Leveling with the Gods

C375

He didn't remember when he had left.

He only knew it had been after giving birth to Zeus and his other sons, based on assumptions.

Banished from the world he lived in, not knowing what he had become.

Chronos wandered outside the world in that manner.

"You've been abandoned."

When he was banished from the world like that.

Swish...

Someone grabbed Chronos's hand.

"Foolish. Why do you look back at the world that abandoned you?"

Foolish Chaos.

No, in the world Chronos arrived at after being banished, it was called by another name.

'Ni###to###.'

A name he couldn't comprehend or express with words.

Chronos followed the hand reaching out to him and became what he was now.

But now...

Someone he had never seen in his life was speaking as if they knew everything about him.

"Why was I banished from this world?"

Chronos's expression twisted into a fierce one.

"Do you know the answer?"

A feeling of injustice and anger.

Various complex thoughts passed through Chronos's eyes through this connection.

His face remained the same, his abilities were still the same. The only thing that changed was that he could feel the energy of the Outsiders through Chronos, in addition to Arcane Power.

That is...

'It seems like it hasn't been fully assimilated.'

It was a kind of luck in the midst of misfortune.

If he had been fully assimilated into the other side, like Foolish Chaos or the Black Goat of the Woods, he couldn't have even had a conversation like this.

"Answer."

Tic, tac...

When Chronos increased his energy, YuWon felt the flow of time around him warping.

Clearly, there was an indistinct energy. He couldn't take it into his hands; it was like ungraspable fire or the force of gravity.

But time was an even higher energy than that.

The only energy in this Tower that only Chronos could handle. That energy was holding YuWon so that he couldn't move.

["Golden Cinder Eyes" resist "Chronos's Clock"]

["Gigantification" resists "Chronos's Clock"]

Swish...

Tic, tac...

YuWon's ability began to resist Chronos's energy.

It made no sense to have a conversation in this state.

A conversation must take place on equal ground. And for that, he had to resist this energy.

Crack, crackle...

["Uranus Heart" resists "Chronos's Clock"]

[Resistance successful]

Clang...

His fingers started to move a bit. They were the fingers holding the Uranus Heart.

So, when YuWon's arm rose.

Boom...

The Arcane Power released through the ring rushed onto Chronos.

Crack, crackle...

A Bolt passed swiftly, and the ground it traversed changed noticeably. Chronos crossed his arms to block the Bolt attacking him, and finally, YuWon found total freedom.

Chronos was pushed back by the force of the Bolt bursting out. There didn't seem to be physical damage, but his expression was one of surprise at finding out his ability had been evaded.

"Don't you want to talk?"

Thud...

YuWon took a step at the same time Chronos was pushed back.

"I don't just want to fight."

"It's more convenient to suppress you first to make you talk."

There's no moment when someone is more sincere than when facing death.

Chronos believed that.

That's why his plan was to first dominate YuWon to make him speak. He wanted to know how he knew him and why he had been rejected by this world.

However...

"No need for more words."

YuWon had no intention of having a lengthy conversation with Chronos.

Instead...

"I will show you."

Swish...

YuWon's two irises surged fiercely.

["Golden Cinder Eyes" resonate with "Chronos's Clock"]

[Sharing the Vision]

Golden Cinder Eyes.

An all-seeing eye that pierces truth and falsehood, understanding the essence.

And in those eyes, there was also the same power he had at that moment.

Swoosh, swoosh...

The world that YuWon and Chronos saw began to change. Their eyes started to resonate, and they saw a landscape completely different from the real world.

A long time ago, YuWon had shown similar memories to Son OhGong.

Back then, it was the joint manifestation of YuWon and the representation of Son OhGong, but now...

'I can do it on my own.'

Swoosh, swoosh...

The surroundings disappeared completely, and a new landscape was revealed.

The Rankers fighting against the goat weren't far away. Zeus, who had started releasing Bolts. Odin, squeezing a goat's head with one hand and punching it with the other.

Everything vanished.

A desolate wasteland.

However, not everything had changed.

"...What are you trying to show me?"

Chronos raised his head.

He didn't resist YuWon's ability. He could have, but his desire to know "why" outweighed any desire to resist.

At that moment, just after Chronos threw his question.

Thud...

A man with a hunched back appeared before him.

"It's annoying to see that sky over and over again."

His gaze, which seemed to have awakened recently, was drowsy.

Judging by his facial wrinkles and hunched back, he seemed quite elderly.

Although he had never seen that face before, it didn't feel strange.

It was natural.

After all, Chronos had imagined that face for a long time.

"Me... is that me?"

The image of himself aged and weathered from spending too much Time.

It was a distorted reflection of the image he had in mind.

"There's no other choice. Until the Outsiders completely disappear."

"Are you still there?"

Chronos, finding YuWon seated at the temple entrance, asked. Future YuWon, with disheveled hair, waved his bandaged arm.

"As you can see, my arm is like this."

His arm injured from the battle with the Outsiders.

More than half of the arm was in a state where it couldn't be properly used in combat.

"Is there any way to heal it?"

"It's not completely impossible."

"You've been through a lot. Should I try to heal it?"

"Don't worry."

"It's alright. If there really is no other way, we have no choice but to try it that way."

Chronos's ability was time.

Time.

Always present somewhere and at some moment, but because of that, he felt his power was nothing exceptional.

However, depending on the situation, time had a greater power than any medical skill.

If you rewound time and reversed a wound, it could heal completely.

But YuWon didn't.

"If you age more, you'll be an ugly old man, Ahjussi."

"Hahaha, you worry about everything. It's okay. It won't be noticeable if I age more here."

"If you want me to call you grandpa, you can go ahead."

Chronos knew that as soon as he used his power, he would age more and more.

It wasn't just the outer appearance. He became physically weaker, and he was gradually fading away.

"Would you like me to give you a little spoiler?"

YuWon raised his arm.

"In the end, my arm healed. You fixed it."

"Did I really risk my life to fix your arm?"

As if it were unimaginable, Chronos frowned.

Definitely.

YuWon was now a completely different person from back then.

"In reality, it was like that in the future, I should say."

"The future..."

Puzzle...

In Chronos's head, a puzzle that had been beyond his reach was solved.

Finally, he began to understand.

How the Player named Kim YuWon was created.

"I sent you here."

"Yes."

"We were much closer than I thought. We even had trivial chats like this."

Future YuWon and Chronos, facing each other, passed the time chatting without worrying too much.

A world on the brink of destruction.

The comradeship and camaraderie that had accumulated in that world, despite their current appearances, gave an idea of how solid they were.

However...

"So, what does all this matter?"

Chronos didn't care about that.

"Are you asking for consideration because we were close in the future?"

The events of the future hadn't happened yet.

They were events that were not important to Chronos, who lived in the present.

"During the time I got to this state, what did you guys do? You didn't do anything."

Woosh...

Chronos recalled what he had experienced outside that wall.

A second felt like decades, even centuries. Within that time, Chronos had been waiting for someone for a time as long as the universe, buried among countless Outsiders.

In the end, Chronos met Foolish Chaos.

Therefore, he couldn't accept this situation in the slightest.

A bond that didn't exist in the future wasn't important to him right now.

In the end, who rescued him was the existence outside there.

But that wasn't what YuWon was trying to say.

"It's not the time to blame anyone."

"What?"

"It was your choice."

Zzzz-.

The scene surrounding the two began to change.

The sky turned purple.

A blurry figure lying on the ground. YuWon and Chronos surrounded her.

And several comrades.

It was the last day of the future that YuWon remembered.

It was the memory of the day when Chronos sacrificed himself.

Crunch!

The Predator's fangs tore through another goat.

Beeeee!

The goat emitted a bleat. In an instant, the goat stopped attacking the Predator and instead started to flee.

"Baa, baa!"

And in the midst of the Predator and the goat, a small child danced as if excited.

"Heh."

Odin let out an ironic laugh as he watched the child.

He had no idea where that kid had come from, but it was clear that the Predator he had summoned was being of great help in the battle against the goat.

"I suppose for now, we'll consider it an ally."

While Odin's attention was focused on Danpung for a while.

"Mmm-."

Then, a goat grabbed Odin and bit him.

Boooom-!

Crash-!

Odin's elbow struck the goat's head. Then, the goat's body burst like a balloon and flew off towards the collapsed wall.

Thump, thud!

The goat that Odin had thrown was quite large.

It had likely increased in size by eating other Players.

Odin, having gained the attention of the goat, surveyed his surroundings.

Thud!

Squish, squish...

A golden rain of Bolts fell from the sky.

Zeus joined the battlefield. Furthermore, in various other Guilds, the fight against the goat had also begun.

With the help of the Predator...

"It seems like it will be resolved somehow."

Even if just one of the goat had appeared at the beginning, it would have been a big problem.

Still, it was fortunate.

Thanks to Chronos summoning so many Rankers, he had been able to prevent the goat flowing from the Outside from scattering throughout the tower.

'I've been too careless.'

If Zeus or he had been absent here, who knows what would have happened.

Anyway, Odin was confident in victory in this fight.

However...

-Beee-.

A bleat completely different from the bleats he had heard so far.

In an instant, a chill ran through his body. It wasn't simply because the bleat was inaudible or incomprehensible; he knew very well what a bleat was. It was because of the direction of the bleat.

'It can't be...'

Hoping it wasn't so.

Odin looked towards the still-ruined wall.

And in that moment...

-Beee-.

Odin could see it clearly.

Clearly, that thing had started to take interest in this side.

The gaze of the mother leading the "Thousand Young" was turning back towards him.