Chapter 3
"So this is what it feels to be a Stargazer," Kael thought, looking at his hands and considering the monster that died with just a flick of his finger.
Power was surging through his body, as if light itself wanted to get out and walk free from Kael's form.
"Hmm, I feel alive."
"Yes, I feel reborn," he thought, looking at his new body, his new power, and what he had done to his opponent.
He stayed for a while before the winds and cold started to intensify.
"So even as a Stargazer, I can still feel the cold. Hmm... Interesting," he thought.
As he got near the monster's shattered corpse, he saw a blue glowing crystal illuminating the ground as a light source in this world of perpetual darkness.
He picked it up and knew exactly what it was.
It was the Cryo-Heart that the Craters people called the heart and soul of monsters.
He pocketed the Cryo-Heart and looked around to assess his location.
He quickly realised he wasn't where he was supposed to be.
He didn't see the gate or any dead trees covered with snow.
He had seen the gate previously, which clearly stated it was a Deadland, along with a large warning sign of absolute, sub-zero temperature. He had also seen some dead trees before setting out on the treasure hunt.
But now he was surrounded by snow-covered mountains, standing in the middle of what he realised was a frozen lake.
He looked down and found that it was, indeed, a frozen lake—it must have been a lake before the sun was still a thing.
"Sigh... I am lost." He looked around, squinting his eyes, hoping to find some information about this place, but there was absolutely nothing to see right now.
Just mist covering everything, mountains surrounding the lake, and him and the dead monster.
"Should I try using my power, then?" he thought.
"Also, the cold is getting heavy with the wind. I should go somewhere safe."
He thought of using his gravity and mass-controlling power to make himself fly.
Kael acted on the thought. He tried to remove the gravity around him, which would make him relatively light, and then he would use his mass control power to lift himself and control his direction.
A bright ray of golden light surged into his body from the cosmos, bathing him in light.
The mist around him slowly started to part as he activated his power of both gravity and mass control, and Kael took his first flight.
At first, it was ragged and sloppy as he attempted to fly.
He was going left and right, up and down, because he still hadn't gained overall control of this newly found power.
Kael slowly got the hang of it and was flying as intended. After practising for a bit and gaining better control, he landed in the same place he took off from and said,
"Okay, I am getting the hang of it now."
"Phew..." He breathed a long sigh and said,
"Fuck it."
He tried to launch himself into the air after achieving perfect control.
As he was flying toward and over the mountains to see what lay beyond,
The cold air was getting heavier, and the oxygen level was decreasing as he was high above, seeing only the white background everywhere.
Or so he thought.
Suddenly, he was shaken mid-air, as if he had never received the power of the star.
Suddenly, everything went blank.
The sky above was covered with thick clouds, obscuring the big and small stars.
Kael stopped mid-air.
"Wait, what? Why did I stop?"
Like an iron ball falling from the sky, he plummeted from high above.
He hit the ground with a crack as the freezing ground gave way.
"Ahh, my back. It hurts like hell," was the first thing that came to his mind.
"How did this happen?"
He lifted his hand and muttered,
"The clouds, maybe."
"My back... I think I cracked my ribs," he said, looking at his hand.
Kael was lying on the shattered ground. He survived the crash because he was awakened; otherwise, the fall from that height would have shattered every bone and organ in his body.
"I should take a rest. Ahh, it's cold as well."
He closed his eyes for a second. Suddenly, his eyes opened as the bright star in the sky obscured his vision again.
It glowed again with a yellow light from the sky on his body.
His body began to reconstruct itself again: his ribs rejoined with a crunching sound, and his muscles knitted together.
He gasped, sitting up in the crater his body had made in the snow. He patted his chest. No pain. Just a lingering ache.
"I created a big crater, and it seems I am fine and fully healed from that fall. Is it because of the power?"
He thought, looking at his perfect body.
"So does that mean I can only get power from the stars, and if it's cloudy and the stars are covered, the power will be nonexistent?"
Kael tried to figure out the power he got from the star and also tried to figure out where he had landed.
"It is so risky to use my flight power."
He sighed again as he figured out the power system he had acquired.
"Hmm, I should only lift myself when I require it, or I should just fly at a medium distance from the ground."
He looked around, shaking the snow from his clothes that had covered him.
"I got over that mountain pretty fast." He looked back at the mountain where he had previously been.
He put his right hand above his eyes to see as far as he could.
The wind here was even stronger than it was before.
He shivered again, just like he used to before getting the power.
"Ahh, the cold is back again."
He squeezed both of his hands into a folding position as he shivered.
"Wait, can't I just nullify the air around me using the gravity power, as I did with the flight?"
Kael thought hard about it and went for it.
He was having a hard time figuring out this new mechanism as his mind was going blank due to the cold. He was having a seizure.
But he still tried hard to visualise it: to create the null point where nothing could touch him, where he would nullify the gravity around him so he wouldn't be distracted by the cold, and where not even the snow could touch him, as long as there was a star hanging in the sky.
Suddenly, the air became lighter and heavier at the same time, and he successfully created a field of his own.
Even the mist around him parted, and the snow was like hitting an umbrella, sliding over his head and shoulder without touching him.
"Haha, I finally did it! I will call it Event Horizon."
He finalised his thought and again looked at the surrounding area, activating his Event Horizon.