The attack had been so fast that no one else had even sensed it yet. It would have hit them all in the next fraction of a second.

Chronos Overclock was a physical Domain that warped spacetime within its boundaries, slowing all matter, including time to one-thousandth their normal speed.

Only Castor could move normally, but it came with a cost.

Moving through the slowed world destroyed his body. Cells break down at the molecular level, bones fracture under the impossible strain, and organs begin failing. The damage accumulates with every passing moment until his body could no longer sustain it.

It was a Domain that bought time by consuming life.

****

Castor’s mind sharpened, mental skills activating to process information faster, calculating trajectories, analyzing Aura composition and running probability scenarios.

The numbers flooded his vision.

’Concentrated Aura beam... Equivalent to Peak S rank output... Direct Impact radius: 125 meters... Penetration depth: absolute...’

His eyes scanned the frozen faces around him.

Damian, Elizabeth, Vermont, Yara, Vash, Gregor, Kuro...

Then his vision extended outward, through the walls and floors of the orphanage building below, seeing the heat signatures of thousands of living beings.

The children sleeping in their beds, the staff in the hallways and Granny Helena in her room on the second floor, probably still awake baking cookies for tomorrow.

’If this hits...’

His calculations finished.

’Everyone below S rank dies instantly... The shockwave alone will level everything within a kilometer... The orphanage will be completely destroyed.’

His jaw tightened.

’Everyone except maybe the S rankers... And even they’ll be badly hurt.’

Beyond the orphanage, he could sense thousands more heat signatures in the surrounding residential district, families sleeping in their homes, people going about their lives, completely unaware that death was falling from the sky.

’I can’t save them all...’

He calculated his time window.

’One second... That’s all my body can handle... Moving through slowed time any longer will tear me apart... In reality, only one millisecond will pass... But inside the Domain, I have one full second to move everyone to safety.’

He looked at the frozen children in the building below, at Yara’s face still locked in concentration as she tried to heal Elizabeth.

’Is it worth it? Destroying my body for them?’

The question hung in his mind for a fraction of a fraction of a second.

’I barely know most of these kids... I’m not their father... I’m not even really their protector... I’m just... someone who shows up sometimes.’

But then the memories hit him.

A little girl with pigtails tugging on his sleeve. "Mister Castor, can you help me with my homework?"

A boy showing him a drawing. "I drew you! See? You’re super smart!"

Granny Helena smiling at him over tea. "You’re a good man, Castor. But you should smile more."

And Yara...

Yara laughing for the first time in years as children piled onto her during a game.

Yara smiling softly as she bandaged a scraped knee.

Yara finally... finally happy after everything she’d been through in that lab.

She loved these children. After years of torture, years of being used as a tool to keep other victims alive, she’d finally found something that made her want to live.

’If they die, her joy will be stolen... And I can’t... I can’t let that happen.’

His teeth ground together so hard something cracked.

’Fuck it!’

His body blurred as he moved through the frozen world.

The first problem: he couldn’t just fling them away with Aura.

At the speeds he was moving, if he used Aura to telekinetically throw people to safety, when the Domain ended and time resumed normal flow, the sudden change in positions would liquify their internal organs and their bodies would explode from the inside out.

He had to carry them physically, one by one or in small groups.

And he had to wrap each person in a protective Aura barrier that would cushion the transition back to normal time, stabilizing their bodies so they wouldn’t die the instant the Domain collapsed.

The first child was in the dormitory on the third floor, frozen mid-dream.

Castor’s hand wrapped around the boy’s torso carefully. His Aura flowed out, forming a gentle cocoon around the child’s body, stabilizing his blood flow, his organs and his bones.

Then he ran.

The world blurred around him as he sprinted from the third floor, down the stairs, across the grounds, to the edge of his Domain’s boundary.

Crack

His right femur developed a hairline fracture, the Domain’s toll beginning to show.

’Acceptable.’

He placed the boy down gently, making sure the Aura barrier would hold, then turned back.

Time Remaining: 0.900 seconds

Another child, another barrier, another sprint...

The orphanage held two thousand two hundred seventeen children, forty-three staff members and Granny Helena.

And the attack was still coming, crawling downward through the frozen air inch by agonizing inch.

’Faster!’

He couldn’t carry them one at a time, he had to move faster.

He started gathering children in groups, wrapping ten at a time in a single large Aura cocoon, then twenty, then fifty.

Sprint... Place them down... Sprint back.

Snap

His left radius fractured from the damage spreading through his bones.

By his fifth trip, he was carrying a hundred children at once, their small bodies wrapped in a massive glowing barrier of protective Aura.

Tear

Muscle fibers in his right calf ripped apart, cellular damage accumulating.

Time Remaining: 0.800 seconds

Pop

Blood vessels in his eyes burst, turning the whites red.

’Main hall... Seventy-three children.’

He moved through them like a ghost, his hands gentle despite the urgency, gathering them in groups, wrapping each cluster in protective Aura, carrying them to safety at the Domain’s edge.

’Second floor... East wing... One hundred twelve children.’

His legs burned from the strain eating away at his cellular structure.

Crack

His right ulna snapped, bone breaking down at the molecular level.

But he switched to using his left arm and Aura manipulation to support the massive cocoons of children, not slowing down even slightly.

’Third floor... West wing... Ninety-four children.’

Time Remaining: 0.700 seconds

The attack was closer now... He could feel the heat radiating from it even through the time dilation.

’Dormitories... Five hundred thirty-seven children.’

Crunch

Three ribs fractured on his left side as his breathing became wet and ragged, with blood filling his mouth.

’Don’t stop... Don’t you dare stop.’

He ran through the kitchen, grabbed the frozen staff members, wrapped them in barriers and carried them away.

Through the medical wing, the library and the training grounds.

His glasses cracked, a thin line splitting across the left lens.

Blood poured from his nose now, streaming down his face, making it hard to see.

’Granny Helena... Second floor, room twelve.’

Time Remaining: 0.600 seconds

He found her frozen mid-step in her room, a tray of fresh cookies in her hands, probably meant for the children’s breakfast tomorrow.

Castor lifted her carefully, cradling her like she weighed nothing, wrapping her in the gentlest Aura barrier he could manage.

He carried her to the back and placed her down with infinite care.

’Almost done... Just the terrace now.’

The attack was so close now, just a few meters above them.