At present, Seraphine’s main body—seated cross-legged on the surface of the Moon—had already opened the Triple Heavenly Gates, and all 108 of her major apertures had ascended into the 3.3-dimensional.

  Correspondingly, her attribute values had skyrocketed—rising by a factor of approximately eight thousand.

  Attribute Panel:

  【Host: Seraphine】

  【Physical Strength: 76.8 quadrillion】

  【Soul: 76.8 quadrillion】

  Seraphine dispatched a high-attribute clone, launching from Emberlight and rapidly flying toward the main headquarters of Frankenstein Inc.

  ...

  Time flowed swiftly.

  Earth, South Pacific, Madek Trench.

  Deep within the vast undersea base, silence reigned.

  Every individual and object was frozen in place by an overwhelming telekinetic force.

  Seraphine stood beside Monroe Holmes, who remained deep in unconscious slumber, his awareness still dormant.

  Withdrawing the mental power encasing his head, she gave a faint smile.

  "Such decisiveness... rather admirable."

  After a brief mental sweep through Monroe’s memories, Seraphine immediately grasped his repeated timeline jumps, as well as the transmission of data between her alternate selves from two other timelines.

  “Fifth and sixth timelines... and time-based abilities…”

  Seraphine stroked her chin thoughtfully, silently reviewing the complex temporal data relayed by her counterparts.

  “The temporal metrics and experimental models those two versions of me designed are clever—ingenious, even—but far too convoluted. All that effort… unnecessary.”

  She furrowed her brows slightly and muttered, puzzled,

  “With the lateral parameters already sufficient, using that as a baseline, one could clearly derive the result directly using Chaos Calculation. Why complicate it so much? Unless…”

  Eliminate all impossibilities. Whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.

  A possibility flickered through Seraphine’s mind.

  Her gaze narrowed as she whispered suspiciously,

  “Could it be... they don’t have Chaos Calculation?”

  After several seconds of silent analysis, Seraphine once again turned to the sleeping Monroe and began activating both her Eye of True Revelation and Chaos Calculation.

  "Three sets of temporal data, plus your physical body and soul—more than enough to deduce your time-based abilities."

  With a subtle shift of will, Monroe Holmes’ body disintegrated—transformed into tens of trillions of microscopic cells, invisible to the naked eye.

  Simultaneously, Seraphine’s mental power unraveled into trillions of ultra-fine filaments, each one diving into Monroe’s cells.

  At the most fundamental material level, she analyzed the operational structure behind the 【Laocoon’s Eye】 ability—dissecting its core logic, mechanics, and governing laws.

  At the same time, Monroe’s soul was subjected to a near-clinical mental vivisection—unraveled, examined, measured, and deconstructed strand by strand.

  Even Monroe’s millennia-old memories were rapidly combed through—systematically reviewed down to each second.

  Seraphine’s objective was clear: to fully reverse-engineer Monroe’s secrets across all three planes—matter, energy, and information—so she could evolve her own time-based abilities.

  Five minutes passed like a breath.

  “Witch King’s Secret Potion — Regret Potion?!”

  Seraphine blinked in surprise.

  “A drug like that actually exists in this world?!”

  From Monroe’s memories, she uncovered his extraordinary origins—he was the son of a witch from Eliondra, born a thousand years ago.

  And his father? None other than the founder of the Eliondra Witchcraft Union, the 【Secret Society】—Witch King Mycenae.

  After the collapse of the Roman Empire, Eliondra entered what would later be called the Dark Ages.

  During those thousand years of obscurity, religion stood as the singular ideology and cultural pillar of society.

  In that era, belief in God permeated every facet of life—spiritually, socially, artistically.

  God was the ultimate source of meaning, hope, and order in people’s hearts.

  It was widely believed that all things in existence had been created by the supreme God.

  Since God was benevolent and loving, all disasters or unnatural phenomena were attributed to demonic influence.

  Any human who defied religious norms could be labeled a servant of Hell—a heretic or a witch—and would almost certainly be burned at the stake.

  Under that ideological regime, countless individuals were wrongfully accused and executed as witches—some innocent, others not.

  Among the victims were both misunderstood outcasts and genuine practitioners of witchcraft.

  But in an era of extremely low Ether concentration, even real witches—with their strange and obscure powers—had little ability to resist organized army forces.

  It would take another eight or nine centuries for Ether to begin recovering enough for their magic to gain meaningful strength.

  True combat capability wouldn’t be unlocked until several hundred years later, with the arrival of the first great Ether tide.

  They were a people trapped in weakness—waiting across centuries.

  And Monroe had been born in that very world.

  His mother—just a humble witch who knew a little witchcraft.

  From Monroe’s memory, Seraphine confirmed a long-buried truth: the so-called Witch King was, in fact, the extraterrestrial entity that had descended upon Earth over a thousand years ago—within the worldview of 《Dragonblood》.

  Witch King Mycenae was the original source of Elionra’s witchcraft. Every spell, every rite—passed down from this single origin.

  Even Monroe’s birth mother had once been one of his many female slaves.

  As for how the Witch King could impregnate human women, Seraphine theorized that he was likely a conscious or soul-based entity who had descended and possessed a native human body—blending in while maintaining immense power.

  A thousand years ago, Monroe’s mother stole the Regret Potion from the Witch King and fled to what is now Romania.

  The Regret Potion—classified as a soul-affecting drug—had to be applied directly to the soul using specific techniques.

  Once administered, the potion could retroactively alter a decision made within the past ten days—causing a ripple through the spacetime continuum that would overwrite a chain of events, ultimately reshaping a factual outcome in the present.

  The effect was… nothing short of mystical.

  Upon seeing this fragment in Monroe’s memory, Seraphine’s expression grew cold. Her pupils flashed with a sharp glint.

  “That so-called Witch King… is far more dangerous than expected.”

  In theory, if the Witch King consumed the Regret Potion now, he could manipulate events across the past ten days with ease.

  While he couldn’t directly harm her—

  However, if by chance Seraphine's arbitrary events during this period were disturbed, it could easily lead to the failure of the 《Skyroot Codex》's successful creation.

  Seraphine narrowed her eyes.

  “That cannot be allowed.”

  “Crisis must be eliminated before it has the chance to grow. I’ll kill him—soon.”

  She resumed browsing through Monroe’s memories.

  …For unknown reasons, the witch had infused the stolen potion into her unborn child through an esoteric ritual.

  Seraphine speculated aloud:

  “Perhaps she believed this divine elixir would mark her child as the Chosen One.”

  Over the course of a ten-month pregnancy, Monroe slowly assimilated the Regret Potion.

  Stimulated by its latent power, he was born with a faint trace of Psychokinesis.

  His mother disguised herself as a wandering Gypsy girl, earning spare coins from ignorant villagers through Tarot readings and crystal ball tricks—just enough to raise young Monroe.

  But during a year of famine and desperation, she was accused of witchcraft and burned at the stake, used as a scapegoat.

  Monroe, still just a child, was left to wander the wilderness—alone, starving, and forgotten.

  Not long after, the Black Death swept across the continent, indiscriminately consuming lives as the decades passed.

  In less than half a century, over half the population of Elionra had perished.

  This unprecedented catastrophe delivered a fatal blow to divine authority.

  As death wailed and swept through villages and cities, the people looked toward the heavens—the God they worshipped, the Church they trusted—only to find silence.

  Even after donations, self-flagellation, and prayers, no salvation came.

  Their God had done nothing.

  Faith crumbled.

  As despair consumed the land, the Church—once dominant over every aspect of social and spiritual life—began to crack.

  Simultaneously, economic revival and the rise of urban life led to a cultural shift: people began abandoning apocalyptic fatalism and turned toward the pleasures of secular life.

  Through this fracture, a cultural wave emerged from Florence: a new humanist ideology that swept through Elionra.

  And thus, the Middle Ages came to an end.

  It was during this period of vast cultural upheaval that Monroe made a shocking discovery:

  He was eternally youthful—and capable of reversing spacetime to project himself into the future.

  Confidence surged from stillness.

  He stepped out of the wilderness and back into civilization.

  In that ever-shifting age, Monroe wandered across cities and empires, meeting diverse individuals, absorbing knowledge from every discipline.

  Mathematics. Literature. Architecture. Religion. Philosophy. Music. Art.

  Every field filled the once-vacant corners of his mind.

  As decades passed, the once-blank stare in his eyes became increasingly sharp—and increasingly arrogant.

  Taking advantage of his immortal youth and aided by the predictive power of Laocoon’s Eye, Monroe amassed knowledge, wealth, and influence at an exponential rate.

  Eventually, he founded a formidable organization: the early version of the Flesh Mysticism Sect.

  But everything changed when he once again encountered Witch King Mycenae—and suffered a humiliating defeat.

  From that confrontation, Monroe finally uncovered the truth of his origins—and the lingering presence of the Regret Potion inside him.

  He realized that the potion’s temporal anomaly power had remained dormant within his body and soul all along, never truly fused.

  At this moment, Seraphine’s eyes lit up with divine brilliance.

  “This... this is what I’ve been seeking—the temporal anomaly power!”

  Even as she idly reviewed Monroe’s memories, her actions were anything but passive.

  In the next instant, she ruthlessly extracted that mysterious power—pulling it out from tens of trillions of Monroe’s cells and his gradually fragmenting soul.

  As she forcefully drew the energy forth, Monroe’s scattered cells and tormented soul could no longer hold together.

  In a blinding flash, both body and spirit were reduced to dust—completely obliterated from existence.

  It became clear: this temporal anomaly power was the very foundation of Monroe’s existence—and the source of his eternal youth.

  Buzz—

  In Seraphine’s palm, the power swirled like liquid light, glowing with otherworldly brilliance.

  A rare gleam of excitement danced in her eyes.

  This was a power that could truly bend time.

  How could she not be captivated?

  But just then, an exceedingly subtle and nearly undetectable force emerged from the Sentience Realm, outside the deep-sea base.

  This force pierced through reality, bypassing countless layers of reinforced walls. It carried with it a vague sense of scrutiny—a probe silently cast toward the base.

  Seraphine sensed it immediately.

  Her brows, sharp like drawn blades, knit ever so slightly.

  “How bold.”

  With a single thought, a torrent of immense mental power surged outward—swift and merciless.

  Buzz—

  In less than the blink of a second, the foreign pair of ‘eyes’—whatever fragment of awareness had dared to look in—was shattered by unbearable pain.

  But Seraphine’s unleashed strike did more than repel.

  It contained intent.

  Her power, infused with conscious will, instantly self-analyzed and calculated the origin of the intruding force. Like a bolt of divine lightning, it traced the reverse path through dimensional strata—tearing open a rift between reality and the Sentience Realm—and began its relentless pursuit.

  With a casual glance toward the void where the force had originated, Seraphine spotted it: a genuine fragment of someone’s soul—part of a true body.

  She laughed out loud.

  “Reckless enough to send out a piece of your own soul to spy? Don’t blame me for what comes next.”

  A few moments later, a faint scream echoed from the far reaches of the other realm—sharp and pained.

  Seraphine’s eyes gleamed with pleasure.

  “Mycenae... I haven’t even gone looking for you yet, and you’ve already come sniffing around.”

  Shaking her head, she chuckled softly.

  “Seems like you’re in quite a hurry to die. Fine—I'll oblige you.”

  With that single thought, a high-attribute clone of Seraphine shot up from Emberlight, rapidly speeding toward the continent of Eliondra.

  Meanwhile, her attention returned to the strand of temporal anomaly power—the shimmering essence she had extracted from Monroe.

  Another thought.

  And the mysterious energy was carefully fused onto the sub-soul of her clone—not her true soul.

  As ever, Seraphine was cautious to the extreme.

  No matter how divine or extraordinary a power may seem, she would never recklessly absorb it into her core being.

  Who knew what hidden traps, assassinations, or curses might be waiting inside?

  Bang—Pa!!

  As expected.

  The temporal anomaly power, capable of manipulating time itself, instantly began corroding the surface of the clone’s sub-soul the moment it was infused.

  In the blink of an eye, it had burned through nearly ten million units of soul power.

  A seemingly astronomical number—yet for Seraphine’s clone, whose soul attribute numbered in the tens of billions, it was equivalent to losing a single strand of hair.

  Stolen novel; please report.

  Moments later, the malicious "additives" Monroe had hidden within the power were burned out, leaving behind a purified, gleaming force—like a cluster of crystalline prisms, radiant and cold.

  This radiant crystal-like energy slowly diffused across the surface of the clone’s sub-soul, and the entire spiritual body began to transform—becoming clear, sharp, and prismatic.

  The clone now resembled a statue carved from pure crystal.

  Then, a subtle shift occurred.

  Around her—just beyond her crystalline form—an odd sound emerged.

  A flowing, rushing sound…

  Whoosh~

  Whoosh~

  Whoosh~

  It was the sound of a vast, ancient river, surging through unseen channels.

  And the moment this sound began—

  Seraphine felt her surroundings blur.

  Reality dissolved into obscurity.

  And then…

  An unfathomable force emerged—mysterious, incomprehensible—lifting her consciousness upward.

  Higher and higher.

  Higher still.

  She ascended, her mind pulled through layers of existence, piercing through some unknown conceptual limit—until suddenly, she broke through.

  And entered a place unlike any she had known.

  Rumble!

  Rumble!

  The sound of the river had grown colossal—like tides crashing through the void.

  Seraphine’s eyes snapped open.

  She looked around.

  All was dim.

  Boundless.

  Like the deepest regions of outer space.

  But this was no starry sky—there were no constellations, no celestial fire.

  Only pure, endless darkness.

  She slowly lowered her gaze—to where her feet stood.

  And saw below—seemingly close, yet distant as the horizon—a river of starlight with no beginning and no end. It surged forward with unstoppable, eternal momentum, rolling forth crystal-like, dazzling waves of light, rushing toward the unseen depths downstream.

  Even with Seraphine’s terrifying eyesight, this river appeared vast and boundless at a single glance—like the endless ocean from primeval myth.

  “Where... is this?”

  With doubt stirring in her chest, Seraphine lowered her gaze to inspect her own body.

  To her surprise, she had become a faintly glowing humanoid silhouette, ethereal and nearly formless.

  Her arms, legs, and torso shimmered hazily, emitting faint tendrils of light.

  Suppressing her unease, she shifted her focus to the river flowing beneath her feet, gazing upstream.

  Whoosh —

  As her eyes fixed on it, the boundless and unknowable river rippled with countless droplets, suddenly conjuring a vivid image—her true body, cross-legged in a lunar crater.

  “What... is going on?”

  The ethereal Seraphine narrowed her eyes, and looked further upstream.

  Whoosh —

  She saw the vast, radiant river surge again, unveiling the moment when she, hundreds of kilometers from Beaconreach, fired a massive cannon constructed from her Shadow Domain, reducing the Loski mountain range to ruins.

  A glimmer of understanding flickered through her.

  She kept looking upstream.

  Wave after wave, droplet after droplet—real scenes from her past began appearing above the river’s gleaming surface.

  Whoosh —

  Crushing Sorren within the Sentience Realm’s Projected Layer...

  Whoosh —

  Delving into imaginary space and the Real Number Channel at the Sapphire Research Institute...

  Whoosh —

  Modifying Selene inside the lab...

  The images kept coming, reaching as far back as ten days ago, when she was quietly cultivating in deep space.

  Beyond that point, there were no more memories—no more scenes.

  Then, from within the surrounding void, a presence emerged.

  It conveyed a message to Seraphine: if she chose any moment in the past, she could alter the decision she made at that time, thereby rewriting the present and overwriting this current spacetime.

  A flash of revelation passed through her eyes.

  So that’s what this was—the true effect of the Regret Potion.

  “I see now... I think I know where this place is.”

  Lost in thought, she turned her gaze downstream.

  And the moment her eyes touched the rushing waves beyond, several more blurred scenes surfaced along the river.

  A divine brilliance lit up Seraphine’s eyes. “These... must be visions of the future.”

  Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh!!

  Large splashes burst forth.

  The radiant river, which stretched across the heavens, suddenly fractured into dozens—no, hundreds—of narrow, winding tributaries.

  And as these tributaries branched out, the images of the future they contained abruptly dissolved and scattered like mist.

  Seraphine softly shook her head and chuckled: “Interesting.”

  Clearly, she wasn’t very disappointed by this situation.

  She simply chose another tributary, her gaze shifting forward as she continued to observe.

  Whoosh whoosh whoosh —

  But the tributary, touched by Seraphine’s gaze, also trembled and surged again, splitting into hundreds—thousands—of even finer branches.

  Some of these tributaries converged and merged, forming broader, thicker rivers.

  Some formed vortices along their course, booming as they swelled and shattered into endless foamy spray.

  Some twisted and meandered, flowing gently toward unseen, unknown, desolate realms.

  Some gradually shrank, dried up, and vanished completely—never to reappear.

  The downstream became instantly chaotic—countless scenes tangled and incoherent, impossible to make out clearly.

  “The past remains constant, yet still changes; the future can be glimpsed, but is never fixed.”

  Seraphine gave a soft chuckle. “Good… so fate doesn’t govern this universe after all. Countless beings remain free—and so do I.”

  The past, flowing from distant unknowns—

  Rushed endlessly forward, toward an unpredictable future.

  And in that moment, she finally confirmed it.

  This river… was the River of Time.

  Just then, Seraphine’s brow furrowed faintly. She suddenly looked up.

  Above the River of Time stretched an infinitely vast, infinitely high sky.

  Countless radiant currents of multicolored light surged through it.

  Those flowing colors collided and intertwined, converging into boundless, chaotic airflow—simultaneously empty and oppressive.

  Seraphine vaguely saw that in that infinitely high, infinitely distant, seemingly endless sky of chaos—

  There loomed a colossal, bronze-like arrow, spanning the four directions of the heavens, eclipsing nearly half the sky.

  Upon the vast, mysterious arrowhead—like a bronze continent—were scattered countless jagged wounds, cracks, and fissures.

  As if, countless eons ago, that ancient arrow had endured a cataclysmic battle.

  Staring up, Seraphine narrowed her eyes and murmured softly:

  “A bronze ancient arrow…? Why is such a thing above the River of Time? What exactly is it?”

  The Eye of True Revelation and Chaos Calculation activated instantly.

  Based on everything she knew, Seraphine began rapidly analyzing the immense bronze arrow suspended in the chaotic sky.

  But no matter how long she calculated—

  She gained absolutely nothing.

  Not a single clue. Not even a starting point for speculation.

  It was as if the bronze arrow existed outside all cause and effect, emitting no information whatsoever.

  “Forget it. Probing the unknown further is just a waste of time.”

  Seraphine took one last look at the massive bronze arrow high above, then silently let go of the question weighing on her mind.

  She turned back, gazing upstream, sensing the faint, barely perceptible aura of the Regret Potion around her, and spoke in a calm, low voice:

  “I choose the time point of one day ago. At that moment, I want to track all wireless signals sent from this deep-sea base.”

  Buzz —

  The moment her decision was made, the River of Time upstream began to tremble violently.

  Not far from her, the flow at 【One day ago】 surged—and a scene suddenly unfolded.

  In the image, Seraphine sat cross-legged on the lunar surface. Calmly, she opened her eyes.

  And in that instant, a vast, divine radiance burst forth.

  Her thoughts, memories, and consciousness instantly and perfectly merged with her future self from one day later.

  It was an indescribably strange sensation.

  At this moment, Seraphine existed simultaneously in both the past and future.

  There was no distinction of dominance between the two—she was one being, occupying both states, sharing one mind and one memory.

  She slowly turned her head, gazing at the blue planet hundreds of thousands of kilometers away.

  Buzz —

  Instantly, an endless torrent of mental power erupted from Seraphine’s body, surging toward Earth at a speed nearly approaching that of light.

  In under two seconds, it reached the planet’s outer atmosphere.

  Swish!

  The invisible mental power suddenly spread out, transforming into a vast net that blanketed the entire sky above the South Pacific.

  This psychic net was woven with incredible precision—each mesh just fractions of a subatomic scale.

  Then, sitting silently on the Moon’s surface, Seraphine waited like a seasoned fisherman.

  Tens of minutes passed—

  A powerful beam of wireless waves surged upward from ten thousand meters beneath the South Pacific seabed, piercing through the ocean, then launching straight into the sky. It hesitated for only a fleeting instant as it passed through the massive 'net' encircling the planet's atmosphere—then hurtled onward, racing into the boundless void of deep space.

  But what that wild, desperate pulse of electromagnetic energy did not know…

  Was that, as it slipped through the net, it had been quietly ensnared—tightly wound by a thread of mental energy no broader than a whisper.

  Of course, the wave itself had no way of perceiving this.

  It only knew to rush forward at the speed of light, recklessly and without pause.

  10 seconds. 1 minute. 5 minutes…

  No one knew what kind of breathtaking scenery would surround you when you moved at a true, uninterrupted 100% speed of light.

  It was a sublime experience—one that no ordinary conscious lifeform could ever witness.

  Ten minutes later, after covering more than 180 million kilometers, the wireless wave reached the asteroid belt—and struck a tiny, concealed black spaceship dead-on.

  Buzz—

  As if activated by this signal, the spacecraft suddenly trembled, a dim light blinking to life on its surface.

  Within the ship’s core system, Monroe Holmes’ digitized consciousness stirred.

  "Hoo—"

  With thinly veiled excitement, he muttered from within the data stream, “Finally. That motherfucker escaped!”

  His thoughts jumped instantly to the 【Witch King's Secret Art — Soul Burning Poison】, the trap he had meticulously planted in the physical body he left behind on Earth. He couldn’t help but let out a low, twisted chuckle:

  “Seraphine… how’s my little ‘gift’? Even if it doesn’t kill you, I bet it still makes your skin crawl. Heh… heh heh heh heh.”

  Pulling himself out of his wicked amusement, Monroe turned the spacecraft away from Earth. Through its sensors, he stared out into the unfathomable darkness of the outer solar system, sighing softly:

  “…From now on, I’m just an interstellar fugitive…”

  "No, you're not."

  A calm voice, lightly tinged with amusement, cut through all physical and electronic barriers—piercing directly into Monroe’s digitized consciousness inside the ship’s central computer.

  He froze.

  "W-What the hell?! Why do I hear her voice?! Am I hallucinating?!"

  His mind recoiled, gripped by sudden panic.

  Seraphine’s voice alone was enough to trigger something like PTSD within him—his very consciousness trembled violently.

  Outside, the small spacecraft began to rattle uncontrollably in response.

  At that moment, space itself twisted. A faint vortex rippled open… and from within, a dazzling figure slowly emerged.

  It was Seraphine.

  She extended a pale, delicate hand. Under the flickering emergency lights of the spacecraft, that hand suddenly expanded a hundredfold—reaching out to grasp the ship’s tail with ease.

  Only then did Monroe scream in raw panic:

  "Y-Y-Y-You—Seraphine?! How the hell did you catch up?! That’s impossible!!"

  He slammed all controls, engines flaring at full power as he tried to break away.

  BUZZ!!!

  The spacecraft's tail erupted with violent force—enough to vaporize half an aircraft carrier. Its powerful energy field blasted outward, trying to shake her loose.

  But the ship didn’t budge.

  “Don’t be naughty.”

  Seraphine’s serene voice drifted across the void.

  With an effortless turn, she began dragging the violently struggling spacecraft toward the Real Number Channel.

  Monroe wailed in desperation:

  "No! Don’t! Let me go! Please—let me—"

  His pleading was abruptly cut off as the ship was flung into the channel.

  The asteroid belt, which had flared into life for only a few brief minutes, fell silent once more.

  The view zoomed out, pulling back to reveal the full scene.

  Suspended above the River of Time, Seraphine quietly observed as the past replayed and dissolved, a faint smile tugging at her lips.

  And as the remnants of that past scene were fully drawn back into the river, an immense wave surged from upstream—rushing downstream with unstoppable force, then sweeping forward into the infinite future.

  Here, the past timeline had been thoroughly rewritten.

  The present timeline, in that instant, twisted and reformed.

  The small spaceship housing Monroe Holmes’ consciousness abruptly materialized out of nothing—partially dismantled—inside Seraphine’s Dimensional Pocket.

  Floating calmly in the void, Seraphine felt the timeline ripple violently.

  Her body and soul both trembled with clarity—perceiving that overwhelming, undeniable shift.

  And in that moment, with the Eye of True Revelation and Chaos Calculation both running in perfect sync, her form and essence shifted all at once.

  From the deepest layers of her being, a new and indescribably mysterious power erupted.

  She had finally awakened time-based abilities.

  “What will my time-based ability be…?”

  No sooner had the thought crossed Seraphine’s mind than she noticed something remarkable—beneath her feet, the surface of the illusory river rippled slightly, and from that shimmer, a vast, boundless, translucent tributary suddenly branched upward. It surged into the sky above her head, running parallel to the main River of Time below, both streams hurtling furiously toward the distant future.

  Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh!!

  At that moment, a powerful suction force burst forth from the tributary overhead, instantly engulfing Seraphine. Without warning or resistance, it pulled her upward into that skyborne temporal stream.

  Swish!

  As she entered the illusory current, Seraphine found herself suddenly back inside the deep-sea base.

  In front of her stood the peculiar machine where Monroe had uploaded his consciousness. Farther beyond, the thick, reinforced metal walls of the facility loomed.

  The abrupt shift caught her completely off guard.

  "What’s going on?"

  Her mind reeled with confusion.

  She lowered her head, glancing at her own form—only to find that she still retained the ethereal, translucent figure she had taken while drifting along the River of Time.

  She stepped forward cautiously, her gaze sharpening. Spinning around abruptly, her eyes landed on a familiar figure—herself—frozen in place.

  Unlike her current ghost-like, intangible form, that other Seraphine appeared fully physical and present.

  But oddly enough, that version of her looked crude—almost comically so. Like a half-hearted stick figure sketched by an amateur.

  “Interesting.”

  Ethereal Seraphine chuckled, and her mental power surged outward in waves, thunderously sweeping across the surroundings.

  Buzz —

  In an instant, everything within several thousand miles fell under her perception.

  And just as she suspected—

  Every object within range—seawater, darting fish, distant islands, passing ships—had the same oversimplified, cartoonish look. All of it resembled that crude, stick-figure version of herself.

  “If I’m right…”

  She swept her gaze around.

  “Then this must be a false timeline—an illusory branch diverging from the true River of Time.

  And the 'me' I’m sensing and puppeteering with this ethereal body… is nothing more than a hollow copy inside a fabricated world.”

  “Tch.” She clicked her tongue.

  “Looks fancy, but what’s the point of this ability?”

  A sigh escaped her. Seraphine felt vaguely let down, and she retracted her mental power, withdrawing the vast projection she had cast across the false timeline.

  Buzz —

  But perhaps the retraction wasn’t as gentle as it should’ve been.

  A nearby uninhabited coral island, sitting just above the deep-sea base, was abruptly torn apart by the backlash of her retreating mental currents.

  In the stillness, the island—nearly a hundred meters across—collapsed with a thunderous crack. Tens of thousands of reef fragments blasted outward in all directions.

  Then—just like that—it stopped.

  All the shards froze in mid-air.

  As if time itself had been paused.

  The scene was eerie, suffocating in its stillness.

  “Hmm?”

  Seraphine’s eyes narrowed. She shifted slightly, and in an instant—a blur of space distortion—she teleported tens of thousands of meters through the ocean to appear directly above the shattered island.

  Floating there, she examined the frozen debris with meticulous focus.

  Her mental power scanned the suspended fragments—and what she found was astonishing.

  “No way. These reefs… their material strength is ten times weaker than they should be.”

  She honed in on one piece, delving down to the atomic level, brows furrowed in thought.

  “Could it be… the poor art style caused a drop in physical strength? That’s absurd.”

  Then she turned to the nearby waves—completely frozen mid-crest—and the unmoving clouds above, hanging eerily in the sky.

  Her pupils shrank slightly. A faint smile tugged at her lips.

  “I get it now. This… this is a temporal cross-section of an illusory timeline. Time here has been utterly frozen.

  Everything within this world is a fabricated construct, which is why their structural integrity is laughably weak.”

  “Still…” she muttered, shaking her head, “it’s ultimately useless.”

  But just as the words left her mouth, the entire scene shattered into nothingness—including her own ethereal form.

  And then—

  Seraphine was back.

  Back in the real world.

  There was no River of Time, no bronze arrow, no illusory temporal tributary drifting through the sky.

  She had returned to the real world — the true reality.

  Boom boom boom boom!!!

  The moment Seraphine re-entered reality, a deafening barrage of explosions erupted around her, unrelenting in her ears.

  It was the coral island.

  Astonishingly, it had synchronized with the illusory timeline—collapsing and detonating in the real world just the same.

  Boom boom boom boom!!

  As if a Cloud Explosion Bomb had gone off at sea, the small island—larger than a football field—suddenly shattered without warning into countless fragments.

  Each fragment, irregular in shape, shot outward at extreme velocity, whipping up the surrounding sea into a frenzy of crashing waves and turmoil.

  Seraphine stared blankly at the chaotic scene before her, her eyes gleaming ever brighter, and muttered:

  “An action taken within a false timeline… can actually synchronize and affect the real world. That would mean…”

  Northern Eliondra Continent.

  Pipano Citadel, blanketed in a vast sheet of white snow, looked from afar like something lifted from a fairy tale.

  Ancient and solemn—yet tinged with a romantic charm.

  Because of this, the fortress had long been a beloved destination for travelers.

  Countless couples made pilgrimages here together, believing that if their love was witnessed by this fortress, it would surely endure forever.

  But what no one knew—

  Was that this citadel held a dark secret: it had the highest rate of disappearances in all of Eliondra.

  Strangely, some unseen force seemed to linger in the air, making all those who vanished here completely forgotten by the outside world.

  Even Eliondra’s most diligent detectives couldn’t summon the slightest urge to investigate.

  And what even fewer realized—

  Was that the Pipano Citadel the world could see… was merely an illusory outer shell.

  Its true form did not exist in the physical world at all, but instead within the Sentience Realm, nestled just beside reality.

  Today, Pipano Citadel bustled as always—crowded, vibrant, alive.

  Yet amid the laughter and joyous shouts of tourists, no one noticed that near them, black-robed witches drifted silently through the snow, their presence wrapped in a cold, shadowy aura.

  The two groups—tourists and witches—moved past each other like ghosts in separate dimensions, as though existing in two parallel worlds.

  They did not touch. They did not interfere. Each remained in their own layer of reality.

  Mycenae lived here.

  At this moment, in the very heart of the citadel—deep within a vast sacrificial courtyard that ordinary people could neither perceive nor enter—a pale, muscular man sat cross-legged in the center of a massive pool of blood, radiating an aura of death and dread.

  Surrounding him were hundreds of black-robed witches, packed closely together. Their eyes were hollow and lifeless, as if their souls had been crushed under some terrible power.

  Gurgle gurgle gurgle —

  The crimson fluid in the Blood Pool surged and boiled, thick with an icy, suffocating presence.

  This was the ultimate witchcraft — Lazarus' Pool.

  It was a Witch King ritual—far more fearsome in scope and arcane potency than ordinary witchcraft.

  Its construction demanded time, lives, and unimaginable resources. Dozens, even hundreds, of individual spells were woven together through a nightmarishly intricate process.

  The ritual served two core functions: sharing and dominion.

  First—sharing the life force and soul power of every human caught within the ritual’s sphere.

  This sharing was one-way. All energy flowed in a single direction—toward Mycenae, the ritual’s endpoint.

  Second—using all enslaved humans as anchors, it radiated evil power and demonic energy, seeping into the land beneath and the air above.

  The two forces fed into one another, entangling in such a way that the ritual’s effect would become eternal, ceaseless.

  When these two powers fused, the ritual’s master would become the de facto sovereign of an entire human civilization—an Alaya on a continental tribal scale.

  “Lazarus’ Pool! After a hundred years, I’ve finally completed it!”

  “I thought I’d have to wait another century, but I never expected Primis to flare up again.”

  From the Blood Pool, Mycenae rose slowly, arms outstretched, gliding forward through the air.

  “Seems even fate bends to me.”

  He looked down at the sacrificial ground, muttering darkly:

  “The soul of Elionra, the fate of Elionra—as of today, all of it shall be mine.”

  At his command, the hundreds of witches below drew three blood-red thorns from their robes. With brutal precision, they plunged two into their own stomachs and chests.

  Splurt. Gush. Gush. Gush.

  Blood sprayed. Not one of them flinched. Instead, their faces twisted into grotesque, euphoric smiles.

  They lifted the final thorn—and rammed it into their own skulls.

  As they shuddered and chanted a ghastly incantation, torrents of blood erupted from every thorn embedded in their flesh.

  Gurgle, gurgle, gurgle—

  A hundred writhing streams of blood surged and coiled through the chamber like living serpents.

  With howling, wind-slicing noise, they swirled around and shot straight into Mycenae’s floating body.

  “Aaaah!!”

  Eyes to the heavens, he screamed:

  “I am the father of all life—and the master of all!”

  As his words echoed, the entire sacrificial ground trembled. A black, evil radiance burst forth like lightning, searing through walls and barriers, flooding the surrounding air.

  Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh—

  Outside, in the castle above, laughing tourists were the first to be struck. Invisible, intangible evil light flooded into them. Their bodies and souls cracked—thin, transparent chains grew from within, piercing through stone and walls, binding them directly to Mycenae below.

  But it didn’t stop.

  The evil light surged outward, expanding relentlessly.

  It passed through every obstacle—people, animals, skyscrapers, ancient ramparts, even entire mountain ranges. Nothing blocked it.

  Within minutes, a hundred kilometers of land had been drenched in it. Hundreds of thousands of humans—body and soul—were bound to Mycenae, oblivious to their fate.

  Time passed.

  Thirty minutes later, Lazarus’ Pool had enveloped nearly half the continent of Elionra.

  Hundreds of millions of people had been unwillingly and unknowingly tethered to a single man.

  In the center of the sacrificial courtyard, Mycenae laughed with maddened joy, drunk on the ever-growing tide of vitality and evil energy surging through him.

  “Hahaha! The lives and souls of billions nourishing me! Unless every last one enslaved by Lazarus’ Pool is wiped out, I am invincible!”

  He looked down at the witches—dozens now collapsing, their bodies crumbling into ash.

  He sneered:

  “You vermin… pitiful, ignorant, lowly things. You should be grateful for the honor of dying for me.”

  “And this is only the beginning. Once I reign over all of humankind, I’ll erode this world’s very consciousness and claim it as my own!”

  “Then, I’ll push my mental power beyond all limits! Hahaha… Witch Continent…”

  Yet as he reveled in his fantasy, something inside him jolted. A tremor in his soul—as though something important had just… vanished.

  “Hmm?! What was that?”

  His blood-colored brows twitched. He focused.

  Moments later, realization struck.

  “Monroe is dead? He actually died?! Before the spacetime witchcraft was even born?!”

  Fury exploded within him. His face froze like ice.

  “My bloodline… Mycenae’s descendant… killed? And not by me?! What wretched insect dared?!”

  His red eyes glowed cold as he raised a rune-etched hand, extending a crimson finger toward the air.

  Buzz—

  Arcane ripples shimmered outward.

  Walls vanished. Earth, stone, and travelers faded into hazy silhouettes.

  Through his witchcraft vision, the entire citadel dissolved into transparency.

  Snow-capped peaks, winding rivers, cities and towns, people and beasts—all laid bare before his gaze.

  Even distant continents appeared in flashes.

  But still—nothing.

  “Hiding behind barriers? Trying to block me with mental walls?”

  His smile curled with malice.

  “Pointless. If I choose to end you, there’s nothing on Earth that can stop me.”

  He inhaled deeply—then shouted:

  “Atropos’ Eye!”

  Whoosh—

  At once, the air filled with whispers, sobs, shrieks, and the eerie laughter of unseen children.

  The sacrificial ground dimmed.

  It was as if the Gate of Ghosts had opened, and a thousand malevolent spirits had poured forth.

  Hiss, hiss, hiss—

  Mycenae’s pupils dilated. Long, thin, sticky black tendrils oozed from his eyes and mouth, slithering down his body until he was half-consumed.

  The tendrils wove into a swirling, nightmarish vortex—dark, like a nest of spectral serpents.

  The very room trembled, threatening to collapse into some alien Underworld.

  Mycenae prepared to split off a fragment of his soul, intending to traverse space via witchcraft—and annihilate the intruder directly.

  Buzz—

  His vision tore through valleys, oceans, sky—racing toward a hidden base ten thousand meters below the South Pacific.

  But—

  “How dare you!”

  Boom!!

  The voice hit like divine thunder. Mycenae’s soul dropped into a chasm of Hellfire. His mind shattered from the impact.

  “Aaaaaah!!”

  Blind, staggering—his vision crumbled to static.

  “Retreat!!”

  Panic erupted within him.

  He scrambled to reclaim the severed fragment of his soul, fleeing the Sentience Realm in desperation.

  But something chased him—something ancient and terrible, seeking to devour him whole.

  Even hidden in the depths of Pipano Citadel, Mycenae could feel the light, the weight, the cosmic judgment of the thing that hunted him.

  Compared to it, his twisted, infernal power was like a child’s tantrum.

  Pathetic.