章 1: Chapter 1: IX

I. Somewhere in a place outside the existing plane, there is a world tormented by one genocidal warrior by the name of Cronica. Cronica has the figure of a female with soft purple colored hair that is tied like a short pony tail but curved inward to instead of outward from the face. She has bangs slightly to her left side of her face, little bit covering her purple eyes with a mole underneath her eye lashes. Her outfit defies the word "decency" as she wears only black crop top, dark blue hot pants, black mismatched sized high socks, black combat boots, black pair of gauntlets, and a chocker resembling a dog collar.

She wields a sword that is called the Chronoblade. This ancient sword, according to the ancient text, has the ability to cut through space and time, allowing the user to force the time to stop at the cost of energy. It is a dangerous weapon used by guardians to defend the realm from those that shouldn't exist. Yet Chronica, the slayer of titans, obtained this mythical weapon for herself and wreak havoc to those that stand in her way. The design of the said sword resembles the body of a Roman Spatha with its blade forged from the crystallized time essence and the guard replaced with gear. It is designed to be used exclusively to cut through the fabric of time and the gear begins to shift to allow its user to move through the frozen time. It takes alot of time for the sword to naturally recharge its power but Cronica found a way to recharge it faster through stealing someone's time. Each cut from this sword takes away its victim's lifespan, making them die quicker than the scheduled time of death.

Cronica is a dangerous villain that started her conquest to destroy the world where she was born. Many tried to stop her, including the guardians. But Cronica proved herself that she has excellent control over the Chronoblade. Each step Cronica makes, the seed of chaos gets planted and they grew overtime, becoming anarchy. The casualties are infinite, slowly increasing when time begins to flow after it being stopped. Cronica's lack of care nor guilt to the consequences of her actions have the world suffer from chaos. Slowly, the timeline eventually breaks into branching paths. Only Cronica is able to travel along with these paths... That is until...

II. A general, a human, a mother, humiliated by Cronica, have given birth to the cursed child born from chaos. A baby boy who shouldn't exist if not by Cronica brutally humiliated his mother by slashing all her soldiers down to the ground and letting her live out of pettiness. The mother of this baby, held grudge against Cronica, and her child. The mother named this child Cronos and vowed that Cronos will be the one who will take down Cronica.

When growing up, Cronos learned military discipline from his mother. It is evident that Cronos has the same kind of power as Cronica in smaller scale. Chronos has the ability to move through frozen time. But it costed great. Cronos grew up as an teenager spending many time wasted from the frozen time. The mother remained young in Cronos' time and each time Cronos can see for a long time that his own mother resented him for being the child of her and Cronica. Many times have passed, but it is still a short time for her mother, Cronos grew up as an adult, training all his life in order to become strong and gain approval to his mother.

Cronos mother died from stress and Cronos left her in her home where she spent time observing the brazier when she was alive. Cronos embarked to a journey to find Cronica to slay her and end this madness. Unfortunately for him, Cronica spotted him before he did. Cronica toyed with her child over and over again until Cronos became half dead with his bones snapped all around it. Cronica left him to die and went to another place.

III. Cronos is saved by the Technology Association, the remnants of the highly advanced civilization that swore to defeat Cronica by any means necessary. They take note that Cronos can move through the frozen time with ease so they used his body to research the phenomena to find the way how to move through time. It is something that Cronica having the greatest advantage over all beings in this plane.

With extensive research and budget, they decided to put the original Cronos into a tank filled with preserving liquid that prevented Cronos from dying. His cells can survive in this liquid for a long time so the researchers uses his cell in order to make clones of the original Cronos and they succeeded in doing so, making the army of Cronos they called Time Walkers.

Thousands of Time Walkers fought Cronica and each battle produces data that the researchers used to make more experienced clones. Cronica could only stop time for the short time, not explore timelines. And imagine the confusion Cronica made when she found out that the Time Walkers kept chasing after her and being unstoppable. This angered Cronica and she begins another war against the clones.

IV. Cronica stands in the ruined city of the Eden Garden, a place of once beautiful prosperus city ruined to its former shadow. Cronica fights the clones over and over again, igniting her fighting spirit and the determination to slay all clones. She triumphantly slew approximately 40,000 clones which is enough to destroy the Technology Association's finances, making them stop using clones to fight against Cronica. They thought they had her, and it was undeniable that Cronica remained standing over all the piles of corpses of the clones.

Cronica couldn't help but laugh as she remembered everything that happened in this place. Cronica facing the same enemies over and over and over for a millennium. "No one shall defeat me!" she screamed at the top of her lungs as she raises the Chronoblade over her head. Only one clone remained, the 444589th clone. This one accumulated all the data that the previous clones had. Though bruised, this one remained standing.

Cronica raised her Chronoblade and points it toward the last clone. She is very happy to have fought a war she will never experience ever again. The two begin to fight in favor of the clone.

The clone rushes to Cronica and swiftly attacks with a Diamond Sword. Cronica responded to this attack and guard against it. Cronica countered by kicking the clone away and slash it with power. The clone responded and roll away to dodge the attack. Cronica activated the Time Stop and closed the distance between her and the clone. The clone isn't affected by Time Stop but it does not let Cronica get close to it by running away. It is a smart move as it only takes a while before time moves again and Cronica temporarily slows down. However, Cronica is not to be trifled with easily. Cronica knew this weakness of hers so she begins taunting the closer to come closer to her. This would work on a emotional beings like the others but being a clone, it stood its ground and calmly approached Cronica.

V. The clone did its best to weaken Cronica but instead, it got weaker and weaker the longer the fight goes on. It is like Cronica had infinite stamina. Cronica laughed at the clone. "Your heart is mine." Cronica answered. Cronica forces the time to stop again but this time, Cronica begins lifting debris up in the air, surprising the clone. It couldn't see where Cronica went until it realized Cronica is already in front of it.

Cronica begins to push for the offensive. She swings the Chronoblade with such power that sent the clone reeling backwards. Each strikes take away the clone's stamina. Cronica struck again and again until one lucky slash cut through the clone's skin. Their armor is cracked, their clothes are shredded, and their skin has been ripped. The clone gets stabbed to the stomach by Cronica and it gets pushed off with a kick. It falls down in a cliff, making the winner Cronica.

VI. This path is where Cronica won, and many paths have shown similar results. Cronica remained undefeated and she transformed into a titan. An entity beyond the rules. All hopes were lost. The timelines are utterly broken beyond repair. Natural disasters became more deadly than it should be, forgotten plagues resurfaced, anarchy becomes the common idealogy.

Should there be someone who can defeat the titan? The answer is hard to find. One thing is for sure, when Cronica becomes a titan, she permanently removes her existance from space and time making all Cronica across all the timelines one and the same. If Cronica in theory gets killed, there is no reincarnation for her since she have no soul.

VII. The time is just a broken concept. Days and night shifts with no constant formula. Things go by either slow or fast. What happened to Cronos? Cronos died alone inside a tank. The Technology Association has been destroyed by beasts born from the seed of chaos.

A vision Cronos could see is the empty room with him drowning in blue liquid that kept him alive for a long time. Cronos wondered how it would be if he were to touch what is the other side of the glass wall. When that thought entered his mind, his finger twitches.

Cronos think of many what ifs. How it will be different if he didn't fight Cronica? How it will be different if her were to be ignorant of what is happening? How it will be different if he wasn't born out of spite? How it will be different if he had lived a normal childhood.

"Four hundred..." said Cronos. He counted how many what ifs he could think of in his mind. Slowly but surely Cronos tries to lift up his hand one more time. Cold shivers enters his body. A sharp pain to the spine woke him up. His arms, numb from the pain, remained raised until he noticed that he truly moved his hand. It hurts when it moves, but Cronos decides to break free from this suffocating prison.With all his might and repeating determination, Cronos opened his eyes for the first time. His pulse, although weak, is still there.

He can feel that his body is very cold and wet. He is floating on top of the water. Cronos couldn't recall what happened in his mind but he still knew he is Cronos. He just forgets that he is an adventurer who specialized in deception.

VIII. Cronos moves out of the water immediately by crawling. It took for a while before he reached a dry land. Suddenly, Cronos felt weird. Like, his body, something about it is foreign. He has no mood to think of it, just survive. Cronos look around and sees the land full of metallic debris. All buildings are in ruins. Upon each closer inspection to them, Cronos thought the strange occurence of where there is something both familiar and unfamiliar to him. Things that he knows but doesn't know.

Cronos picks up a long rusty iron pipe and props it to the ground to lean on. He begins to move towards the wind. The wind howls violently but it doesn't stop him from moving forward. He walks until he felt a strange sensation of something stopped. The space in front of him, is frozen. Cronos picks up a can and places it to that space. The can floats in the air. It makes him worried but still, he knew what this space is. Cronos walks in the frozen space. It became easier to move through the frozen time. It stabilized his balance.

Cronos can feel a strange power which is coming inside one of the buildings to his left. The path is directly blocked by the debris. Only way inside is through the small hole that he needs to crouch under in order to enter. He did that and discovered a worn out sword. Its edges are chipped but they are sharp. Its handle is covered with grime. The guard is broken but Cronos can tell that the guard is shaped like a gear.

Its a Chronoblade, but its worn out. It should've been impossible for it to degrade but somehow it did. Cronos picks it up. His memories suddenly gets invaded by foreign memories that he certainly don't remember actually doing it. All the battles he did in that memory, he now remembers how to fight with a sword. Cronos suddenly have a thought. He couldn't remember the rest of his past. It was only when he touched the Chronoblade that fragments of his memory returned back to his mind.

IX. The Chronoblade itself lost its power. But Cronos can feel it can be brought back to its former glory. He looks around, found a broken dresser with clothes. He now wears a purple t-shirt, dark blue short jeans, black mismatched sized socks, black glove liners, black leather gloves, dark blue combat boots, and a black short-sleeved jacket with purple highlights. A broken glass revealed that his face has purple sharp eyes, mole underneath his left eye, and a medium length purple hair. Somehow, Cronos felt disgusted whenever he sees his reflection. It reminded him about something he despises but he couldn't remember what.

Cronos lets himself recover, eating moss and drinking water to sustain himself. Ocassionally rats show up in the frozen space and they get stuck there so Cronos didn't need to hunt for food. If only he could make fire but none of the broken furnitures are made from wood. All are welded and bolted metal. It didn't take long until Cronos gets the hang of moving around and familiarizing himself of the surroundings.

He looks up the sky and noticed that it haven't been daytime despite the time normally progressing. This anomaly makes Cronos think of the area where he picked up the Chronoblade. A spot where the concept space and time don't exist. He had enough staying around so Cronos, together with the Parallel Chronoblade, ventures north, following the north star. What lies ahead are challenges he will soon face and test his combat prowess.