One hundred thousand, that was the moment he began to feel something else, something he had been praying to feel so long, he felt something using his newly acquired mana sense, and he felt that it was near, he felt that it was relatively big, moving, and had what seemed to be a broad back, and as soon as he felt it, he began to turn his body around using his own mana, pushing it out of his own body and changing his latitude, the same trick he had used to break the hole in the beginning, though he had also used the sticking step, or as he liked to call it, the steadfast active, to bind his feet to the ground and just force his mana down, breaking the ground apart.
However, as his face began to turn down, facing the endless darkness, or perhaps facing the endless something, whether he was falling down, whether he was sometimes changing directions even, he didn't know after all, he began to almost see the being, be it that he was only able to do it because of the mana sensing, a skill he really should've learned much, much sooner, seeing as it seemed to also allow him to sense the opponent's mana a bit, in the form of how well he could make the beast out, which, in this case, was quite easily, proofing to him that he wouldn't have much trouble ripping the wings of whatever that thing which he was now 'looking' at was, though he was quite scared of finding out what it was.
It was about thirty foot long, a multitude of countless writhing, short tentacles at the end of a long stick-like body that extended to a ridiculously broad and flat back full of bushy, disgustingly well-kept hair, and muscles hidden under a layer of what seemed to be that very same hairy bone.
The thing had wings that spun about three hundred foot each, something quite terrifying to Cades as he had never seen something quite that big, and truly felt fear at the sheer grotesqueness of that thing which was now in front of him, a being that seemed to defy the laws of nature, especially seeing as it had such an interesting face as he now slowly began to realize when feeling the being more and more and positioning himself to try something he had always wanted to try after figuring out how to use mana sense, be it that it hadn't been that long since he had figured it out in the first place.
Whatever the being might be, whether it was an animal, whether it was a magical illusion, whether it was some type of golem, or whether it was indeed just a monster, or whether it was something completely different, it had a face he recognized.
The face was childish, long silver hair flowing out of the scalp protruding from the hilariously small neck when compared to the rest of the body, the eyes following the falling Cades as he directed himself towards the beast using his own mana expulsion despite the fact that it shouldn't have known where Cades was, and especially not be looking through the mass of bony hair that covered it's field of vision.
Cades denied looking at it, Cades wished he wouldn't have to, and interestingly enough, the mana listened and avoided that place, avoided the face he missed dearly, avoided hurting his reopened wounds, avoided looking at Hecir, his sisters face, someone he had not seen even weeks before the entire calamity began, because she was at another school, and even more so because he had a lot to do and had been holed up inside his room all of the time or simply just been outside collecting wood and books from the library while she had been studying something he hadn't ever even thought about helping her with.
But Cades quickly managed to stop remembering seeing as he didn't sense her face anymore and he didn't wish to remember that all in the first place, instead opting to try out something that couldn't really go wrong from what he could tell.
There was something he hadn't told his other self, something he had found out while first appearing in that forest, the true utility of the warp step, something completely different from the way his other self had mostly used it, which was the act of quickly travelling across the chins, though Cades himself would not call that fast, whether it was himself, or his other self.
However, while that was indeed quite a good utility for the active, he had realized that that was not what the original utility was supposed to be, that utility being the act of crossing very small distances.
Whenever one used the active something was used up, and the length and severity of the warp defined the length it took to recover and the amount of whatever was going to be taken that would be taken, so, why should one expend a lot and take a long time to recover when one could just jump a few inches every step, enhancing their speed, putting the enemy off whenever they tried to attacking, or at least try to do so seeing as that consumed a lot of concentration instead.
Actually, he had even been doing that when he was in front of Cades, his other self, or the clone, or simply the being he would now refer to as Kirgun for the first time, something that must've made him seem quite menacing, but, what was more important for his current situation was rather the fact that he hadn't been looking at the ground but instead been looking at his other self, instead deciding to travel about half an inch each step and succeeding with it, despite his mind barely being able to concentrate and having to stop as soon as the battle began, aside from some smaller strategical decisions.
Now, one may ask why that mattered seeing as he didn't even intent to fight that beast but instead land on it's back and take it for a ride like a child with the school bus, perhaps even hoping that the being knew where to go, but what mattered was that he didn't have to look at where to warp himself towards.
So, if he didn't have to look for shorter distances, it seemed to be reasonable he would be able to cross the now few dozen feet left until he landed on that monster, or just land there anyways seeing as he was already on course of collision, slow enough to not seriously damage the gigantic beast or himself.
Finally, he opened his eyes, no wind hitting them, and he began to warp himself towards the hairy bone on the back of the thing that wore his sisters face, the face he wished to still be alive but knew to be all but dead.