Chapter 545: Where It All Began (XXIII) [The Sweet Taste of Revenge II]

In the highest layer of existence, far beyond any realm or dimension, the Creator Woman stirred from her slumber.

Her eyes, vast, luminous pools of silver and starlight, slowly opened. A faint frown creased her ethereal features as the distant sounds of destruction reached her ears.

The sound was not loud in the conventional sense as it was more like a ripple in the fabric of creation itself, a tremor that vibrated through the very threads of reality.

She sat up in her boundless throne of woven galaxies and nebulae, her long, flowing hair drifting like cosmic dust around her.

With a casual wave of her hand, the space before her glowed dimly, forming a perfect window into the ongoing battle.

There, in the shattered remnants of space, Aestrea and Chronos clashed.

Instantly, the Creator Woman’s lips parted slightly in surprise, then curved into a small and completely delighted smile.

"Oh...?" she murmured curiously.

"So it has finally come to this."

She leaned forward, resting her chin on her hand, eyes sparkling with genuine interest.

Chronos, her most perfect creation, the God of Time, she had shaped with meticulous care, designed to be an invincible guardian of causality, was being pushed back.

His clock-eyes spun erratically, golden blood spraying from deep wounds as Aestrea’s swords flashed relentlessly.

And Aestrea... her chosen champion, the one she had watched with such fascination, the anomaly who had made her feel something after eons of perfect detachment.

She watched as Aestrea dodged a time-reversed beam and countered with a brutal slash that nearly severed Chronos’s arm.

Golden blood exploded outward, freezing into glittering shards in the void.

A soft, almost affectionate laugh escaped her.

"How wonderful," she whispered.

"My perfect, unbreakable Chronos... being beaten so thoroughly by the one I chose to surpass even myself."

She didn’t blink.

Her gaze remained fixed on the battle, drinking in every movement, every spray of blood, every flash of chaos and time energy.

The way Aestrea fought sent a thrill through her that she had not felt in countless cycles of creation.

"Show me more," she murmured, her smile widening.

"Show me how far you’ve come, my champion."

The Creator Woman settled deeper into her throne, completely captivated. The noise that had woken her was no longer an annoyance.

It was entertainment.

And for the first time in an eternity, she was truly entertained.

.

.

.

At those words, a vein actually popped in Aestrea’s forehead.

"Shut your fucking mouth already..."

Chronos’s smile widened into something feral. He slammed the butt of his scepter into the ground, and the entire battlefield trembled.

"Then witness true time."

His body began to transform.

Gurgle...!

The clock-hands in his eyes spun wildly, then merged into a single, glowing vortex. His silver skin rippled as golden runes of temporal energy spread across his entire form.

His robe dissolved into streams of flowing time, revealing a body made of shifting, liquid chronology: past, present, and future overlapping in a single vessel.

His hair turned into strands of pure temporal light, flickering between ages.

The scepter in his hand grew longer, its clock face expanding into a massive, rotating wheel of time that hummed with infinite power.

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!

Chronos’s presence exploded outward.

The void around him warped violently.

Nearby asteroids aged into dust in seconds, then reversed into their primordial state, only to decay again.

A small planet in the distance accelerated through billions of years in a heartbeat, collapsing into a black hole before exploding in reverse.

He was much stronger now. Time itself bent to his will without limit.

’...This is his true form?’ Aestrea’s eyes narrowed.

Without hesitation, he unsealed himself.

THRUUUUUUUUM!

Black energy erupted from his body like a supernova of nothingness.

His pristine white hair ignited from the roots, turning into an abyssal black that swallowed light. The length surged, growing wild and flowing like a living shadow.

His eyes transformed into vertical slits, sclerae pitch-black, the slits burning blood-red with primordial hunger.

His skin took on a darker, almost obsidian sheen, veins of crimson chaos pulsing beneath.

THRUUUUM!

BOOOOOM!

The two gods faced each other in the void, their auras clashing like two colliding universes.

Chronos’s clock-eyes widened in genuine surprise.

"You... you are the Fallen God?" he whispered in complete shock.

"The one who devours existence itself... I never knew. This... this makes it even better."

His shock quickly turned into manic interest.

A wide, excited grin spread across his face.

"Then let’s see which one of us truly controls time and space!"

He attacked first.

Chronos thrust his scepter forward, and time fractured around Aestrea.

Thousands of temporal blades, each one a slice of accelerated time, shot toward him from every angle, capable of cutting through existence itself.

Aestrea moved.

He blurred through the storm, his Fallen God form allowing him to slip between moments.

He used Authority of the Abyss to open small voids that swallowed several blades, then countered with a slash of the Midnight Sword.

SHING!

The blade cut through space, sending a wave of black ice and chaos that collided with Chronos’s temporal shield.

The impact created a shockwave that shattered a nearby moon into glittering dust.

Chronos laughed and accelerated his own time, appearing behind Aestrea in a blur. He swung his scepter like a hammer, aiming for the back of Aestrea’s head.

WHOOSH!

Aestrea spun at the last second, blocking with both swords crossed. The clash sent sparks of time and chaos exploding outward, cracking a passing asteroid field.

CLANG!

Aestrea pushed back, forcing Chronos to retreat.

He followed with a series of rapid slashes, the Midnight Sword cutting through time itself while the Heaven Swallowing Sword devoured the temporal energy.

Fwip, fwip, kaashinng!

Chronos blocked most, but one slash from the Heaven Swallowing Sword carved a deep gash across his chest, devouring years of his existence.

Splurt!

Golden blood sprayed in a wide arc, freezing into temporal shards that floated in the void.

"GRAAAAAAAAAA!!!" Chronos roared and reversed the damage, then countered by opening hundreds of time rifts around Aestrea.

From each rift, past versions of himself attacked, older, younger, stronger versions from different timelines.

Dozens of Chronos clones charged at once.

Aestrea spun in the center, swords flashing in a deadly whirlwind.

He used Authority of Ruin to decay the clones on contact, turning them into dust mid-swing.

He then unleashed Authority of Gravity, crushing several more clones into singularities that collapsed into nothing.

But one clone got through and stabbed Aestrea in the side with a temporal dagger.

Squelch!

Pain flared as the dagger aged the wound, making it fester and spread.

"Ugh!" Aestrea grunted and used Authority of Karma to balance and heal it, then decapitated the clone with the Midnight Sword.

Shing!

The real Chronos reappeared, laughing.

"You can’t kill time itself!"

He slammed his scepter into the ground of a nearby planetoid, accelerating its time until it exploded into a supernova that engulfed Aestrea.

KABOOOOOM!

The explosion lit up the sector, radiation and plasma washing over everything.

When it cleared, Aestrea emerged, his black hair singed, body covered in burns, but his eyes still burning with cold fury.

He used Authority of Flame to burn away the radiation, then charged again.

He appeared in front of Chronos and delivered a brutal uppercut with the pommel of the Heaven Swallowing Sword.

Crunch!

Chronos’s jaw shattered, golden blood exploding outward. Aestrea followed with a knee to the gut, then a downward slash that cut deep into Chronos’s shoulder.

Squelch!

More golden blood rained down. Chronos staggered but reversed the wound and retaliated with a time-accelerated punch that caught Aestrea in the face.

Crack!

Aestrea’s nose broke, black blood spraying. He ignored it and drove both swords into Chronos’s chest.

Shing! Shing!

The blades sank deep, the Heaven Swallowing Sword devouring huge chunks of his essence.

"DIEEEEEEEE!!!" Chronos screamed and unleashed a point-blank wave of reversed time, aging Aestrea’s body rapidly.

Aestrea’s skin wrinkled and cracked, hair turning gray for a split second before he used Authority of Karma to reverse the aging.

He twisted the swords and kicked Chronos away.

The God of Time flew backward, crashing into a gas giant. The planet’s atmosphere ignited from the impact, turning into a raging storm of fire.

Chronos burst out of the flames, laughing maniacally, his body already regenerating.

"HAHAHA! YOU’RE THE FIRST PERSON TO DAMAGE MY BODY THIS MUCH!"

He raised his scepter and summoned a colossal temporal storm, thousands of time blades, reversed gravity wells, and accelerated aging fields converging on Aestrea.

Aestrea met it head-on.

He used Authority of the Abyss to open a massive void that swallowed half the storm, then Authority of Ruin to decay the rest.

He charged through the remnants and slashed Chronos across the chest again.

Squelch!

Golden blood sprayed like a fountain. Chronos retaliated by accelerating his own speed and delivering a barrage of scepter strikes to Aestrea’s torso.

Thud! Thud! Thud!

Aestrea’s ribs cracked, blood spraying from his mouth. He used Authority of Defiance to push through the pain and headbutted Chronos, shattering his nose again.

Crack!

After that, he gathered a few bits of distance, wiping the blood on his lips.

’We’re evenly matched... tsk. How much power did that bitch give him?!’ Aestrea grunted inwardly as he looked at the laughing Chronos.

’I can still use my Chaotic Form, but I don’t know if he still has a triumph card or something similar to that...’

Aestrea gripped his swords.

For now, the only thing he could do was wound Chronos as much as he could.