I Slept Through The Apocalypse

Clover opened his eyes to find that it was morning. He felt an unusual ache in his neck. Must have been bad sleeping posture, he thought to himself.

…

What is this weird pressure on my head? His hand reached to rub his head but felt something soft and… feathery instead.

"Wtf! There's a chicken sleeping on my head!" he grabbed the chicken who was sleeping peacefully on his head by the neck. The chicken was now awake and clucking crazily at him as he held it by the neck in front of him.

Bok! Bok! Bok!

The chicken seemed furious that it was being treated this way.

Wait where's Pringles? Clover looked around and then at the chicken with the red bow tie. Oh yeah…

"Unhand me you foul human!" Pringles's furious voice echoed in Clover's head clearly in retaliation to its previous treatment.

Clover set the little white chicken on the ground. It looked at him contemptuously.

"How come you didn't say anything earlier?" Clover asked.

"What are you talking about? I did."

"All I heard was clucking."

"... oh yeah I forgot to turn on auto translate." Pringles said sheepishly. Clover shook his head, what a troublesome chicken.

"So how'd you get on my head?"

"I don't know, I was sleepy and the next thing I knew, I had a dream about sleeping in a fluffy nest. I guess being a chicken instinctively gives me a bit of chicken personality with it too."

"You gave me neck pain."

Pringles pretended not to hear Clover's complaint. "Now that I acquired Shadow Bro's bloodline, we should be able to safely travel through the forest. Let's go."

"Wait! You're not gonna demonstrate your new powers?" Clover was also curious as to what kind of powers Pringles acquired.

Pringles thought about it for a bit.

"Sure why not." Maybe it'll open his eyes to how superior the elite races are, hehehe.

He walked over to a nearby tree and lightly scratched it with a feather.

A second passed by.

"Is something supposed to happe―" As Clover said that, a dark power exploded out of the tree. A black line stretched through the tree that Pringles touched.

The tree as thick as a cement column collapsed along with the tree directly behind it. A clean cut could be seen on the stumps of both trees.

Clover's mouth gaped in amazement. What kind of power is that?

"That's only the beginning." Pringles held his head up high. That should show him. He was very prideful of the elite races.

"There's more?"

"Yes, but it's not convenient to use. It costs quite a bit of energy to use."

Clover was impressed by the penetrating power of the Shadow Crow King's bloodline. Pringles could now take down any spiritual beasts that they come across now.

He had to become stronger to catch up with Pringles. He couldn't be left in the dust like this.

Pringles, now in the body of a chicken began lecturing while perched on Clover's shoulder. "Without any external pressure, you won't get any stronger. That's why I won't use this power unless you're in complete danger. Understand?

Now, get to training, and then we'll continue North in two hours."

"Alright!" Clover began doing his daily workout.

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Yet another week had gone by. Clover had stabilized his body strength at intermediate level Gathering Force realm. When he trained, Dream Assimilation created a golden sheen surrounding his outer skin layer. He looked like he was bathed in gold. The white particles that he absorbed from Dream Assimilation seemed to gather in his consciousness. He hadn't figured out what they did exactly yet, but they didn't do him harm so he let them be.

They were reaching the edge of the forest. Throughout last week, Clover had his fair share of life and death situations with the spiritual beasts. Clover was stubborn about Pringles staying out of combat, insisting that he alone would be able to take care of the beasts. He always managed to barely win over the beasts. Then he would crawl to a nearby creek and wash himself of the blood while running Dream Assimilation. His body began acc.u.mulating scars all over his body from the battle he encountered in the forest. The innocent 16 year old boy from two weeks ago was gone. He became a hardened warrior, his muscles now became well toned and very tan. His fair white skin from years of anti socializing was now a bronze color, with multiple scars across his back and his abdomen.

Pringles didn't tell him that those beasts were at least Gathering Force advanced realm. He kept that to himself, silently shocked at the kid's growth.

Besides gaining battle experience, Clover also gained some other benefits when he stumbled upon a lightning element spiritual beast. He had ran out of car batteries to absorb to train his neural overclock. The lightning spiritual beast was like sending a stack of coal in winter. After killing it and absorbing it's beast core, he managed to reach nearly half a million particles of lightning energy absorbed. Now if he wanted to, he could activate it like an active passive to slightly speed up his thinking while in combat. Since the lightning he absorbed created a renewable circuit through him, he didn't have to worry about losing any lightning particles, only adding more particles to the circuit. He also kept the pelt, because it was able to gather lightning particles slightly faster for him to cultivate and wore it around his waist.

Pringles updated him on the energy trail situation. It seemed like they were getting closer, to something. Other energy signatures were spotted nearby. Which also coincided with them nearing the end of the forest. Whatever they were tracking, Pringles hypothesized that they would find when they reach the edge of the forest.

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The past two weeks, Bryce had gone over the plan multiple times. He had asked around about Clover to get an understanding of how he was like. Not a lot of people remembered him though in middle school, due to his antisocial personality. The only person he wasn't able to ask was Lillian, whose reply was to send him flying with a flick of her sleeves.

He grinded his teeth thinking about it.

One day, that woman would submit to him as well, in due time.

No problem. He didn't need to completely know everything that Clover knew to convince Elise, he could always blame that on amnesia caused by spiritual beasts.

As for how he survived. He could make up something for that too, since nobody really knew what was out there.

A part of him was overconfident in the plan. He hadn't told any of his friends about his plan, possibly in fear that they weren't smart enough to process such a plan. With a huge ego fueling him, he truly believed that his plan was flawless.

Tomorrow, he thought. I'll execute my plan tomorrow.

The next morning he woke up very early to get ready for his plan. He took out a sheet of parchment. A few days before, he had commissioned a private sketchup artist to create a 16 year old render of Clover referencing a two year old photo he found in the middle school yearbook.

He was very proud of the preparation that he had put into the operation. He had even went to the hospital to study how people limped to be able to perform a believable limp. Channeling his illusion arts, he transformed into an injured, worn out, real life version of the picture he was holding. In Bryce's place, a boy with long black hair appeared. His breathing became extremely labored, as he headed into the forests near Elise's usual bench.

Ten minutes later, right on time, a pretty 14 year old girl wearing the school uniform took her stroll around the park. Her tight ponytail swayed slightly, her necklace reflecting the whole spectrum of lights. She held her small potted plant as she walked around.

As she made her way to her usual bench, Bryce watched her secretly from a far away bush in the forest.

He took in a few deep breaths.

It's now or never.

His two weeks of practice would come down to this very moment. His breathing became labored. The fake Clover stumbled out of the bushes, seemingly exhausted and scared from the horrors that he experienced in the forest. He shuddered as he limped out of the forest.

Elise had been sitting in her usual spot when she noticed a familiar figure limp out of the forest.

Long black hair? There was no male that she knew of with long black hair except… except..

Could it be? Her eyes reddened as tears streaked down her cheeks. She abruptly stood up from the bench and ran towards the limping figure.

She's coming! It's really working! Bryce was ecstatic. His body trembled in joy, but it looked like he was shaking as if he was traumatized from his experience in the forest.

I must continue the act!

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"The heck?"

A similar looking boy and a chicken noticed a familiar figure quite a distance from them limp out of the forest towards a clearing.

"Are my eyes seeing things?" The boy with long black hair rubbed his eyes in disbelief.

"I'm not sure if it's just my chicken eyes but isn't that you? Except more weaker looking?" The chicken also had a confused face watching the scene in the distance.

They both watched as the doppelganger limped away towards a girl in the distance with interesting expressions.

"..."

"...lets just watch for now."

"...agreed."