The void did not forgive.
As the second year ended, Chronos thought perhaps the beasts would slow, that he might breathe before the next trial. He was wrong. The pendulum tolled, and the blackness split. New shadows crawled forth, heavier with fragments of time clinging to their forms. Their claws shimmered with stolen seconds, their eyes glowed with fractured futures.
But Chronos was not the same boy they had hunted when he first stumbled into this realm.
His body had changed.
The endless battles had carved him lean and sharp, like a blade forged in fire. His chest rose and fell with controlled rhythm, lungs no longer burning after every clash. His shoulders had broadened, arms corded with muscle honed through thousands of strikes. His legs, once thin and trembling, now carried him with fluid strength.
Scars lined his torso and back—silver streaks glowing faintly in the void's light. They were not shame but proof, each marking another battle survived. His silver hair, once boyish and wild, now framed his face in strands that glowed faintly with his emblem's pulse. His silver eyes no longer held fear—they gleamed with the steady brilliance of one who had endured what should have broken him.
He was not bulky like a giant, not thin like a starving child. His form was balanced—every muscle lean, every line honed, like the body of an athlete sculpted by war itself. He was no longer a boy. He was becoming a Titan.
On the first day of his third year, the void birthed three horrors.
The first was a spider, its legs fracturing into countless timelines. Every movement split into dozens of possibilities, stabbing from all directions at once.
The second was a wolf, its jaws dripping with voidlight. Each bite collapsed seconds into nothing, swallowing time itself where its fangs struck.
The third was a knight-shaped shadow, its body layered with clock-faces. Its sword ticked with every swing, and each strike threatened to cut hours from his life.
The pendulum tolled. The beasts lunged.
Chronos surged forward, silver sand swirling at his feet.
The spider struck first. Its legs came down in a storm, a hundred stabbing points that fractured into a thousand when he blinked. Time bent around them, impossible to follow.
Chronos exhaled. His silver eyes narrowed.
Deceleration pulsed. The storm of legs slowed, bending into sluggish arcs. He accelerated forward, his body blurring between them. His fist glowed silver as it crashed into the spider's body. The beast shrieked, its abdomen cracking open, spilling streams of distorted time that hissed into the void.
But the wolf came next. Its jaws snapped shut, and the air collapsed inward. Seconds vanished, whole fragments of the battle erased. Chronos' chest burned as a piece of his momentum simply disappeared.
Snarling, he thrust his palm out. Suspension flared. The collapsing air froze mid-crush, silver grains hanging around the wolf's teeth. He surged forward, knee driving into its skull. The beast howled, head bursting into silver shards.
Then the knight came.
Its blade swung, each tick slicing more than flesh. Time itself shuddered. Chronos' arm aged in a blink, skin withering, muscle trembling.
Pain jolted through him. His silver blood dripped, glowing faintly against his scarred skin. The knight pressed harder, its clock-faces spinning, its pendulum sword relentless.
Chronos grit his teeth. His emblem blazed.
Acceleration surged, propelling him forward. Deceleration layered, dragging the knight's swings into sludge. Suspension froze the edge of its blade mid-strike.
With all three streams entwined, Chronos struck. His fist blazed silver, fueled not only by power but by unyielding will.
The knight's chest shattered. The clock-faces cracked. Its mask fractured into shards, screaming as it dissolved into sand.
Chronos fell to one knee. His chest heaved, his arm burned with stolen seconds, his shoulder dripped silver blood. Yet his lips curved faintly.
Even time itself cannot bind me. I am not prey of the pendulum. I am its master.
The rest of the year became a crucible.
The beasts came in groups now, never alone. Packs of wolves biting away at fragments of time. Spiders weaving webs of endless possibilities. Knights swinging their ticking blades in unison.
Chronos adapted.
He learned to use acceleration not only for strikes but for movement—dancing between foes, weaving through storms of claws. Deceleration became his shield, slowing just enough pieces of the fight to open paths forward. Suspension became his chain, freezing the most dangerous attacker long enough to dismantle the rest.
He staggered. He bled. New scars carved into his arms, chest, and back. Yet each scar hardened him, shaped him. By the end of the year, his aura burned steady, his movements precise. He no longer fought like prey clinging to survival. He fought like a predator of the void.
Meditation filled the hours between battles.
He sat beneath the pendulum, silver sands swirling, scars burning faintly. The void hummed with rhythm. He felt it now—not as crushing weight, but as heartbeat. His heartbeat.
The pendulum no longer dragged him down. Its swings pulsed with his chest. The sands whispered clearer, carrying echoes of both past and possible futures.
He realized: he was not just enduring his realm. He was shaping it.
Each battle etched his essence deeper. Each victory bent the void closer to his will.
But loneliness pressed harder than any claw.
In silence, he reached outward, and threads shimmered faintly. Oceanus' tide, steady and endless. Hyperion's flame, proud and warm. Phoebe's silver light, enduring. Tethys' rhythm, calm as rivers. Mnemosyne's halls, sharp as memory. Crius' constellations, steady as maps. Themis' scales, heavy but true. Iapetus' fortress, scarred but unyielding. Coeus' scrolls, whispering softly.
They were faint, distant, but real.
Chronos closed his eyes. His lips moved in a whisper.
Endure, my siblings. As I endure. When we return, we will not be sparks. We will be Titans.
The pendulum tolled, louder than before. The sands stirred, silver winds coiling around him, as if answering.
When the third year closed, Chronos stood taller. His frame lean and sharp, his aura steady, his eyes glowing silver bright. He bore scars across his body, but each burned like proof of his defiance.
Acceleration had become his blade. Deceleration his shield. Suspension his chain. They no longer broke him. They were extensions of him.
He looked up at the clock. The pendulum swung, eternal and unyielding.
"Year three," he said, voice calm but fierce. "And still, only the beginning."
The pendulum tolled. Shadows roared. Chronos surged forward, silver light blazing.