Northern stood with a dislocated jaw, blood streaming from his shattered mouth. One eyeball dangled from its socket; the other was drowning in crimson. His pristine white hair was slick with blood.
And yet, he was standing.
Northern himself didn’t know why. He was drowning in pain—an insane level of agony. So much that he should be screaming. But moving his mouth even that little had hurt like hell, so he couldn’t even cry out.
His bones were mangled, twisted into grotesque shapes. Horrifying when he thought about it. He’d fought countless monsters to date.
None had managed to land a hit thanks to void force, but still, Northern knew his body was strong—strong enough that no strike should have bent his bones into this pitiful state.
Kryos’s raw strength was terrifying. It made Northern want to walk away from all of this. The pain was so intense he wanted to just collapse somewhere and die peacefully. Because the thought of healing—of enduring that agony—was even more terrifying.
Every inch of his body screamed with hypersensitivity. Any slight touch registered as searing pain, like a kick to the groin.
Yet he was standing.
Actually, he wished he wasn’t. But he was.
And worse... he was healing. But so agonizingly slow that Northern figured he’d be better off dead.
He shot a death glare at Kryos with his one working eye.
’I can’t die without dragging this bastard down with me. Now would definitely be a good time to use that Chaos... and destroy the balance of the world. Because every inch of me hurts like hell and I don’t care!’
Northern bent slightly and limped forward.
Kryos looked at him and burst out laughing.
"What are you going to do in that state? Spit blood on me?"
Northern chuckled.
"You mean grace you with the radiance of my blood? Tch, you’re not worthy of it."
The next moment, torrents of black arrows hammered the ground with devastating force, obliterating everything.
Chaos Prince landed and immediately grabbed Northern by the collar, hurling him away while shouting.
"Take care, my partner! Tag!!"
He grinned maniacally at his father and launched one blow his way. Kryos regarded his son with a cold, distant expression, the golden glow of his eyes simmering with disdain.
A confident smile played at the Chaos Prince’s lips. His expression was calm yet taunting.
"Father, shall we pick up where we left off?"
Two pairs of wide black wings erupted from his back—one pair at his upper back, another at his lower. All four curved maliciously and descended on Kryos with bullet-like speed.
He bombarded the Origin with the razor-sharp edges of his void wings, spawning feathers sharper than blades and controlling them to swirl and attack Kryos from all directions.
Yet the Origin was fast enough to counter them all. His movements were escalating, blocking with instantaneous speed, his hands moving as if they were already there.
Every onslaught shattered and flew back, the feathers bending as his hands parried them away.
Chaos Prince opened his hands. Black spears manifested in the air and pierced down toward his father. But Kryos shattered them with his fist.
Anki knew his entire body was still processing the void. It would take time before he could properly control it. The smarter choice after absorbing the void would have been retreating into hiding until he’d mastered it, then emerging.
But this was the only window he had to retrieve the rest of his soul from his father’s gut. And he couldn’t afford to miss it.
Moreover, this opportunity was a bonus. He’d been keeping Northern under close watch, observing the peak of his strength so he could prepare for that moment when he’d take everything from him.
The Void was just the beginning. Chaos Prince recognized that Northern was unique—he had something others didn’t possess.
That ability to create spawns had nothing to do with the Void. The Void merely exposed what already lay within. Chaos Prince was certain because he had the void now and could feel the connection of every being that existed in Northern’s soul. However, he couldn’t bring it to life.
Which was why he couldn’t let Northern die here. And he also couldn’t lose. He had one more reason to live.
Chaos Prince’s eyes sharpened with resolve.
’This time, I won’t fail.’
From below, black spears shot upward from the ground around Kryos. But the Origin suddenly released a shockwave of crimson and obsidian cloud, destroying and shattering all the black spears that should have impaled him.
The cloud began shaping into savage spears that seemed to pulse with life. And Kryos looked at his son with inhuman light blazing from his eyes, radiating supremacy.
A deliberate, knowing grin cut across his face as he pointed a finger at Chaos Prince.
"Is this how you do it?"
The Chaos Prince, recognizing what it was, forced a lame chuckle.
"Seriously?"
The spears lunged at him instantly, with devastating speed that shattered the atmospheric sound barrier in an instant. He moved to wrench himself away, but the spears surrounded him. There was no escape.
However, their trajectory was off—none came directly at him.
The Chaos Prince grinned.
"You should learn to aim properly before daring to copy my attack, old man."
The Origin, with an uncharacteristic look, simply turned his fingers. And all the spears that had missed Chaos Prince stretched and twisted. The ones flying at his sides bent—and no spear should ever bend like that, unless they were mad.
Chaos Prince’s eyes widened as he formed a cocoon of void energy around himself and solidified it. But it was flawed. The spears were too fast and had breached his perimeter before the cocoon formed.
One pierced his upper arm. Another impaled his thigh, rapidly injecting madness into his blood.
Inside the cocoon, Chaos Prince trembled and crumbled to his knees, eyes wide.
His father strode toward him with a slight smile.
"Do you actually think you can take me on... like this?"
Chaos Prince wore a blank expression, blood dripping from his mouth as the cocoon he’d created crumbled away. He looked at his father with cold hatred.
The Origin stopped before him and gazed down with mild disdain.
"All of you are worms at best. You, the worthless human, Ul—worms that I shall trample underfoot."