Ranker Who Lives Twice

Although his expression and words were like those of a kid who was telling on someone who had roughed him up, Yeon-woo’s tone and cadence sounded mechanical, like he was reading from a textbook. However, this was something Kronos enjoyed.

“Oh my! You’re not injured anywhere, are you? You’re still too weak.” Kronos played along. It was the kind of conversation he’d always hoped to have with his sons after his wife’s illness was cured.

However, Kronos’ use of the word “weak” provoked Yeon-woo and made his eyes twitch. “Weak…you say?”

“Hmm? I must have hit a sore spot. But, am I wrong? It’s stupid to get beaten up by these guys. I didn’t raise you like that, son.”

“I don’t believe you raised me in the first place?”

“Since we’re married, whomever Rhea raised, I also raised.”

A thought crossed Yeon-woo’s mind to just cancel the Summon of the Dead. He hadn’t expected his reunion with his father would be like this. He’d been hoping that they would defeat the Demonism together and then catch up. However, Yeon-woo was only receiving bruises and cuts!

Kronos burst into a large smile as if he found it cute to see his son holding down the anger that constantly reared its head.

Yeon-woo frowned. “What’s so funny?”

“Well, everything is.” Kronos, who had always seen Yeon-woo with a serious and unsatisfied expression, couldn’t help smiling. He was having a lot of fun.

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Yeon-woo became even more annoyed by that look. That damn father… It seemed that he and his father were just not compatible. They would probably clash often since they had such different thoughts and expectations.

“Anyway.” After laughing for a while, Kronos wiped the tears from his eyes with his index finger and smiled. His eyes now reflected a sense of pride—the pride of a father who could see how well his son had grown. “It is very nice to meet you like this, son.”

“Yeah. I’m pretty happy as well. Although, I didn’t know that my own father would appear this way,” Yeon-woo continued sulking as he squinted and glanced at Kronos, who was smiling and looking at him with a kindly expression.

Smile. Yeon-woo didn’t even realize that a faint smile had appeared on his lips.

“That’s right. I thought we would meet again on Earth. I never thought it would be in a place like this. Let’s see… How many years has it been?”

“It hasn’t been that long ago for me.”

“That’s right. It wouldn’t have been very long according to how much time has passed for you. To be honest, I don’t have many memories…” Kronos smiled as his words trailed off.

Yeon-woo looked at his father and realized that Kronos was looking at him yet focusing on something else. He could easily guess what it was. Even though Kronos had closed his eyes after dividing the spring, Vigrid was like his alter ego. It was likely that Yeon-woo’s accumulated experiences were inside Vigrid, and now that Kronos had regained his ego, he was probably reflecting on Yeon-woo’s past experiences.

Yeon-woo felt strange about it. What did his father, who had stayed by his side and supported his efforts, think of him? He probably saw Yeon-woo as a child playing with danger as if it were fire. Children always stayed young to their parents. Yeon-woo’s chest tightened with a not-entirely unfamiliar feeling. He didn’t want to let it go.

As Yeon-woo and Kronos enjoyed their reunion, the Demonisms ground their teeth at being ignored.

『While I’m standing here…!』

『Are they fooling around?』

『Father and son, they’re both despicable!』

They had been taken aback when Kronos unexpectedly manifested, but they quickly understood the situation and began talking once more.

“Oh, are you all still here? From the start, you guys have been able to read the room! Hmph!” Kronos looked displeasingly at the guys who ruined the good time he was having with his son. “Well, even if he’s such a weak son, he said you hit him. As his father, I can’t just let this happen without doing something.” Kronos twisted a corner of his mouth.

Whoosh!

The world of Kronos’ conscious mind shook again, this time due to another reason. Yeon-woo had felt intimidated when Demonism shook the conscious mind, but when his father did it, it simply felt comfortable, as though he were in a warm embrace.

On the other hand, the Demonisms grew astonished and their expressions stiffened now that their plan to take over Kronos’ corpse had been interrupted when Kronos regained his ego. Kronos’ true body was responding to Kronos now.

Sss. Kronos’ darkness appeared and began to push away the Demonism’s darkness, which had just seemed to be on the cusp of taking over the world of conscious mind.If the Demonism’s darkness was cloudy and sticky like a swamp, Kronos’ darkness was like the night sky. Though it was the same darkness, the sensations were completely different.

After a long period of time, the spring had been rewound. Although the spring was only half its original size, it had been enough to awaken Kronos’ true body out of its deep sleep. However, due to the incomplete clockwork, Kronos didn’t have complete control over his body.

The Demonism had also been a part of Kronos’ Consciousness, and so it still had command over Kronos’ true body. It was difficult for Kronos to completely take over his own body with only half of a spring. However, Kronos thought that this level was sufficient. No matter how much Demonism struggled to become the owner of his true body, what could he do with the real owner present?

“How dare a mere portion of the Black King’s darkness—no better than a servant—covet the king’s possessions? You don’t know how serious of an offense this is, do you?” Kronos said arrogantly as he released his destructive powers. It seemed that Kronos had returned to the time when he’d been young and known as an unpredictable scoundrel. His eyes, which reflected his determination to stomp on lesser beings, pierced through the crowd of Demonisms.

The faces of the Demonisms all turned red and green when they heard the word “servant”. When they thought of how Kronos had treated them in the past, they could not help getting angry. Kronos was implying that they were little more than tools.

The Demonisms were about to protest when Kronos suddenly wrapped the darkness around his hand.

『What…!』

“Too noisy. That’s why…”

Whoosh!

“Let’s close those snouts a little bit.”

He chopped the air with the blade of his hand, drawing a long line in the space that the Demonisms occupied.

Boom! Boom! Soon, an enormous chain of explosions blasted out like falling dominoes. All the Demonisms near the line burst. The Demonisms screamed. Those whose limbs had been severed and even those with very small scratches watched as their injuries exploded in a blast that devoured them. It was death at work.

As he violently wound the spring of death, Kronos gained holy power and forced it into the Demonisms. He had spread his divine domain like poison and forced the Demonisms into it.

‘Is it possible to use one’s divine domain in that way? That doesn’t even seem like the limit in the power and use of a divine domain.’ Yeon-woo’s eyes widened as he watched Kronos fight. Although Yeon-woo had seen other gods use the same weapons, Kronos’ way of using them was different.

The gods normally used their skills and divine powers to overwhelm their opponents and crush them with the power that originated from their domains. However, Kronos was using the divine domain itself as a weapon. There was a high risk that the divine domain might be damaged, but Kronos expanded his divine domain and used it to swallow his enemies without any concern.

Kronos himself was like a sword. Vigrid, the secondary name for the sword, meant “battlefield”. It seemed more like its true name at this moment.

‘He’s pushing all the Demonisms into the concept of death itself.’

His father had only recovered part of his powers, but he was still an immensely strong being. Yeon-woo could not help exclaiming in admiration as he watched Kronos fight. He felt as though he were gaining a new understanding once more.

His father’s level of progress was also very different from that of his master. Yeon-woo’s master had reached the heights of a martial artist, but his father was teaching him what a true divine being was. Yeon-woo felt like he was being presented with a new path to develop the legends of death and fight he had been building up.

Kronos was thrilled to see his son’s admiring gaze, so he grinned and started swinging his hands more quickly and indiscriminately. Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! The Demonisms’ severed necks and limbs flew in the air as explosions blasted over and over.

『How dare…how dare…!』 The Demonisms realized that they could not let things continue in this manner, so they gathered the remaining darkness and combined to create a colossal figure whose body was large enough to cover the entire world of Kronos’ conscious mind. It was so large that one would think that the true body of Kronos had appeared. Its aura alone had a tremendously destructive amount of power.

As the figure slammed its hand down, a gust of wind and calamities like fire arrows and icy hail fell violently. Perhaps because he didn’t want to underestimate this new attack, Kronos gathered the darkness in his palm and shot it out. Soon, dense barriers appeared one after another, repelling all the disasters.

Bam! At the same time, Kronos opened space and quickly moved, appearing on the left side of the figure. He stretched out his hand and murmured, “Scythe.”

Rip! A gigantic scythe appeared in his hand. It resembled Vigrid’s variant, Harpe, but was much larger in size. When Kronos had the god of kings, he had formed this beloved weapon from the crystals he collected from Mother Earth’s belly button, which was known as the “Fountain of Revenge”, after her fall. This weapon, which had terrified many and represented the king of Olympus, appeared in the world once more.

Of course, the real Scythe had been destroyed by Zeus after he usurped the throne, but since this was the world of Kronos’ conscious mind, it was possible to materialize anything he wanted. “It’s been a long time.”

Zing! Scythe shook violently as if responding to Kronos’ words. A smile formed on Kronos’ face. How he missed this feeling. Scythe was the prototype that Vigrid was based on. However, this Scythe was lacking in many ways compared to the real Scythe. The real Scythe had been made exclusively for Kronos, and it could increase the powers of his divine domains of time and death to their highest levels.

All living beings, mortals and transcendents, had their own time. Scythe was designed to cut that time and lead them to death right away. It was a cheat code.

『Y-you…!』 The Demonism recognized Scythe and tried to shout something.

“What? I can’t understand what you’re gibbering about. Is it because you’re a loser who couldn’t even become a god?” Kronos sneered and slammed Scythe down. Boom!

『Argh!』

Scythe mercilessly passed through the figure’s left arm, and murky darkness spewed out like blood from the wound.

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Boom! The figure fell to the ground, screaming. As it wobbled around, the world of conscious mind shook. The Demonism did not even blink an eye at pain, but Scythe’s strike was too painful. When Demonism tried to restore his left arm, the darkness could not even flow near the wound. The remnants of death that Scythe left behind did not permit recovery. Yeon-woo could not hide his surprise.

“Well, I guess I couldn’t finish him off in one go.” Kronos looked dissatisfied even after his monstrous attack, clucking his tongue. If he were in his prime, he would have beheaded the Demonism in one go. His relatively weaker strike was due to the missing divine domain of time in his spring. “Well, it doesn’t matter anyway, right? If I cut it apart until it dies, that’s good enough.”

Kronos laughed coldly and jumped off the shoulder of the Demonism. His body seemed to blur and he became gusts of black wind that slashed around the Demonism.

Kronos had developed this power through his countless lives as a hero.

Whoosh! Boom! Boom! Boom!