Chapter 659: Kronos (1)

Grey moved first.

Virtueless came around in a simple horizontal swing without any flourish behind it, and Kronos met the black rod with the shaft of his scythe as naturally as though they had been fighting for years. The collision punched a wave through the road beneath them, asphalt splitting in both directions while Grey stepped through the recoil and drove his shoulder toward Kronos’ chest.

Kronos turned just enough that the shoulder slipped past him, hooked the lower end of his scythe behind Grey’s knee, then swept upward with the curved blade already descending toward his throat.

Grey released one hand from Virtueless, caught the shaft before the blade could complete its path, stamped the Virtueless down into the concrete for extra leveler, and then drove a knee toward Kronos’ stomach while Center of Spirit spread through every movement between them.

Kronos blocked it with his own hand, grinning.

There was nothing complicated about the exchange, no enormous blasts of energy or techniques that swallowed the horizon, just two people trying to put the other in a position where the next movement ended the fight.

Kronos was better than anyone Grey had ever fought.

That became obvious quickly, though not in the way Grey had expected from a God who seemed so pleased with himself. Kronos wasted nothing, every slight rotation of his wrist altered three possible attacks at once, and even when Grey read where his balance was shifting, the motion seemed to change halfway through as though the body Grey was observing belonged to someone else.

It reminded Grey of "Elowen."

She had managed something similar while possessed, feeding Center of Spirit so many conflicting intentions that the Ability couldn’t decide which one represented the real movement until the attack had already begun.

Kronos did it far more smoothly, his body suggesting one center of balance while his soul seemed to settle around another, and every motion carried tiny temporal echoes that made actions Grey hadn’t actually seen yet feel just as real as the one happening in front of him.

The difference was that Grey could see all of it now.

His eyes followed the scythe descending toward his shoulder while the soul-side of his Neural Frame caught the false intention trying to pull his attention toward his ribs. Grey ignored both, stepped into Kronos’ space before the God had properly committed, then twisted Virtueless upward and caught the scythe precisely where Kronos’ actual leverage was weakest.

Kronos’ eyes flashed.

Grey shoved the weapon aside, planted his heel, and drove a straight punch toward his face.

Kronos leaned away just enough to avoid it, but Grey’s knuckles passed so close that they brushed pale skin before the God retreated several steps. Center of Spirit thrummed through Grey’s mind, the strange second reflection of his Neural Frame aligning with the first so naturally that his old understanding of the Ability already felt incomplete.

—

[Lv31 Center of Spirit > Lv32 Center of Spirit]

—

Grey noticed the notification, but Kronos didn’t give him enough room to dwell on it as the scythe flashed toward his neck again.

Grey ducked, Virtueless swept low toward Kronos’ ankle, and when Kronos hopped over it Grey changed the angle halfway through before driving the rod upward toward his ribs.

The scythe somehow arrived first.

Grey twisted aside before the blade could carve through him, though a thin line still opened across his chest as Kronos spun through the exchange and attacked again from the opposite direction.

Grey’s mind remained calm through it all, Center of Spirit stripping away every useless reaction while the soul-side of his Frame caught the emotional and temporal pressure Kronos used to disguise his true intentions.

—

[Lv32 Center of Spirit > Lv33 Center of Spirit]

—

Grey’s brows rose slightly at that one. Abilities weren’t supposed to behave like this.

He hadn’t entered the Vanguard Class, yet Center of Spirit was climbing through levels that should have belonged beyond his current limit, and the Genesis System wasn’t showing the slightest hesitation about allowing it.

Grey could only assume that whatever happened when he Soul Linked his Neural Frame had changed the rules governing the Ability, or perhaps Center of Spirit had always been capable of more than his Class allowed and he’d only just found the missing portion needed to reach it.

Kronos’ scythe swept toward his stomach while two false motions bloomed around it.

Grey stepped through all three.

Virtueless slammed into Kronos’ shoulder.

The God skidded across the road, his polished shoes carving twin black trails through the asphalt before he came to a stop. Grey was already there when he straightened, the rod descending toward his skull while Kronos raised the scythe to catch it.

—

[Lv33 Center of Spirit > Lv34 Center of Spirit]

—

The first collision drove Kronos’ arms downward.

Grey shifted his grip and struck again from the opposite side, then rolled Virtueless around his wrist and stabbed the end directly toward Kronos’ sternum.

Kronos twisted away from the thrust, but Grey had already read where his balance would settle afterward and drove his knee into the God’s side hard enough that something gave beneath it.

For the first time, Kronos grunted.

Grey didn’t give him space to recover, chaining the knee into an elbow before Virtueless came around from below and caught Kronos beneath the ribs. The God blocked most of the impact with his scythe, but the sheer weight behind the rod still lifted him from the road and launched him through the air.

—

[Lv34 Center of Spirit > Lv35 Center of Spirit]

—

Kronos flipped once before landing, and the smile he had worn since revealing himself was finally beginning to look strained.

Grey rolled his shoulders as he approached, increasingly aware that Center of Spirit wasn’t simply reading Kronos better with every exchange, it was learning how the God’s physical body and metaphysical presence interacted.

Every false movement Kronos produced gave Grey another example to compare against the real thing, and the more information he gathered, the less effective the deception became.

Kronos vanished from where he stood and appeared at Grey’s side with the scythe already cutting toward his spine.

Grey turned before he arrived.

Virtueless met the center of Kronos’ chest.

The impact folded the God around the rod before blasting him across the road, and this time blood left Kronos’ lips as his body bounced once before his feet found the ground again. Grey watched the red line slide down his chin while another notification appeared.

—

[Lv35 Center of Spirit > Lv36 Center of Spirit]

—

Kronos slowly wiped the blood away with his thumb and looked at it.

"Interesting." he said with a wisp of amusement in his eyes. Though, the word carried much less amusement than it had before. "You touch something you should not be capable of comprehending for several Classes yet, and within minutes you seem to have mastered it. Are you sure you aren’t the progeny of one of my children?"

Grey shifted Virtueless onto one shoulder and watched him carefully, Center of Spirit spreading wider than it ever had before. Kronos’ body, his scythe, the pressure around his soul, even the tiny distortions of time surrounding every movement all seemed to settle into one picture, and for the first time since the fight began Grey felt as though he was truly seeing the God standing in front of him.

But then Kronos stopped playing the same game and his Dominion expanded.