The void had not grown kinder.
Chronos stood beneath the pendulum, its toll shaking his bones. Each swing echoed through the black, each drop of silver sand hissing like fire. The beasts had changed. They no longer came in endless swarms. They came as hunters—fewer, stronger, more cunning.
Their eyes glowed with fractured futures, their claws shimmered with stolen seconds. They no longer attacked blindly. They circled. They waited. They struck when his guard faltered.
Chronos' scars burned. His chest heaved. But he did not fall.
The second year had been spent in refinement.
Acceleration was no longer reckless speed. At first, he had hurled himself faster than his body could endure, tearing muscle and snapping bone. But now he bent it with discipline. He learned to move in bursts, weaving speed into his strikes like a craftsman with a chisel. A claw swept toward his skull—he surged forward, faster than sight, his fist shattering the beast's jaw before it even realized it had struck.
Deceleration became control. Where once he slowed whole moments and drowned in their drag, he now layered his command. He could slow only a claw, only a falling stone, only a heartbeat of breath. He learned the art of precision, turning what had been a crushing weight into a tool.
Suspension remained the hardest. Even a grain of sand froze at the cost of fire in his veins, blood dripping from his nose. Yet slowly, painfully, he expanded. He caught not just grains, but droplets. Not just weapons, but fragments of beasts. They howled in frozen stasis while he cut through them piece by piece.
The toll was still brutal. His skin split. His chest screamed. His mind throbbed from the strain of holding eternity still. But his endurance grew. Each toll of the pendulum left him standing longer, bleeding less.
On the 400th toll of the pendulum since his first year ended, the void shook.
The sands split, and from them rose a beast like none before.
It towered tall as a fortress, its body shaped like a man but hollow inside. Its chest was a vast clock, pendulum swinging. Its face was a blur of shifting masks—Oceanus, Hyperion, Phoebe, Iapetus, his own reflection. Every second, the mask changed, as if mocking him.
It carried a pendulum of its own, black as midnight, and with each swing the void itself groaned.
Chronos' silver eyes narrowed. The void had shaped this trial for him.
The beast lunged, its pendulum hammering down. He accelerated, blurring aside. The ground split, sands scattering. He countered with a silver fist to the beast's chest—but the clock absorbed the strike. Sparks spat. The mask only grinned.
The pendulum swung again. This time, time itself twisted. His acceleration faltered. His body dragged, as if chained. The beast could bend time, too.
Chronos snarled, his emblem blazing. He layered deceleration over the swing, forcing its arc to crawl. The beast roared, breaking through. The pendulum struck his shoulder, sending him tumbling. Pain seared down his arm, silver blood dripping.
He staggered upright. His breath burned. His hands shook.
So this is my reflection. My shadow. My rival.
The beast lunged again. Chronos raised his hand. Suspension flared, ripping at his veins. The pendulum froze mid-swing, quivering like a trapped star.
Chronos surged forward, silver sands swirling. He struck the clock-face with everything—his fists, his will, his refusal to yield.
The glass cracked. The mask screamed.
The beast thrashed, breaking free of suspension, but its pendulum swung wild, its time unraveling. Chronos slowed its strike, accelerated his own, and shattered the mask into shards of silver dust.
The pendulum broke. The beast dissolved, screaming, into falling sand.
Chronos collapsed to one knee, sweat dripping, chest heaving. His shoulder bled, but his smile was faint and steady.
Even time itself cannot bind me. I will not be prey of the pendulum. I am its master.
For weeks after, he sat in meditation.
The void was no longer only black. The sands had changed. They swirled more brightly, silver threads weaving through the dark. The clock pulsed deeper, louder, as if acknowledging his victory.
He realized then—he was not just fighting within his realm. He was shaping it.
Every battle reshaped the void. The beasts grew stronger, reflecting him. The sands swirled brighter, carrying fragments of his victories. The pendulum tolled heavier, as though syncing with his heartbeat.
His realm was alive. And it was his to mold.
The loneliness was worse than claws or blood. No voices. No warmth. Only silence vast enough to crush thought.
Yet in his meditation, he reached outward. Threads shimmered in the darkness.
Oceanus' tide, steady and calm. Hyperion's blaze, prideful but warm. Phoebe's moonlight, silver and enduring. Tethys' rhythm, flowing in silence. Mnemosyne's memory, sharp as a blade. Crius' constellations, steady as maps. Themis' scales, heavy but true. Iapetus' fortress, scarred but standing. Coeus' scrolls, whispering softly.
They were faint, distant—but real.
Chronos whispered into the void.
We are apart, but we are one. Endure, my siblings. Endure, as I endure.
The pendulum tolled louder, as if answering. The sands stirred, silver winds curling around him like an embrace.
As the second year closed, Chronos stood taller. His scars no longer hindered. His stride no longer faltered. His eyes glowed with steady silver fire.
Acceleration was a blade. Deceleration was a shield. Suspension was a chain. He wielded them not as reckless tools, but as extensions of himself.
The void remained endless. The beasts still prowled. But the boy who staggered and bled in his first year was gone.
In his place stood something sharper, harder. A Titan who had begun to shape time itself.
Chronos raised his fist, silver sands swirling like a storm.
"Year two," he whispered, steady and unyielding. "Only the beginning."
The pendulum tolled, shaking the void. Shadows screamed. Chronos surged forward, silver light blazing, ready to carve the next year into eternity.