The villainous magical girl's daily mission is to find fault.

Legendary Quest: The Cycle of Death

Send the Kraken's reflection to the past, and the jellyfish's body to the future.

The essence of death is the collapse of both internal and external existence; by simultaneously achieving both, the immortality of that monstrous thing can be diminished.

How to sever the immortality and infinite resurrection of the astral jellyfish Kraken? The Codex provides this answer.

But this answer was clearly not convincing enough to Su Tianqing, especially when faced with an obscure question—how could one achieve the so-called "simultaneous destruction of Kraken's body and reflection"?

It's impossible to do this with just a mental world. The essence of a mental world is simply to create an independent sub-plane. If you want to interfere with "existence" in the real world using magic, you would need at least a legendary spell, with no upper limit.

Then, a very special ability appeared in Su Tianqing's mind:

The S-class hero [Messiah], and her psychic ability [World].

She can objectively pause time for up to thirty seconds, and subjectively feel it to be more than three minutes. Moreover, the time limit will gradually increase with training, which is definitely a BOSS-level ability.

Su Tianqing felt that if her adaptability to magic were increased even slightly, as long as she could directly inflict even the slightest damage on opponents protected by magic... she would definitely be at the top in terms of combat power.

But this time, what he needed was not her fighting ability, but the only "functional" part of her in the world.

"The albatross constructed a death loop in the form of a Möbius strip. This magic would take her and the jellyfish back to that day sixteen years ago, repeatedly experiencing the same desperate battle, and then she would personally seal the jellyfish into the loop."

"By using jellyfish as a magical material to 'time-swap' with her past self, she continuously sought ways to perfect this magic, thus automating the reincarnation magic that she herself must have activated personally."

"Therefore, we plan to take advantage of the next two cycles to go back to the moment when the astral jellyfish descended in the millennium and start executing the plan from the very beginning."

Heart Moon Fox's voice echoed in the Hero Association's conference room. The heroes all fell silent, and everyone's eyes were turned to Messiah, the white-haired girl sitting at the head of the conference table.

She listened calmly as Xin Yuehu finished speaking, then put down the pen she was holding, rested her chin on her hands, and said:

"Tell me, what do you need me to do for this plan?"

Messiah's voice revealed no fear, only a thirst for battle.

Xin Yuehu didn't hesitate and stated her request directly:

"I hope you can stop for as long as possible, the longer the better."

"...Is it really that simple? Don't we need to do anything else?" Messiah couldn't help but ask.

The simpler the requirements, the bigger the problem—that's always been the case with this golden fox.

The simple request meant that more than one person was working on it, which was a huge deal for Xin Yuehu.

The overall plan can be divided into three steps in the outline:

The first step is for the Messiah to pause time in the present world, temporarily severing the timeline of the present world, which will create two "breaks" in the timeline that connect the past and the future.

The second step is to use one's complete control over the mental world to replicate another time stop within the mental world, thus severing this infinitely looping Möbius strip.

The third step, which is also the most difficult and has absolutely no theoretical support...

The severed cycle of death is reconnected to the present timeline, allowing the mental projection of the astral jellyfish to appear simultaneously in the past and future, triggering the constraints of the laws of time and reducing its immortality.

With the Messiah's affirmative answer, the most crucial step was successfully completed. Su Tianqing thought to herself.

"Wait a minute."

Chi Xue raised her hand, interrupting Su Tianqing's thoughts.

"On a side note, I actually think this plan... might be a little inappropriate?"

"Hmm? Miss Akashi, do you have any unique insights?" Shingetsu asked curiously.

"Actually, I've wanted to ask this from the beginning: if this jellyfish has such strong immortality, then what about the jellyfish I destroyed sixteen years ago? It didn't come back to life either," Chi Xue said.

Su Tianqing blinked, but before she could speak, the albatross interrupted her:

"Huh? Akashi, you destroyed the jellyfish?"

"Yes, Lilac and Poplar can testify that I used all my strength to trap the jellyfish's remains in my mental world and burned it to ashes inside," Chi Xue replied.

"But... but I should have enveloped the entire Kraken with the cycle of death, so there shouldn't be any remaining parts left outside," Albatross said.

The simultaneous appearance of two completely different statements immediately alerted Su Tianqing.

Sixteen years ago, Albatross brought the astral jellyfish Kraken from the mortal world into the mental world and sealed it away. Not long ago, he used the Death Cycle to return to the beginning of the past with the help of the jellyfish as a magical material, and repeated that cycle of time in the cycle of reincarnation.

But there's a problem here—

It is certain that Akatsuki destroyed the Astral Jellyfish, and this is recorded in the Hero Association's official database. So what was the Albatross that it brought into the cycle of death?

"...Regardless of whether it was a forgotten remains or something else from back then, the jellyfish that can be resurrected in the current cycle of death definitely exists."

Xin Yuehu said,

"This is theoretically the only way to eliminate it."

Although the theory had flaws, they were generally minor, and the plan was firmly implemented.

Red Snow and Hyacinth were busy collecting jellyfish remains, while Albatross and Heart Moon Fox's familiars set up the magical barrier needed to activate the next cycle of reincarnation, filling it with jellyfish remains whose activity had been suppressed by magic.

...Regarding what Chi Xue just mentioned, Su Tianqing actually had a different opinion.

This may mean that the solution provided by the secret manual has already succeeded at important junctures in the past.

What happened in the past is already a fait accompli. If the jellyfish that Chi Xue destroyed was the Kraken that Albatross had imprisoned, then it would only prove one thing: the cycle of death must have an end.

And that end is the beginning of everything—in the cyclical Möbius strip, the beginning is the end of everything, and what seems like the end is just the beginning of another cycle.

"Memories of the past, ironically, send a message of victory to a future that has yet to arrive."

Su Tianqing murmured softly, marveling at the exquisite and perfect nature of time.

Since that's the case, let's do it.

Kraken, the jellyfish from the stars, your deep-sea fishing operation officially begins now.