What the hell was that...?

My vision still spun like I was in some blender, my head throbbing violently as even now I could feel my body trembling.

The river, the voice, and that space, I could remember them, but it all felt blurry. What was even more concerning was what kind of information that snake had given me to make me go through all that.

"Are you okay, Rael...?"

A familiar voice of Ra, echoed in concern as I looked at the smaller version of me, now wearing a suit and tie like a proper corporate manager.

"What the hell happened to you? Did you suddenly awaken your fashion sense?" Instead of answering his concern directly, I asked.

"Tch, the way you’re bullshitting means you’re fine, huh?" He shook his head with a frown. "And no, I always had a fashion sense. It’s just that your weak ass could never provide for it. Only after you ranked up to D-Rank did I awaken this power."

"Ouch, is that how every parent feels about their ungrateful child?" With an exaggerated sigh, I raised myself up, already feeling a bit better. "In any case, I thought you weren’t supposed to be awake anytime soon."

Ra shook his head again. "I wasn’t supposed to wake up so soon but you bastard had to bring an uninvited guest into the house. So I had to wake up a bit early."

"Who the hell is this guy anyway?"

He looked at the cage floating above us, holding a small snake within it.

"I sure would like to know that as well. Just catch up to my memories and you’ll understand the gist of the situation."

I didn’t reveal my plans directly and instead willed the cage to descend. It followed my command and floated to a stop right in front of me.

"Hmm."

I looked at the snake within it as it stared back at me with a reverent gaze. I didn’t know what had happened after I left, but it seemed calmer than before now, probably due to something Ra did.

"Let’s start it all again, shall we...?"

"Yes, my master." He nodded.

"As you know, I am not at a state where I can comprehend everything. So, tell me everything you can but don’t mention names or things a weak D-Rank mortal shouldn’t know."

My voice flowed smoothly as I snapped my fingers, dispersing the cage around it and instead summoning a table and two chairs.

I took a seat on one chair and pointed at the one opposite me. "Let’s start with what you are...? And how are you connected to my sister, I mean, Lyra Von Ashborn?"

The snake transformed back into a humanoid form with crimson hair and eyes and took the seat opposite me, taking a deep breath.

"As I said before, my master, I am Naga, a loyal servant of you or it would be more precise to say, your predecessor, the First Successor of Great Trickster."

His voice was heavy.

"When I first sensed your presence, I thought you were him but it seems I was mistaken and you are, after all, the one who came after him."

"If you already know I am not him, then why do you still call me master...? And why have I never heard about any previous successors of Trickster...?" I asked the questions I was most curious about.

The snake, Naga, simply smiled.

"These are the effects of things that happened in the last century, a time no one except a few remembers, a time erased by the one who rules over it."

He continued without a pause.

"Back then, my master had left me and my siblings in the world alone, to handle a situation that required his presence."

He looked up at the open ceiling of the domain.

"He promised he would come back. He said he wouldn’t leave us alone but it seems even he couldn’t survive that catastrophe."

"Lost century...?"

"I can’t share much about it, my master, but according to those who lived through it, it was a time of chaos where many ancient kingdoms fell and many new empires rose. Countless Gods were slain and many more ascended."

He raised his head to look into my eyes.

"By the end of the century, something happened which somehow created a hole in time and most of the key players within that event were forgotten by time itself."

Forgotten by time itself...?

The words echoed in my mind as I could feel the weight behind them.

Still, that didn’t answer one of my questions.

"Why do you still call me master then...?"

So I asked, deciding to leave my mind wandering in useless theories until I had sufficient information.

Naga leaned slightly forward.

"Before my master left, he shared a piece of his power with me, asking me to keep my siblings, the ones he saved, safe and with it, he also told me that if he didn’t make it out alive, a new successor would appear. And if I met him someday, I should consider him no lesser than him."

"That power he left behind was his last will and it was also the only reason I never forgot him even when those he saved did, even when my own siblings forgot him."

His gaze was heavy now.

But honestly, I didn’t care about him. Instead, my mind struggled with all the crucial information I was hearing for the first time.

Lost century, a predecessor I didn’t know, beings forgotten by time itself and the sole person in the world who still remembered that time. Honestly, it was a bit too much to swallow at once but I knew this opportunity wouldn’t come again.

So once again, I forced my mind to stop wandering and focused on extracting as much information as I could from this guy before I could hope to understand it.

"What about the Ashborn Family? What’s your relationship with them? And why were you pretending to be their founder? And was..."

...was the First Successor somehow related to the Ashborns...?"