Omni Pov
The Time Room flickered again—subtle changes in light that only a lunatic or a predator would notice.
Chrono noticed.
His eyes followed patterns like a hawk watching a world crumble in reverse.
Everything inside the room was made to break a man and build something worse in his place.
He had just eaten, if that's what one could call the black slab of protein and salt the Patriarch had thrown at him with a muttered, "Nutrition, not joy."
Now came the war.
The Patriarch stood with his usual sharp elegance—coat half-open, sweat untouched, watching with his predator's grin.
His fingers danced across the top of a glass vial he didn't even bother opening.
"Alright, my little time traveler," he said with a sing-song mockery.
"You've eaten."
"You've healed."
"You've screamed."
"Let's begin the part where you bleed intelligently."
He kicked something on the ground—a large humanoid mass rose from a pit, gears hissing, arcane seals pulsing across the surface like veins of molten metal.
It had no eyes.
No expression.
No breath.
But it moved.
"This thing," the Patriarch said, voice low now, almost reverent.
"Was used by the Emryss family to train soldiers who didn't deserve mercy."
"It feels pain."
"It doesn't stop."
"It will fight you like you're its killer."
"It has no soul, but it wants to kill."
Chrono's eyes, always cold and calculating, narrowed.
The Patriarch didn't blink.
"It's you or it."
And then he vanished into the dark edge of the room, leaving Chrono alone with the thing.
He walked in a circle around Chrono, boots crunching against fractured stone.
"Phase I : The Iron Pattern"
"Brutal."
"Minimalist."
"Predatory."
"The old families didn't dance."
"They survived"
"Pencak Silat, Muay Boran, Krav Maga, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu."
"Each strike is a message."
"Each counter, a reply."
"And the conversation? It ends in bone."
"Do you know why most martial arts exist?" he asked, walking in a slow, serpentine line behind Chrono.
"No, no—you don't."
"Most people don't."
"They think it's about honor."
"Discipline."
"Balance."
He spat.
"Bullshit."
Chrono remained silent.
Listening.
Watching without moving.
He'd learned the Patriarch didn't care for interruptions—unless they were clever.
The Patriarch smiled.
That razor-smile he gave before slicing someone down.
"The truth is, they were born from desperation."
"Ancient families trying not to get eaten."
"Magic wasn't always everywhere, boy."
"And even if it were... Most of us took a LOT of our life to learn to control it"
"People used hands and bones and teeth."
"That's the origin of every style worth remembering."
"Zion Style is older than dirt and twice as unforgiving."
He snapped his fingers.
The thing moved first.
Chrono's body lowered instinctively into a stance—knee out, arm tucked.
Not stylized.
Efficient.
The Iron Pattern, he remembered.
A brutal amalgamation of Pencak Silat, Muay Boran, Krav Maga, and Jiu-Jitsu—born in wars, honed in alleys, perfected in families that were hunted across centuries.
These arts were not designed to win tournaments.
They were designed to end a fight before it began.
Or drag your opponent into hell with you.
The dummy lashed with a vicious haymaker—inhuman speed.
Chrono dipped under it, pivoted, and drove his elbow into the dummy's floating ribs—or where they would've been.
The dummy didn't grunt.
It didn't fall.
It twisted and kicked with its entire body weight, slamming Chrono into the floor.
*Crack* *Crack*
Pain bloomed.
Bones hummed.
But Chrono's breath didn't quicken.
This was routine.
He rolled sideways, hooked the dummy's arm with his legs, and began twisting into a BJJ lock—but the dummy countered, pushed through, and began choking him without hesitation.
Black stars crept into Chrono's vision.
"Faster," he told himself.
He planted his foot against the thing's knee, spun, and slammed the crown of his head into its chin.
The thing flew back.
Chrono rose slowly.
Chrono kept going.
The Iron Pattern wasn't about flowing movements or beautiful kata—it was a catalog of kill options.
Headbutts.
Elbows.
Breaks.
Counters.
Reversals.
Every part of the body was a weapon if you didn't care about being loved.
Chrono didn't.
He moved like someone who studied chaos under a microscope.
There was no hesitation.
No wasted motion.
The dummy threw a flurry of blows.
Chrono absorbed, redirected, trapped, countered—a seamless transition from stand-up brutality into grappling.
Twist.
Knee.
Lock.
Snap.
It kept coming.
The Patriarch's voice echoed from the shadows.
"Zion Style – Physical Route," he said, voice low and mocking.
"You are not learning to fight."
" You are learning to rewrite reality with your hands."
"You know," he said.
"Most kids cry."
"You don't."
"Makes me wonder... maybe the world hurt you before I did."
Chrono didn't blink.
"Everything's a transaction."
"Pain for power."
"Loyalty for knowledge."
That made the Patriarch stop.
Smile wide.
"Spoken like a Zion."
He had vanish.... Again.
Chrono was bruised, bleeding, lips split.
Still, he moved.
Still, he calculated.
He had no delusion of mastering the Iron Pattern in a week, a month, maybe not even a year—but he had the gift:
That cold, clinical fixation on improvement.
That obsessive mimicry.
That predator's patience.
He was learning how pain moved through his body.
Learning the weight of time without using magic.
That was the brilliance of it.
The Patriarch wasn't giving him power.
He was forcing his body to become a vessel capable of withstanding it.
The Time energy would come later, the Patriarch had said.
But first—Chrono's body had to learn to bleed correctly.
He moved his eyes during a time freeze once.
That meant progress.
That meant his body had already begun adapting to time distortions—mutated by radiation, sharpened by madness.
The Patriarch had seen it.
And that's why he was smiling behind the darkness now.
Later that month.
When the usual session ended, when Chrono lay panting and the dummy finally slumped into its hibernation pose.
the Patriarch walked back in, slow, deliberate.
"You're learning, Chrono."
His voice turned from mockery to something that sounded like approval—but carried a razor underneath.
"You think this is just muscle and reflex? Hah."
"No, no."
"You're giving your cells a reason to survive time itself."
"Every scream your nerves send out is a song for evolution."
"And here's the part you'll love—this madness?"
He leaned in, eyes glowing with something cruel and fatherly.
"It worked on me."
"My father before me."
"It's tradition."
"A gift."
"It's how we Zions love."
Chrono didn't answer.
He just nodded.
One, slow motion.
Controlled.
But in his mind?
He was cataloging the Patriarch's every phrase. Every scar. Every laugh.
Not just to survive him.
But to one day surpass him.
Another month passed by.
Chrono knelt under the crushing pressure of triple gravity, part of the regimen's Gravitational Grafting.
His arms quivered in a plank, sweat dripping like acid.
From the shadows, the Patriarch watched with a violin in hand, playing erratic, violent notes.
"Rememberrrr...The body must adapt before you ever dare to tame time," he sang.
"Your cells need to feel time like a second skin."
"You rush it, you die."
Chrono focused inward.
His bones screamed.
His spine felt molten.
But his mind searched for patterns.
The bruises on his knuckles matched the scarring in old Zion diagrams.
The way his shoulder rotated during throws resembled ancient carving stances.
Everything was connected.
Everything was a design.
He grunted.
Lifted.
Held.
Survive.
Analyze.
Repeat.
Final trial of the first year.
The duel resumed.
The Patriarch was relentless.
Chrono parried low.
Locked the elbow.
Dropped.
Time stuttered for a millisecond.
Not magic.
Instinct.
The Patriarch blinked.
"You moved your eyes during that freeze."
"Again."
Chrono smirked.
"Adaptation."
They clashed.
Chrono launched the Fang of the Hollow, a brutal low-line sweep kick followed by an upward strike to the neck.
The Patriarch twisted, countered with the Jaw of the Tyrant—an elbow feint into a throat push.
They stood, both breathing hard.
And then the Patriarch said it, quiet, almost... fond.
"You're learning more than pain."
"You're learning us."
Chrono stared.
Something beneath the predator logic stirred.
Not warmth.
But pattern recognition.
Bond.
The seed was planted.
The Zion Style had begun.