Kryo’s hand moved with terrifying speed—faster than Northern himself was moving. The Origin seized him by the jaw, instantly killing his momentum, hoisted him into the sky, and slammed him to the ground.
The ground convulsed violently, cracks spreading in an instant as debris exploded into the air.
Northern bounced up and coughed blood. Before he could recover, the Origin had snatched him by the throat. Then the world parted before them. They did not move, but Northern felt his scenery blur and continue to blur. His mind tried to make sense of what was happening to him—why it felt like everything around him was unraveling while he alone was left behind.
But the more he tried to understand, the more abandoned he felt. He struggled to grasp any fragment of reality. His mind felt shattered into pieces as he was hurled across distance at terrifying speed.
By the time the speeding landscape paused, Northern entered a state of unconsciousness—not the kind that led to enlightenment. He simply blacked out from the velocity.
Kryo looked down at him with a pitiful expression, his eyes cold as winter stone. He clenched his hand around Northern’s neck, lifted him up, and drove his fist into his stomach.
The punch expelled a blast of air from Northern’s back that detonated against the ground, razing everything like a bomb. Stones disintegrated and exploded into the air with tremendous force.
The Origin, with a straight face, drove into Northern again a second time. This time the surroundings suffered catastrophic damage.
The moment his fist connected with Northern’s abdomen, he was jolted from his fainted state. A circular shockwave erupted, obliterating the ground and valleys around them. Kryo’s hand, from the point of contact, generated crimson lightning that streaked around the markings of the circular devastation.
Northern’s eyes bulged as blood exploded from his nose, mouth, and ears.
The Origin struck with a blow first, then with imperceptible speed, opened the strike and, in the same breath, attacked with the tip of his fingers. He curled them back to a fist and hammered Northern’s gut five times in the span of a single punch.
Nothing was perceived at first. Then five consecutive shockwaves of tremendous air blasts exploded from Northern’s back with such force that even the Molten Vein armor could not endure—it exploded into jagged pieces from behind, leaving Northern’s back completely exposed.
Kryo did not stop there. He hurled Northern forward with devastating speed. They crashed into a forest, and he held Northern’s head forward, crushing it through countless trees.
Massive trees that had stood for hundreds, perhaps even thousands of years, were shattered to splinters by the force with which he hurled Northern.
He paused somewhere in the middle of the forest. His sudden stop generated a tremendous shockwave that blew backward all the surrounding trees—their leaves and branches flew as if assaulted by a terrifying hurricane, yet they still managed to hold on.
He suddenly lifted his foot off the ground, holding Northern by his head above a pile of dirt. Then he spun with tremendous speed, whirling so fast that he became a literal tornado, carving deep grooves of destruction into the earth.
The trees that had struggled to hold before were now being uprooted with ease, flying around the tornado in circles. At the tip of this whirlwind was Northern—his eyeballs had rolled back, his mouth hung open with drool scattering everywhere as he was swept along by the tide of unstoppable force.
As Kryo released him, Northern exploded across the distance, rolling as he crashed and tumbled through the rest of the forest, destroying trees with a force that resounded across the heavens like the destruction of the world itself.
He blacked out for a moment, unable to stop the momentum. He was growing weary, and his body was moving at a pace far greater than his mind—which he presumed was fast—could catch up with.
Northern finally crashed into a high slope of the mountain. His impact generated a shockwave that exploded across the entire peak, sending a massive eruption of dust into the heavens.
Silence fell over the atmosphere as the dust thickened into fog, shrouding that portion of the forest.
Meanwhile, Kryo, who was far behind, walked forward slowly. His expression remained stone-cold—not an iota of emotion on his face as he marched toward Northern.
He turned his head slightly to the left and stopped. Barely a millisecond later, a black light streaked past, cleaving the entire forest in its wake.
The impact as it connected with Kryo caused another shockwave that exploded into the sky—splintered trees and sand erupted skyward.
Chaos Prince dove through the mist of dust, only to see his father holding the shimmering black arrow forged from void essence.
But he was not surprised. He was even smiling as Kryo clenched his hand around the arrow and crushed it into fragments that vanished in the air.
"Are you even taking this seriously?"
Chaos Prince forced out a small laugh upon hearing his father’s words.
"Actually, I should be asking you—aren’t you taking this a bit too seriously? Do you actually intend to destroy us both?"
Kryo’s gaze turned deep, dark, and cold.
"There wouldn’t need to be such measures if you just handed over the void."
Chaos Prince laughed again, more eerily. Then he bared his teeth with closed eyes, grinning at his father.
"No, Father!"
Kryo turned back too late. Even as he did, he collided with the force from behind and was sent reeling through the ground.
Both of them exploded from the forest with tremendous speed, shooting toward the sky with a force that flattened the forest beneath them.
Kryo, with intense effort, tore himself away from Northern’s iron grip. He clenched his fist and struck Northern’s cheek. A tremendous force exploded outward, but instead of flying away from the impact, Northern absorbed it instantly.
Kryo struck Northern again, but the force died down immediately. Another blow—the force vanished. More and more, and the power actually began to diminish.
He then glared at Northern as if the boy were a parasite beneath his skin.
"I have no use for you. Just die."
Northern grinned maniacally.
"No, you fucking retard. The only one dying today is you. Let’s see if you can handle your own attacks!"
Northern hurled his head back and smashed it into the Origin’s skull. Using Full Impact’s Recoil, he returned every absorbed blow in one devastating strike.