[Present Time]

Gregor’s voice brought Damian back to the present.

"Over time, we never met him again. And later, after years passed, we heard about the extinction of the Bloodworth family..." He paused. "We wanted to search for answers, but whoever asked questions related to them disappeared as well."

Castor interrupted, his voice firm.

"I still feel that the Bloodworth heir is alive... That old man wasn’t someone simple... And we all owe the debt."

Damian’s eyes went wide.

Thump... thump...

His heart slammed against his ribs.

Thump... thump... thump...

’No...’

The room felt like it was tilting and his breathing came faster and harder.

The Unnamed Four were looking at him now, confusion spreading across their faces.

Yara leaned forward slightly, concern in her voice.

"...Are you alright?"

But Damian couldn’t answer.

Thump thump thump thump

His heart was pounding so hard it hurt.

’Was I always meant to end up here?! Sitting at this table with them?! Learning this?! Wait! Was it really the same beggar?!’

His hands were shaking as the panic hit like a wave, crushing down on him.

His voice came out frantic and desperate, his eyes locking onto Gregor.

"That old beggar! What did he look like? Do you remember?"

The words tumbled out too fast and too sharp.

Gregor blinked, clearly confused by the sudden intensity, but after a moment he raised one hand.

His Aura flowed out with perfect control, and in the air before them, a face began to form.

Lines appeared first, then features and the weathered face.

Damian stared at it and his breath caught in his throat.

’I-It’s really him!’

The face floating in the air was identical to the one burned into Alessio’s memories.

And then the full weight of it crashed down.

’How?! How is that even possible?! How is he HERE?!’

His mind reeled.

’And he... he saved them decades ago in THIS world!’

The implications were staggering.

Damian leaned back in his chair, but it felt like the ground was dropping out from under him.

’Elizabeth almost died and I suddenly remembered his words about her... The Unnamed Four appeared when I was about to be killed... It’s all connected! All of it leads back to him!’

His vision was going white at the edges.

’I-I really am a puppet, aren’t I? A piece in some game I can’t even see...’

’I-I thought I was choosing my own path... Building my own future... But maybe I’m just walking a road he paved before I even existed... I’ve never been free at all.’

His hands were gripping the edge of the table so hard his knuckles had gone white.

And then another thought cut through the panic.

’S-Should I tell them? Should I tell them right now that I’m the Bloodworth heir?’

They were sitting right here. His protectors, placed decades in advance by the beggar.

But the thought twisted immediately.

’Wouldn’t telling them mean I’m accepting it? Accepting that I’m following his path? That everything he planned is exactly what I’m doing?!’

His breath came faster.

’But if I don’t tell them... am I just delaying the inevitable? Is staying silent part of the plan too?’

The two halves of his mind warred with each other while the Old Beggar’s face continued floating in the air, those sharp eyes seeming to mock him.

’What the fuck do you want from me?! Why did you do all this?!’

Castor’s voice cut through the spiral, concerned and confused.

"Damian, do you–"

He stopped mid-sentence and his head snapped to the side before anyone else could react–

Whoosh

Vermont materialized in the room, stumbling, his arms wrapped around Elizabeth’s limp body.

Blood poured from her nose, her ears and the corners of her eyes.

Her eyes were rolled back, showing only white, and her body convulsed.

"Y-Yara!" Vermont’s voice cracked, the usual composure shattered completely. "P-Please! I don’t– Mistress just–"

Yara was already moving, her hands glowing with Aura as she reached for Elizabeth.

Damian’s spiral stopped instantly, his panic forgotten as confusion crashed over him.

"...What is she doing here? She should be at the Academy!"

Vermont laid Elizabeth down carefully on the floor, his hands shaking.

"She n-never went back after the ambush... She’s been here, at the orphanage, trying to understand her Seer skill better."

His voice was rough and desperate.

"Recently she said someone was trying to interfere with her visions. She couldn’t see clearly anymore. And now this–"

Yara’s Aura poured into Elizabeth, but the convulsions didn’t stop.

Castor knelt beside them, his sharp eyes scanning Elizabeth’s face, her bleeding orifices and the way her body seized.

"It’s a Seer battle."

His voice was calm and clinical.

"Someone with precognition abilities engaged her in a seer battle... She lost."

Vash’s expression darkened.

"Who the hell would–"

Before he could finish, the lights went out.

Every single light in the orphanage, in the streets beyond and in the buildings stretching across the entire Tranquil city went out as darkness swallowed everything.

And in that darkness, Elizabeth’s eyes suddenly snapped back to normal.

Her pupils focused with terrifying clarity and she gasped, blood still streaming down her face.

"Shadow–"

Castor moved, his hands clapped together, then pulled apart smoothly, tracing glowing silver-blue Aura in the air between his palms.

His voice rang out, calm and absolute.

"Chronos Overclock."

And the Domain erupted.

A massive translucent silver-blue sphere exploded outward, expanding at impossible speed, covering kilometers in every direction, but the boundary remained open.

And the reality stopped.

Elizabeth froze mid-sentence, her mouth still forming the next syllable.

Vermont’s hand, reaching for her, hung suspended in the air.

Damian’s eyes, widening in shock, captured mid-blink.

The Phoenix in the glasses, caught mid-slosh, hung in the air like amber.

Everything and everyone stopped, except for Castor.

He stood in the center of a world that seemed to have come to a halt, his own perception and body accelerated beyond human comprehension.

The terrace around him transformed.

The night sky vanished, replaced by a vast mathematical cathedral of floating crystalline structures. Giant clockwork gears rotated slowly through the air, hourglasses drifted past, their sand frozen mid-fall and geometric equations spun in complex patterns, glowing with silver-blue light.

The floor beneath him turned transparent, revealing endless streams of formulas and probability calculations flowing like digital rivers.

And above–

Castor looked up and his blood went cold.

A massive beam of concentrated Aura was frozen in the air, still descending extremely slowly toward the orphanage.

’I reacted just in time.’