Fury had long since stopped counting the years.
In this abyss, time had no meaning.
His body never aged. His hunger never came. His thirst never gnawed at him. All that existed was the void, the endless battles, and the unrelenting march forward into an eternity of bloodshed.
At first, he had fought for survival. Then, he fought for strength. Now, he fought simply because there was nothing else.
He had lost track of how many creatures he had slain. Thousands? Millions? The abyss had thrown every nightmare imaginable at him. And he had cut them all down.
He no longer questioned why he was here.
He no longer cared.
Fury stood, katana in hand, his crimson eyes burning like molten embers. His cloak, once pristine, was now shredded and stained with the remnants of those he had killed.
His presence was no longer that of a mere human.
He had become something else. Something monstrous.
Then, the air shifted.
Fury tensed.
The void around him trembled. A suffocating pressure descended upon the abyss, so thick it felt as if the very concept of movement had been erased.
He knew this feeling. The sensation of death looming just out of reach.
A predator had arrived.
A deep, guttural growl rumbled from the darkness.
Then—it appeared.
A creature unlike any Fury had ever seen.
Towering at least fifty feet tall, its form was jagged and twisted, like an amalgamation of shattered time itself. Its body flickered between existence and nothingness, shifting between states that defied reality.
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Its eyes—two orbs of silver—held no hunger. No rage. No emotion. Only an unfathomable stillness.
Fury''s grip on his katana tightened. His instincts screamed at him.
This was different.
This was not an enemy he could just overpower.
Then—
Everything stopped.
The weight of his blade vanished. The faint sound of his own breathing disappeared. His heartbeat ceased. The world became motionless, frozen in time itself.
Fury''s mind screamed at him to move, to react—but his body refused to obey.
The beast didn''t move like the others. It didn''t charge at him with primal rage. It simply walked. Slowly. Methodically. Step by step, as if it had all the time in the universe.
Because it did.
Fury realized the horrifying truth.
This creature wasn''t just using time.
It existed outside of it.
It had never needed to pause and resume time. It simply was.
It could move freely while everything else was trapped in the endless void of stillness.
A flicker of movement.
The beast’s claw descended.
Fury could do nothing as it tore into him.
Pain erupted across his chest. Blood sprayed into the air, but even that crimson mist froze in place. His body was ripped apart at a speed his mind couldn’t even comprehend.
But he didn''t die.
He was still aware.
Trapped in a frozen second.
Then—time resumed.
The agony hit him all at once.
Fury lurched backward, gasping for air, his katana barely keeping him upright. His cloak was in tatters. His body was torn open, blood seeping from wounds that hadn''t even registered until now.
He exhaled, steadying himself.
The beast tilted its head. Watching. Waiting.
Fury gritted his teeth, wiping the blood from his mouth.
So that’s how it was.
It wasn’t stopping time.
It was removing him from time itself.
His grip on his katana tightened. "You’re a real pain in the ass, you know that?"
The beast didn''t respond. It simply took another step forward.
And once again—
The world shattered.
Fury''s instincts kicked in. He closed his eyes. Don’t rely on sight. Feel it. Sense the shift in the air.
His heart pounded.
Even if he couldn''t move in frozen time—
There had to be something.
Some opening.
Some flaw.
Then, he felt it. A single moment.
A sliver of existence where he was not erased.
It was brief. Smaller than a fraction of a second. But it was there.
NOW!
His katana whipped through the air—
SLASH!
The beast roared for the first time.
A deep gash tore across its obsidian chest. Its flickering form faltered.
Fury landed, his breath heavy, a smirk creeping onto his lips.
"Looks like you’re not untouchable after all."
The beast’s silver eyes narrowed.
Then—
The abyss collapsed.
The very concept of time itself fractured.
Fury''s vision distorted. He felt himself ripped apart across multiple frozen moments, his very existence stretched and shattered like glass.
It was no longer just erasing time.
It was breaking it.
A force unlike anything Fury had ever faced crushed him.
But he didn’t stop.
He refused to stop.
His body moved.
Faster.
He cut through frozen seconds. Through erased time. Through the very void itself.
The beast lashed out—
Fury dodged.
It tried to erase him again—
Fury countered.
His katana struck again. And again.
And again.
Then—
The final blow.
A single, devastating strike that carved through the abyss.
CRACK.
The beast''s silver eyes dimmed.
Its massive form crumbled.
And just like all the others—it dissolved into light.
Fury knelt, katana resting on the unseen ground. His entire body trembled.
Not from pain.
Not from exhaustion.
But from the sheer thrill of the fight.
Then—
The burning sensation returned.
His mind was engulfed in knowledge. His vision blurred.
New Skill Acquired: Temporal Rift.
His breath caught. The
ability to bend time itself.
A slow, dangerous grin spread across his lips.
He lifted his hand—
And for the first time, the world around him… stuttered.
Fury exhaled.
"Let’s see how deep this hell goes."