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The moment the light spread, the illusion that had covered the secret realm vanished as if swept away by a broom.

A brief silence followed, but it didn’t last long.

{How absurd.}

Crow Dragon Haegis muttered without hiding his dismay. Before his eyes stood Sophia, wielding a massive sword that seemed capable of splitting the sky.

Pure intent, when focused, can illuminate a path to achieve the impossible—thus, the “As You Wish.”

The flames that burn away afflictions are like lightning, like steel, unyielding and fierce—thus, the “Diamond.”

Now, with intent unified, the power to split Mount Tai shall be mine—As You Wish Diamond Slash!

Haegis sighed as he watched the overwhelming force of the descending sword. But that was all. After a moment of being overwhelmed, the Crow Dragon regained his arrogant demeanor and unleashed a spell he had prepared using the environment of the secret realm.

Kiiiiing!

A pale, circular barrier blocked the massive, translucent golden sword descending from the sky. At the center of the barrier was a hexagram formed by overlapping triangles, surrounded by ancient, mysterious characters.

The sword froze upon touching the barrier, and Sophia frowned as she glared at it. Haegis laughed fearlessly.

{The light that shattered my illusion earlier must have originated from the interplay of perception and will. The extreme purity in that light makes it clear.}

Sophia couldn’t help but admire Haegis’s accurate deduction. Indeed, he was a being who had reached the pinnacle of spellcasting in his era.

In truth, the Immovable King Wisdom Technique, despite its profound enlightenment, was based on a simple principle. A spellcaster of his caliber would have at least considered its theoretical possibility, regardless of feasibility.

Realizing this, Sophia soon understood how Haegis had blocked her sword strike. Just then, Haegis confidently revealed his trick.

{If you eliminate the movement of the mind, you can shatter illusions. So, let me ask you this: If you want to suppress a phenomenon that truly exists, not an illusion, how would you do it?}

“You… Did you master the technique of nullifying an object’s kinetic energy?”

{Correct! And…}

Sophia clicked her tongue. A phenomenon refers to the movement and change of something present. Thus, if you stop the movement of an object, the phenomenon ceases to exist.

Even the Heart Sword was no exception. The Heart Sword is a technique that derives phenomena from the mind through will. Since the mind is free from the laws of reality, if one’s will is strong enough, the possibilities of the Heart Sword are virtually limitless. Normally, blocking the Heart Sword with physical means would be impossible.

However, to realize a scene drawn from the mind, it must first manifest as a phenomenon. Therefore, if one could strip away the movement—the kinetic energy—from the phenomenon, theoretically, even the Heart Sword could be blocked.

And at this moment, Sophia’s Heart Sword was held in place by a barrier that had stolen its kinetic energy. The phenomenon was reversing the mind’s intent, causing Sophia’s reactions to slow.

{And now, it’s my turn!}

In an instant, the momentum of spells intertwined from all directions. Ancient spell principles, unseen before, began to converge toward Sophia.

{Facing a strong enemy head-on is the act of a fool! Here, I’ll show you a glimpse of the foresight our dragon clan has accumulated against formidable foes!}

‘Tch, too late.’

Already slowed by the barrier’s effect on her Heart Sword, Sophia could only watch as the spell’s mist enveloped her. Soon, the mysterious spell mist completely encased her stiffened body.

Seeing this, Haegis burst into laughter.

{Kahahahaha! If the enemy is strong, just prevent them from using that strength! No matter how strong the body, it is ultimately moved by the mind. And no matter how elevated the mind, without the body, one cannot sense or act!}

The spell was a kind of curse. Normally, the spirit and body of a superhuman who has transcended limits are so sublime that external interference cannot easily move them.

But a curse doesn’t penetrate—it clings. If you can cast a curse that doesn’t directly affect the body or mind but only disrupts the connection between them, redirecting the mind’s input and output to something else, it’s like removing the mind and placing it in another object.

This bizarre theory was realized in the spell Haegis had cast, now enveloping Sophia. Even a powerful superhuman like her would be rendered useless, her consciousness bound to some trivial object. A true victory of the dragon clan’s lofty intellect.

As Haegis laughed triumphantly, his laughter soon faded.

{Why… why isn’t the spell progressing to its final stage?}

The curse, which should have clung to Sophia’s mind and body, transferring her thoughts, was instead lingering around her, unable to take hold.

Even Sophia, surrounded by the cursed mist, showed no sign of disturbance, only a look of interest.

“In a state of complete unity of mind, body, and spirit, sorcery and curses have no effect. I’ve always strived to maintain this state.”

Spells are ultimately the output of the microcosm’s movement into the macrocosm. The act of harmonizing the ripples from the domain is part of that process. But when one achieves complete unity of mind, body, and spirit, the microcosm becomes self-sufficient, excluding external interference.

Originally, the unity of mind, body, and spirit was one of Sophia’s strategies against demons.

Haegis’s curse was quite advanced and impressive, but when it comes to specialists in curses and sorcery, the Demon Clan is unmatched.

It’s easy to forget, but the primary duty of the knights affiliated with the Paladins is to counter and eradicate these vile and cunning beings. As a Nun Knight of the Paladins, Sophia had no choice but to ponder countermeasures against curses. The complete unity of mind, body, and spirit, blocking external interference like curses, was her personal answer.

‘Still, this is worth noting.’

While the Knight Templars and Nun Knights research daily to counter the Demon Clan’s schemes, ordinary people are different. If a full-scale war with demons breaks out, the biggest problem will undoubtedly be their sorcery and curses.

The Light Power is highly effective against the Demon Clan’s energy and tricks, but sorcery and curses are ultimately a type of spell. They can be temporarily neutralized, but without proper countermeasures, they cannot be eradicated.

Moreover, the Demon Clan’s techniques are somewhat insidious and malicious, leaving behind significant consequences if not dealt with promptly.

The problem is that researching countermeasures for such curses requires usable materials, but the Demon Clan’s methods are too dangerous and tricky to preserve carelessly. Their techniques inevitably gather malicious energy.

On the other hand, curses unrelated to the Demon Clan’s energy are hard to find, as records of ancient rituals and ceremonies, thought to be the origin of their techniques, were lost during the Human-Demon War. What remains are modern curses, which, in the modern spell system, are not a particularly attractive research topic and have been sidelined.

Occasionally, knowledge can be gleaned from spellcasters who have contracted with spirits, but spirits don’t freely share their knowledge without conditions or limitations.

In that sense, a fully functional curse unrelated to the Demon Clan is an extremely valuable sample. It’s no wonder Sophia is interested.

In any case, realizing that the curse had failed, Haegis was both shocked and frustrated.

{Damn it, I didn’t want to use this…}

With a gloomy tone, Haegis finally revealed his last resort. Though he had wanted to save it until the end, he didn’t hesitate or falter in casting the spell.

He had no choice. The kinetic energy-draining barrier had already failed. Soon, Sophia would move again. If he was going to use it, it had to be now.

The main strength resonated, and distorted concepts pulled the domain. The final forbidden spell, using the power of the secret realm, was unleashed. A supreme act of violence, weaving the world’s principles into a moment’s power.

Sophia suddenly felt as if the world had layered itself multiple times. In the next moment, Haegis’s oppressive presence surged exponentially.

‘An illusion… no, it’s real.’

{What was that just now?}

Lucas-Kukunis, sharing Sophia’s senses, asked with a tone of confusion.

‘Well, I’m not entirely sure. But if what I felt is accurate, it might be a technique related to the time axis or multiple dimensions.’

Sophia’s guess was spot on.

At this moment, the powerful dragon spellcaster had reached into the time axis and multiple dimensions with a grand forbidden spell. To control the infinite expanding senses and the endlessly condensing main strength, Haegis gritted his teeth, his eyes bloodshot.

‘Το εἶδος του Χρόνος (The Form of Time)’ was originally a spell that sacrificed time to bring forth time.

To put it simply, it was an act of deceiving the world.

The world’s time axis is formed by the overlapping domains of ‘Time’ (Χρόνος), ‘Fate’ (Ανάγκη), ‘Union’ (Φάνης), and ‘Separation’ (Χάος), creating the grand flow in the phenomenal realm.

Thus, every moment in the time axis is interwoven with a vast causal consistency, and every part must remain in its rightful place. But intentionally deceiving ‘Fate’ and swapping parts of the time axis is the essence of the ‘Form of Time’ spell.

Moreover, what Haegis had cast wasn’t even the standard version of the ‘Form of Time’ spell. Normally, his spell would sacrifice a portion of the past to bring forth a portion of the future.

But as he cast the spell, Haegis realized.

{There’s no future to pull from… Of course, right?}

As he had mentioned to Sophia earlier, he was merely a wraith of the past recreated by the dungeon phenomenon. For him, there was no future to draw from. But…

{This much was already calculated.}

He had known this all along. So, what he turned to was a slightly different direction. Not his own timeline, but himself existing simultaneously across different timelines.

The concept of parallel worlds’ possibilities had been vaguely glimpsed through Sophia’s multidimensional Heart Sword. And coincidentally, he was a being with no future but a rich past.

So, what he did was, metaphorically, this: He took a portion of his past from timeline A and swapped it with his own timeline’s past, then took that and swapped it with timeline B’s past. He repeated this process across all timelines he could perceive—coincidentally, timelines where he had also cast the ‘Form of Time’ spell.

Metaphorically, it was like using debt to pay off debt. Moreover, the ‘Form of Time’ spell inherently shifts the burden of altering reality through time axis interference onto the world. To cast it in this manner was something he would never have done, no matter how dire the situation.

“The dungeon is a savior.”

Sophia, having shaken off the effects of the kinetic energy-draining barrier and regained her freedom, casually remarked. As she lightly moved her body to readjust her senses, she wore a look of disbelief.

{Kukuku, you don’t have any complaints, do you?}

“Not really. If it comes to it, I can just close the dungeon.”

The inside of the dungeon is isolated from the outside world. Though it’s merely a recreation of past records etched into the ground, it means that any destructive factors within the dungeon don’t affect the outside—provided the dungeon’s leakage is properly contained.

That’s why Conra is running right now. Sophia knew her disciple well. Though he would struggle, Conra would accomplish what was entrusted to him. In the process, he might achieve something significant.

As Sophia looked up at the strange celestial map (likely from the Bronze Age) covering the sky and the meteor shower about to descend, she silently raised her sword.

 

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