"Time's ticking, Chrono. Let's make it bleed."
The words still lingered in the air like the scent of burnt ozone.
Chrono barely had a moment to breathe before the Patriarch straightened his spine and rolled his shoulders.
*Crack*
*Crack*
He stepped forward, his boots clicking on the floating stone floor.
The glow from the Chrono-Core pulsed in sync with his presence, shadows flickering unnaturally across the curved walls of the chamber.
"We're done with the fucking chit-chat," the Patriarch growled, his voice a low rumble.
"Now we fight."
Chrono blinked.
"Fight? Like—now?"
A grin split the Patriarch's face, wide and crooked.
"Welcome to the part where you cry like a little bitch."
Chrono barely had time to lift his hands when the blow came.
It was fast—brutal—a blur that folded him in half with a sharp thud.
His knees hit the floor, air blasted from his lungs.
The Patriarch didn't wait.
Another strike—elbow to the neck—sent him sprawling across the chamber. Runes flared as his body skidded, absorbed and redirected by the sentient architecture itself.
Chrono coughed, tasting blood.
*Cough*
*Cough*
"You've got reflexes," the Patriarch sneered, circling him like a predator,.
"But they're still muggle reflexes."
"Flinches and fear."
"That's not fighting."
"That's surviving."
Chrono snarled, staggered upright, and launched himself forward.
A punch aimed straight for the Patriarch's jaw.
It never landed.
The air twisted—and suddenly the Patriarch was behind him.
"How fucking quaint," the Patriarch whispered into his ear before driving a fist into Chrono's ribs.
Bones cracked.
Chrono screamed.
"AHHHHHHHH"
He hit the floor again, gasping, arm trembling as he tried to lift himself.
"Do you know why you lost?" the Patriarch asked, squatting beside him, head tilted like a wolf admiring its prey.
"Because you fought like a normie."
"A meat fucking puppet."
"You tried to hit me like you've never seen magic in your pathetic life."
Chrono spat him blood, chest heaving.
"Heh"
"Cute"
The Patriarch stood, brushing invisible dust from his sleeves.
"Let me show you how a real wizard fights."
Time warped.
The room bent.
A second passed—no, a fraction—and the Patriarch blurred forward, faster than any eye could track.
He moved like liquid thought, every limb precise, every motion horrifying in its grace.
He struck Chrono again—harder this time—a palm to the chest that sent his body flying upward, smashing against a floating platform.
"Family martial arts," the Patriarch murmured, walking slowly toward the wreckage of Chrono's body.
"Developed over generations."
"Techniques carved into bone by blood and tradition."
Chrono tried to move.
His vision pulsed with pain.
Bones protested.
"You think those retards who called themselves wizards just cast spells?"
"You think the wand is the weapon, that without it we would loose to a mere inferior liform?" The Patriarch shook his head, disappointed.
"Youare the weapon."
"The wand is just a conductor."
"You are the fucking music."
He was beside Chrono again, hand gripping his collar.
He yanked him up effortlessly.
"Watch closely."
In a blink, the Patriarch vanished and reappeared ten meters away.
He moved faster than thought.
Teleportation—but not Apparition.
Something else.
Refined time compression.
He struck again—ten hits in the time it took to blink.
Chrono collapsed, barely conscious, nose broken, jaw slack.
The Patriarch knelt.
"No form."
"No rhythm."
"No timing."
He poked Chrono's chest, each word a bullet.
"You didn't read me."
"You didn't feel the weave of time shift around my movement."
"You didn't even try to predict me."
"You just swung like a fucking idiot.."
Blood dripped from Chrono's lip.
The Patriarch stood and cracked his neck. "Round two."
Time exploded.
Chrono barely registered it.
The world became a blur of motion, of fists and boots and twisting limbs.
The Patriarch wasn't a man—he was inevitability made flesh.
Every move he made felt inevitable, every strike preordained.
Chrono was a puppet caught in the strings of someone who'd mastered the very concept of tempo.
And then—
Stillness.
Chrono lay broken.
Again.
Body bruised.
Face swollen.
Ribs—he couldn't tell how many—shattered.
The Patriarch stood over him, breathing slow and even.
"You think pain is the enemy," he said, voice quiet now.
"It's not."
"It's a teacher."
"One of the best."
He crouched again, his face inches from Chrono's.
"You have potential."
"But you're soft."
"Soft in spirit."
"Soft in will."
"You haven't suffered enough."
"Not yet anyways."
Chrono looked up through a haze of red.
The Patriarch smiled.
"Lesson two begins tomorrow."
He turned, cloak billowing behind him, boots tapping against the stone with ghostly rhythm.
Chrono passed out with the sound echoing in his ears.