Chapter 546: Where It All Began (XXIV) [The Sweet Taste of Revenge III]

The battle between Aestrea and Chronos had stretched on for weeks.

Yes... weeks.

Not hours, days... but actual weeks.

In the vast emptiness of space, time had lost all meaning.

They had fought across shattered star systems, through exploding nebulae, and across the ruins of entire galaxies.

Their clashes had become a constant, unrelenting storm of violence that never seemed to end.

CLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANG!

THRUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUM!

Swords met scepter in a never-ending rhythm.

Aestrea’s dual swords flashed like black lightning, carving deep, bleeding wounds into Chronos’s body.

Golden blood sprayed in glittering arcs every time the Heaven Swallowing Sword bit into divine flesh, devouring chunks of Chronos’s essence before the God of Time could reverse the damage.

Chronos retaliated as brutally as he could.

His scepter moved like a blur of time itself, striking Aestrea’s ribs, shoulders, and face with accelerated force.

Each blow cracked bones and tore flesh, black divine blood exploding outward into the void.

Yet both of them regenerated almost instantly.

Aestrea’s wounds closed in seconds, black energy knitting flesh and bone back together.

Chronos’s golden blood flowed backward, wounds sealing as time reversed on his body. Neither could gain a permanent advantage.

Every deep cut, every broken bone, every severed limb was undone moments later.

They knew it.

If either wanted to win, they needed a true one-shot... something decisive enough to destroy the head or core completely before regeneration could take hold.

SHING!

Aestrea slashed upward with the Midnight Sword, cutting Chronos from hip to shoulder in a single clean line.

Spluuurt!

Golden blood erupted like a geyser, painting the void in shimmering gold.

"AAAAAAAAGH!" Chronos roared and reversed the wound instantly, then countered with a point-blank temporal blast that aged Aestrea’s entire left arm into withered, cracked flesh.

Aestrea used Authority of Karma to balance and restore it, then drove his knee into Chronos’s face, shattering his jaw.

CRUUNCH!

The cycle continued without pause.

They fought through asteroid fields, turning them into cosmic dust.

They clashed near dying stars, their shockwaves accelerating supernovas. They tore through gas giants, leaving massive wounds in planetary bodies that would never heal.

Weeks brutally passed like this, with them being evenly matched.

Neither spoke much anymore.

The only sounds were the clash of weapons, the spray of blood, the roar of exploding celestial bodies, and their heavy breathing.

Until now.

Chronos suddenly retreated several miles, floating in the void.

His clock-eyes spun at maximum speed, glowing with dangerous intensity. He raised his scepter high above his head with both hands.

The massive clock face at its tip began rotating violently, faster and faster, drawing in streams of golden temporal energy from the surrounding space.

The air, no... the very fabric of reality itself started to distort.

"I’ve had enough of this dance," Chronos growled, his voice echoing with layered timelines.

"This ends now."

A colossal vortex of golden energy formed above him, swirling with the power of infinite timelines.

Stars in the distance began to flicker and die as their light was sucked into the forming attack.

The beam he was preparing carried enough divine power to erase entire sectors of the universe.

Aestrea watched it form, his black hair drifting in the void. He could feel the sheer, overwhelming, destructive force gathering.

This was no ordinary attack.

This was Chronos pouring everything he had into one decisive strike... a strike that was probably capable of killing even a being like him.

Aestrea could have attacked right then. Chronos was wide open, defenseless, while charging such a massive technique.

Instead, Aestrea slowly sheathed both swords.

The Heaven Swallowing Sword and Midnight Sword dissolved into black mist and returned to his body.

He spread his arms wide, standing completely exposed in the empty space, his Fallen God form radiating pure, abyssal power.

Chronos’s eyes widened in disbelief.

"You madman...!" he roared.

"You think you can tank this?! THEN DIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!"

With a triumphant scream, Chronos unleashed the attack.

"CHRONOS JUDGMENT!!!"

Zooooooooooooooooooooooooom!

A blinding golden beam of pure divine energy, thicker than a planet, shot forward with cataclysmic force.

It moved faster than light, carrying the weight of erased timelines and collapsed futures.

The beam tore through space itself, leaving a trail of absolute nothingness behind it.

Stars, planets, and nebulae in its path were instantly vaporized, dozens of galaxies wiped out in a single, unstoppable line of destruction that stretched across thousands of light-years.

The golden beam struck Aestrea head-on.

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!

The impact was apocalyptic.

Aestrea’s body was engulfed completely.

The beam passed straight through him, continuing onward and erasing everything in its path for an incomprehensible distance.

Entire star clusters vanished, galaxies were split in half, and the void screamed as reality itself was torn apart by the sheer power of the attack.

When the golden light finally faded, Aestrea was still floating there.

His body was heavily damaged, large portions of his torso and limbs were gone, black divine blood pouring out in massive streams into the void.

Half his face was missing, one arm completely erased, and a gaping hole went straight through his chest where his heart should have been.

Yet he was still standing.

His remaining red slit eye glowed with cold, unyielding fury as black chaos energy began rapidly regenerating the destroyed parts of his body.

Chronos stared in stunned silence, his clock-eyes spinning wildly.

"...Impossible."

Aestrea slowly lowered his arms, fresh flesh and bone already knitting together across his wounds. Black energy swirled around the missing parts, reforming them at terrifying speed.

He looked at Chronos with a cold, predatory smile.

"My turn."

Hearing his words, a shiver instantly ran down Chronos’s spine as his face started showing a hint of actual panic instead of its usual arrogance.

"Fuuuuuh..."

Aestrea took a slow and deep breath.

Crrrk...

The air around him began to distort violently.

Black and white energy erupted from his body like twin supernovas colliding.

His Fallen God form, which was already terrifying, started evolving further, ascending into something far stronger.

By now, he had already confirmed that Chronos didn’t actual have any last power hidden, so he could finally activate his final form.

The Chaotic Fallen God Form.

His black hair grew even longer, thrashing wildly as if alive, strands of pure chaos weaving through it.

His skin darkened to an obsidian sheen, cracked with glowing veins of white and crimson.

Swoosh!

Two massive ethereal wings of swirling black and white energy unfurled behind him, each feather made of condensed creation and destruction.

The vertical slits in his eyes expanded, the sclera splitting into perfect duality, one side pure black, the other pure white.

A colossal Yin-Yang symbol materialized behind him, spinning slowly with perfect harmony.

Black and white energies rotated in flawless balance, emitting an aura so dense that nearby stars began to flicker and distort.

The sheer pressure of his presence caused the fabric of space to groan.

Chronos’s eyes widened in genuine shock and rising panic.

"This... this is...!"

He didn’t hesitate.

"Domain of Time, Eternal Recursion!"

The God of Time slammed his scepter into the void. Golden light exploded outward, forming layer after layer of temporal barriers.

Ten... twenty... fifty overlapping domains of time wrapped around him like a fortress.

Each layer reversed time differently; some aging attacks into nothing, others loop them endlessly, others freeze them in stasis.

The barriers stacked infinitely, creating an impenetrable fortress of causality.

Multiple defensive runes ignited across his body.

Time clones of himself appeared in every direction, each one ready to intercept. The entire sector of space around him became a labyrinth of distorted timelines.

"I WILL NOT FALL HERE!!! I’M THE STRONGEST GOD IN ALL CREATION!" Chronos roared madly, his eyes turning bloodshot.

Aestrea remained completely calm.

His aura continued expanding.

The black and white energies swirled faster around him, merging into a radiant silver glow that grew brighter and brighter.

It was so intense it began to blind even Chronos’s clock-eyes, forcing the God of Time to squint.

From Aestrea’s eyes, streams of smoke began to leak, one side pure black, the other pure white, rising like incense from a divine altar.

The pressure around him became suffocating, as if the universe itself was holding its breath.

He reached out with both hands.

The Heaven Swallowing Sword and Midnight Sword materialized, humming with unprecedented power.

『 ✯ Authority of Karma ✯ 』

He poured Authority of Karma into them at maximum output... this was only possible since he had received Chronos’s attack head-on.

The blades glowed with karmic balance, one side devouring, the other restoring, perfect duality.

Aestrea assumed a flawless double-sword stance, with both swords crossed in front of him, and his body perfectly balanced.

He muttered softly, almost reverently:

"Moonlit Ice Lotus Sword Art..."

The silver glow around him intensified until it became blinding. Chronos raised an arm to shield his eyes, the light piercing through even his temporal defenses.

’I didn’t think I’d ever use this new move that I created after receiving my memories...’ Aestrea thought inwardly.

His grip tightened on both swords.

’But well... it’s for my revenge.’

His eyes brightened with killing intent so pure and cold that the temperature in the surrounding space dropped sharply.

『 Eighth Move! (✹ ✧Karmic Moonfall Eclipse✧ ✹) 』