"Arianna has already concealed our presence," Edward said quietly. "Zaratul won't be able to sense us easily."
Then he turned to Pallez. "Old man, your job is to disrupt him as much as you can. Steal his abilities if possible—even his Historical Projection, if you get the chance."
"I'll…do my best," Pallez muttered bitterly.
Ten minutes later, all three of them—Edward, Krismona, and Pallez—simultaneously turned their heads in the same direction. Their gazes met briefly, and they each nodded in silent understanding.
The fish had entered the net.
Zaratul's consciousness gradually returned.
As the suffocating darkness receded, he found himself standing in the middle of a black town blanketed in thick, swirling fog.
He quickly recalled what had just happened and, without hesitation, attempted to cancel the Historical Projection and return to his true body—
But he failed.
Something in this town severed the connection between his projection and his true self. His heart sank, his breathing grew heavier, and a chill ran through his form.
"So it really was Her…" he murmured under his breath.
But he couldn't understand it. When had he ever offended that being—to the point of drawing a personal strike from Her?
This was not the time to ponder such things. What mattered now was determining where he was—and how to leave.
He extended a hand and summoned two Historical Projections, placing them on guard at his sides. Then, taking out a divination crystal, he began divining the nature of the fog-shrouded town.
Nothing.
He could glean nothing about this place—not its name, not its dangers, not the path to escape.
Still, his spiritual intuition whispered to him that the answer to leaving lay within the small black chapel ahead.
With a silent command, the Duke of Entropy's Historical Projection stepped forward under the effect of [Exploit], crossed the cobblestone street, and pushed open the chapel's door.
Almost instantly, Zaratul felt the link between himself and the Duke's projection snap.
Alarmed, he raised a hand to summon another projection—
But before he could, a familiar figure appeared before him.
She wore a flowing black dress, her features not striking but softened by a faint, serene smile.
"Good afternoon, Zaratul," she said gently.
"Krismona?!"
His mind reeled. How could it be her?
The thought had barely formed when a searing pain exploded in his chest. His throat burned like fire, and a wave of weakness crashed through his body.
The Witch's Disease.
Even as a Historical Projection, he wasn't immune to it.
He stumbled back, commanding the Weather Warlock's projection to block in front of him—only then realising that the entire area was already ensnared by countless nearly invisible threads of silk, sealing off every route of retreat.
Snap!
With a sharp click of his fingers, Zaratul ignited himself into a burst of flame, vanishing from within the web. But that brief delay had drained even more of his strength.
He gasped harshly for air, his chest heaving like a bellows. Coughs wracked him, and his head swam in dizziness. Desperate, he summoned a demigod from the Jacob Family to steal the disease directly from his body.
When clarity returned to his mind for a brief instant, Zaratul poured centuries of accumulated Wish Power into a single plea:
"I wish to leave this foggy town."
In that instant, all his stored power was consumed.
His heart ached with the loss—it had taken centuries to gather enough for his ascension to Sequence 1—but relief washed through him.
At least he was escaping.
But before he could draw another breath, a cold voice echoed in the air, speaking a single word in Hermes:
"Reboot."
The moment the word fell, silvery mercury symbols flared to life all around him, weaving together into the shape of a colossal, spectral, scale-less serpent.
Its metallic body was covered in intricate runes and rotating sigils—each wheel of symbols interlocked with the next, forming a chain of infinite, ever-turning cycles.
Then, the world lurched.
Time itself began to rewind.
Zaratul's consciousness was yanked backwards; the moment of escape was undone. He found himself once again trapped in the black town, standing right where he had been moments ago.
The little serpent—Will Auceptin—might have refused to enter the battle directly, but he had made sure Edward was equipped with several "Reboots."
They were safeguards—precisely for a situation like this.
Zaratul's heart sank like a stone.
He tried once again to wish himself free, but to his horror, he discovered that his Miracle Invoker abilities had vanished.
His spirituality plummeted, his strength rapidly deteriorating. From Sequence 2, he fell to Sequence 3—and continued to drop, the decline accelerating.
This sensation—the feeling of being stripped, drained, devoured—was all too familiar.
He had felt it once before, in Trier.
When he encountered Amon.
So…was Amon the one manipulating everything behind the scenes?!
That thought had barely formed when a child appeared before Zaratul. His eyes gleamed with ancient, rotating gears, and in his small hand, he held a wooden wand that flickered through the air with blinding speed, leaving trails of ghostly afterimages.
Then, all those afterimages raised their wands in perfect unison—
"Flavido!"
"Petrificus Totalus!"
"Stupefy!"
"Steal!"
"Imperio!"
In an instant, dozens of different types of controlling and stealing spells merged together, cascading toward Zaratul. The moment the first one struck, his mind froze completely—locked in a continuous "system crash."
Edward seized the opportunity, quickly beginning a divination—only to discover that the Attendant of Mysteries' Beyonder characteristic was nowhere to be found. He couldn't tell whether Zaratul had failed to steal it, or if he had somehow sent it away through another means.
"As expected," Edward muttered. "Things never go as smoothly as I'd like."
Without delay, he used Zaratul's immobilised Historical Projection as a medium for another divination:
"Location of Zaratul's true body."
A few seconds later, Edward's eyes snapped open. He turned to Krismona and said sharply, "Buy me as much time as you can."
Leaving only that brief command, he invoked [Hearth], vanishing from the fog-shrouded town.
Moments later, his figure reappeared—drifting through the mists until he emerged over a lonely island amid the Fog Sea, where Zaratul's true body resided.
Landing softly on the rocky shore, Edward immediately saw him: a bearded old man in a hooded black robe, sitting silently on a large stone. His eyes were closed, his body utterly still—not a trace of life could be sensed from him.
It made perfect sense. Zaratul's consciousness was currently trapped inside his Historical Projection; what sat before Edward was little more than an empty shell.
In the original story, Zaratul had remained in this state for centuries. His true body had teetered on the brink of losing control, his mind fragmented, while his Historical Projection degenerated into a monster within the fog town.
Such was the inevitable result of a Seer-Pathway Beyonder—when body and consciousness became inverted between reality and history.
"So…" Edward whispered, eyes narrowing. "If I kill Zaratul's true body now, will it erase him completely and release the relevant characteristics…or will the Miracle Invoker's powers simply bring him back?"
He tilted his head thoughtfully. "But without consciousness, what would be revived anyway? Just another empty husk?"
He smiled coldly. "In that case…let's skip the suspense and make sure there's no revival at all."
He unleashed [Regression] upon Zaratul's true body.
At the instant Zaratul's rank began dropping from Sequence 2, Edward struck—unleashing a blinding combination of Lightning Storm, Space Tearing, and the Killing Curse all at once.
To be frank, Edward had no personal grudge against Zaratul. But at the upper sequences, ascension was soaked in blood and death. No one could avoid that reality.
"To reach Sequence 2 quickly and find Lilith," he murmured, eyes cold, "I'll shoulder no moral burden."
BOOM!
Silvery-white lightning bolts rained down from the sky, entwined with rending tears in space, while the eerie green light of the Avada Kedavra curse bathed the scene in an unearthly hue.
But suddenly—
Edward's spirituality screamed a warning.
A surge of danger.
A moment later, a massive black hand erupted from the ground before Zaratul—its surface slick, pulsing with strange, tar-like liquid that glistened with a malignant lustre.
From its palm sprouted a pale skull, followed by bloodshot eyes, fanged tongues, and all manner of grotesque, distorted growths—an aura of extreme corruption and madness burst outward like a storm.
In the blink of an eye, the ground across the entire island cracked open. Every living thing upon it went still, then collapsed lifelessly. Even the sea surrounding the island for hundreds of meters teemed with floating corpses of fish.
This was an attack from the Abomination, Suah—in one of its chaotic, semi-dormant states.
Edward reacted instantly, slipping behind a Phantom Door to shield himself from the wave of annihilation. As the world trembled around him, realisation struck.
Right…in the original timeline, Zaratul cooperated with the Rose School of Thought.
No wonder he dared leave his true body exposed here.
A guttural roar echoed—
"GRUUUUH!!"
The writhing black arm lashed out, blocking the incoming lightning, the spatial rupture, and the Killing Curse all at once. In the next heartbeat, the abomination's limb convulsed violently, shrieking in pain before retreating, collapsing back into the ground.
Edward smirked. "Did you really think I was still that weak little Sequence 5 from the future? Even for a Sequence 1 archangel, taking those three strikes head-on wouldn't be painless."
Stepping out from behind the illusory door, he extended his hand toward Zaratul's body, intent on stealing it outright.
But then—
A gate materialised between them. It was covered in strange, divine sigils that shimmered faintly—and it blocked his Theft completely.
From the gate's depths, two blackened, bark-like hands emerged, thin and gnarled like the roots of a dead tree. The air froze around them.
Edward felt a powerful, oppressive force drag at his body and thoughts—he immediately countered it with [Unfettered], breaking free from the suppression.
Then, with a flick of his hand, he activated another Steal—snatching away the intruder's Wraith Transformation ability and their current chain of thought in one move.
Dozens of Phantom Doors unfolded around him, circling wide to bypass the black gate and strike directly at Zaratul.
But just as he was about to reach him, a white-haired middle-aged man appeared out of nowhere. He snatched up Zaratul's limp body and flashed away, slipping into a rift torn open from within the Spirit World itself.
"Steal!"
Edward cast again, swapping places with him instantly.
The middle-aged demigod froze in shock.
The gears within Edward's pupils spun rapidly—click-click-click—and within seconds, the man's rank plummeted straight to Sequence 5.
At that same moment, every Phantom Door around them burst into motion, each one an Edward-shaped blur launching attacks from every direction.
BOOM!
The man tried to transform into a wraith and flee—but his body stiffened mid-transformation. His mind went blank, and then—
Bolts of pale lightning struck down from above, shattering him. Half his body turned to charred ash.
A magnified Killing Curse swallowed what remained, and the Space Tearing Edward had prepared beneath him detonated—shredding both flesh and soul to vaporised fragments.
A high-ranking demigod of the Rose School of Thought was slain on the spot.
And at that very moment, from the black gate still standing nearby, another figure—skeletal and robed, one foot already stepping out—paused.
The future Angel, the current Sequence 3 'King of Curses', Barranca, silently withdrew his foot, retreating back into the Spirit World without a sound.
Nope. Not fighting that. Not today.
———
[Note]: Don't forget to VOTE. It keeps me motivated.