Danmaku, my skills refresh weekly.

"Like Belle, leave behind opportunities to change the past, preserving the power of the future within the past, connecting the past with the 'present.'"

"Ryu's previous tests have proven that favors and experience can spice up the past."

"Our goal is to add more and more of these 'ingredients,' then steer the 'past' timeline toward the 'Shar' timeline,' ultimately rewriting the 'world.'"

Fels' pupils widened slightly: "Reset the world? That's already the authority of a god. Can you do it?"

"How will you know it won't work if you don't try? At least, there really is a barrier in the lower realm that can distort time and allow people to reach 'eternity'—that 'Heavenly Fire'!"

Chapter 453 The Cuckoo

Dungeon Level 11

The Loki Familia, which had been following the proper route, arrived late.

The first few floors were fine, but after the fifth floor, all the monsters along the way disappeared.

This sign came when they saw the newly hatched monster burst open inexplicably right next to them.

“Finn… it seems we’ve entered someone’s firing range.” Riveria was very sensitive to magic and sensed the faint spiritual energy floating in the air.

"It should be Metlujah who entered earlier. Wasn't she rumored to be just a sickly person? Could she be a hidden trump card of the Hera Familia?" Finn licked his thumb.

“The magic damage isn’t high. Rivera, put on a shield, let’s go ahead and see what’s going on.” Grace, carrying his axe, looked fearless.

It felt terrible to be pointed at with a cannon without even seeing a shadow of anyone.

However, they didn't see anyone until they reached the 10th floor. At most, they could only see a corner of a magic circle on the edge of the tunnel wall.

"This... a magic circle. As expected? Metluja is not a novice adventurer. She has at least achieved Ascension."

“The size of this magic circle… it’s already caught up with yours, Rivera, hasn’t it?” Grace exclaimed.

“No, I can’t even see people yet,” Riveria denied Grace’s guess.

She's only level 4, her magic level isn't high, and she can only deploy her magic range of about 5 meters.

Driven by curiosity, they followed the girl up to the 11th floor, where they vaguely saw her full appearance amidst the thick fog.

Goblins, imps, orcs—monsters exploded into pieces around them, and a gray magic circle, stretching for hundreds of meters, slowly rotated, like a cannon ready to fire at any moment.

Riveria felt an invisible mental wave sweep past her. Behind her, a newly hatched monster exploded instantly, and the invisible shockwave accurately crossed a kilometer range to hit the target.

“Hey, this is something a first-level adventurer can't do anymore.” Grace said in astonishment.

“She should have discovered us long ago,” Riveria mused.

“I never imagined that even as the ‘sister,’ she possessed such terrifying talent?” Finn frowned. “The Hera Familia are all monsters.”

Orario is now ruled by the Familia of Zeus and Hera, and the likes of the Osiris Familia and the Set Familia, which had begun to carve out their own territories, have been wiped out.

Seeing the ever-growing number of powerful members of Hera's Familia, it seems that the grand ambition of revitalizing the Tontatta race in Orario is a long and arduous journey.

In distress...

"Ughh ...

An adventurer covered in blood stumbled and rushed up the passage from the tenth floor.

Finn looked on warily.

The next second, a pair of heavy blades, one long and one short, resembling a pair of scissors, cut the adventurer in half at the waist.

From the shadows, the scissors slowly withdrew, revealing a woman in a black dress with short, blue hair. She glanced at Finn and the others, a cold smile spreading across her lips: "Loki Familia... aren't you all a little too curious?"

'Cancer Acho Ben', the name popped into Finn's mind, and he felt a chill. He smiled and said, "We're just worried that Miss Metluth might be in danger."

"After all, she doesn't seem normal like the rumors suggest, and it's inevitable that people would worry if she rashly entered the underground city."

Aqiu Ben's expression softened: "So, I should thank you, then."

Finn shook his head: "Now that someone is protecting me, I feel relieved."

"Hmph—" A-Qiu snorted coldly, hoisted the scissors onto her shoulder, and tilted her head: "What are you still standing there for? Do you want to keep watching?"

Faced with the level 6 intimidation, Finn hesitated for a moment, glanced at the magic circle in the distance, and shrugged, saying, "We're going to take risks too, we can't just go back."

"I'm sorry, yes."

Finn narrowed his eyes: "That's really domineering. Even if you're level 6, it would take you a lot of effort to deal with the three of us by yourself. In that case, it's hard to say whether your princess is safe."

"Is that so? Count me in?"

As soon as she finished speaking, another woman, around 27 years old, appeared in the passage. She had long gray hair, gray eyes, and wore a dark gray dress with black patterns. She carried a magical cloak that looked like wings, with blades shimmering with dark light hanging from the cloak.

Like Achu Ben, Vera Kuku, the second member of the Hera Familia's 'White-Armed Goddess', is a level 5 'Cuckoo of the Scepter'.

The number of hostile forces has increased, and their levels are all much higher than theirs.

Finn didn't confront him directly, raising his hand to step aside: "Then let's wait until you leave before we continue on our way."

As he spoke, he led his companions slowly toward the area leading to the upper level and exited the passage.

"Kuku, what brings you here?" Aqiu looked at his colleague with a strange expression.

"Don't call me by that name," the woman with gray hair like a cuckoo frowned and retorted. Then she said calmly:

"Lady Hera asked me to observe Metluth's condition."

"Oh. Not to stop?" Aqiu raised an eyebrow.

“It’s just observation. How should I put it, that kid is too strange these days.” Kuku silently stared at the magic circle in the distance and exclaimed in amazement, “He’s almost catching up with Alphia, or rather, he’s just like Alphia.”

A-Qiu chuckled: "What's this? It takes time to awaken?"

Kuku glanced at Metluth, who had started moving again, and murmured, "Even though she may have already discovered us, let's stay here and watch. Let's not disturb the little princess's enjoyment."

"Let's see what she's planning to do?"

……

On the other side, in front of the screen.

Ciel devised a plan, waited for Metluth to recover her strength, placed his hand on the gem crystal, and manipulated her to continue forward.

Using the magic circle that had been set up, they precisely cleared the screen and slowly advanced. Three hours later, they arrived at the 17th floor.

"According to the route, the [Catfish Monster]'s secret realm is nearby."

Ciel used magic to blast open the sealed rock wall, revealing a passage filled with the smell of sulfur.

This is an 'unexplored area' that appeared in the special episode; it's a hot spring located inside a labyrinth.

However, the hot springs here will also spawn a catfish monster that secretes a slime powerful enough to corrode fabric.

Ciel wouldn't wait for it to launch a sneak attack. He deployed a magic array to widen its range, using sonic waves to locate the enemy and the Gospel Lock to stun it. Before the enemy could even see him, he blasted the catfish monster hiding on the rock wall to its death.

His goal was not the monster itself, but this secret realm.

"If you want to test whether the past can influence the future, then place something that shouldn't exist in history in an abandoned dungeon, and you'll know which timeline it is."

In the scene, Metlujah removes the lily ornament from her head, finds a rock wall, and covers it with stones.

Just to be on the safe side, Shire also placed several bottles of stamina potions in different locations, even at the bottom of the hot spring.

"The next step is to search the current secret realm and see if we can retrieve any items that were 'delivered' from the past."

Chapter 454 A Delivery from the Past

Instructing Fels to look after the former Metluth, Ciel, alone in the Shaft, arrived at the 17th floor of the labyrinth.

Emerging from the gate hidden behind the rock wall, and following my memory, I quickly found the unexplored secret realm where the hot springs were located.

With a mix of anticipation and fear, Charles turned over the scattered stones and froze.

There was no lily hairpin as Charles had imagined.

Instead, it was a broken sword frozen in ice.

To be precise, it's the hilt of the sword.

“This is…” Charles reached out to touch it, but the biting cold made him pull his fingers back.

Ciel wrapped Rimuru in his palm, his fingers coated with black slime, and picked up the frozen short sword.

The short sword flickered with an uncertain, chaotic gray light, which dissipated and disappeared as it was gripped by Charles.

"Could this be 'Ais's Hilt'? But shouldn't it be in the guild's possession? How did it end up here?"

Setting aside his doubts for the time being, and carefully putting away the broken blade, Ciel dived into the hot spring and retrieved two test tubes from the bottom.

"It seems the props were sent from the 'past,' but it seems they were sent to the wrong place..."

Ciel used sound waves to shatter the water stains on his body, then sat cross-legged by the hot spring, staring thoughtfully at the items he had found:

"Ten years is not a long time, but the changes are definitely significant. The skill effects have not completely ended, and I am still constantly experimenting. If something has been continuously placed into this secret realm, it should be piled high with all sorts of items by now."

"But right now there are only two test tubes here, and this frozen dagger..."

"It must be my future self who realized that simply giving things away was meaningless, so I took everything away and left only this short sword."

It involves time, not just the past. Every thought of Charles at this moment will slowly influence the past in the future, and ultimately change the present.

"If I take the sword hilt now, go back to the screen, and put the wand into the secret realm again, will a new wand appear here?"

With this in mind, Ciel used his eye to inform Fels, instructing her to control Metluth to put down her wand.

Soon, Charles had his answer:

No, it won't.

After conducting the experiments, Charles reached a conclusion and returned to the laboratory:

"Metlujah's worldline is indeed the 'past' of our timeline. Or rather, she was the beginning of everything."

"What we are doing in the 'past' right now is something that happened in the 'Shar Line' of the past."

"But that doesn't mean what we're doing is the past of the 'Shar Line'."

Cassandra's eyes darted around: "So complicated."

Ciel drew a tree branch and explained, "Simply put, Metluth, whom we control, is the starting point of everything. Our manipulation will cause the world line to veer towards the 'Belle timeline,' the 'main story timeline,' or even the 'Ciel timeline.'"

"Take Belle and Gale from the future as examples. The things they changed in our 'past' didn't change the shattered future because they're in a different timeline. They can't affect our timeline."