Blackout Ascension: Return of Primordial Heir-Chapter 33: Power of System

The Void trembled. In the frozen, colorless world of stopped time, the terrified scream of Algreth loudly echoed.

Algreth, the legendary Demon God of Time, was actually afraid, truly, deeply terrified. Because the Singularity was the crushing black hole meant specifically to erase reality itself had entirely failed. Kairos had walked right through it like it was nothing more than a light breeze.

Algreth looked his gaze fixed at Kairos’s face. He darted his eyes towards shimmering Asteria. The boy held it loosely, without any physical tension. Algreth finally realized the terrifying truth. He wasn’t just fighting a talented human boy. He was actively fighting with a terrifying beast disguised in human skin.

Kairos didn’t answer his frantic screams. He just took another slow step forward.

Algreth tightly gritted his teeth. The cold panic rising in his chest turned into a dark, desperate resolve. If he absolutely couldn’t kill the monster standing in front of him physically, he had to remove the monster’s very existence from the world entirely.

"Then I will simply erase everything," Algreth declared, his voice shaking with forced bravado. "If I absolutely cannot kill you here in the present... I will completely kill your past. I will brutally destroy you long before you are even born."

He raised his dark sword, Chronvolr, high upward into the grey sky. The legendary blade screamed loud. It vibrated in his hands, clearly sensing the forbidden, highly dangerous magic its master was about to unleash. "Total Time Erasure."

CRACK!!!

Thick, jagged black lightning pierced the dull sky of the frozen timeline. It was the raw destructive energy of pure paradox. Millions of fragile fragments of lost moments, forgotten memories, branching futures, and dead past realities... absolutely everything forcefully converged around Kairos’s body.

Every single version of written history focused on one single target. Algreth ragefully attacked Kairos’s personal timeline from every conceivable direction at the same time. He vehemently sent the destructive energy far back to twenty years ago, specifically aiming to erase Kairos when he was just a helpless, crying baby in a cradle. He sent the dark energy far forward into the distant future, aiming to erase the very dirt of Kairos’s future grave. He tried with all his divine might to completely erase the very concept and existence of Kairos Vedaryan from the universe.

Any normal, mortal being would vanish instantly under this pressure. Their physical body would dissolve. Even the fond memory of their smiling face would disappear from the loving minds of their own mothers. They simply would never have existed. But as Algreth pushed the spell to its absolute limit, he saw something lying far beyond his own understanding.

The massive erasure violently hit its target.

ZZZZZT!!

The paradox black lightning struck Kairos in the chest... and it simply blasted outward, scattering into harmless sparks.

Absolutely nothing happened.

Kairos just stood exactly there with an expression of confusion. He didn’t fade away. He didn’t scream or disappear.

Algreth was stunned. He rigidly stumbled backward as if he had been struck physically in the jaw by a giant. He looked closely at the specific timeline he was just frantically trying to destroy.

It was completely blank.

"No..." Algreth whispered, widening his dark eyes in absolute horror. "I erased your deep past. I erased your distant future. But... I saw absolutely nothing. There is nothing there. You are a fucking void."

He looked wildly up at Kairos, his entire body visibly trembling in the frozen air.

"Why? WHY CAN’T I SEE YOUR ORIGIN?!"

Kairos answered him trying to maintain calm, his quiet voice echoing heavily in the empty, grey void.

"I don’t know Algreth, Algreth," Kairos said softly. "Your attack is absolutely strong, but I don’t know why I am still standing."

I guess, this is something the bitchy system did to save my ass. This was my chance. Kairos frantically thought, darting his eyes on the demon.

Algreth felt his spine turn entirely to freezing ice. The dark sword Chronvolr trembled in his pale hand. The weapon was emitting instinctive thoughts, begging its master to escape. The legendary, divine weapon itself was deeply, genuinely afraid of exactly what it was currently pointing at.

"WHAT EXACTLY ARE YOU!?" Algreth screamed in pure terror.

Kairos simply stepped forward.

CRUNCH!!

The remaining sparks of black lightning shattered under his heavy leather boot.

Algreth desperately tried to retreat. He tried to teleport away to create distance, but Kairos instantly appeared right before him. He didn’t use speed. He used his overwhelming presence and immense, crushing pressure. He simply occupied the exact physical space he wanted to occupy, ignoring the laws of distance.

Kairos slowly lifted Asteria into thin air. He gently touched Algreth’s divine armor lightly with the sharp tip of the silver blade.

SLASHHH!!

A thin, shallow line appeared cleanly on Algreth’s chest plate. It wasn’t deep, but Algreth physically felt it. He felt it more deeply hurt his actual soul than any other wound he had ever taken in his immortal life.

Kairos slowly lowered his silver sword to his side. "You absolutely cannot defeat me, and you cannot defy me," Kairos stated.

Algreth looked deeply into Kairos’s dead, calm eyes, and suddenly, a suppressed memory flashed inside his mind. It was an old memory from hundreds of years ago. It was a dangerous memory he had been forcefully commanded to forget by an terrifying, unknown entity. It had been securely locked away in the deepest, darkest part of his demon core, completely hidden from his own thoughts. But staring into Kairos’s terrifying presence had unlocked the seal.

Algreth saw a blinding vision. He clearly saw a towering silhouette standing alone with absolute rage, looking up at a burning sky. It possessed a tremendous, brutal world-ending strength. It held a mighty, terrifying sword that could easily devour entire shining stars. It was a true nightmare.

"You..." Algreth choked loudly, thick blood suddenly leaking rigorously from his pale mouth. "You completely hid the terrifying truth the entire time..."

Huhh?? What truth did he mean? Kairos was confused. He didn’t know what Algreth saw.

Algreth knew, without a single shadow of a doubt, that he was going to die here. He looked closely at the young boy. He looked at the ancient, sleeping monster hiding inside the boy, and the proud Algreth finally made a choice. He refused to go out quietly.

"If I must fall right here," Algreth shouted, blood spraying from his lips, "Then time itself will absolutely not ever move again! I will take this frozen moment straight to hell with me!"

He instantly thrusted his Chronvolr high into the grey sky with both of his hands and slashed horizontally struggling like he was cutting a wall wide open.

"REALITY COLLAPSE!"

He tore apart every single remaining thread of the frozen reality surrounding them. The dull grey sky physically peeled apart like rotting flesh tearing off a bone. Space folded inward upon itself. The crystal world beneath their boots instantly vanished into terrifying nothingness. He was actively deleting the physical dimension itself. And right in the absolute middle of that crumbling, dying world...

[⚠️ALERT!!]

[GOD OF TIME IS TREMBLED]

[DESCRIPTION OF SPECIAL SKILL OF CONQUEROR OF TIME: CONTROL THE TIME AND SPACE AT YOUR WISH. THIS POWER WILL WORK ONLY ONCE TO COMMAND THE TIME TO REWIND, UNFOLD.. ANYTHING BY IMAGINING WHAT TO DO AND GIVE A COMMAND]

[COMMAND TO ACTIVATE SKILL: FALL]

Damn system, this one skill is a legitimate one needed now. Kairos thought with a faint grin on his face.

And Kairos finally moved. For the first time since the very beginning of the brutal fight... Kairos swung Asteria for real. He calmly fixed the silver sword straight up at the tearing sky, while thinking that the time should resume and the destruction should halt after the death of Algreth. "Fall."

[SKILL ACTIVATED]

[THE DESTRUCTION WILL REWINDED AND TIME WILL RESUME AFTER THE DEATH OF ’GOD OF TIME’]

Along with the skill, a massive beam of bright orange light ripped downward from far beyond the grey, broken sky. It was a Meteor. It was pulled from the distant asteroid path of deep space. The celestial rock descended right in the middle of frozen time. It burned brightly with the violent friction of atmospheric entry. It crashed violently into Algreth, carrying the immense, crushing weight of a dying star.

BOOOOOOM!!

The impact was silent within the time stop, but the raw kinetic force was unmitigated. Algreth saw the meteor crushing the Reality Collapse spell, but the skill did that. It completely crushed Algreth’s divine defense, utterly shattering his legendary armor.

Algreth was thrown deep into the dark core of the ground. Chronvolr was violently knocked off from his hand and clattered aside far from Algreth. When the explosion finally settled and the meteor vanished into void, Algreth lay broken on the pit of massive boulder size.

Kairos slowly approached him. Algreth slowly looked up at him. His dark eyes were unfocused, his chest heaving barely near to death. His breath was weak and utterly broken.

"You actually fought me this entire time while suppressing yourself..." Algreth whispered painfully, a very bitter, bloody smile weakly touching his lips. "You held back... so they would never actually learn what you truly are."

Kairos just held Asteria pointing down to the ground. "I don’t know who I am," Kairos whispered into the quiet air.

Algreth desperately pulled himself up to stand entirely with the sheer will of his broken ego. With a violently trembling, bloody hand, he reached out and grabbed Kairos’s collar. He just desperately wanted to know the truth before he faded away.

"How are you actually alive?" Algreth whispered, pure, raw desperation bleeding heavily in his weak voice. "How did you exactly...?"

I don’t know, you demon bastard. The fucking system done this miracle. Kairos stared with an unknown expression.

Algreth stared into those dead eyes for a very long moment.

Then, he finally understood. He was simply not worthy of knowing the answer. He was too weak. But Kairos didn’t know the answer to it, the system did it.

He slowly let go of the boy’s collar.

SLASH!!

Kairos rapidly moved Asteria, unleashing exactly one terrifying, deadly slash. To the audience watching from the stands, absolutely not even a single, microscopic second had passed since Algreth had first swung his dark sword down at the dragon.

The crowd only saw Algreth proudly raise his dark blade high to execute Pyrix and kill Kairos. Then, in the absolute blink of an eye... Algreth’s body simply collapsed forward. Time resumed the instant Algreth took his last breath.

THUD!!

Algreth lay dead on the restored arena floor. Kairos stood still before the fallen Demon legend, completely unharmed. His silver blade, Asteria, was dripping with the thick, shimmering fresh blood of a true demon.

The roaring flames of Pyrix unfroze and instantly began roaring wildly back into the bright sky. Thick dust hit the crystal ground. Rapid breathing resumed in the spectators’ stands.

Loud, terrified screams instantly returned. The massive crowd erupted in loud murmurs and total confusion, absolute horror, and undeniable disbelief.

"What the hell just happened?"

"He just... he just fell down?"

"How did a simple, mere human boy manage to cut a God so incredibly easily?"

"It honestly felt exactly like a massive eternity had just passed... but it was only exactly one single second."

Pyrix was still completely transformed in his massive dragon form. He was staring at the tiny boy standing below his chin with his massive dragon eyes wide open, filled with pure, unadulterated shock.

****

Up in the Royal Pavilion, Princess Seyana was still completely scared in pure fear, walking inside from the backyard. Her delicate hands were tightly clutching her racing chest. Absolutely no one in the stadium actually knew what had truly happened in the secret, grey world where time had stopped, where meteors fell, and where true power was revealed.

A simple, mortal boy had killed a terrifying Demon Legend without taking a single scratch, and the terrifying mystery heavily surrounding the quiet boy holding the shimmering silver sword had only just begun.

Whose exact silhouette does Algreth actually see?