CHAPTER 75 — THE FALL INTO CHRONOS
The world had gone eerily quiet.
The winds that once screamed through San Juan's Rainbow Bridge stopped mid-gust, the raindrops hung motionless in the air, and even the echoes of battle froze in place.
Revo stood at the center of it all—his cloak torn, his golden hair flickering with the pulse of time itself.
His eyes opened, glowing with a swirling storm of gold and silver.
The symbol of the Chronos Element blazed on his forehead—a clock sigil spinning endlessly.
A voice whispered from nowhere and everywhere:
> "Chronos… awaken."
Reality cracked.
A sphere of light erupted around Revo, gears and hourglasses spinning in orbit like satellites.
Time reversed and accelerated in waves—broken stones repairing themselves, blood flowing back into the veins of the fallen, then spilling out again in looping cycles.
Revo's power had transcended mortality.
He was no longer a man bound by seconds—he was time itself.
---
Yaya, coughing blood, pushed herself off the cracked bridge surface. Her body trembled, her eyes feral with determination.
The cheetah Aura blazed around her, golden patterns crawling up her arms like molten stripes. Her speed had always been unmatched—until now.
"Chronos Element or not…" she snarled, her teeth bared, "you won't walk away from this."
Revo tilted his head, his expression calm—almost sorrowful.
"You run through time," he murmured, "but I am time."
He vanished.
A blur—a distortion—and suddenly Revo was behind her.
Yaya swung her arm, claws igniting with cheetah Aura, but her strike hit only after-images. He was too fast—or rather, she was too slow, trapped inside his timestream.
A devastating time-compressed kick caught her side, shattering her ribs and throwing her across the bridge. The impact cracked the pillars beneath.
She screamed—defiant, furious—and dashed back at impossible speed, crossing the distance in a blink. Their auras collided: blue lightning versus golden wind.
But then Revo's hand rose, two fingers glowing with the Chronos glyph.
"Timefold."
The very moment froze around Yaya. She hung mid-strike, inches from Revo's chest, her Aura suspended like paint on invisible glass.
Revo leaned forward, whispering softly in her ear:
> "You were fast, Agent Two. But time… has no predator."
Then, with a flick of his hand, the frozen world resumed.
Yaya was sent spiraling off the bridge, vanishing into the endless mist below.
"Goodbye," Revo said simply, turning his back as though brushing away a memory.
---
Below, chaos consumed the lower levels of the bridge.
Pisya and Herbet fought like elemental opposites.
She was elegance and deception, her Aura a haze of violet perfume that shimmered through the mist, warping the senses. Her eyes, deep as amethyst, lured the weak-minded into trance.
Herbet's body was battered, armor cracked, but his gaze stayed razor-sharp—eyes darting through the data overlays from his wristpad. His analytical mind was processing Pisya's movements at sub-millisecond intervals.
"Your data is… inconsistent," he muttered. "Too many irregular shifts."
Pisya smiled—a sultry, mocking curve of her lips. "Because I'm not data, darling. I'm desire."
She lunged. Her whip of condensed enchantment lashed toward him, slicing the air. Herbet deflected it with a kinetic shield, then fired micro-bombs that exploded in fractal blue flares.
Pisya danced through the chaos, her movements like liquid silk. She twirled, closing the gap, and her dagger pierced his armor—sliding into his chest, right above the heart.
Herbet gasped, pain blinding his focus.
Pisya pressed against him, whispering in his ear, "You could've been mine."
Her Aura pulsed—a pink wave spreading from her touch, infecting his neural interface. His mind flashed with illusions: visions of her smile, her body, her promise. His system screamed warnings—CONSCIOUS OVERRIDE DETECTED.
He staggered. The dagger twisted deeper.
Pisya kissed him gently on the lips.
"Sleep, my sweet inventor."
For a moment, Herbet's body went still. Then—his eyes opened again.
A deep blue circuit pattern carved itself across his face and arms. The ground vibrated.
He grabbed her wrist, voice robotic yet powerful:
> "Override denied."
Electricity burst from his core. The dagger melted.
His chest sealed with liquid metal, his systems rebooting.
Pisya stepped back, startled. "That's… impossible."
Herbet's voice grew distorted, layered with mechanical echo.
"Impossible? No. Upgraded."
His aura expanded into a storm of luminous digital glyphs—floating fragments of code forming weapons and armor around him.
He raised his hand. Techno Aura: Genesis Protocol.
A colossal mech arm formed out of pure energy—runic circuits glowing across its plates. The sky itself flickered with static.
The arm hammered down, connecting with Pisya's jaw in a thunderous explosion of power.
The impact launched her across the bridge, slamming her through several pillars before she crashed to the far end, unconscious but breathing.
Herbet stood over her, panting, his metallic aura humming low.
"I warned you. You can't seduce a machine."
---
High above, Revo extended his hand again.
The Chronos Element shimmered, and invisible threads of time latched onto Moro, Kaya, Kiro, and Wolf Hunter, suspending them mid-motion.
"Chrono Loop: Infinite Cycle."
They were trapped inside repeating moments—each of them frozen within the same three seconds, endlessly reliving it. Kiro's sword glinted mid-arc, Kaya's water aura kept circling, Moro's blue glow flickered like a heartbeat unable to complete its rhythm.
Revo observed their paralysis with detached admiration. "You are strong… but strength without time is nothing."
He turned to Herbet, who still stood firm, blood and oil dripping from his body.
Revo sighed softly, a faint smile of respect forming. "You learned to transcend emotion. Admirable."
He flicked his wrist. The time energy wrapped around Herbet, freezing him in place like a statue. His mech systems tried to resist, but Revo's control was absolute.
Pisya, limping but alive, crawled beside her uncle.
"He… can't be contained for long," she warned. "His mind is too adaptive."
Revo's gaze sharpened. "Then I'll reprogram him myself."
With one motion, he opened a Chronos Rift—a gateway of light and ancient glyphs. Time warped, space folded, and all five captives—Herbet, Moro, Kaya, Kiro, and Wolf Hunter—were dragged into the shining vortex.
Pisya followed Revo through. The portal closed. Silence reclaimed the bridge.
---
Miles away, thunder struck the ruins of Newsberg, the rusted junkyard outside San Juan.
Lightning ripped across the sky as a crater formed in the heart of the wasteland.
From the molten pit, a towering figure rose—muscular, dreadlocked, eyes like crimson suns. On each of his shoulders were three black stripes—marks of the tyrant.
He lifted a massive spiked club, its metal still glowing from the lightning that birthed him.
A grin curved across his scarred face.
> "Back again… after all this time."
The ground trembled beneath his steps.
KUZAK—The Conqueror of San Juan—had returned.
---
In the upper citadel of the city, Scaro leaned back in his chair.
The glow of a hundred monitors painted his face in blue. Each screen showed a fragment of the chaos: Yaya's fall, Revo's awakening, Herbet's transformation, and the rebirth of Kuzak.
He puffed on his cigar, the ember reflecting in his half-glassed eyes.
A slow, amused grin spread across his lips.
> "The pieces are moving," he murmured. "The lion, the wolf, the time-keeper… and now, the tyrant. San Juan won't survive this symphony."
He turned off the lights, leaving only the flicker of screens showing the frozen heroes trapped in Revo's time prison.
> "Welcome," Scaro whispered, his voice like a promise and a curse,
"to the end of history."