173. You've been 'brainwashed' too, huh?
173. You've been 'brainwashed' too, huh?
[I will kill you.]
Why.
Could they be so utterly confident?
[Can't we fight fair and square!]
How.
Could they be so utterly shameless?
[Since when did I say this was an exam?]
There was no fear in those two eyes.
Not an inch of hesitation either.
They moved as if they were the Protagonist of the world they lived in.
[I'll just go along with it later, thinking 'Ah, he had a plan all along.']
An absolute law, so to speak.
That within that law, they were eternally safe, and therefore, eternally permitted to do as they pleased—was that it?
"My name is Malseu, guild master of this Ares Guild and the strongest man on earth! I haven't lived a life soft enough to lose to the likes of you!"
"Ah...."
Yes.
This was it.
That very look in his eyes.
The look of one who believed in what he had built up.
The absolute confidence earned through what stood behind him, what he held in his grasp, the 'history' he had accumulated all his life.
"As if I'd ever be broken by a bastard like you!"
He raised his sword.
A greatsword forged from his soul.
Put another way, what that man held in his hands was his time, his destiny, his lifelong companion, and the very foundation of his soul.
I lightly gripped Squite and, with the 'intent to shatter,' slashed sideways at the greatsword.
—Kagagagak!
"Kugh...An attack that flimsy, with no will behind it!"
".....?"
Not a single scratch marred the sword.
How strange. More than a little strange.
I had clearly planned to wound the sword and then banish its time far away, yet instead of rusting, not even a blemish appeared.
'....Come to think of it.'
There had been something like that once.
A sword that never broke.
Mars's exclusive weapon, [Berserker].
In fact, just as its name suggested, it was a sword that would never break until its wielder died—a sword whose durability was raised to infinity by staking the user's own life as collateral.
"Something roughly similar to that, I suppose."
"Uoooooh!!!"
A flurry of consecutive attacks.
Of course, far from grazing me, they were a continuous string of wild swings hitting only strange, empty places.
That was only natural.
From the very start, I had connected this present time to a 'time in which I am not hit even once.'
Future me was confirmed to 'not be hit.'
Therefore, present me also inevitably became someone who could never 'be hit.'
The coercive force of the future.
The binding force of time.
...Is what I was saying, but honestly, it was a bit much.
'Dizzy.'
Unlike when using skills, I couldn't see a visible time limit, but it felt like I couldn't endure this way for very long.
The more I used time, the more I wielded it, the more the little hourglass inside me felt like it was warping.
So, in other words.
"I better enjoy it as much as I can."
Who knew when the future would come.
If so, I would give it my all, even if only for this single moment.
The old me would have conserved even this for the sake of the future, but for some reason, I didn't feel like holding back at all.
Even if I died.
Even if I broke.
—Sgeok.
"Keuk!"
I would kill him.
No, simply killing him wouldn't do.
Surely, somewhere, someone was watching me like this.
'As miserably as possible.'
So that he wouldn't have the heart to resist any longer.
With all my might. With all my sincerity.
—Sgak. Gak. Ppagak!
"Kuuugh...!!"
"...One arm."
Three left now.
"....You're no pushover, are you?"
"??"
...Should have been the case.
He picked up his fallen arm from the floor, pressed it against the severed cross-section, and spat on it.
—Tsssssss....!
"....Done."
"Wow."
Was he a lizard?
How could it just reattach with a single spit?
His durability was almost on par with a troll's, and I was the one who nearly freaked out in return.
....Even so.
—Ppagak!
"!!,...You bastard...!"
"Because it's troublesome if you recover on your own."
It wasn't as if my 'Authority' over wounds made by Squite had disappeared.
I turned back the time of his recovery. The arm that had somehow regenerated and reattached fell away futilely.
Once more, he was reduced to a one-armed man.
Yet the man did not flinch, did not tremble in fear, and stared at me with just his one remaining arm.
"...As I thought, you are dangerous."
"No. Dangerous, you say."
You're the dangerous ones.
I shook my head in denial, but the man, acting as if he had no intention of listening anyway, swung his sword.
Naturally, the strikes never connected, pounding only the floor uselessly, but as if that had been his aim all along, he began driving me back, further and further back.
"No matter how much of a monster you are—if there's nowhere to dodge, you gotta get hit, yeah!"
"..........."
The man put all his strength into cornering me.
At last, when he raised his sword to strike me down, his wrist, his elbow, his shoulder, and beyond—
—Sgagagak!
".......Huh?"
I cut them.
I cut right through.
Past skin, leather, muscle, down to the bone of his joints.
Toward the man who had ultimately lost both hands, I asked.
"No matter how much of a monster you are...if you have no hands, you can't hold a sword, right?"
"...Bullshit!"
"Oh."
A headbutt.
Still, a straightforward, linear attack.
I lightly kicked off the floor to dodge, but—yeah, I can't really call you underhanded now, can I?
'He stepped on my foot in the middle of all this.'
Even as his arms were cut off and he was dying, he forcibly stepped on my foot to stop me.
Thanks to that, the moment I was about to get hit without any room to dodge—
—Ppaaaaak!
"Kugh...Argh...!"
"...Are those teeth for real?"
The man who had headbutted me with all his might ended up bursting his own nose bloody and staggering back.
In contrast, I remained without a single wound.
Manipulating another's time might require Squite, but did I need Squite to handle my own body?
I merely stopped the time on the area that was about to be hit, reflecting all the impact back.
The price he paid for it was two front teeth, knocked out absurdly, and a thick, cakey stream of bloody snot.
Honestly, you'd think giving up would be the right call by this point, but...
—Thud...!
"Kaaagh...Ptoo! H-huff...Never dreamed I'd end up using this."
"....Incredible."
His hands were cut off, so he gripped his sword with his feet.
It was practically evolution through devolution to an ape-like level rather than human, and really, I couldn't help but wonder at this point.
'What on earth could have...'
Made that person so enduringly strong?
As a human being, he was trash, but as a living creature, he was at a literally invincible superhuman level.
—Wooooong....
"...Squite?"
Squite vibrated.
Use me. Use me more.
'I'm already using you.'
What more could it possibly want from me?
The grip tightened around my hand as if demanding something, and just as I felt a bit flustered by the sensation—
"....Ah."
No way.
I re-gripped Squite.
Re-gripped it, and poured 'time' into it.
The power of Cronus. The divinity of Cronus. The concept of 'time' it possessed.
—Kkudeuk...kkudeudeudeuk...!
"Oh...!"
It was changing.
No, it was shedding its skin.
The true 'self' that had no choice but to hide its form all this time, that had to stay hidden due to its master's weakness and incompetence, was finally revealed.
It was the scythe of Cronus.
Wielded by the god of time, the god of 'harvest.'
"[Scythe of Harvest—Squite.]"
The scythe that had turned an inky, jet-black.
A scythe of nothing but black, black, pure black.
"Shatter it—Heaven Breaker, Sky Splitter!"
"[Whoa...that looks strong?]"
I spoke toward the fierce sword strike bearing down, as if it would shatter the world itself.
"[But hey, 'when' did you learn that?]"
"I learned it before your mother was born!"
"[That's a bit of an unfair answer...But isn't this strange?]"
Soon, right as it was about to smash Chrono's head in.
Bracing the blade with the lean shaft of the scythe, Chrono said.
—Pakang........!
"[You, you've never learned this 'Heaven Breaker' or whatever, have you?]"
"....Kugh...!"
It vanished.
No, he completely blocked it outright.
'How...?'
Why. Was it even possible to block it so lightly without using any strange tricks?
The man was baffled, yet his body continued attacking, trying to use 'Heaven Breaker.'
Heaven Breaker.
The sword that tore the sky.
And his 'own sword,' born from accepting that ideology, was—
—Pakang!
"...What is this..."
Blocked again. Continuously blocked.
Had he gotten stronger? No. Chrono hadn't gotten stronger.
Then—Had I...gotten weaker...?
"[Isn't it inevitable?]"
The feeling of something being empty. So utterly hollow it gave him goosebumps.
The sensation of trying to forcibly grasp something that could never be caught...
Yes.
As if from the very beginning....
"[You never learned it in the first place, you don't even have the 'Time' you spent training it, so how could you possibly use that sword?]"
"You...don't tell me...!"
"[Ah, if you don't know, want me to teach you?]"
It had clearly been a pitch-black scythe.
Yet for some reason, it now emanated a crimson aura.
Chrono raised the scythe with both hands and whispered.
"[Heaven Breaker.]"
"Ah....Aaaah!"
That was it.
That stance. That posture.
That overwhelming, violent, conqueror-like roar.
The sword strike born from the single-minded conviction to personally tear apart and kill any heaven that dared try to suppress him.
And my one and only sword that ultimately won him his wife, and granted him an eternal companion....
"Kuaaaaaaaaagh!!!"
It was cutting me.
Mercilessly. Without hesitation.
From my right shoulder down to my left flank.
Beneath the long drawn-out gash, crimson fragments of internal organs and white shards of bone mixed and spilled out.
"You bastard...Daring, daring to use my sword...!"
"[Hmm, still not dead even from this. Is it because of the 'Time' you spent training?]"
Within his blurring vision.
Chrono smiled brightly and raised the scythe overhead.
"[But it's a really strange thing.]"
He simply smiled, unchangingly.
As if happy. As if he'd die of joy.
As if every single moment of this time was so enjoyable he could die of happiness.
—Sgak!
"[In the first place, you, you've never once trained a day in your life, right?]"
"Heup?! Eu...Aah....Ah??"
His leg was cut.
The experience of being cut by something was familiar.
Familiar, so very familiar that this pain should no longer be strange, and yet...
"It huuuuurts!!!"
The sensation of skin being sliced.
The sensation of flesh being crushed.
The sensation of muscles snapping and bones crumbling.
It hurt.
It hurt so much.
It hurt so much that tears welled up in his eyes.
'This can't be...there's no way...'
That such a simple wound would make his, his leg—
"Keuh...eo-eo-eok?!!"
—It was shriveling up.
His right leg, packed with muscle, trained through blood and sweat, began changing into that of a gaunt, decrepit old man.
His body aging.
His flesh weakening.
The moment he was ceasing to be himself.
—Tuduk...
"[Oh!]"
"....No..."
A crack appeared on his sword.
The sword forged of his soul.
The sword that contained his entire lifetime began breaking down.
"[Is it because it's forged from the soul? When the soul itself weakens, the sword weakens too?]"
"No...Stop, stooop...!"
In that moment, the man denied it for the very first time.
"[Mm-hmm. Well, that's how it is, right? Normally, affirming oneself also requires 'Time,' after all.]"
"Don't...I said stop, you fucking bas—Kuaaaagh!"
His left leg, his left foot.
The proof of his training. The time of his training was disappearing.
"No...This can't be, this can't be happening...!"
He was changing, little by little.
From the self that had always been so confident.
Into the form of a merely old and ugly man.
"[Ah right, taking this chance, I'll give you back your arms too! No need to thank me too much!]"
"Ah....Aaaagh...!"
If hell existed, surely it would be this very place.
When even his reason was no longer intact—
"Stop...."
"[.....Huh?]"
"I said stop it, you fucking bastard!"
"[..........]"
Someone came running.
Running up, she raised her sword and shouted.
"This much is more than enooough!!!"
"[...........]"
Mars's intrusion.
She appeared holding her sword in both hands and stood against Chrono.
Solely to protect him. To protect her father.
And Chrono, seeing this—
"[Mars...You've been 'brainwashed' too?]"
"What...?"
[Don't worry, Mars! If I just erase the very moment of the brainwashing, you'll return to normal!]
"No, wait, hold—Kyaaaagh?!!"
—And just like that, he swung Squite's blade toward Mars.