Pacing through the darkness, Kanzaki Rei could sense no entities other than himself and Ansu.

After receiving the souls Rei had bestowed upon him, Ansu had finally recovered a portion of his strength.

It had to be said—

Ansu’s efficiency was astonishing.

With only a few thousand souls, he had rapidly repaired most of his injuries, and his strength had already recovered to the level of a Seventh-Class Ascendant.

If Rei fed him several hundred thousand more souls—

He’d probably regain Eighth-Class Ascendant combat power outright...

A pity.

After saving up souls for so long—

They had all been emptied again in one stroke.

Rei lightly placed a hand on the Ten-Skin Bag.

Bzzz—

Within the bag, the Living Creatures Bracelet glowed faintly.

Around the stored Ant Mountain, blazing flames ignited.

The black ants were burned away, transformed into pure souls that flowed into Rei’s body.

There wasn’t even a monster tide here.

Ant Mountain wasn’t producing many black ants anymore.

Today...

I’ll probably recover one trillion souls.

Enough for daily use.

But definitely not enough to support another berserk eruption from Ansu.

And besides—

Ansu really was injured.

Even if Rei fed him enough souls, he couldn’t erupt with greater power than he had just displayed.

Though according to Ansu—

As long as he wasn’t facing that Ninth-Class mage from earlier, dealing with ordinary Ninth-Class Ascendants was still possible.

Ordinary...

Are there "ordinary" Ninth-Class Ascendants?

Existences at that level—

Weren’t they all invincible beings of the world?

And considering how much Ansu usually bragged—

Seeing him get slaughtered like a dog in actual combat made it hard for Rei to trust him again.

"This place..."

"It feels a little like a temporal fault line."

Rei couldn’t help asking,

"And what exactly is that?"

Ansu answered,

"I’m not a specialist in time disciplines. I’ve only heard fragments."

"They say some places lead into the future or connect to the past."

"Of course, the future isn’t truly the future, and the past isn’t truly the past."

"They look like different times..."

"But in reality they remain connected."

"And the path leading to those places..."

"Is what they call a fault line."

Rei frowned.

"So you mean..."

"We haven’t returned to our original era yet."

"We’re still walking the path back?" 𝓯𝓻𝓮𝙚𝙬𝓮𝙗𝒏𝙤𝒗𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝒐𝓶

Ansu let out a dry laugh and shrugged.

"How would I know?"

"I told you, I’ve only heard rumors."

"I’m not a dedicated temporal scholar."

Ansu...

You really are unreliable.

As Rei continued speaking with him—

His perception gradually brushed against something discordant.

Something wrong.

In the distance—

Matter appeared.

A spiraling void.

It looked exactly like the ruin entrance he had entered through.

Its appearance was identical.

And besides that—

There was nothing else nearby.

As he gradually approached the spiral entrance—

The surrounding darkness began producing scattered patches of color,

as though a map were still loading.

He could vaguely make out the colors of rock and soil.

By its contours—

It looked like the Hollow Vale region.

The very landscape he had seen outside the ruin.

Could it be...

That undetectable black silhouette I saw back then...

Was really me?

Rei looked around.

But he saw no trace of himself.

The surroundings were still half-formed patches of unloaded scenery.

He stopped before the entrance.

Extending a fragment of Core—

The Core shot forward, touched the entrance—

And information flowed back.

Ruin — Time

Creator: Naturally Formed

As expected.

It was the same entrance through which he had entered.

Should I go in?

Rei glanced at Ansu, intending to hear his opinion.

But Ansu merely shrugged again—

Leaving the decision to him.

He knew no more.

Helpless, Rei could only resort to divination.

At the same time—

He looked into fate.

From this point onward—

When he gazed at the future, he saw an impossibly tangled mass.

Normally—

Looking into destiny was like watching a film.

This time—

It was like hundreds of films playing at once inside his eyes.

Shhh—

An enormous flood of information poured into Rei’s mind.

But with the cognitive enhancement of a Sixth-Class Cryptic Scholar, he absorbed it all—

And interpreted it all.

Ordinarily, predicting the future either yielded too little information—

Or vague fragments.

But this time...

Receiving intelligence on this scale—

It was a first.

Paradoxically—

Because there were too many possibilities,

he couldn’t distinguish which future was the true one likely to occur.

But one thing was certain from the divination.

This place was unstable.

Staying here too long was even more dangerous.

There was only one choice.

Go in.

Rei stepped into the entrance.

As he entered—

Ansu returned once more to Rei’s Sea of Consciousness.

Ahead—

A corridor.

But unlike before—

This corridor had changed.

At its far end—

A door appeared.

The corridor he had encountered previously had no end.

But now—

There was an end.

Behind the door came mournful sighs.

Helpless crying.

"I don’t want to stay here!"

"It’s nice here..."

"Why me?"

It sounded like a little girl’s voice.

Contradictory statements—

Yet all spoken by the same voice.

...Seriously?

Don’t start turning this into a horror scenario.

Rei walked forward.

The door ahead shone brilliantly.

And behind that door—

Was what he had long sought.

The Second Forbidden Magic — Time.

His perception could not be blocked.

So he extended it through the door.

Yet strangely—

Even beyond it, he saw nothing.

Only empty darkness.

Void.

I just walked out of darkness...

And now I’m stepping into another darkness?

A few quick steps forward.

It should have been enough—

He should have reached the door immediately.

But just as he was about to touch it—

Tap.

The scene changed.

He was far from the door again.

Roughly two hundred thousand kilometers away.

His position had been altered.

His first thought was space manipulation—

But in this place...

It inevitably suggested time.

Did time reverse?

Boom!

This time Rei accelerated violently.

Firmament Flow — Eighth Form: Motion·Instant Halt Flash

Light stretched out—

Flaring like exploding thunder!

BOOM!

Rei’s body blasted directly to the doorway—

Tap.

And in the next instant—

The scenery before him was once again twenty hundred thousand kilometers away.

Reset.

He had returned to the starting point.

Before moving earlier, Rei had carefully observed the wall carvings, the patterns on the corridor—

And casually dropped small objects along the way.

Now, after returning—

Those objects had vanished.

Yet the surrounding patterns remained unchanged.

He had heard that in the Third Region—

One could encounter repeatedly resetting spacetime.

Does this mean...

I’ve already reached the Third Region?

...

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