Was this maybe taking the phrase "leave nothing behind" a little too far?

But that was no longer something Kanzaki Rei needed to worry about.

After all—

He was about to leave.

And after personally witnessing the Tree of Wisdom, Kanzaki Rei also felt that one of his long-held wishes had finally been fulfilled.

Through his talent, he had personally uncovered the secret hidden within the Time Relic.

But why was the secret of the Time Relic connected to witnessing the Tree of Wisdom?

Could reaching the end of one’s own timeline also count as part of the Time Relic itself?

And was this the true core secret of the Time Relic?

The path to fulfilling that wish had certainly been complicated.

"Echkatel, send me back," Kanzaki Rei said.

As for how to leave, he had already asked about it before.

According to Izparut’s method, it was actually possible to leave even without relying on Echkatel.

All he needed to do was fully live through an entire lifetime within this cycle of spacetime. Then, when the reset arrived on May 18th at the very end, he would maximize the spell Leap Through Time and jump to the farthest possible point in spacetime.

That should allow him to completely escape this timeline.

The only drawback—

Was the amount of time required.

Every second would need to be personally experienced.

To completely live through an entire life meant enduring twenty-nine full years.

"So you’re finally ready?"

"In that case... I’m starting now."

Echkatel slowly raised her hand.

"Anyway, thank you for freeing me from that place. Without you, I might have remained trapped there for a very, very long time."

"Perhaps I might have even disappeared alongside the destruction of an entire timeline."

A gentle smile appeared on Echkatel’s face.

Then—

Whoosh—

The scenery before his eyes began to flow rapidly past.

In a single instant, Kanzaki Rei no longer saw the Tree of Wisdom.

Instead, he saw a familiar woman.

Then a nervous, anxious man.

...His father.

Time flashed by almost instantaneously.

Whoosh—

In mere moments, Kanzaki Rei watched his infancy, childhood, adolescence, and youth pass before his eyes.

Time flew by...

If he could do it all over again—

There were some regrets...

No.

Many regrets that could have been fixed.

Unfortunately, this was not truly his own timeline. He could only watch the scenes before him fast-forward at ten thousand times speed.

Almost instantly, the moment he was blown away at the airport had already passed.

Click—

At that moment, Kanzaki Rei suddenly remembered something critically important.

He should have searched for them!

That’s right—

He still hadn’t discovered who the real culprit was behind the ritual that sent him to the Secret Sea!

How could he forget something like that?

Was it the influence of the Forgotten Moon?

Even within his Memory Palace, the priority level of that matter was extremely high!

Buzz—

But by the time he snapped back to attention—

He had already arrived at the Secret Sea.

"Echkatel, can we go back and look again?!"

"You really are troublesome," Echkatel complained as she halted the fast-forwarding flow of time.

"What moment do you want to review?"

"The moment right before I was blown away from the theater. Before that happened—who was the one setting up the ritual there?!"

Echkatel froze briefly.

...Right.

That incident had been so bizarre, yet she had unconsciously treated it like some ordinary, insignificant matter.

There shouldn’t have been a ritual appearing in that location at all.

And while observing Kanzaki Rei’s life, she had also felt something subtly strange.

His life somehow felt different from ordinary people’s.

But perhaps that was simply due to the changes that had occurred over the past hundred million years.

After all, Echkatel had no idea what kind of lives people in the current era actually lived.

Maybe it was because of common sense.

Because of that, she had never consciously questioned it.

"Hold on. I’ll rewind and take another look."

With a sharp whoosh, spacetime replayed itself before them.

Foreseeing the future and observing the past both belonged to the domain of time.

The past consisted of events that had already happened—completely fixed and certain.

Because of that, observing the past was generally far easier than predicting the future.

The scene before them once again became the airport.

"Even I can’t return to the true past timeline."

"This place is merely a reenactment based on everything you personally experienced."

Kanzaki Rei nodded.

Immediately afterward, his perception swept across the entire Earth.

Yet despite scanning everything—

He found nothing.

At the very least, he discovered no suspicious individuals.

However—

Deep beneath the planet’s crust, he found the same ritual he had once discovered on Earth within the Sea Abyss.

The ritual that had teleported him there.

It hadn’t been arranged recently. 𝓯𝓻𝓮𝙚𝙬𝓮𝙗𝒏𝙤𝒗𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝒐𝓶

Kanzaki Rei touched the ritual again, tracing the source of its origin.

Buzz—

His Hidden Origin Trace instantly locked onto a figure wearing a black hood.

But the figure appeared unreal.

Hidden Origin Trace failed to capture any information whatsoever.

It was almost exactly like encountering one of his own unsolvable mysteries.

No useful feedback came back.

No information at all.

"Echkatel, can you determine when this ritual was created?"

"When was it set up? Can we travel to the moment it was constructed?"

Echkatel glanced at the ritual.

She was extremely sensitive to time itself.

"The ritual seems to have been established shortly before your birth."

"It wasn’t set up recently?"

"No. Recently, the ritual has undergone slight reinforcement, but that seems to be part of the ritual’s own self-iteration."

"This is a ritual capable of evolving itself over time to adapt to different situations."

That really was advanced...

It could actually evolve on its own?

"Do you really want to find the person who created this ritual?"

"I feel like if you search for them with your current strength... you might die."

"Anyone capable of creating a ritual like this is at minimum a god, right? It wouldn’t even be strange if they were a Moon-Star existence."

Echkatel was currently an Eighth-Level Time Controller.

She was probably stronger than most other Eighth-Level class users of the same rank.

But if she truly encountered a Level 9 existence or a god—

She might not necessarily be able to win.

"...Forget it."

Kanzaki Rei clenched his fist.

He was still too weak.

Even if he found them now—

What could he actually do?

If the other party refused to reveal the truth, Kanzaki Rei would have no way to force the issue.

And there was still the risk of death and forced reincarnation.

Even if he really found them—

Even if they held no hostility—

If they simply ignored him completely, then in the end all he would know was that someone had sent him to the Secret Sea.

Finding them would make almost no difference at all.

"Let’s go," Echkatel said helplessly.

Time began accelerating once more.

Within only a few hours, more than ten months passed.

In the blink of an eye—

They had returned to May 18th once again.

The very day Kanzaki Rei entered the Time Relic.

As soon as he arrived at that date, Kanzaki Rei sensed the reset approaching.

He raised his hand once more.

Echkatel mirrored the motion simultaneously.

Light from the spell ignited.

One ring after another formed around Kanzaki Rei’s body.

Leap Through Time.

Buzzz—

As the magic resonated with time itself, a clear sensation spread through his body this time.

Kanzaki Rei could feel it.

He was finally capable of returning to the true timeline—

His own original spacetime.