What is worse than a Herrscher?

  Four Herrschers.

  That was exactly the dilemma everyone was fag just now. Thirty minutes after the seveion, three cities were obliterated. The smaller towns and vilges around them did not survive, either.

  As for the pces left untouched by tornadoes, explosions, or a nuclear bomb drop, it became ied with undeads and honkai beasts.

  The total casualties during the st thirty minutes was sixty million at the very least. It was the biggest loss faced by Fire MOTH sis establishment.

  “...”

  Aleph did not speak for a while. His eyes stared at the dim white moon high up in the sky.

  ‘...It is firmed.’

  His thoughts went back to Aponia’s words. She described it as a ‘Great ge’. All the strings in the world had their trajectories ged. It happely on the day he was born—the day he arrived in this world.

  Then, there was his time with the fourth Herrscher core. It allowed ‘Great Sage’ to gain its void awaken. As a result, he may have triggered some sort of ge.

  Only after the fourth eruption did the Herrscher Cores bee different. Major Anna and the sixth Herrscher, Ling, retaiheir human ego.

  What should have been in the Current Era fifty thousand years ter appeared now.

  Finally, there was the Gems. It was given to Sirin in the Current Era… yet they appeared now.

  sidering the e and sequence of events, Aleph arrived at a terrifying clusion:

  His arrival caused a huge ge in the Co of Finality.

  ‘Albion’s words…’

  The old dragon’s advice rang in his mind.

  “I hath seen its attempts to alter thy fate, for it to suffer failure. A momentary misjudgement is capable of faltering its knees.”

  ‘It tried to alter my fate but failed. It didn’t have any ces due to that one mistake. Then… I am targeted by the Co? Was this why everything happened? All the Herrschers wao kill me?’

  The cursed energy inside his body slowly became agitated. They overflowed on the surroundings, painting several kilometers of radius with his pressure.

  It was at this moment did he snap out of it.

  The most basic rule of a Sorcerer is to keep one’s emotions in trol. Only then would they be able to use them to their advantage.

  Just then, a pair of arms embraced his waist. It further tributed to calming his mind down.

  The embrace did not take long.

  “I got all of them.”

  Kurumi turned her palm over and revealed three crystal fragments that made up a dark blue rhombus.

  One gnce from Aleph’s elemental sight firmed it was the First Herrscher’s Core.

  “Keep them for now. It’s the safest in your hands.”

  “Um.”

  These crystal fragments were dropped on her shadow before beied by it.

  Mio Takamiya, the First Spirit, was not able to directly interfere with Kurumi’s City of Dev Time.

  At the very least, it should be able to shield the Co’s influence even if it was strohan the First Spirit.

  “Where are we goi?”

  She asked as she caught him in an.

  “I o cheething out first. The’s set off to the four affected cities.”

  Aleph patted her head before she sunk into his shadow.

  In a blink, he moved towards the spot where Ling disappeared. The se thirty minutes ago was restructed in his mind.

  The world turned dark blue. A bck-haired girl appeared in his sight.

  Time was reversed. From her previously defined aailed body, she turned into a silhouette of dark blue.

  Her existence became simir to a thread’s. The information on her physical body was altered, turning it into a form of ceptual life instead.

  ‘A temporary ge. I k. Quantum Enta does work like that.’

  Aleph did not stop there.

  With some effort, the dark blue world in his sight slowly turned into a transparent blue. Several ‘spheres’ floated every now and then. Some of them sank downwards, while there were some that remained floating.

  It was her than the Sea of Quanta.

  Aleph learned many things in the past three months. He helped Vill-V finish her material sces; Mobius on her biological sce (i.e., operating table); and Mei oudies in quantum physics.

  These things are enough to let him peer into the Sea of Quanta despite being aire dimension apart.

  Aleph saw the ‘string’ gh several pces before disappearing at some point. It didn’t take long for it to reappear. The appearand disappearance tinued four more times until it went straight into a white dot.

  Then…

  Buzz-!

  Tears of blood flowed from his eyes and ears. Coupled with his grin, he seemed like a madman at this moment.

  {The detected plex information has been encoded.}

  {Result: It has a seventy pert mat the subject “gateway to Finality”. It has a y-five pert mat the subject “Sanctum”. Its position shows no identical logid sce to the known dimensions…}

  The Co of Finality rested on a ‘pce’ far beyond most people’s reach. It was extremely simir to the position of the Sanctum, if not more plex. Aleph met the same fate wheried to peer through the two of them.

  However, this wasn’t important, but rather…

  ‘A way to ehat white space… the Finality Space.’

  Unbeknownst to the Herrschers, they lost more than what they gained.

  *****

  Seventeen years ago.

  There was a bright shining et. It streaked through tless voids, each having a story of their own. It remained isoted upon itself, not interfering with anything. Still, its brilliance bearing every color ience was eye-catg enough.

  It remained so until it came across a pce. Due to unknown causes, it chose to settle down. However, its way of settling down caused a huge trouble.

  Its influence, which was kept to itself, was suddenly unleashed into this world. What happened was the nullification of the so-called ‘fates’. Everything was overturned.

  In turn, it elicited a respohat viewed it as malicious.

  In the Co’s eyes, the shining et should not be here…

  …It should not be.