The System was created by "Spring," so it naturally possessed extraordinary power—unique and far beyond the ordinary. The System could grant members various situational rewards for completing missions, and it also encouraged them to keep breaking through their limits in life-and-death trials, steadily increasing their strength.
Irene herself was far stronger than ordinary humans, and she also had an exceptionally long lifespan, making her an excellent leader. This was one of the reasons Julian valued her and offered her a chance to return home.
Because she enjoyed multiple special privileges and was already formidable, Irene was actually protected quite well within the System and rarely faced genuine mortal danger. She witnessed countless cycles of humans joining and dying. At the same time, her own power grew significantly through System training across different worlds.
No one knew exactly how much time had passed, nor how many strange worlds she had traveled through. Until one day, while screening countless parallel worlds, the System found a world that also had the Eldoria Continent—a world extremely similar in type to Irene's homeland. Of course, "Spring" also existed in that world.
In fact, among the countless parallel worlds, many shared similar characteristics; this world was just one among multiple clusters of closely neighboring parallels. In such worlds, angels were not exclusively female—there were both male and female angels. Irene witnessed, from beginning to end, how Earth travelers from another parallel world—Feliciara, Nicora, Cyrae, and others—arrived in that world. She even witnessed the historic moment when Cyrae was sent back to Earth by Nicola, who came from yet another world.
Could that Cyrae be the very same Cyrae who had been imprisoned underground by a research institute for centuries and ultimately died tragically? Certain old doubts finally clicked into place in Irene's mind. If Cyrae could be prevented from traveling back, then there would be one fewer world in which "Spring" could emerge!
Fortunately, worlds that were especially suitable for honing one's strength tended to be revisited. Whenever a new System squad formed, the System would usually arrange for them—once they reached a certain level of power—to enter such a world for training.
Many years later, when another System squad entered a similar parallel world, Irene used her team-switch privilege to join that squad. In that world, she abducted Nicola-from-another-world, hoping Nicola would stop—and would not send Cyrae back to Earth.
However, events still shifted in unexpected ways. Because Nicola was abducted, this world's Cyrae was still sent back—by Nicora. Irene did not realize at the time that Nicora had not fully recovered her strength and her operation lacked precision. As a result, that Cyrae was sent back to several decades before the moment she originally left Earth, completely changing the future trajectory of that Earth.
Irene mistakenly believed this attempt was a complete failure, and she became deeply disheartened. Later, based on what she learned in that parallel world, she recorded everything—using Nicola's viewpoint—in the book I Became an Angel and Traveled to Another World. While passing through an Earth world, she submitted it to the publisher Pineapple Bao.
After more time had passed, the System finally used extended searching across similar worlds and essentially determined that Irene's home universe was the destination of the next mission.
Now that she could finally return home, there was no need to keep doing System missions. This time, Irene chose without hesitation to leave the System. Yet after entering that world, she discovered that she had arrived on Earth again.
"How strange… wasn't it said there was a 99.99% probability this is the universe I came from? Why am I still on Earth? Did the System make a mistake?"
Although the System had never been wrong before, Irene still found what she saw hard to believe and muttered her doubts aloud.
Based on her accumulated experience, she did not even need to ask anyone to judge the era: this Earth's time period was likely several centuries after the time when she had been separated from Feliciana and the others. Humans on this Earth had also experienced multiple global wars and national upheavals, ultimately merging into a federation. The only uncertainty was whether there was also a Cyrae trapped beneath some research institute here—and whether "Spring" would eventually rise in this world as well.
But after seeing countless similar worlds, Irene no longer panicked at such possibilities. Calmly, she decided to use online networks and media first to learn this Earth's current situation, then decide what to do.
That investigation quickly revealed a major difference: in this world, the True Church was extraordinarily powerful—completely unlike the other worlds where "Spring" was born.
In most Earth timelines that reached this era, after endless wars, the True Church—like other religions—gradually declined, creating perfect conditions for the rise of the Spring Church.
But in this world, the True Church dominated almost entirely, faintly showing signs of becoming a "second Spring Church." The only fundamental difference was that it still followed its traditional style: it did not force anyone to join. All believers were volunteers.
"No ordinary religion can possibly grow to this scale out of thin air… Could there be another 'Spring'-type existence manipulating things from behind the scenes?"
Now that she had left the System and could not rely on it anymore, Irene had to understand what was going on in order to feel truly safe. Using her own abilities, she infiltrated the True Church's current headquarters—a massive cathedral located within the former territory of H-country.
At first, the behavior of the True Church's believers appeared entirely normal, with no visible anomalies. But after Irene tailed several extremely high-ranking bishops to a secluded standalone building, she saw an angel there with her own eyes.
"Cyrae?"
Irene had encountered countless versions of a living Cyrae across many worlds—but this was her first time seeing one on Earth. She revealed herself and asked in disbelief. To her surprise, after staring blankly for a long moment, the angel recognized Irene as well.
"Irene? That's strange—weren't you supposed to have entered the passage and gone back to the Eldoria Continent long ago? Why are you here? And you look like you've suddenly grown up a lot… far more mature than before."
This world had truly experienced that iconic event: a cross-world passage opening in H-country. Only at this moment did Irene finally confirm that she had really returned—though she was still separated by centuries of time. Strictly speaking, the angel before her should not be called Cyrae, but Cyra—the one who had swapped identities with Cyrae and ultimately stayed on Earth.
When Cyra saw Irene, her first thought was that the passage had opened again, and she excitedly asked where it was. After they cleared up the misunderstanding, Cyra finally understood where Irene had gone after the passage malfunctioned, what she had faced, and what hardships she had endured.
"The System Julian created might not be intelligent enough. It only sent you back to the world you were in before you entered the passage—that is, back to Earth. It probably didn't truly understand that what you needed was to return to the Eldoria Continent."
Regarding the discrepancy—"trying to go home but ending up on Earth"—that was the simplest conclusion Cyra could reach.
By this point in time, Raydwin had died of natural causes, leaving only Cyra behind. As a devout supporter of the True Church, she devoted herself fully to Church affairs after Raydwin's death. For the True Church, the existence of an angel was an overwhelming trump card. In an extremely short time, Cyra gained immense status and authority within the Church. Every True Church member on Earth—including the Pope—followed her commands and strictly concealed her identity.
Although outsiders still did not know that angels truly existed on Earth, an angel could still produce countless "miracles" indirectly without ever appearing publicly.
Holy water. Magic. Over the centuries of war, Cyra saved countless humans. Even the most recent war ended only because she dared to appear and, through staged "divine" interventions, forced the conflict to stop—an immeasurable merit.
Once people learned that the True Church seemed to have an angel protecting it from behind the scenes, the number of volunteers joining the Church skyrocketed—creating the situation Irene now saw.
"It's a pity… I thought the passage had opened again. I thought humans in this world were finally going to be saved…"
Despite the seemingly positive situation, Cyra—now the Church's highest spiritual leader, even showing signs of becoming humanity's future leader—was deeply troubled by Earth's crisis.
Irene had almost forgotten the most critical point: just like the "Spring" worlds, this world had also—inevitably—encountered the terrifying disaster of a black hole approaching. Earth's observational capability had already confirmed it. In a bit more than a hundred years, the black hole would swallow the entire solar system.
This world had not yet produced "Spring." In theory, there was only one path to preserve human civilization: leave Earth. But as in the timelines Irene knew, Earth's technology was still far from supporting mass exodus beyond the solar system.
Irene's sudden appearance, however, brought a slim hope. From Julian, she knew the full secret behind "Spring"'s birth. After eliminating all safer usable options, humanity's only remaining hope was to create a "Spring" that would not lead humanity into blind worship and faith-driven fanaticism.
And the candidate for this ascension had to be absolutely trustworthy—someone who would not betray humanity. The safest and most reliable plan was for Irene herself to undergo the process.
Because the early development of this Earth had progressed similarly to the "Spring" worlds, the critical theoretical foundations before Spring's appearance had not been missed. With the correct direction, building the legendary "ascension machine" was not impossible.
To create it, Cyra used her authority to gather the greatest scientists in the world to work together. At the same time, she cloned several copies of her own body to serve as a source of light-element energy.
Over the long years, she had already experimented with cloning herself and studying herself—after all, she had once inherited the pharmaceutical company Cyrae created. But because her clones were special lifeforms (their bodies were not produced through natural reproduction, but through an angel descent array), they could not generate souls naturally the way human clones could. In other words, they were empty shells—ideal for research, and carrying none of the usual ethical burden.
After many years, the information-delivery device was successfully replicated according to its underlying principles.
But no one expected that when Irene personally attempted the ascension, it would fail. At best, she reached the level of a demigod, then "fell back down." Although the process resembled Julian's description and Irene did receive an enormous amount of information, her soul proved to have severely insufficient capacity. Midway through the experiment, signs of soul fracturing appeared, forcing them to abort. She did not successfully ascend.
No matter how the scientists searched, they could not find the true cause of the failure. The ascension plan was postponed indefinitely. However, humanity discovered a new path through Irene: the vast knowledge she gained during her demigod state.
That knowledge contained methods to save humanity's future—high-strength materials manufacturing, space-jump technology, and much more. Under her guidance, human technology advanced at explosive speed. In the final limited time window, humanity mastered interstellar travel and poured all resources into building thirteen massive spacecraft—enough to carry all Earth's humans out of the solar system to search for a new home.
Months before the black hole swallowed Earth, the last giant ship—Nabidos—launched into space, carrying Cyra and the remaining humans, leaving their homeland forever.
As for Irene, the aftereffects of her soul damage eventually claimed her life not long before that. Before she died, she left behind items such as "Divine Principle" as a reserve measure—capital for resistance in case "Spring" ever appeared.
As the hero who saved human civilization, she was ultimately remembered by all humanity.
However, the last ship to leave—Nabidos—encountered disaster: during its jump, it passed too close to the black hole. The black hole's influence distorted its course, and the ship was accidentally transported into a completely unknown region of space.
"How can this be? Comparing the surrounding star charts confirms we've left the Milky Way. We're in the void between galaxies… We've completely lost contact with the other Earth ships!"
The navigators sat before their observation screens, urgently reporting discovery after discovery. Whether Irene's space-jump technology was simply too advanced, or the black hole's effect too overwhelming, the fact remained: everyone aboard survived, but there was not even a single star nearby. If they could not find the human fleet quickly, their limited supplies would eventually be exhausted.
To face such a crisis immediately after departure, Captain Albert frowned deeply. As Nabidos's highest commander, he was responsible for everyone's survival. He knew this was a moment of life or death.
Experts in spatial science had already analyzed the rough cause of the first jump failure: the black hole's immense gravity likely expanded the jump beyond normal parameters. But now, they could not identify the Milky Way's direction at all—much less return and reunite with the others.
As the highest leader in religious affairs, Cyra attended Nabidos's emergency high-level meeting and gave her own advice, firmly pointing at the star map:
"We have at most two or three jumps left. There are far too many galaxies that resemble the Milky Way. We absolutely cannot waste our limited energy on blind searching. We must use the few chances we have wisely—find a place for resupply, or even a planet suitable for habitation…"
"But do you know exactly where the best destination is?" Albert pressed. "We're isolated between galaxies, completely in the dark. We can't just sit here and wait to die—we need effective action now."
Albert knew very well that humanity had only reached this point thanks to Cyra and Irene. But with an entire ship's fate at stake, he had to be cautious and choose the optimal solution among proposals that all sounded "reasonable."
"…I'm still missing one last piece," Cyra admitted, a lost look rising in her eyes. "I feel like I'm almost remembering something… Just… just give me a little more time. Maybe I can recall it…"
"Captain, to stabilize morale, we need a decision quickly!"
With the executive officers urging him on—and Cyra still looking dazed—Albert reluctantly chose the plan that had the most votes: heading toward the nearest orange elliptical galaxy within jump range as their next exploration target.
But reality was never that simple. After two consecutive ultra-long-distance standard jumps, they found no star systems or planets that could provide supplies. In the endless universe, finding a planet suitable for human survival was an astronomically low-probability gamble.
Finally, after dozens of days, Nabidos fell into despair. As resources dwindled, hearts turned restless, and wave after wave of internal unrest erupted.
"Captain, the rebels are closing in on the bridge—only ten meters away! The internal security bulkhead has been sealed, but it's only a matter of time before they breach it by force!"
At this moment, the ship's top leadership—including Cyra—were gathered on the bridge, listening to reports from the security forces. Over several days, due to growing opposition and hesitation among some military leaders, the guards lost initiative and kept retreating. Their final stronghold was about to fall.
"It's regrettable that I couldn't lead everyone out of this predicament… But at least, I believe the other human ships have already reached a new home and begun new lives. At least humanity won't go extinct by my hand…"
Albert understood with painful clarity that no matter which side "won," the ship's overall situation was nearing collapse. He reached for his sidearm, intending to make a final end to it all.
"I hear it. I finally hear that voice again. The critical moment has come!"
At the very instant Albert moved, Cyra forcibly stopped him. She looked completely different from usual—her eyes shining with a long-lost excitement. She strode quickly to the jump control console and stared fixedly at the coordinate input terminal.
"Lady Cyra, our remaining energy is no longer enough to support a long-distance jump. And within observable short-range space, there are no usable planets at all…"
A low-ranking navigation officer tried to warn her.
"It's fine. The Lord already taught me the solution!"
Cyra did not waver. A blinding flash erupted, and six pure white wings unfolded from her back—her first time revealing her true form in front of so many non-Church members.
"…Is she really an angel?"
"So the True Church's rumors were true!"
"How is that possible… Does God truly exist?"
Ignoring the whispers, Cyra steadily entered a string of numbers into the coordinate field, murmuring:
"I've remembered these numbers for a very, very long time… I just never realized their true purpose was meant for this moment."
345.1751, 175.4356.
After entering the coordinates, she pressed the jump activation button without hesitation. At the same time, the enormous light-element mana she had accumulated over centuries from sunlight poured through her palm into the ship's power system, instantly filling the massive energy gap required for the jump.
"The Lord told me that the true answer I've always sought is on the other side of this spatial passage. That's why I chose to follow the Lord's will and never run away… and in the end, I actually returned to Earth."
As her mana was drained rapidly, Cyra seemed to see images from long ago again. Words she once spoke to Feliciana in Raydwin's home echoed in her ears.
Suddenly, at that moment, she seemed to understand something.
Everyone aboard felt their vision blur—and in the next second, Nabidos completed the jump, appearing out of nowhere in a completely unfamiliar region.
"Where… have we been brought?" Albert was utterly stunned. He had never imagined Cyra could execute another ultra-long-distance jump, especially when the ship's energy should have been exhausted. He stood, staring at the unfamiliar cosmic environment beyond the viewport.
"…I'm not completely sure," Cyra admitted.
Even though the "oracle" had told her what to do, she had no certainty about the outcome. With anxious nerves, she stepped to the viewport as well. Even the distant sounds of firefights between rebels and guards seemed to fall silent.
A blue planet slowly entered their view from the right.
It was not Earth—but a life-bearing planet they had searched for desperately, a once-in-a-lifetime find.
Hope ignited instantly. Crew members returned to their stations, analyzing data.
"Nearly all energy reserves are depleted. Hull integrity stable!"
"The star in this system is larger than the Sun and also stable. There is a planet fully suitable for life—gravity and atmospheric composition are both ideal for human survival. It orbits farther from its sun than Earth does. Estimated rotational period: 25 hours. Orbital period: approximately 350 Earth days…"
"Average temperature and radiation levels are moderate. Eighty percent is ocean. There is only one continent, covered with carbon-based vegetation and life similar to Earth's ecosystem…"
…
Good news arrived one after another. The internal unrest dissolved almost on its own, and Nabidos fell into jubilant celebration. In an infinite universe, finding a planet that was genuinely habitable—so similar to Earth—was unimaginably rare.
And Cyra's act of entering coordinates and leading them to a new home further cemented her identity as a legendary divine messenger.
Days later, the analysis of their current elliptical galaxy was completed. Combining star charts and continuous supercomputer simulations, they confirmed that Nabidos was now inside the NGS‑512 galaxy, billions of light-years from the Milky Way—an ancient galaxy far older than the Milky Way.
The life-bearing planet they had found was named NGS512.
Although NGS512 had only a single continent, when Cyra descended to the surface aboard a landing craft, she suddenly felt as if she had "come home." In space, elemental distribution was simple—only light and dark elements existed. But within the planet, portions of light and dark energy split again, forming four types of energy humans had never seen before—Type I, II, III, and IV—in a delicate balance.
To scientists' instruments, these were new energy categories; to Cyra, even though she could not directly sense them, she was certain they were the four great elements:
Earth, Wind, Water, and Fire.
In Earth scientific terms: because the NGS‑512 galaxy was so ancient, at least half of its internal energy had undergone "splitting and re-splitting"—a strange physical phenomenon that would be impossible to anticipate inside the Milky Way.
At that moment, Cyra seemed to connect certain missing links. A look of sudden clarity appeared, and she could not help laughing.
"So that's it… I suddenly feel like I understand everything—yet I still don't fully understand parts of the future… So this is the mission the Lord gave me? It really was arranged long ago, unseen but inevitable!"
Many around her did not understand why she laughed. But it was clear that this planet had only plants and low-level animals—no intelligent life.
So, some humans chose to settle down and build a new home here. Others still worried about the other dozen human escape ships, hoping that after resupplying and rebuilding, they could resume space exploration and eventually find the main human fleet again.
However, Nabidos carried only part of humanity. Although it included sleepers and embryos, its overall technological level was still far below that of humanity as a whole.
First and foremost, Nabidos's interstellar jump energy source—vacuum zero-point energy—could not be produced by the scientists currently present on NGS512. Yet science must keep advancing. Taking advantage of the local galaxy's dense elemental environment, decades later they turned their attention to Beta energy, that is, dark-element energy.
They accidentally disrupted the planet's elemental balance. A soul born from Alpha energy—light-element energy—appeared out of nowhere. Wherever it spread, Alpha energy overflowed across the planet, causing mass panic. Some people even began calling it the God of Light.
"The souls in this galaxy are very different from those in the Milky Way. Because this galaxy is extremely ancient, its internal energy system has fallen from higher dimensions into lower dimensions—into our three-dimensional space. Souls born alongside life have fallen as well. So, like energy, souls developed elemental differentiation—what we call elemental affinity. This depends on the elemental state of the environment at the moment a soul is born, and in theory it is completely random. Elemental affinity allows a soul to directly influence environmental elements; conversely, an extremely high concentration of a single element can also become a cradle for the birth of a new soul."
A scientist specializing in soul research uncovered the underlying mechanism after the God of Light appeared. It also explained why some of the new generation born on NGS512 had innate powers to manipulate elements.
Yet even after the principle was understood, the threat could not be stopped. Because Cyra's body was itself made of light-element energy, she was soon completely controlled by the God of Light—Bruto—becoming Bruto's thrall.
And Cyra's soul and mind contained centuries of Earth's knowledge—including the ascension method Irene had provided. After obtaining this information, the God of Light underwent a final evolution. Because its soul had been born from light-element energy, it became a demigod specializing in light—this was why it was so powerful, and why it could create "apostles" seemingly from nothing using Cyra's knowledge.
Meanwhile, because light-element energy had become overly concentrated and humans had extracted dark-element energy, the "empty" regions in the environment were filled by the other four elements. Just as the God of Light had arisen, four elemental souls formed—each corresponding to one of the four elements.
At first, these souls were simple and instinctive, just like the God of Light had been. But after the God of Light ascended into a demigod state, those four elemental souls could no longer survive in the natural environment.
One day, they accidentally entered a room that stored Cyra's cloned bodies. They entered the brains of four soulless bodies and took control—becoming the later Elemental Angels.
With angel bodies, the Elemental Angels also gained human senses and empathy. They grew curious about human society—especially Earth—and often read Earth-era literature and documents through human computer terminals. Combined with their negative view of the God of Light's harm to humanity, they naturally sided with humans.
Although Cyra was fully controlled at the time, what followed unfolded exactly as she had "known" it would: the four Elemental Angels became humanity's greatest force against the God of Light. After the Water Angel Gisphrael launched a solo campaign and severely wounded Bruto, the remaining Elemental Angels finally seized the chance to completely destroy the God of Light's soul and erase its existence.
The war lasted nearly a century.
After the God of Light was destroyed, Cyra finally broke free and regained her sanity. Though she had done terrible things while controlled by Bruto, her soul had shared information with Bruto's soul; she had learned vast techniques for manipulating light-element energy. Once awake, she effectively possessed "half the power of a God of Light" herself.
Because she experienced it firsthand, she finally understood why Irene and the God of Light both could not become true gods.
A "demigod" was a soul that had absorbed massive information but had not yet reached the threshold needed for full ascension. Because souls born in the NGS512 galaxy had fallen into low-dimensional three-dimensional space, they lost their higher-dimensional property and their information capacity was drastically reduced—leading to soul fractures when too much information was forced in.
Using light-element energy, Cyra repaired Gisphrael's damaged soul as much as she could. But most human brains had become mindless husks due to prolonged light-element erosion and could not be cured. To compensate, she used existing light-element energy and injected it directly into those humans' souls, replacing the function of an ascension machine.
In an instant, tens of thousands of humans who had come from the Milky Way ascended collectively.
Because so many ascended at once, these higher-dimensional beings had widely different moral standards and viewpoints, creating serious divisions. But fortunately, it did not evolve into a Spring-style theocratic tyranny.
Instead, much like the outcome of human social development, they gradually integrated into a collective with established rules and a strict non-interference treaty: the "Saints."
Ultimately, this was Cyra's gamble.
Among those who became Saints were many familiar subordinates who had once served near her in the Church. She had watched many of them from birth until death, and she could not bear to see their souls simply dissipate. She also gambled that after ascending, these people could restrain other ascended beings from making decisions that would damage humanity's future.
The result proved she succeeded.
These Saints became gods because of Cyra—and they had also been guiding her all along. That was why Cyra had always heard "oracles": every step she took under those oracles was almost always an essential condition needed for the Saints' eventual birth.
Later, at the suggestion of Liana and Galadra, Cyra used the God of Light's apostle-body construction technology to create the angel race and the angel descent array.
The original purpose of creating angels was simply to reduce the massive amount of environmental light-element energy left behind. But Cyra privately knew that one day, her past self would gain a new "rebirth" in this world.
Because souls born in the NGS512 galaxy had fallen into low dimensions alongside energy, they became part of the current world's information-processing system. They could no longer generate new parallel worlds through "observation of information," and thus could not change the fixed future.
Galadra realized that the higher-dimensional souls of Milky Way humans could break that limitation. After the war, drawing on records in human historical texts, Galadra chose to abandon her body and—together with Liana and Cyra—created a higher-dimensional spatial cycle system: the Cycle of Rebirth.
With the Cycle of Rebirth, Earth humans' souls would no longer naturally dissipate after death. Instead, they could reincarnate again and again on the Eldoria Continent, repeatedly saving the world from disaster.
Meanwhile, to fulfill Gisphrael's wish to experience human society, Wind Angel Liana asked Galadra for help. Through the Cycle of Rebirth, Liana erased her memory and reincarnated to Earth's past together with Gisphrael's soul, while retaining the right to be recalled at crucial moments.
In the end, only Cyra remained. She watched the surviving humans rise again through reproduction, and because of the elements, they developed a magical civilization distinct from technological civilization.
At that point, the Saints appeared and advised Cyra to follow history and avoid over-interfering with the future, in order to prevent uncontrollable events from disrupting the already-fixed historical progression.
Cyra understood clearly: this universe—one that had finally avoided the rise of "Spring"—was actually a fortunate exception unintentionally created by Irene. Cyra could not bear to destroy it, so she ultimately chose to enter a long sleep.
She slept nearly ten thousand years without anyone waking her.
Before sleeping, she entrusted the True Church's routine affairs to one of her own split bodies—Pope Cysper.
Cysper's true nature was a light-element puppet, created through a split-body technique Cyra learned from Cyrae. However, Cysper's initial memories were interfered with by the Saints, to prevent him from carrying Cyra's memories and thereby interfering with certain fixed historical developments.
This also explained why, during the Parristol battle long ago, the Pope voluntarily transferred all light-element energy from his body to the future Cyra, helping her advance to six wings and return her soul to the Holy City.
Then, one day ten thousand years later, Nicola "carelessly" pressed the button and opened Cyra's sleeping pod—allowing the companions who once adventured together to reunite again, miraculously…
…
A little over a month after Cyra was discovered beneath the Holy City, inside Tivi Palace on the Edenmere Continent, the wedding of Feliciana and Adrian was approaching. Feliciana and Nicola were in the same room, and it seemed they had gotten into a small argument.
"You called me back just for this? Didn't we already know? You keep bringing this up again and again—aren't you tired of it?"
Nicola was clearly impatient. After reaching twelve wings, she quickly recovered all of her past "Rena" memories. But her personality likely would not revert—so in that sense, it could be considered a complete rebirth.
"Nonsense! You used my body and now it's pregnant—so you're responsible, do you understand?!"
Feliciana looked even more displeased and snapped back immediately. But Nicola suddenly let out a mischievous grin, as if she had found a perfect excuse to counter:
"Sure. Back then, the one using your body really was me. I was amnesiac too—you all understood what was going on. So let me ask you: isn't the child yours? And isn't it Adrian's?"
"Uh… it seems like… both… kind of…"
Faced with an ethical knot that complicated, Feliciana was clearly led into a trap. After all, it wasn't like she could let Nicola marry Adrian—and even if she somehow could, she wouldn't want to.
"The Cycle of Rebirth's damage is about to be fully repaired. Anyway, some time after your wedding, I'll leave. I'll have Galadra take me to another world again, and I'll try to bring back the Adrian from over there."
This plan had been delayed for a long time. Now that everything was finally resolved, Nicola was determined to try again. This time she had made thorough preparations—she was determined to reclaim the love that belonged to her.
"You won't just leave and never come back, right?"
Feliciana glanced at her. Even though Nicola had promised she would return, Feliciana could not help doubting. After all, Spring had not been completely eliminated in that other world. The ending had been good, but there was no guarantee the enemy would never return.
"As for the future, I can only do my best. That world's history developed completely differently from ours. Earth… and Irene too—without her, we might not even exist. Forget it. Let's not talk about anything depressing."
After reuniting with Cyra earlier, Feliciana had already handed over the memory crystal left behind by Cyrae. But revisiting the topic and the story behind it still made Nicola sigh with emotion.
She sighed, then suddenly remembered something important she almost forgot and blurted out:
"By the way—didn't you forget there's still one important thing we haven't done?"
"So you still remember!" Feliciana finally relaxed. "So it really is today, then? Are you ready to leave?"
If they forgot, it would be a disaster. That was one of the reasons Feliciana had specifically called Nicola back to talk—though, theoretically, it didn't seem like something that could truly be forgotten…
"Of course. Why don't we leave now? A round trip will probably take a long time. Luckily, Meredith specially opened a direct teleportation array from Edenmere to the royal capital. Who would've thought the Adventurers' Association is basically her family business? If it's free, we should use it."
With that, Nicola grabbed Feliciana's hand and flew out.
Outside Edenmere, lush vegetation had already spread everywhere. The sky was no longer an endless, unchanging radiance, but blue skies and white clouds—birds singing and flowers blooming.
————————————————————————————————————
The End.