The year was 1604, and the cobbled streets of Florence whispered with the hum of life. Alessandro, a scrawny eleven-year-old boy with raven-black hair and stormy gray eyes, had never fit in with the other children. There was a peculiar aura about him, a weight that felt far older than his years. Alessandro often found himself lingering at the edges of bustling markets, staring at the clock towers with a fascination that bordered on obsession.

Time. It had always called to him, as if it were an old friend.

One evening, as the sun dipped below the horizon, he found himself cornered in an alleyway. The air was heavy with the scent of rain-soaked stone and danger. Before him stood a celestial figure, radiant with lightning, his presence suffocating.

Zeus.

"You dare to exist, spawn of Kronos?" Zeus's voice boomed, shaking the very foundations of the city. The god's eyes crackled with electric fury, his hand raised to unleash divine judgment.

Alessandro froze, his young heart pounding in terror. He knew who he was, the forbidden lineage that coursed through his veins. He was the son of Kronos, the Titan lord of time, a child born of an unholy union destined to be erased.

As Zeus's lightning descended, Alessandro's desperate cry tore through the air. "No!"

The world warped around him. Time seemed to freeze, the alleyway dissolving into a shimmering, ethereal void. Alessandro collapsed to his knees, gasping for air. He had no words for what he had done, only the raw understanding that he was alive—and hidden.

Thus, Chrona Salvàta was born, an alternate space crafted from Alessandro's primal instinct to survive. It was a sanctuary Zeus could not breach, a realm beyond the reach of divine eyes. But it was also a prison.

The void stretched endlessly before him, a twilight realm suspended between existence and nonexistence. Alessandro's breaths echoed in the emptiness, his chest heaving as he tried to comprehend his survival. The memory of Zeus's wrath lingered like a shadow, a stark reminder of his mortality.

"Where am I?" he whispered, his voice trembling. The words vanished into the vast nothingness, leaving him alone with his thoughts.

Time passed. Or did it? In this place, the concept of time was fluid, elusive. Alessandro wandered aimlessly, the echo of his footsteps a constant companion. Hunger gnawed at his stomach, and exhaustion weighed on his limbs, yet he remained alive. His divine blood sustained him, but it offered little comfort.

The monsters came soon after. They were relentless, grotesque creatures born of the ancient darkness. Their glowing eyes pierced through the void, their snarls reverberating like thunder. Alessandro's first encounter was chaotic and bloody. A serpent-like beast lunged at him, its fangs glinting with venom. He barely managed to dodge, his instincts taking over as he grabbed a jagged shard of stone and drove it into the creature's throat.

The victory was short-lived. For every monster he killed, another appeared, and then another. They came in waves, an endless onslaught that pushed him to the brink of despair. Alessandro's body ached, his hands blistered and raw from wielding makeshift weapons. He screamed into the void, his voice hoarse and broken.

"Is this my punishment?" he cried. "To fight forever? To die here?"

But the void offered no answers, only silence.

Days turned into weeks, or so Alessandro assumed. He had no way of measuring time in this place, no sun or stars to guide him. His body, however, began to adapt. Each battle honed his reflexes, each monster's death added to his growing arsenal of knowledge. He learned their patterns, their weaknesses. Slowly but surely, he began to fight back with purpose rather than desperation.

It was during one of these battles that Alessandro's powers began to manifest fully. Cornered by a pack of shadowy hounds, their glowing red eyes fixed on him, Alessandro felt something shift within him. The air around him seemed to ripple, the void itself responding to his will. Time slowed, the hounds' movements becoming sluggish and distorted. Alessandro moved with newfound clarity, dispatching the creatures one by one with a stolen celestial bronze dagger.

When the last hound fell, Alessandro collapsed to his knees, his body trembling with exhaustion and exhilaration. "What... what was that?" he muttered, staring at his hands.

He began to experiment, pushing the boundaries of his abilities. Through trial and error, Alessandro discovered that he could manipulate the flow of time within the void. He could slow it, accelerate it, even freeze it entirely. The realization filled him with both awe and fear. This power was his inheritance, a gift from his father, Kronos. But it was also a reminder of the blood that made him a target.

Months, perhaps years, passed in the void. Alessandro's once-scrawny frame grew lean and strong from constant battle. His mind, too, sharpened as he honed his powers and studied the nature of the void. He began to see patterns, threads of time woven into the fabric of his sanctuary. With careful concentration, he could pull on these threads, bending the void to his will. He created pockets of stability, places where he could rest and recover without fear of attack.

But the solitude weighed heavily on him. The void was silent, devoid of life beyond the monsters that sought to kill him. Alessandro often found himself speaking aloud, his voice echoing back to him. "What is the point of surviving," he wondered, "if there is no one to share it with?"

It was this longing that led him to push the limits of his power. He began to reach beyond the void, sensing faint traces of the world he had left behind. At first, it was fleeting—a whisper of wind, the distant toll of a bell. But as he focused, these impressions grew stronger. He could see glimpses of the mortal world, fragmented and hazy like a dream.

And then, one day, he saw her.

The vision was brief but vivid. A girl, no older than thirteen, with dark hair and piercing eyes. She was running, her hand clasped tightly around that of a younger boy. They were pursued by shadows, their faces etched with fear. Alessandro's heart raced as he recognized the girl from his fragmented memories. She was like him, a child of the gods.

"I'll find you," Alessandro vowed, his voice steady despite the ache in his chest. "I'll find a way out of this place."

The promise gave him purpose, a reason to endure the endless battles and solitude. Alessandro trained harder than ever, his determination unyielding. He would master his powers, bend the void to his will, and escape the prison that had held him for so long.

And when he did, he would be ready to face the world—and the gods—once more.