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Their only advantage is that they have more humans... than gods. Their initial alliance with the tomb keepers was based on the idea of ​​overwhelming the enemy with numbers.

As a result, Hiltina and Last were both eliminated together. Who can I complain to?

They couldn't win in a direct confrontation, nor could they win through underhanded tactics and sabotage. After that battle, all the cults in the entire Western Continent were wiped out, leaving only a few small fry who could no longer cause any trouble.

It seems that the gods have no other option but to give up and do nothing...

No, even lying down might not be very comfortable. The evil god of Deep Blue Harbor has not forgotten that Rast had previously made a bold statement, saying that he would come to the Cage of the Blazing Sky to hunt His true form.

“Continuing like this will only lead to our demise… As long as the guardian of the shore and the wielder of the holy sword live, the human era will continue forever.”

"Since that's the case, we might as well take a gamble."

"In terms of current condition and combat strength, we may not be as good as those two."

"But... in the long river of time where only angels are qualified to set foot, we are the ancient ones who occupy the upper reaches, while they are merely newborns."

You mean?

"Yes."

That divine thought echoed in the extremely slow flow of time within the Blazing Sky Threshold.

"The leader of the tomb keepers has contacted me."

"We have decided to use all our strength, by any means necessary, to turn back time—"

“To cut off our hidden dangers at the source of cause and effect, and to eliminate those two before they were even born.”

This suggestion was met with an even longer silence from the gods.

Compared to legends, angels, or rather gods... their greatest characteristic is "time and space uniqueness," which allows them to exist independently of the river of time and feel the flow of time.

Angels exist simultaneously in every moment of history in which they have left their mark, and unless they fall from the throne of angels like Gray, they are never weak.

However, this does not mean reversing time; for angels, reversing cause and effect is an extremely easy thing.

The inertia of the river of time itself, the corrective force of history, and the inertia of the natural order in maintaining the general trend of history... these are all existences that are enough to make even the gods fear them.

Not to mention that the gods are now hiding within the Cage of the Blazing Sky, and most of them are in a crippled state.

To turn back time, reverse cause and effect, and erase the existence of Rast and Hiltina's ancestors by killing them—the backlash from the historical correction force they would encounter might even lead to their demise.

However, being an ancient god who had lived through countless years, he had long forgotten superfluous emotions, leaving only the obsession with life.

No further words are needed.

After a brief analysis and weighing the pros and cons, the gods quickly made their decision.

Rather than waiting to die within the Cage of the Blazing Sky, and for Rast and Hiltina to come and hunt them down once they have grown strong enough, the gods chose to erase them before they were even born by reversing time, even though it would come at a great cost.

boom--

In the distorted time, the sound of surging, thunderous waves seemed to echo.

By gathering the mighty power of the gods within the Cage of Blazing Heaven, that illusory time began to slowly flow backward.

Starting from the downstream end representing the current node, the process is extremely slow, yet clearly visible, as it backtracks bit by bit.

The illusory flow of time surges and ripples, creating one vortex after another, each reflecting a scene of illusory and hazy light and shadow.

……

Hiltina ascended to the angelic throne, wielding the holy sword, and holding Rast's hand, announced her coronation to the people in the royal city square, along with her chosen fiancée...

……

Last has become a vegetable, neither alive nor dead, sleeping in a hospital bed on the outskirts of the capital city. Every sunny afternoon, Hiltina would take time out of her busy schedule to visit him at his bedside.

……

On the night of the Granville Empire's engagement banquet for its princess, a black-haired boy hovered high in the sky, with a demonic phantom like Satan's Yer spreading its jet-black wings behind him, and fired a shot that burned everything.

……

In the dead of night at Starry University, Hiltina, accompanied by Rust, received her last gift from her best friend Fran—a rapier as gentle as the night sky.

……

On the train to the academy, Rust and the newly acquainted Dean Silver looked out the window at the endless golden fields.

……

In the Canaan town, which had not yet been destroyed by the time-space collapse, Amys timidly looked up at the boy who was smugly sitting in the treehouse, worried that he might accidentally fall from the tree.

……

The mountain road was blocked by floods. In the cold and damp cave, a young boy and girl huddled together for warmth and made a vow to protect each other forever.

……

Scenes of illusory light and shadow appear in the distorted river of time.

These are all Raste's past experiences, the footprints he left in the years... and now they are being replayed scene by scene in reverse order.

The river of time flows backward, and the speed of regression continues to accelerate.

Soon, we traced back to Deep Blue Harbor in the Sixth Epoch, which was also the earliest trace that Rast left in history.

"No, it's not long enough."

"This library, which inherited the Fool's mantle, has a guardian named Rast with astonishing potential... Although he has only recently become an angel, he has already occupied a considerable amount of time."

As time rewinds, within the Threshold of Blazing Heaven, the phantom of an ancient god visibly dims.

However, the retrospective has not yet reached its end, but continues to go against the current.

Crossing countless intertwined tributaries of time, it continuously swims upstream, heading towards the source of that ever-flowing river.

The Sixth Period...

The Fifth Period...

boom--

A deafening roar came from the Cage of Blazing Heaven, and countless stars shattered, leaving only a crystal-clear star cup that was slowly lingering.

That is a symbol of the extinction of the gods.

Perhaps it was already extremely weakened over the long years, and this ancient god could no longer bear the burden of rewinding time, and thus perished completely.

However, the flow of time has not stopped.

Every deity knew that this was a war that would never end.

If they cannot completely wipe out the other party, then their fate is already sealed.

Only by going back to the most distant point can we completely eradicate Rast from the root and eliminate all possibility of his survival.

boom--

As yet another ancient god phantom collapsed, the Star Cup appeared.

That illusory tide of time has begun to accelerate further.

Quaternary Period.

Tertiary Period.

The Second Period.

……

Having gone back to this point, most of the long river of history and time has been traversed.

Those are tributaries of the trillion-mile river of time, intricate and intertwined, entangled with distorted time.

This is the immense power that has flowed from time immemorial to the present, carrying countless eras, billions of lives, and millions of years of time—the weight of "history."

Every tributary of time is a crucial juncture, a turning point, or a divergence in the millions of years of human history. Behind every twisted strand of time lies a heroic epic, the rise and fall of a nation, and the brilliance and demise of a civilization.

And these millions of tangled and intersecting channels represent trillions of historical detours—

Ultimately, they all converged at the single starting point.

That was the origin of the river of time, the starting point of human history, and the beginning of the magnificent epic that would last for millions of years.

The final, and also the first, age of gods.

After paying the price of nearly half of the ancient gods' annihilation, these ancient deities finally reached the very top of the river of time—a history unique to mythical beings, one that no living human could ever touch.

However, the next moment.

The deity who was guiding all of this suddenly froze in place.

He clearly saw that at the end of all this, at the beginning of the river of time that no human could ever touch... there was still a figure present.

Black hair, black eyes.

He stood quietly at the very top of the river of time, blocking the way of the gods.

"Wow, I didn't expect that you would come to me on your own without me even having to go to the Blazing Sky Cage to find you."

Looking at the ancient gods who had traveled back in time and appeared before him, the young man couldn't help but smile.

"Since we're about to pick up little Grey, let's use a line that fits her 'fate' sequence's mystical style."

He looked down at the astonished gods below, then snapped his fingers lightly.

Our meeting was predestined.

Within the distorted, spacetime vortex that devoured the gods...

Only the boy's voice still echoes, unchanged.

"Even if there are a thousand roads, none can escape meeting me."

……

The vast and boundless deep space of the universe.

This is the deepest part of the starry sea, and also the origin of destiny.

Grey thus sank into the abyss of stars, letting herself drift aimlessly with the current.

This was an exchange called fate, the price she had to pay after making such a grand vow.

From the very beginning, Grey was acutely aware of the weight of what she was about to accomplish and was prepared to pay a price commensurate with it.

Falling from the angelic realm, they wander eternally in the deepest reaches of the starry sea.

There are no traces of life in the astral plane. Even if astral creature or a legendary powerful being who can travel through the stars occasionally approaches, they will be blocked by the karmic barrier originating from fate and will not be able to set foot in this silent deep space.

Time has lost its meaning here; each twinkle of a star may mark the passing of hundreds of years.

Only for fleeting moments, when starlight reveals the course of fate rewritten by others, can Grey glimpse a corner of light in the prime material plane through the twinkling of the stars.

The nation rises, prospers, and then falls into ruin amidst war.

Heroes and kings rise to glory, only to fall from grace, their stories becoming the poems sung by wandering poets.

Civilizations have also changed several times, from the wizard civilization with its magnificent mage towers soaring into the sky, to the magic civilization with its magical mechs traversing the skies, to the era of beast tamers who valued beasts above all else...

But regardless of the type of civilization or how culture changes, the catastrophe at the end of each era always occurs in a cycle, burning civilization to wasteland, and then sprouting new seeds of civilization from the wasteland.

This endless cycle has already occurred six times, and it looks like it will continue indefinitely.

Until, a tiny variable appeared.

He was a boy with black hair and black eyes.

Initially, in the vast, almost endless torrent of history, this tiny variable was so insignificant.

However, with his appearance...

From the steam age, through the technological age, to the space age where spacecraft are everywhere and even ordinary people can roam the deep space...

Because of his appearance, the course of civilization was guided towards an unprecedented and brand-new future.

That is, at the same time.

Grey finally received the small miracle she had been longing for.

*Snap*

The curtain of starlight, along with the seal called fate, shattered.

In the shattered light, Grey finally heard the voice that was imprinted deep within her soul.