Previously—

  Though Monroe possessed a wide variety of superpowers, both in type and quantity, the actual potency and destructive capability of each ability remained limited. This was due to the extremely low concentration of external Primis particles.

  As a result, even though Monroe’s raw power had long surpassed that of the Emberlight Empire’s entire class of Evershield Body martial artists—

  The extent of his superiority wasn’t overwhelming.

  He still couldn’t completely ignore the threat posed by modern weaponry or the full might of a conventional military force at the time.

  This reality kept the prideful yet calculating Monroe restrained. Despite his long-standing desire to “cleanse” the other races on Earth, he never dared to act impulsively or underestimate their strength.

  “But things are different now.”

  Monroe stepped up to the second control panel of the armor, lightly pressing the activation switch.

  The console lit up, displaying detailed specifications of the alien suit:

  [Base Defensive Equipment Ready]

  ? Deflection Force Field Shield (Integrity 90%)

  ? Energy-Absorbing Armor Module (Integrity 85%)

  [Base Storage Equipment Ready]

  ? Virtual Space Folding Cube (Integrity 95%)

  [Base Offensive Equipment Ready]

  ? High-Energy Particle Laser Array (Integrity 90%)

  ? Anti-Matter Piercing Cannon (Integrity 83%)

  ? High-Frequency Particle Alloy Blade (Integrity 97%)

  [Base Repair Equipment Ready]

  ? Nano-Machine Swarm (Integrity 100%)

  [Base Power Source Equipment Ready]

  ? Anti-Matter Confinement Reactor (Integrity 100%)

  [Base Biological Plug-in Tray]: Empty

  [Base Mechanical Plug-in Tray]: Empty

  [Base External Expansion Tray]: Empty

  Status Check: Energy—Full. System—Optimal.

  “Perfect.”

  Lowering his gaze, Monroe muttered a rare self-compliment, then adjusted each power throttle into position.

  Clang clang clang clang clang—

  The mechanical framework sprang into motion.

  Monroe turned his head, eyes glowing with anticipation, as the dense network of cables outside were gradually detached and retracted by the robotic systems behind him. Watching them sever their connections to the armor, he whispered:

  “This time... I want to see how you’ll manage to kill me.”

  He straightened his spine, arms spread wide.

  Behind him, the holy spirit armor began to break apart—then dissolved entirely into a luminous haze of shimmering filaments, which surged forward and burrowed into his body.

  “Ngh—ahh!”

  His face twisted with pain. It felt as if countless icy, needle-thin thorns were stabbing into his flesh.

  Within minutes, the armor—larger than Monroe’s entire frame—had completely disappeared into his body within the sealed chamber.

  Then his body began to shudder.

  His back arched sharply, and thick beads of sweat poured down his face like a burst pipe.

  An immense force had begun to erupt from within the smallest recesses of his form.

  If one were observing Monroe under a microscopic scanner, they would see—

  Each of his cells was slowly being enveloped in a thin coating of black substance.

  Like microscopic armor plating.

  Within five to six minutes, the once-fair skin exposed on his body had turned several shades darker.

  Once this cellular armoring was complete, his skeletal system followed—transforming bone by bone into a glossy, obsidian black.

  Minutes later, the skeleton transformation was finished.

  Then came the internal systems: his organs, tissue, blood vessels, muscles, and skin—

  Layer by layer, from the microscopic to the macroscopic, they were transformed.

  Half an hour later—

  Monroe’s body, once standing at 1.9 meters, had expanded abruptly to a towering 2.5 meters.

  From his head emerged six pulsating crimson horns—sharp, spiraling, and alive with light.

  His face was no longer human—fully encased in seamless black armor, without a single trace of his former features.

  His physique had shifted as well—from lean and wiry to a heavily built, monstrous frame.

  His muscles surged beneath the surface, coated from head to toe in millions—if not tens of millions—of black-silver, mosquito-sized serrated scales.

  At every major joint, clusters of wickedly sharp, silver barbed spines emerged.

  At a glance, Monroe now resembled a Great Demon straight from the blood-soaked wars of the abyss—an apocalyptic general poised to lead legions of demons into endless slaughter.

  He radiated a chilling majesty—cold, inhuman, and overflowing with an undeniable, suffocating force.

  Hum——

  Fully transformed, Monroe slowly rose into the air.

  A moment later, a shimmering 360-degree energy barrier flickered to life around his black-silver body—seamless, without a single gap.

  This was the Deflection Force Field Shield, a core function of the holy spirit armor.

  An alien defense system, the shield was capable of repelling kinetic, thermal, electrical, photonic—virtually any form of vector-based assault.

  In theory, as long as the anti-matter confinement reactor powering the suit remained active, Monroe would be impervious to all attacks—not even a strand of hair could be harmed.

  And that reactor?

  It housed—

  "Twenty-five kilograms of anti-matter... equivalent to the yield of a 500-million-ton TNT nuclear detonation!"

  Monroe threw back his head and let out a booming, guttural laugh.

  “Hahahaha! Go ahead—drop Big Ivan on my skull! I dare you! You won’t scratch me!”

  Bang!!

  He threw out his arms, muscular and scale-covered. From the forearms, two gleaming alloy blades snapped forward with a hiss.

  Feeling the sheer, mountainous power coursing through every cell of his body, Monroe murmured:

  “My physical strength has increased eighty-fivefold… I honestly don’t know if anything in this world can still kill me.”

  He casually lifted one hand, gently curling his fingers.

  Boom!!

  Like a thunderclap detonating in a metal drum, the entire high-density alloy chamber shuddered violently, as though it might disintegrate in the next heartbeat.

  Monroe ignored the howling shockwaves and sat slowly in place, calm and composed—waiting for the mysterious enemy’s next move.

  Moments later, two consecutive Primis bursts slammed down from above.

  And then—

  A terrifying wave of mental force descended with pinpoint accuracy.

  The base’s outer wall groaned and cracked under its pressure, and the force locked directly onto Monroe’s chamber—bearing down like a collapsing mountain.

  Rumble rumble rumble rumble——

  The vast mental force surged toward him like a tidal wave of raw willpower.

  "Hmph."

  Within his shield, Monroe sneered.

  "You think I'm still the same as before?"

  Boom!!!

  Before he could finish, a tremendous crash shook the world.

  The mental force slammed full-force into the Deflection Shield of the holy spirit armor.

  Crackle crackle crackle crackle!!!

  Explosions of radiant scarlet light erupted from the point of contact, sending out shockwaves in all directions.

  In an instant, the entire chamber surrounding Monroe disintegrated—vaporized into glittering dust by the unleashed energies.

  Next came dozens of high-temperature energy beams, erupting outward from the impact point like enraged dragons forged in the depths of purgatory.

  They swept out in all directions—

  Boom boom boom boom!!!

  Above, below, left, right—

  The densely packed labs, corridors, elevators, walls—

  All were reduced to incandescent metallic vapor in an instant.

  The bound-shaped energy streams, still brimming with destructive force, didn't stop after piercing the base's walls. Instead, they lanced outward at near-light speed, cutting across the ocean floor.

  Everything in their path—seawater, coral, fish, even colossal deep-sea creatures lurking in the dark—vanished without a trace.

  Boom boom boom boom...

  The rumbles echoed endlessly, like the growls of titanic demons slithering through the deep.

  And then—the massive base anchored in the ocean trench—

  Collapsed.

  Over half its internal structure crumbled under the backlash, and it began rapidly disintegrating.

  Beep beep beep beep!!!

  This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

  A shrill alarm snapped Monroe from his trance.

  [Warning: Reactor energy remaining — 49%]

  [Warning: Reactor energy remaining — 45%]

  [Warning: Reactor energy remaining — 38%]

  [Warning: Reactor energy remaining — 35%]

  The sudden plunge was the exact cost of being caught within the collision zone between that terrifying mental force and the armor's shield.

  "...That... just one exchange..."

  "...Burned through half the reactor's power!"

  Monroe spoke in a stunned, disbelieving voice:

  "That's... the equivalent of two to three hundred million tons of TNT in nuclear yield!"

  Only now did he truly understand—

  Why, in every past encounter with that mental force, he’d felt so utterly powerless.

  Because the gap between them, in both quality and scale, was simply—

  Unbridgeable.

  Like staring across a bottomless abyss.

  As that thought flickered through his mind, Monroe suddenly noticed something strange:

  The mental force had halted its attack.

  It now hovered around him in eerie silence, slowly circling… watching him with cold indifference.

  Just as Monroe stood frozen in confusion, a clear, frigid voice echoed from all directions:

  “Etheric Battleform, huh... interesting.”

  The moment that voice rang out—

  Everything stopped.

  The thunderous blasts.

  The collapsing walls.

  The churning seawater.

  Even the swirling shrapnel in mid-air.

  Frozen.

  Including Monroe himself.

  He was trapped—

  As if facing some primordial terror, his entire being was paralyzed. His thoughts blank. His soul, gripped in icy horror.

  Every superpower he possessed ceased to function.

  Even the cells in his body felt like dead matter—dull, dim, and drained of life.

  It was all because of the figure that had now appeared before him:

  Seraphine.

  ‘It’s her—?!’

  The holy spirit armor was powerless to shield him from her gaze. She could see his face clearly, twisted in shock, disbelief, and primal fear.

  She could even sense the overwhelming despair flooding his heart.

  "You’re surprised to see me," Seraphine said, her tone flat. "And a little… in denial."

  Her expression didn't change as she added:

  “Interesting. Let me see your memories.”

  Whoosh ~

  In that instant, Monroe’s armor—and his body—shattered like glass, dissolving into billions of particles, vanishing completely into nothingness.

  Only his brain remained, suspended in the void, radiating pure, panicked disbelief.

  It drifted slowly toward Seraphine’s upraised palm.

  ‘What’s happening?!’

  ‘Why is it her?!’

  ‘Where… where’s my body?!’

  She ignored the frantic, flashing emotional pulses from Monroe’s disembodied consciousness.

  Raising one slender finger, she pointed it at the hovering brain.

  Hum—

  In a single flash, Monroe’s memories—nearly a thousand years' worth—were laid bare.

  Seraphine’s eyes sparkled with divine light.

  "A life full of chaos and struggle," she murmured, amused. "Quite turbulent."

  "Even wielding time-based abilities—impressive."

  "Projecting your consciousness across timelines... jumping from the Past into fragmented Futures. A remarkable ability. Is it a gift of your genes? Or your soul?"

  She leaned forward slightly, her voice softening.

  "But what intrigues me more is this—"

  Her gaze pierced straight through Monroe’s brain, locking onto the trembling soul within.

  She smiled.

  "You searched across four possible futures and found nothing."

  "But in the fifth... you saw me."

  "So, what will you do, when you return to the past?"

  "What choice will you make then?"

  A low laugh escaped her lips.

  "How delightful. I can’t wait to share this moment with my past self—she’ll love this."

  She looked straight at Monroe’s consciousness, smiling brightly.

  “Go on, Monroe. Go back. Carry with you the despair of the future.”

  Then, playfully, she activated her mental power—and etched a complex payload of information directly into his soul.

  Monroe, utterly unaware of her intrusion, couldn’t even register what had happened.

  "You can’t run, Monroe," Seraphine whispered. "You’re far too small. No matter how many times you try… I will find you."

  "Your soul belongs to me."

  "Across timelines—past, future, all of them—I stand."

  "And in every one... I will crush you in my hand."

  Crack crack.

  Soundlessly, Monroe’s soul was devoured—chewed, digested, and obliterated by the storm of mental power swirling silently around Seraphine.

  “Ah ah ah ah!!!”

  Monroe's eyes flew open as he screamed in raw terror. His body trembled uncontrollably, soaked in cold sweat that had drenched more than half of his expensive black formal suit.

  Moments before, his entire being had shattered into void—his soul ripped apart, hope swallowed by an ocean of despair.

  A flood of horrifying emotions had surged from the timeline ahead, laughing and clawing at him, threatening to annihilate what little sanity remained.

  His confidence was obliterated. Completely gone.

  He sat there in a stunned daze for nearly five minutes, gasping for breath, trying desperately to wrestle down the shock, the fear, the soul-warping despair.

  At last, barely, he managed to regain a sliver of calm.

  Eyes slowly closing, Monroe slumped back into the rounded chair, his limbs limp, as though all the bones in his body had melted away.

  Several long minutes passed.

  Then—his eyes snapped open again. His jaw clenched.

  “One more try… just one more,” he rasped, voice dry and hoarse.

  A strange light flickered in his pupils as he triggered Laocoon’s Eye for the sixth time.

  Whoosh——

  Reality shattered around him. Time twisted, and once more, his consciousness was flung across the stream of causality into the future.

  This time, Monroe awoke with clarity.

  He stood up immediately, and without hesitation, began gathering various rare and precious materials from the laboratory.

  Moments later, with a focused mental transfer, he arrived inside the hidden chamber that housed the Holy Spirit Armor.

  Donning the armor in silence, Monroe initiated another teleportation jump, this time arriving at a vast, cavernous space—like a rocket launch site hollowed out from beneath the ocean floor.

  This was one of the deepest zones within the trench base.

  At the center stood a dark, sunflower seed-shaped spacecraft, its black hull vaguely organic, meat-like in texture—approximately 20 meters wide and 35 meters long.

  It was the result of years of obsessive reverse-engineering from alien wreckage—one of the few experimental crafts Monroe had succeeded in building with his own hands.

  “I don’t care anymore. I want nothing. I need nothing.”

  Monroe muttered under his breath as he rushed into the ship.

  “Do whatever the hell you want. Blow up the Earth for all I care—just let me escape. I’m never going back to that 【Past】.”

  He slammed down into the pilot’s seat, face grim, hands flying across the control panel—pressing buttons, initializing systems, igniting engines.

  Beep——

  The thrusters beneath the spacecraft began to hum, glowing faintly.

  With a mechanical whine, the three landing struts retracted into the belly of the craft.

  Hum——

  The ship drifted forward slightly, its rear flickering with streaks of flame as it trembled with anticipation. A moment later—

  BOOM!!!

  The main propulsion unit activated, hurling the craft upward with immense force.

  Bang!!!

  The reinforced metal ceiling of the base—designed to withstand the crushing pressure of the deep sea—shattered like glass before the ship’s ascent.

  Layer after layer of alloy plating was pierced clean through.

  Snapping cables whipped through the air, spraying sparks. Black-blue seawater exploded inward, torn apart by the sudden vacuum.

  The spacecraft surged into the open ocean.

  It didn’t slow.

  Generating a spiraling vortex as it moved, the ship tilted sharply—rotating forward 90 degrees—then bolted straight toward the surface.

  In mere seconds—

  It had ascended ten thousand meters, erupting from the depths into the open sky.

  Then, without pause, the hull trembled again as the craft accelerated—soaring higher.

  As it rocketed upward, the ship engaged its optical stealth system.

  In a flash, its body turned translucent—vanishing from sight.

  Only the repeating sonic booms left in its wake confirmed its presence.

  Whoosh——

  Within moments, Monroe’s spacecraft punched through the ionosphere, then the stratosphere, reaching the very edge of the atmosphere.

  From this altitude, the Earth’s curved horizon was fully visible—stunning and serene.

  Beyond this point was the vacuum of space.

  “Hoo ~”

  Monroe let out a long exhale from the pilot’s seat. “I’ve made it this far… there’s no way anything could go wrong now, right?”

  He paused, taking in the breathtaking view of Earth through the observation window.

  Then, just as he prepared to accelerate once more—to leave this planet far behind—

  Hum——

  Suddenly—

  A colossal hand, formed from billions of blazing light particles, appeared out of nowhere—like a condensed miniature sun.

  Spanning several thousand meters in diameter, the radiant hand closed instantly around the ship—

  Gripping it tightly.

  Next, boundless mental power surged into the spacecraft from every direction.

  Monroe instantly recognized the familiar psychic signature. His entire body spasmed in place, paralyzed by dread. Slumped in the pilot’s seat, he let out a scream of pure anguish:

  “Why?! Why is it happening again?! Why can’t you just let me go?! Ah ah ah ah ah!”

  At that moment, a clear and detached voice echoed in his ear:

  “You’re confused. You’re angry. And you're utterly consumed by despair.”

  Seraphine had appeared beside him without warning, tilting her head slightly as she observed Monroe with an almost childlike curiosity.

  “Let’s see... what exactly are you so desperate about?”

  Without waiting for a response, she extended a hand—and seized Monroe’s soul.

  “You bastard! You demon!”

  Monroe’s soul writhed violently in her grip, screaming and thrashing. “I won’t let you get away with this! Never—!”

  Hum——

  In an instant, his soul locked up—frozen in place.

  At the same time, his consciousness was completely sealed, imprisoned by an overwhelming force.

  ‘Damn it... I can’t escape...!’

  That was the last thought Monroe had before darkness swallowed his mind.

  Now, he had truly fallen into a state of absolute despair.

  “Trying to self-destruct? How determined... Are you afraid I’ll uncover your secret?”

  Seraphine smiled, curiosity gleaming in her eyes. “That just makes me even more eager to see it.”

  Without hesitation, she began the soul-search.

  Monroe’s body trembled uncontrollably as his memories were scanned and unfolded one by one before Seraphine’s eyes.

  “Child of the Witch.”

  “Familiar with Da Vinci.”

  “Discovered an alien spacecraft wreck on an uninhabited Pacific island.”

  “Secret Society.”

  “Mycenae.”

  “Hm… a twisted father-son relationship.”

  “Laocoon’s Eye.”

  Seraphine’s gaze sharpened as she reviewed the memories of Monroe’s multiple jumps across timelines.

  Fascinated, she watched the entire sequence like a film unfolding in her mind, tracing each point in Monroe’s fragmented consciousness.

  Suddenly, a strange phenomenon occurred.

  From the outermost layer of Monroe’s consciousness, a cluster of data spontaneously formed—then ruptured—displaying a neatly packaged message:

  “Hello, past 'Me’.”

  “I assume you, too, are intrigued by time-based abilities.”

  “According to the order of timeline jumps experienced by Monroe, this instance can be considered Future #5.”

  “I have meticulously recorded the time displacement metrics of Future #5.”

  “Perhaps, this data will allow you to further explore the mechanics of time and unlock temporal abilities sooner.”

  “Finally—

  I wish you eternity.”

  As Seraphine finished reading, a strange sensation washed over her.

  It felt as though she had peered across the gulf of time… and met herself—an iteration of her just hours ahead, a version she might never meet face to face.

  Yet that “other Seraphine” had still taken the time to leave behind a greeting. A fragment of thought drifting backward through time.

  Whoosh ~

  The message dissolved, reconstructing itself almost instantly into sprawling streams of equations, symbols, and diagrammatic structures.

  It wasn’t just a message—it was data.

  “Thank you.”

  Seraphine smiled softly, whispering as though in reply, “I wish you eternity, too.”

  With that, she began analyzing the information in earnest—carefully cross-referencing this newly received data from the near future with her own independent research on temporal physics.

  Indeed, she already possessed partial time data.

  That wasn’t unusual.

  Anyone with enough power would inevitably begin to question the nature of time and space—and sooner or later, be drawn into studying it.

  They would often ask the same question:

  What is time?

  Back on the Old World, Seraphine had once come across a quote attributed to Einstein:

  “Time is what a clock measures.”

  Time—or perhaps more accurately, clocks—could be understood as anything undergoing irreversible change.

  Naturally, time could also be described as a kind of thermodynamic process.

  In quantum mechanics, time is treated as a smoothly varying parameter—used to evaluate the dynamic evolution of observable systems.

  But in general relativity, time is regarded as the fourth dimension of spacetime.

  Yet, according to Seraphine’s extensive research, at the fundamental particle level, there exists no direct way to measure or extract a precise intrinsic timestamp.

  From this, one could infer a disturbing possibility:

  That achieving absolute temporal precision—measuring time itself to perfection—might require an infinite amount of energy, which would in turn cause infinite damage to the system.

  However, if one approached the question from another perspective—

  For instance, through the Hawking–Hartle no-boundary proposal, which suggests that in the earliest moments of the universe, time behaved similarly to space…

  And simultaneously considered the Hawking–Penrose singularity theorem, which concludes that spacetime could not have begun from a singular, smoothly unfolding point...

  Then one would recognize a deeper truth: within the observable universe, 【Time】 exhibits the characteristics of quantum fluctuation—non-centralized, probabilistic, and inherently unstable.

  Balancing these theories, Seraphine formulated a compelling framework:

  That four-dimensional space could be viewed as a holographic projection, composed of quantum information.

  In that case, time—for the sake of study and analysis—could, to some degree, be treated as a spatial dimension.

  Just like space, it could exhibit movement, distortion, and vorticity.

  The only key distinction was that time flowed with directionality, smoothness, and above all, irreversibility.

  These insights were among the precious conclusions Seraphine had uncovered long ago—during a series of grueling experiments measuring gravitational entanglement and non-Gaussian signatures to probe the non-classical nature of the gravitational field.

  Those experiments had come at immense cost.

  She had to precisely synchronize cutting-edge instruments with her mental power, utilizing quantum-level manipulation to slowly shift nanoscale carbon stem cells and trace samples of Einstein condensate.

  She used uniform magnetic pulses to embed spherical nanocells with weak rotational mass, enabling their rotation paths to quantum superpose during freefall—while a mirrored set of mass-matched matter also free-fell nearby.

  Through their mutual gravitational pull, the two superposed paths developed differing phase shifts.

  And when the superposition collapsed, the resulting temporal variance revealed itself in the residual rotational imprint on the nanocells.

  The sensitivity requirements were staggering.

  Even the faintest background correlations or gravitational noise could ruin the entire experiment.

  But after countless trials, Seraphine had succeeded in mapping the subtle, complex phenomena of temporal vortices, currents, and torsion—which appeared during time displacement.

  And now, as she examined the data embedded in the transmission from 【Future Seraphine】, she noticed something peculiar:

  The tangential flow velocity on the outer layer of the vortex—created when the time currents in 【Future #5】 interfered with one another—was ever so slightly different from the flow data in her own spacetime.

  She paused in thought and let out a quiet sigh.

  “So... relying solely on the Eye of True Revelation still has its limits. If only I could skip the process entirely and go straight to the answer, I'd save so much time…

  What a crazy thought. As if something that convenient would actually exist.”

  She chuckled to herself, half-sarcastic, half-longing.

  “Tsk. The Ether Tide merely enhanced the depth and resolution of the Eye of True Revelation. How wonderful it would be if it could evolve—gain new abilities altogether...

  Never mind. I should just focus on building a quantum supercomputer to help lock onto research directions faster.”

  Then, her mind returned to Future #5.

  “Given this discrepancy, it’s very likely that the so-called Seraphine from Future #5... isn’t me in this spacetime.”

  She muttered aloud, thoughtful.

  “Which means… that future must be a parallel timeline, subtly diverged from mine.”

  The numerical variation in their quantum spacetime readings might be as small as the difference between eating sweet or savory tofu pudding for breakfast.

  Yet even such a minuscule variance, according to temporal multiverse theory, was more than enough to split a timeline in two—sending both branching endlessly into the unknown.

  Her contemplation came to an end.

  Just like her counterpart from Future #5, Seraphine compiled the temporal data from her own timeline, condensed it into an information packet, and embedded it into the outer layer of Monroe’s dormant consciousness.

  At the same time, she released the psychic constraints holding him in place.

  “Go. Take these two datasets and return to the 【Past】.”

  Monroe stirred awake, dazed.

  “Wh—what just happened…?”

  But he didn’t waste time seeking answers.

  Without hesitation, he activated his ability, instantly detaching from the timeline and fled back toward the 【Past】.