Stanley watched in horror as his piss turned the snow red. There was blood in his piss.

’What the fuck?’ he couldn’t help but think at the sight of that. What did it mean that he was peeing blood? That could not be good in any way, right? Was he going to die soon?

Worry filled Stanley’s heart but that was all for now. After relieving himself, he checked on the wound on the side of his body.

Right around the ribs and below it, the right side of his body was mostly burned and charred on the outside, with lightning marks flowing all the way to the left. 𝘧𝑟𝑒𝑒𝘸𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝓁.𝘤𝘰𝓂

He tried feeling his wounds on the outside and found that he couldn’t feel most of his skin at all. It was the same as his hand, but thankfully he could at least feel something on the inside.

He couldn’t even do that with his other hand.

Sighing, Stanley went to pack up what he could. He would need the matches, the box to keep any food he would come across, and the bottle for water. The woman had nothing on her like that, so Stanley could only imagine she had stashed it somewhere.

’Maybe I should hide it somewhere too,’ he thought. There were people here playing a game of death and would not hesitate to kill others given the chance. Destroying someone’s food and sleeping bag in the cold would be one way to do it.

"I should find a better place myself than this open space," he thought and walked away.

To find a place to stay, he first needed to see where exactly he was and what the geography of the place was like. He needed to go to a high ground, some kind of hill or cliff if he could find it.

Along the way, he continued wondering what he was to do next. He had to get away from this place, but where was this place? Looking at the amount of snow during this time of the year, he had to be pretty far up north.

His hometown was considerably north on the map, and it wouldn’t snow around this time of the year. That would be still some time away. Which meant they had to be further north.

"I should still be in United Voras then. That makes sense since the Silent Nexus is here," he said softly.

Snow crunched beneath his boots as he made his way past the trees. He saw a few animals during his walk as well as some fruits. He even saw 2 dead bodies with all but their clothes missing.

One of them had been stabbed through the eyes and looked to be dead for some time. The cold here kept the corpse fresh, so the time of death was pretty hard to tell.

Seeing the dead bodies once again sent his thoughts into thinking about the dead bodies back in East Vanli, one that he had now left behind. Only, this time he didn’t dwell on the deaths, but rather what their deaths meant for him.

As a Nova, it should have improved his powers. He hadn’t had the time to check it, but now that he was thinking about it, he could tell that he had indeed unlocked more powers.

In fact, he had unlocked two powers. Surprisingly, neither of them had anything to do with turning back the day.

The first power he had gained was the ability to Stop Time. Only, it worked on just one thing he touched, and it could not be himself.

Stanely wondered what benefits he could gain from this power. For now, he wasn’t sure. He would have to test a few things.

The other power he got was seemingly the opposite of the first power, and it was the power to age anything he physically touched. Depending on how much he wanted, he could increase the speed of aging for the item he touched by nearly 100 times.

Terrifyingly, it worked on people too, but the amount of energy required to keep it active was a lot. The usage also depended on the mass of the object he aged, so he would need to be careful aging something that was large and heavy.

"Just those two?" Stanley thought. He wondered if he had some more powers that he hadn’t unlocked just yet. A power that worked passively, which he wouldn’t know about just yet.

If he did, he would hope that he got a useful one.

He walked out of the woods, arriving at a plain beyond which was a small stream. Past that stream was another forest, but it also led to a large cliff that was hundreds of meters tall.

He looked around and found that he would have to go all the way to the left and climb a steep incline from there.

Stanley was about to continue his walk when he noticed something far to his right. Something distant enough that he wasn’t sure if he was seeing things correctly.

He saw a large yellow transparent wall glimmering in the sky that was taller than the cliff he was going to climb. The wall was so transparent that it was hard to tell if what he was seeing was real.

But he did indeed believe it as real after looking at it for some time.

"What is that?" he couldn’t help but question. "Some sort of shield?"

Should he go to the cliff and see what it was or should he go check the yellow shield? Stanley wasn’t sure which one would be the better choice to make.

He looked at the distance and then to the sky. Unfortunately, it seemed West was in the direction of the cliff, which meant sunlight would be gone faster than he could hope for.

Instead of going to either of the two places, he needed to find a place to settle for the night. Then in the morning, he could make the choice to go wherever he wanted to.