there and them being there was only a temporary allowance that would be soon redacted.
Nevertheless, at the highest level of everyone’s perception and eyesight, a single white dais, full of grandeur and ancientness had been planted as it spread its grandeur from the loftiest position of the staircase downward.
Above the dais, only a single book was resting, waiting for its first worthy bearer to come to it!
