Chapter 800 : End Time

In the depths of the inner realm, within the shattered remnants of past history, the divinity symbolizing “Commerce” was in a state of violent upheaval. Yet beyond the world, the far grander and more magnificent divinity of “Industry” was gradually approaching, suppressing the rampage.

This approaching divine might advanced with poise, unhurried and calm. Ever since the Dark Gold Divine Aberration, born from the Dark Coin Noble’s loss of control, had sensed this power, it reacted as if faced with a natural enemy—going into extreme alert and exhausting all means to repel and obstruct it. But no matter how much effort it made, it could not halt the arrival of the appointed moment.

The advance of the God of Craftsman clarified the chaotic situation within this shattered world. When that irresistible divine force arrived in full, all would be settled. And the one who went mad from this realization was not only the Dark Gold Divine Aberration—but also the newborn will seated upon the Throne of Fate.

Inside the divine throne domain, the infant-form evil god of youth let out ear-piercing cries that shook the entire domain. Its frenzied attacks increased significantly in frequency, unleashing more turbid lightning, more dark-red chains, more grotesque, clawing monsters rampaging through the space, launching repeated assaults toward the radiant “sun.”

Bathed in brilliance like morning light, Dorothy wielded her long blade of light, commanding golden thunder and blazing flames, smiting the incoming threats like a goddess. The turbid lightning of the infant was severed by her sword, its chains shattered by divine thunder, and the surging sea of runes was entirely consumed by golden flames, becoming a sea of flame that incinerated all summoned monsters amid their screams.

Empowered by dual divinities, Dorothy withstood the attacks of the godling. The onslaught was not only fierce and relentless but also bizarre and uncanny—besides thunder and resilient beasts, there were also shadow assassins and curse masters who mimicked divine traits. All were manifestations of the infant’s mythical lore...

Yet no matter how ferocious or strange the attacks were, Dorothy defended against them with composure. Not only did her light blade and thunder match the infant’s offensive power, but the divine thought born from the fusion of Revelation and Lantern also allowed her to see through any plot or illusion targeted at her, rendering the infant’s tricks ineffective. Even when afflicted by curses or other negative conditions, Dorothy could dispel them through the redemptive power of Lantern. If the infant’s concentrated firepower ever proved overwhelming, she could deploy the divine armament—the nameless bell—for a key defense.

Under the Throne of Fate’s protection, Dorothy found it difficult to harm the infant god’s true form. And in turn, faced with Dorothy wielding dual supreme divinities and Stone divine armament, the infant god could gain no advantage either. For the time being, neither could overcome the other. But unlike the infant’s hysteria, Dorothy remained composed—for she knew time was on her side...

The infant clearly understood: once the “Craftsman” fully descended, it would be finished. It had to escape immediately. In one swift motion, it concentrated its fiercest firepower and hurled it at Dorothy. At the same moment, it activated a grand array centered around the Throne of Fate. Amid thunderous lightning that tore through the sky, the formation lit up.

It was a teleportation spell—an escape technique from this realm. While using its attacks to pin down Dorothy, the infant god tried to flee with the Throne of Fate!

However, at that moment, Dorothy immediately activated the divine nature within the nameless bell, shattering it into countless fragments that floated around her and rapidly expanded outward. These fragments formed a gray barrier, becoming a wide-area shield that effectively blocked the densest barrage of turbid lightning. As the shield successfully resisted the attack, Dorothy harnessed divine thunder and golden flames to destroy the countless monsters assailing her below, simultaneously using the redemptive force to cleanse all debuffs upon her. At the same time, she gathered a light spear in her hand and around her body—and threw it in unison.

“Don’t even think about escaping...”

Ultimately, Dorothy’s light spear became a radiant streak that shot toward the array surrounding the Throne of Fate, piercing it and unleashing a powerful burst of light that shattered it.

“Waaahhhh!!!”

With its escape route destroyed, the infant’s shrill wailing became even sharper and more tragic. Only now did it fully realize that as long as Dorothy restrained it, there was no possibility of escaping this shattered world. The moment it pulled Dorothy into the divine throne domain, it was already doomed. Its fate had already been sealed...

No! It refused such a fate—it was supposed to be the god who determined others’ destinies, not one bound by fate!

Amid its furious crying, the infant god began to act! It would escape! Even if it meant using every trump card, paying any price—it had to escape!

As the infant god howled, the divine throne domain began to change again. The sea of script that had been burning with golden flame began to boil—and then gradually faded, even the flames becoming translucent. As the rune sea became transparent, the scene beneath became visible.

A land covered in dark-hued metal... a giant face with a twisted grin and gaping mouth... it was clearly the very scene in the main space of shattered history where Artcheli and the others currently were! Dorothy paused for a moment at the sight.

“The boundary is becoming blurry... but not toward the world outside this shattered history—it’s inward... This thing is trying to blur and dissolve the barrier between the main realm of shattered history and this attached subspace, to link the two realms…”

Dorothy quickly deduced the infant’s plan. Due to the thickness difference of the boundary layers, escaping the shattered world entirely was far more difficult than linking the subspace to the main one.

“What’s it trying to do? Enter the main realm and then escape through the spatial rifts smashed open by those Forgers? But it can’t teleport—it would have to fly... I won’t let you pass.”

While continuing to defend against the infant’s attacks, Dorothy stared down at the scene below and thought to herself. At that moment, those in the main realm also noticed the shift.

“Damn it, it’s out of control again... Huh? The sky... changed again... What’s happening now?”

Mounted on an ice dragon, Nephthys—enslaved by the Dark Gold Divine Aberration—was intercepting iron meteorites falling through the sky fissures. When she happened to glance upward, she saw that the massive purple eye spanning the heavens had changed again. Its “sclera” and “iris” were gone, replaced by a blur. And at the center of that murk, there was a golden radiance and a grand stone platform. That golden glow was all too familiar to her.

“That’s... Miss Dorothy? I can see her now?”

“The Divine Mentor has linked the realms... is He executing that? Has the situation really deteriorated this far...?”

Not far from Nephthys, Hafdar—also enslaved and fighting off iron meteorites—spoke in a deep voice with furrowed brows after seeing the sky’s transformation. He seemed to anticipate what was about to unfold.

Within the great cracked eye of the sky, the divine throne domain had emerged. The entire divine throne domain had become linked with the main realm of shattered history to a large degree. The infant god’s power now more easily extended into the main realm, and its invisible force was reaching downward—descending upon the darkgold-covered land.

Then, at the edge of that twisted giant face, a patch of dark-gold ground began to churn and squirm like a swamp. From the heaving surface, a figure slowly rose—it was the blindfolded priestess of the godling. In her hand, she still held the golden scepter.

With the aid of the godling and the assistance of the Revelation Scepter, the priestess had not been enslaved by the Dark Gold Divine Aberration. She remained the infant’s puppet. Under the infant’s control, the priestess continuously chanted her prayers, kneeling to the ground with the scepter in hand. Then, from the stele throne, a dazzling purple radiance descended, striking the scepter in her grasp. With that scepter as the core, a massive ritual array bearing the Revelation symbol unfolded across the dark-gold land.

Immediately, a powerful, invisible pulse of energy radiated outward from the center of the array, spreading in all directions at extreme speed. In mere moments, it had spread beyond the dark-gold earth, reaching other city clusters—flooding every corner of this desolate, decaying world.

Then, within every building of this world… inside every home… inside every sealed nutrient-sleep pod, inside every helmet connected to the virtual world, all the sleeping individuals slowly opened their eyes. In their dazed gazes, a violet gleam flickered.

“My thoughts made real… my fears rendered false…”

At the center of the enormous ritual array, the priestess holding the scepter whispered softly. Simultaneously, throughout this withered world, in every room of every home, those who had drowned themselves in the virtual realm—zombie-like in form—also began to speak, all murmuring the same phrase.

“My thoughts made real… my fears rendered false…”

“My thoughts made real… my fears rendered false…”

Led by the blind priestess, the entire population immersed in the virtual began to speak in unison, their mouths muttering like in a trance. In places far from the battlefield and beyond the combatants’ sight, this chant echoed through every street and alley of every city in the world. The strange murmuring rose to fill the sky.

And accompanying the chant was a dimming of the heavens—the sky of the entire world was enveloped beneath drifting, shadowy clouds of uncertain light.

“This is... the Armoring Rite! And on such a massive scale!”

At that moment, Setut—relying on Nephthys’s body as a medium—spoke in shock upon witnessing the scene below. His words naturally stirred Nephthys’s curiosity.

“Armoring Rite? Isn’t that the ritual that allows one to directly become someone else? Who’s using it? Who are they trying to become?”

Nephthys asked with confusion. But Dorothy’s words, transmitted through the communication network, caused everyone to tremble in alarm.

“A ritual of this scale… may not be to make one person become another… but to make one world become another.”

“What? A world?!”

Hearing this, Nephthys and the others were shaken. Vania, bewildered, spoke in disbelief.

“To make one world become another… what does that even mean…?”

“Put simply, that creature intends to reverse fantasy and reality through a supermassive Armoring Rite. Quite creative, really...”

Within the great eye suspended above the heavens, Dorothy, still entangled with the godling, gazed down upon the earth. Through divine sight, she had pierced the illusion and grasped the infant’s plan.

The Armoring Rite, simply put, was a ritual that manipulated collective cognition—turning illusion into reality through belief. He who bore the name could thus attain the truth of that name; one who acted as king could thus become king.

In this withered world, the entire population was addicted to an enormous virtual world. Their minds had already deteriorated to the point of losing all distinction between reality and illusion. To most people in this realm, the virtual world was the real one, while the real world was nothing more than a nightmare.

Taking advantage of this condition, the godling had long been preparing this unprecedented Armoring Rite. Through the ritual, it intended to invert the two worlds: to make the virtual world everyone believed in into reality, and to relegate the current reality into the realm of illusion.

In that virtual world, the infant had already prepared powerful identities for itself and its minions. Once the ritual succeeded, those identities would become real. Meanwhile, it had deleted Dorothy and her companions’ virtual identities.

As a result, if the ritual succeeded, Dorothy and the others—save for Dorothy herself, protected by divine nature—would completely lose their real bodies and become nothing but virtual personas. Their deletion would be instantaneous. Even Dorothy, despite her divine protection, would be trapped within the virtual world for a time and be unable to stop the infant’s escape.

This… was the trump card the infant had tailored specifically to exploit this broken world. And now was the time to play it.

“I won’t let you succeed that easily…”

Amid her struggle with the godling, Dorothy summoned a light spear, locked onto the ritual’s center below, and hurled it without hesitation. No matter how well-prepared the ritual might be, a rite of this magnitude could never be completed instantaneously—thus, she could seize the chance to disrupt it directly by destroying the ritual array.

Dorothy threw her light spear at the center of the array, presided over by the blind priestess. Yet just as the radiant spear neared the ritual’s core, an unexpected phenomenon occurred.

The light spear began to destabilize dramatically as it drew close—the nearer it got, the less stable it became. Ultimately, after a burst of flickering and trembling, it vanished outright. Just like when she attacked the Throne of Fate previously, the spear’s destiny had been twisted—its outcome forcibly altered into spontaneous collapse.

“That’s… fate shielding… Has the ritual been linked to the Throne of Fate?!”

Dorothy immediately realized: the Revelation Scepter held by the priestess seemed capable of directly connecting with the Throne of Fate. In this colossal-scale ritual, the godling had distributed some of the Throne’s protection to the Scepter—granting it the power of fate to resist her interference!

Though the portion of fate given to the priestess was small and something Dorothy could overcome with time—within that time, the godling would absolutely complete the ritual.

“So I can’t disrupt the array quickly… in that case—”

Assessing the situation, Dorothy immediately made her decision and moved to act. Her expression grew firm, and the light around her body blazed brightly.

“Judgment…”

With a low incantation, radiant light gathered around her. Behind her, a pair of enormous wings of holy light unfurled. Then, she transformed her sacred staff into the form of a divine bow and began to draw it, conjuring a brilliant arrow of light.

But unlike before, Dorothy didn’t release the arrow immediately. Instead, she continued channeling divine power into it, allowing the arrow to gather strength, becoming more and more blinding with every moment.

Dorothy was charging up.

However, the godling would not allow her to proceed unchallenged. It immediately summoned waves of turbid lightning and chains, manifesting hordes of monsters to assault Dorothy. In response, she soared through the air, invoking shields formed by the nameless bell to block the incoming waves.

Unlike before, Dorothy no longer devoted the majority of her power to actively intercept and block the godling’s attacks. At this moment, most of her strength was focused on charging up, while a small portion of it was funneled through the radiant wings at her back, firing light spears intermittently—meant to keep the infant pressured, preventing it from performing spatial transfer to escape. As for defense, she left it entirely to the nameless bell.

With no active interference from Dorothy, the infant's relentless assault fell almost entirely upon the nameless bell. Only a few proactive shots were left to keep the infant from slipping away. When the unending torrents of turbid lightning struck around Dorothy’s form, even the nameless bell's shield began to show obvious fractures—widening steadily. It was clear that it wouldn't hold much longer.

Soon, just as the nameless bell was about to give way, Dorothy’s charged arrow was finally complete. From its previously radiant brilliance, it now transformed into a bright golden-red glow—plain in appearance, as if it had returned to purity. Its dazzle had diminished greatly.

“Heaven’s Judgement…”

With a calm murmur, Dorothy in her radiant-winged form released the bowstring, loosing the arrow of light. Expecting it to be a devastating blow, the infant god immediately retracted its offensive and strengthened its fate shielding. However, to its surprise, Dorothy’s arrow was not aimed at the infant nor the priestess.

It was not fired at the Throne of Fate, nor at the Armoring Rite ritual array—it was aimed at the ground of the main domain of the shattered world directly below them...

BOOM!!!!!!

When the golden-red light arrow struck the darkgold-encrusted land, an unbearably blinding brilliance erupted, flooding every visible corner of the world. Amid deafening thunder, a blazing sphere of light expanded rapidly from the point of impact, surging outward in all directions.

“Ah… What is this… So bright!”

“It’s so dazzling and hot… I can’t see anything...!”

The blinding brilliance on the surface forced even Nephthys and the others, who were currently fending off steel meteorites near the rifted sky, to shut their eyes. The extreme heat from the expanding fireball made the Dark Gold Divine Aberration—merged with the land itself—howl in agony. The dark-gold ground turned red-hot under the scorching blaze. And as the fireball reached a certain size, it no longer extended upward into the sky, but instead expanded violently outward.

Outward—at an incomprehensible speed! The growing fireball swept across the entire dark-gold land, then transmuted into firelight. Its blazing edge became a towering wall of flame hundreds of meters high, continuing to spread in every direction—beyond the dark-gold zone, into the other city clusters of this dying world.

In cities near the dark-gold lands, people could see it: an endless wall of flames stretched across the horizon, an immense tsunami of fire roaring toward them. When that sky-reaching inferno reached the city, it instantly became a sea of flames. And the wall of fire did not stop—it continued surging into the next city, and the next...

From orbit above the planet, one could clearly see a ring of fire expanding rapidly from the center—the dark-gold land—spreading across the surface of this heavily urbanized world. The ring scorched cities, mountains, and oceans alike. Everywhere it passed, land became flame, and seas began to boil.

The fire ring kept expanding, eventually reaching the planet’s far side. Then, due to the curvature of the planet, it began to shrink, finally collapsing to a single point—directly opposite the dark-gold land.

Thus, every corner of the planet had been swept by that firestorm, leaving behind a world wreathed in flames. Everything burned within it. Even solid buildings showed signs of melting, while those who lived inside—lost in illusory dreams—were peacefully turned to ash by the extreme heat, never awakening from their fantasies.

Back on the dark-gold land, the Armoring Rite’s ritual array remained physically unharmed, protected by the power of fate. However, its once-brilliant glow had dulled noticeably. At the same time, the godling's weeping surged once more into a shrill crescendo.

“Rest in peace...”

High above, upon the canopy of heaven, Dorothy surveyed the burning planet with the divine eye, observing the apocalyptic scene she had unleashed. Her expression remained indifferent as she murmured.

Faced with the Armoring Rite, which she could not directly destroy through the ritual array, Dorothy instead chose to eliminate the ritual’s external elements—its human participants. The Armoring Rite was a rite reliant on the collective cognition of countless people. Without people, the ritual could not be completed.

That strike just now—the conflagration that swept across the planet’s surface—was Dorothy’s cleansing by fire. She ignited every city, and in one fell swoop, annihilated over 20 billion humans who had continued to linger in this decaying world, immersed in illusion. The Armoring Rite thus collapsed completely.

As a Radiance Scion, Dorothy was even more powerful than a Radiance Apostle or Seraph. Her power was sufficient to scour the planetary surface. While such a widespread and unfocused method of attack wasn’t ideal against equivalent opponents, it was perfectly suited to the current situation.

This so-called shattered world, though real, was still a remnant of the past—a discarded history. The people surviving within it had long lost all meaning, trapped with the world in a predestined, collapsing era. What Dorothy had done was simply allow the world’s end to arrive through another means—ushering its people from their stupor into yet another cycle of meaningless repetition.

“Now then... how do you still intend to escape?”

With her gaze withdrawn from the apocalyptic inferno she had wrought, Dorothy stared coldly at the godling seated upon the Throne of Fate. She then withdrew the battered nameless bell and, with her radiant wings, soared once more toward the throne—resuming her fierce assault.

Thunder rang out across the divine throne domain. Amid the infant’s piercing cries, it desperately resisted Dorothy’s renewed assault. Now that the Armoring Rite had failed, escaping had become exceedingly difficult.

But—difficult did not mean impossible… not if the infant was willing to pay an immense price.

At this point, however, there was no longer any room to consider the cost. For the sake of survival, the infant had no choice but to invoke its final resort.

Within the storm of clashing divine powers, a low, murmuring chant began to echo. The strange utterance overpowered all other sounds of conflict, ringing in Dorothy’s ears with a persistent, delicate cadence.

“This is...?”

With the chant came further upheaval within the divine throne domain. On the backrest of the towering stele that formed the Throne of Fate, dense ancient inscriptions began to glow faintly. Then—those inscriptions stirred. They floated from the stone, circling endlessly around the godling, eventually converging into a scroll without parchment—a floating, formless tome—unfolding silently before the infant.

More characters emerged from the surface of the stele after the previously displayed names floated away, and these too soon drifted outward, gathering upon the void scroll before the godling, causing it to grow longer and longer.

“The Prime Axis…”

The godling’s sharp voice echoed through the space. At that moment, Dorothy also understood what the void scroll in front of the infant truly was—it was the Prime Axis of History—the present historical timeline of this universe.

That void scroll, in essence, was of the same nature as the countless drifting tomes within the Scroll Realm. The only difference was that it had not yet been discarded—and now, the godling was about to take action against it.

What the godling intended to do now was Judgment! It was going to forcibly overload its meager remaining divinity, push the Throne of Fate beyond its limits, and invoke the authority of Heaven’s Arbiter—the power to pass judgment upon history!

The godling was about to negate history. It was going to exhaust its full strength to nullify the past fifteen minutes of every domain across the cosmic scale—resetting time to fifteen minutes ago!

A fifteen-minute annulment… this was the absolute limit of what the godling could manage. But it wasn’t attempting this to turn the tide of battle, nor to defeat Dorothy in a rematch. For once this Judgment was executed, the infant’s divinity would be utterly depleted—even operating the Throne of Fate would become impossible. Moreover, the time reset would not restore its weakened state; the infant would suffer catastrophic backlash, likely remaining debilitated for centuries to come.

What the godling wanted was still to escape. Fifteen minutes ago, it had not yet fallen into Dorothy and Shepsuna’s trap. It had not yet foolishly dragged what appeared to be a powerless Dorothy into its divine throne domain. Fifteen minutes ago, it had been in the divine throne domain, and Dorothy had still been outside. Back then, if the infant had tried to flee, no one could have stopped it.

The Boundary Line still existed then!

Dorothy, blocked by the meticulously prepared threshold between realms, would’ve needed significant time to break through—and the infant could have escaped within that window. It would’ve been like turning back time to before the fall of Troy, with the Trojan Horse still outside the gates!

“Don’t even think about it...”

As if seeing through the godling’s plan, Dorothy suddenly accelerated her offensive, attempting to interrupt the process. Yet the defenses erected by the infant were not so easily breached. In the end, Dorothy failed to stop it in time.

“...Seated... atop... Fate…”

“...I now... pass Judgment…”

In that shrill voice, the godling finally revealed its last resort, deploying its ultimate card. Amid the screeching pronouncement that echoed in every ear, the void scroll before the Throne of Fate began spinning violently.

All at once, the world—the universe—began to show signs of freezing. The infernos consuming the globe, the steel meteors raining from the heavens, everything flickered like a corrupted recording: skipping frames, stuttering, growing increasingly erratic.

Alongside the glitches and frame skips, the “image” itself began to dissolve. Entire portions turned to static, then vanished completely. Within this perpetual stutter, the world began to retreat—until at last, it ground to a halt, and dissolved into nothing.

And when that void shattered—reality reappeared. Yet the world now was completely different from what it had just been.

It was once again the dark-gold lands, but the pitch-black terrain and the greedy, laughing faces had vanished. The immense city clusters once swallowed by the dark-gold marsh had returned to their original state. The concrete jungles stood once again. The rifts in the sky, once torn open by steel meteors, were now gone. Above, only the purple giant eye remained, watching over the land. Behind the eye, the divine throne domain remained tightly sealed away from the main realm.

The apocalyptic flame that had engulfed the planet had disappeared. At the summit of the True Universe Headquarters' tower, the purple pillar of light still pierced the sky, and the facility’s automated defense systems were operating at full force, fending off the intruders attacking from all directions.

“Still as sneaky as ever… Taharka…”

Riding on frost, Setut was freezing the red threads that rained down from the sky. His body hadn’t even been destroyed yet. Nephthys remained hidden somewhere in the city, preparing her necromantic ritual.

“Let’s end this here, Aldrich!”

“Agreed…”

Controlling the giant golem, Aldrich was still locked in fierce battle with Deer Skull, and the latter's works had yet to be stolen.

“Please be careful, Your Excellency!”

“Puppets with no souls? A bit troublesome…”

Facing the Umbrum Gargoyle puppets, Artcheli and Vania were still probing cautiously.

The Dark Coin Noble remained seated atop the tower, continuing the world-devouring ritual alongside the blindfolded priestess. He had not yet gone berserk and become a Dark Gold Divine Aberration.

Everything—everything—had seemingly returned to how it was moments ago. Everyone was in the exact same place, doing the same thing, just as they had “previously.” It was as though history had been reset without anyone’s awareness…

Of course, that was only seemingly...

At the outskirts of the True Universe Headquarters, Hafdar, mounted on his red dragon, stared ahead in confusion.

“That usurper… where did she go?”

Looking ahead—where only a moment ago he had been locked in a standoff with a certain girl—he now found her suddenly vanished. Hafdar couldn’t help but mutter in puzzlement.

Time reset… could reclaim some things. But others—it could not.

Behind the sky-spanning eye, within the mysterious divine throne domain, all traces of the furious battle had vanished. Upon the Throne of Fate now sat a figure—frail to the extreme.

“...Ha… ha… ha…”

Collapsed atop the stele-like throne, the godling panted heavily, too weak to even move. Having wielded power far beyond its limits, it now bore the devastating backlash. Never before had it been in such a weakened state.

But… fortunately, the last resort had succeeded. History had been negated and reset. Everything—except its own condition—had returned to fifteen minutes prior, when the situation had still been under its control.

Now… Dorothy and her allies had just begun their assault on the True Universe Headquarters. Everyone had just found their respective opponents.

Now… this divine throne domain belonged to the godling alone. It had not yet made that foolish decision—to personally drag that seemingly harmless usurper into this space and entrap itself.

Now… everything could still be salvaged! The infant had to seize this fleeting window, despite its frailty, and escape immediately from this place of disaster—

Shhhhk!

“WAAAHHHHH!!!”

Just as the godling was regaining its breath and preparing to activate the escape spell—

A golden holy light descended from the dim sky, striking the Throne of Fate directly and impaling the twisted figure slumped before the stele. The godling’s agonized scream once again rang out across the divine throne domain.

“So noisy... Always crying and wailing at the drop of a hat. Haven’t grown up at all…”

With a cold murmur, a soft morning light began to descend from above. Bathed in that gentle glow, a golden-haired girl hovered downward—her divine sigils flowing, her golden ornaments gleaming, her radiant eyes brimming not with warmth, but with merciless frost.

“Just as I expected. When pushed to the brink, you’d resort to such a reckless gamble—invoking the power of Judgment…”

In the Radiance Scion form, Dorothy descended once again into the divine throne domain. This time, she landed near the Throne of Fate—a place she hadn’t approached during the earlier battle—right before the towering stele.

Standing at the forefront of the divine throne, Dorothy looked down upon the twisted infant seated on the throne. A light spear had pierced cleanly through its grotesquely oversized head. Its swollen, exposed brain was hissing with white smoke where it contacted the holy weapon. From its gaping mouth, an endless wail of agony howled forth—shrill and gut-wrenching.

That piercing wail was laden with countless emotions—shock, astonishment, fear, confusion... Of them all, fear reigned supreme, with confusion a close second.

“...Why... Why... Why…”

“...You’re here... you’re here... you’re here...”

“Ah... why am I here indeed? That’s a good question. According to your calculations, I shouldn’t have been summoned into this space yet—I shouldn’t exist here at all…”

Dorothy murmured coldly as she reached out, grasped the light spear that had pierced the infant god, and lifted its deformed body aloft, skewering it completely upon the spearhead. The thorny bindings that had restrained the infant moments ago now loosened on their own.

“—TIID-KLO-UI—”

“...What...?”

“That’s the answer to the question plaguing you. If you don’t understand it, I won’t bother explaining. Just know that it created a time discrepancy between me and the world... which is why I’m standing here now.”

In the face of the infant’s confused agony, Dorothy responded quietly.

According to the godling’s design, the fifteen-minute time rewind should have left Dorothy still outside the divine throne domain—just beginning her encounter with Hafdar. She absolutely shouldn’t have been present here.

And the reason for this anomaly—was the mysterious utterance Dorothy had invoked earlier… or rather, Dragon Shout, the ancient tongue of dragons.

Dragon Shout: Slow Time. A command over time itself, roaring at it to bend to the will of the shouter—slowing time in the surrounding space. This was a technique Dorothy had obtained long ago through the System, exchanged from an entire set of Spirit-Glyph language from the New Continent. It had helped her through several moments of crisis.

When Dorothy first acquired the Slow Time shout, she only knew one word of it. For a long time afterward, she made no progress. But once she secured the support of the Church and gained unrestricted access to the mystical texts of the Historical Scripture Department, Dorothy rapidly mastered all associated languages—including the Imperial Language—and completed the full shout.

Before the godling invoked Judgment to rewind time, Dorothy had already, almost casually, activated her divine-infused Slow Time Shout, increasing her personal temporal flow. Because she used a three-word Shout, the acceleration effect was significant.

Dorothy accelerated her own time. Her flow of time diverged from the main timeline. For every second that passed on the main axis, Dorothy experienced several seconds. For every minute of universal time, she experienced many more.

Thus, the main timeline could no longer accurately reflect Dorothy’s state. The infant’s Judgment took roughly twenty seconds to prepare and cast, but for the accelerated Dorothy, those twenty seconds felt like several minutes.

When the infant rewound time by fifteen minutes, everyone and everything else returned to where they had been fifteen minutes prior.

But Dorothy was different. Between her Dragon Shout activation and the time rewind, she experienced several minutes while others experienced mere seconds. So when the timeline rewound fifteen minutes for her, it brought her back farther ahead than it did for anyone else. From the godling’s perspective, she should be outside the divine throne domain, still battling Hafdar—but from her perspective, she had been inside, locked in divine combat.

And that’s precisely what happened: the rewind succeeded, but Dorothy did not return to her “place in others’ memory of history.” She returned to her own point fifteen minutes ago—within the divine throne domain, still in Radiance Scion form, completely unharmed.

Meanwhile, the godling was not so lucky. It had burned all its power to invoke Judgment and had become unspeakably frail—so weak it couldn’t even activate the fate barrier anymore. Dorothy’s attack passed through unimpeded, spearing it upon the Throne of Fate, and allowing her to descend unhindered onto the pedestal.

Now, the feeble infant was no threat to her whatsoever.

It had used every possible method to escape, but now it was truly cornered. Skewered on Dorothy’s spear, it could only continue its useless wailing.

“Farewell…”

With a whisper, Dorothy willed the tip of her light spear to ignite with golden flame.

In an instant, the fire engulfed the infant’s grotesque body. It began to tremble violently, struggling with all its might. Its final shrieking cries were so shrill they made the divine throne domain tremble.

Within the golden blaze, the malformed infant’s body showed only faint shadows. The shadow writhed, flailed, but as its cries faded, so too did its movements. Life gradually slipped away.

At last, Dorothy could see—emerging from the charred husk now turning to ash—tiny specks of violet light. These floated free of the golden flame, gathering before her into an increasingly bright violet sphere. Within it, cryptic runes flickered into existence and faded again.

This… was the divinity of Heaven’s Arbiter once belonging to the godling. Now, it was Dorothy’s.

…

In the main domain of the shattered world, the battles across the vast city clusters still raged. Everything was progressing just as Hafdar and the others had anticipated… until the massive purple eye in the sky began to flicker with instability. It trembled, its pupil darting wildly.

“What’s going on?! Did something happen with the Divine Mentor?!”

Still searching for Dorothy, Hafdar frowned at the sky. Then, he quickly closed his eyes and prayed.

“Divine Mentor… what’s happening on your end—ugh…”

A sharp pain pierced his head. He fell to his knees, crying out in anguish.

“D-Divine Mentor… what are you—aaaAAAH—!!”

“Give me... your body...”

An overwhelming spiritual force surged into Hafdar’s consciousness, violating his will, his flesh, his very being. Hafdar realized what this was—

𝙛𝒓𝒆𝙚𝒘𝒆𝓫𝙣𝓸𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝒄𝒐𝓶

Possession.

The desperate godling, its original body consumed by divine flame, had no options left. Yet its desire to survive still burned. With its strength gone and its throne abandoned, it discarded everything—its divinity, its flesh—and activated a pre-established psychic link to its most powerful subordinate, intending to hijack his body and escape in disguise.

No matter what—it wanted to live. Even as a lowly creature, even barely surviving. It believed that as long as it could cling to life… one day, revenge would be possible. No matter how distant that future might be.

Without remorse, the godling began its final possession—but at that moment, something happened that it did not expect.

A powerful mental vortex erupted in Hafdar’s consciousness, sucking in the invading will. The godling’s mind was caught off guard—dragged straight into the swirling trap.

“...What?!”

The vortex morphed into a storm, spinning violently in Hafdar’s mind. It pulled the infant’s will and Hafdar’s own into its core—shredding both into pieces.

“A psychic trap! No… a servant’s trap shouldn’t activate against its master—!

“Stop, Hafdar! I am your Divine Mentor—STOP!!”

The godling’s mind howled in horror within Hafdar’s psyche. But Hafdar was kneeling in place, blood flowing from every orifice, staring blankly at the sky.

“Stop… Divine Mentor… yes… I should stop… If you want my body… you may take it…

“But why… can’t I stop…? Why… doesn’t the trap acknowledge you…?

“This trap… when did I even set it?”

As he bled from his seven orifices, Hafdar murmured dazedly at the sky. His spirit and the now-mortalized soul of the godling were entangled—both being pulverized, dragged toward annihilation by a trap Hafdar himself no longer remembered placing.