Time did not flow backward so much as it peeled. Layers of reality tore away in silent sheets, each one briefly visible before collapsing into nothing. Stars smeared into pale threads, then unraveled entirely. Light forgot its source. Distance lost meaning. There was only motion without direction, like falling through memories the universe no longer wanted.
Color drained, returned, then fractured again—epochs bleeding through one another. Mountains rose and sank in the span of a breath. Oceans flashed into existence and vanished like afterimages. The sensation was not speed, but erasure, as if causality itself was being dragged in reverse, screaming without sound while the machine carved a single, irreversible path through time.
Chronis's eyes opened. He looked around and realized he was inside a house. The air was still, unfamiliar yet strangely intact. Beside him stood Serik—alive, whole. The others were gone. It made sense. They had not arrived together; they had scattered, each returning to their own place in time.
He turned to Serik, who now stood as a sixteen-year-old—handsome, composed, unchanged at the core. They were in Serik's house.
Serik's eyes opened as well. He stared at Chronis, stunned, disbelief written plainly across his face. His lips parted, and after a moment he spoke slowly, almost afraid of the answer."Chronis…?"
"Yes," Chronis replied calmly. "We have successfully traveled back in time. We retain the memories and experiences of the next three hundred years. With that knowledge, we can rise to the top and achieve our goal. We may not even need the others anymore. We can find better, more compatible people—pieces easier to shape, to use, to our advantage."
Serik did not respond immediately. He only looked at Chronis, then let out a quiet, incredulous laugh. "Have you still not noticed?" he said. "Look at your body."Chronis did—and for the first time, even a cold, cunning, calculative monster like him froze in shock. His body was no longer male. It had become that of a female.
This was a serious problem, because the sixteen-year-old Chronis could not simply disappear from the world and be replaced by an unfamiliar girl without drawing attention. The place they were in was an orphanage where Chronis and Serik had been living. That explained why Chronis and Serik had arrived together, unlike the other four who had also traveled with them in the time machine.
They had lived alone together since they were children, which was why they trusted each other more than anyone else. The other four who returned did not share a bond nearly as deep. Chronis and Serik had spent their entire lives in the orphanage, growing up side by side, bound together like brothers.
That bond could no longer be described the same way. Chronis had become a girl now—brother and sister, perhaps, if labels still mattered. But setting that aside, whether this body was male or female meant nothing to him. Chronis was not someone swayed by such trivialities. Beauty, fame, wealth—none of it held value. What mattered was the goal, and he carried three hundred years of experience to achieve it. This change was irrelevant to his resolve. Still, one question lingered: why had Serik returned unchanged while he had not?
The answer came quickly. It had to be the Aeon Node. It was never just a component to power the time machine—it was something far more complex, something he had never fully understood. Chronis had infiltrated the facility to steal it after kidnapping a professor, the same man who had told him about the one-way time machine and the mysterious Aeon Node capable of running it. That knowledge alone had been enough. Chronis had planned the theft, taken the Node, and used it to return to the past—never realizing that it might decide more than just when he arrived.
Why had Chronis gone back to the past? It was not regret, nor a desire to fix some mistake. The professor he had kidnapped, the man who helped build the time machine, his identity and importance—none of that mattered anymore. Once the machine was complete, Chronis had killed him without hesitation. The reason was far simpler, and far colder.
Chronis went back for one reason alone: to become stronger. This was a world where the strong ruled and the weak were crushed. The same court that had chased him to the edge of his laboratory could do nothing to Serik when he stood there and raised an energy barrier. Strength was the only law that mattered. And so Chronis returned to the past—not to change the world, but to dominate it from its very beginning.
part from raw strength, there were countless secrets—knowledge drawn from the future—that Chronis could now exploit to his advantage. This applied not only to him, but to Serik as well. The reason the other four had returned was the same: together, they had formed a small group with a single objective. It had taken nearly ten years for that plan to fully come together.
For the first two hundred years of their lives, Chronis and Serik had been weak—constantly skirting death, struggling just to survive, scraping together money however they could. Only much later did things change. They eventually rose to success, becoming skilled criminals known in the underworld, taking on increasingly daring operations. The reason they had been unable to achieve anything for so long was simple and brutal: they were orphans. They were poor. Compared to those born into wealth—children backed by money, influence, and stability—they had nothing, and that lack had defined their early lives.
Setting everything else aside, Chronis spoke."The priority now is to erase the sixteen-year-old Chronis from this world."
Serik listened without interrupting.
"He can't simply disappear," Chronis continued. "Chronis existed openly. If he vanishes without explanation, people will search. They will ask questions."
Chronis's eyes hardened.
"So he must die," he said. "Publicly. Burned alive, killed in an accident, or lost in a way that leaves no doubt. The method doesn't matter."
He paused.
"What matters is that the world is convinced that Chronis no longer exists."
Chronis looked at Serik and said,"After I disappear, the orphanage will be in chaos. People will talk. They'll whisper about what happened to Chronis."
He continued calmly,"That commotion is exactly when I'll join this orphanage again. A simple transfer. No relatives. Minimal background."
Chronis's eyes were steady."In a place like this, no one asks questions. Children come and go all the time."
The two had just settled on their plan when a sudden knock sounded at the door of Serik's room. Chronis reacted instantly—rolling off the bed and slipping underneath it, hiding before another second could pass.
Serik walked over and opened the door. A girl stood outside, blushing, a shy smile on her face.
"What happened?" Serik asked in a kind tone, even as he tried to remember who she was—this was three hundred years in the past, after all.
The girl spoke in a soft voice.
"Um… have you prepared for the upcoming competition exam being held by the school?"
Serik paused for a moment, thinking, then remembered what she was talking about.
"Oh, the competition is coming already, huh… I see."
He spoke again calmly.
"Yes. I've been preparing—exercising, practicing my magic, and trying to maintain my condition."
The girl nodded slightly and continued.
"I heard this competition is going to be quite challenging. Four schools in the city are going to take part."
She hesitated, then added quietly,
"The winner will be taken as a descendant by the Great Lord. Even those who place second or third will receive resources that can help them grow stronger."
Serik nodded and talked with her for a while before she finally left. He then closed the door and spoke quietly,
"It's safe. Come out."
Chronis came out from under the bed and spoke lightly,
"Wow, popular as ever with the ladies."
Serik was handsome, charming, and elegant in appearance. That image stood in sharp contrast to his true nature—one that, in the future, would be stained with blood as he killed countless people to gain power and achieve success. Yet at sixteen, he was simply that kind of person. Someone people naturally liked, admired, or followed—while others watched from a distance, envious and resentful, unable to look away.
Serik did not reply. He had long since grown past the point of caring about things like affection or hatred, about who liked him or what others thought of him. After three hundred years, such concerns no longer held any meaning for him.
In this world, lifespan was never a serious limitation. It could be easily extended through magic, science, or a fusion of both. Here, magic and science did not oppose one another—they complemented each other, intertwining to create power far beyond what an ordinary human mind could comprehend.
That was, of course, only if one managed to survive that long. This world was filled with risks and dangers at every turn, and longevity meant nothing if one could not endure the countless threats that came with it.
Leaving that aside, Chronis quietly made his way out of the orphanage, ensuring no one noticed him. Escaping was not difficult. He jumped out of Serik's window and dropped toward the ground below, using his experience to control the fall. His hands caught onto nearby surfaces to reduce the impact, and he rolled smoothly upon landing, dispersing the force through his body. Moments later, he was already on the city road ahead, unseen and unchallenged.
The chapter ends.