Chapter 170: Meeting of the Dark Past and Unchained Present

"Hey, where do you think they came from?"

"I don’t know. They just appeared out of nowhere."

"Strange, maybe they’re from outside?"

"How is that possible?"

"But why are their clothes ruined?"

"They’re full of wounds too, what should we do?"

...

Children could be seen murmuring among themselves as they surrounded three people who seemed to be unconscious.

’Why is it so noisy?’

Seeing one of the unconscious figures flinch, the children were surprised.

"Is she awake?"

"Should we greet her?"

"What if she’s not friendly?"

...

A pair of ruby-red eyes opened amidst the murmuring children.

"Huh?"

Pandora could not help but let out a confused voice at the scene before her.

The sky was blue, and there seemed to be no traces of any prior battle that they had just gone through.

There were three suns in the sky and the ground seemed like the surface of the ocean that which reflected the white clouds that swam through the blue sky.

Pandora slowly sat, holding her aching head in the process.

Her blurry eyes slowly cleared up.

What greeted her was a group of children who had stunned expressions on their faces.

"Ummm... Hi?"

Pandora only received their stunned gazes as a reply.

"Uh, do you know where I am?"

A few moments of awkward silence passed before a girl with black hair took a step towards her.

"I’m sorry, it’s just that you reminded us so much of Regis which— By the way, are you two related by any chance?"

Another girl with short brown hair interjected, "Vanessa, isn’t that too unlikely? We’ve been with Regis for over a year, and he didn’t mention anything of the sort except for that one called Dahlia."

"Hmmm..." A boy who had black hair had his chin propped up on his hand.

"She doesn’t look like Dahlia since Regis told us that she had pink hair and eyes. Meanwhile..."

"What do you think, Greg?"

"I don’t know, Lea. But I can tell that he seemed to have a way with gir—!"

Thud—

"Why did you hit me!?" Greg had a wronged expression on his face as he caressed his shoulder.

Lea pouted, "Because you keep talking nonsense."

Vanessa shook her head before looking towards Pandora and the others, who seemed to be awoken by Greg and Lea’s commotion.

"Well, before we start, why don’t we introduce ourselves first?"

She mustered the friendliest smile she could possibly muster and offered her hand towards the girl with black hair and ruby-red eyes.

"My name is Vanessa, and the two idiots are Greg and Lea. As for the others, introducing them individually would take much time... but in short, we’re all Regis’s ummm... childhood friends? Yes, that sounds right."

Killian, who had just woken up, said with interest, "Oh? So you all played with Regis when he was young? Well, I mean— we’re still children— but... when he was younger?"

His words made Vanessa and the other children flinch.

"Uh, y-yes. W-We all played a lot back then..." Vanessa struggled to maintain her friendly smile.

Pandora then took Vanessa’s hand with an expressionless face, "I’m Pandora, a friend of Regis."

"Oh, and I’m Killian, by the way."

Killian flashed a flirty smile towards Vanessa, who, once again, struggled to maintain her friendly smile.

Then, as if remembering something important, Pandora and Killian looked in a certain direction.

Aurelia seemed to be sleeping peacefully: her body had returned to normal, and even her severed arm had grown back like it was never cut off.

"What happened to her?" Pandora’s face was filled with confusion.

They walked closer to their sleeping companion as Killian also asked, "What? How/"

The image of Aurelia being on the verge of death after using a powerful ability remained vividly etched in their minds.

Thus, their confusion was understandable.

At this moment, Vanessa had a peculiar expression on her face as she crouched near Aurelia’s face.

Noticing this, Killian asked, "Do you know what happened?"

Vanessa had an uncertain expression, but still nodded, albeit full of hesitation.

"I think she’s like me."

"Like you?" Pandora tilted her head, her face still deadpan.

After a few more seconds of observation, Vanessa nodded affirmatively, "Yes. I think she also made a contra—"

RUMBLE—--!!!!!

Before she could finish, an earthquake suddenly struck.

"This..."

Not only Vanessa, Greg, and Lea, but also the other children were all too familiar with this phenomenon.

"W-What’s happening!?" Killian’s voice trembled as he asked in a panic.

Meanwhile, Pandora frowned, but did not show any excessive reaction.

Vanessa glanced at them, "Stay calm. This world isn’t like the one you were previously in."

Seeing her looking up, Pandora and Killian both followed suit.

Above in the center of the blue sky and milky white clouds floated three of what looked to be suns.

The suns seemed to be of differing sizes and colors, with the largest one being almost transparent, the second one having a platinum-like sheen, and the smallest one being gold.

However, what shocked them was the crack that appeared in the area near the other suns.

Soon after, a fourth sun emerged from the crack before it closed.

The new sun was unlike any other its predecessors with its color being pure white.

It was also the second largest after the translucent sun, though there was quite a gap between the two.

Seeing this, Killian couldn’t help but become uneasy.

Bzzzt—-

A sword made of blue lightning appeared in his hand.

This made Pandora widen her eyes, "Killian, what are you doi—"

"I know they introduced themselves as Regis’s friends, but what if they’re lying? What if we fell for that demon’s tricks and are trapped in an illusion?"

Before Pandora could reply, both she and Killian felt goosebumps all over their body.

She could not help but grip her staff tightly as she put her guard up.

The two of them looked around and saw that the children who surrounded them all had a peculiar look on their faces.

It was an expression of people who had murdered countless lives.

A look of pure bloodthirst.

Both of them felt like they were being observed by people not unlike that of demons.

"Hey! Hey!! Heyyyy!!!" Vanessa shouted before the situation got out of hand.

She looked at Killian and Pandora with a wry smile, "Can I ask you two to put your guard down? I’m sorry, but we have a little tendency to become like that whenever hostility is directed at us."

Seeing their wary expressions, Vanessa continued.

"Come on. If we wanted to hurt you, we wouldn’t have waited until you woke up... So, please?"

Pandora raised her hand with a sigh before letting go of her staff.

Killian also realized that he seemed to have overreacted as he disabled his artifact.

However, both of them knew that these people who seemed to be around their age were not ones to be trifled with.

Vanessa took a heavy breath, "I’m sorry if I didn’t explain everything to you from the get-go. I just felt like most of it should come from Regis himself."

"So let me explain some things while we wait for him to wake up."

***

A pair of blood-red eyes opened in the dark.

Regis looked around weakly, the scene of ruins and fog filled his sight.

The area, which had initially been a swamp, was now a wasteland; even the water that had been previously turned to gold by Aurelia was all gone without a trace.

Looking at his hands, Regis found that he had reverted back to human form.

"Where are they?"

The dust and fog obscured too much of his vision, so he decided to wait for his Perfect Adaptation to work.

However, a few minutes had already passed by, and nothing happened even though it should have only taken a few seconds at most.

"Weird."

Regis muttered under his breath and tried to stand up.

Thud—

"Ow!’

Only to fall back to the ground on his butt.

He soon felt weakness all over his aching body, rendering him unable to move without feeling tremendous pain that even his Tranquility was unable to fully suppress.

And so, Regis sat in a cross-legged manner and meditated before utilizing the Mana Breathing Technique in an attempt to speed up his recovery.

’I’ll just hope that nothing bad happened to them.’

However, as he concentrated, he began to feel something foreign in his body.

This something made Regis break out of his concentration as his eyes widened in shock, "How can I have this!?"

Uncertain of what he found, he closed his eyes again and meditated to see the situation of his body.

In his heart, various energies seemed to swirl around.

The two blue stars of mana, the two red stars of aura, and the four black stars of demonic power that all had reached the peak stage.

And finally, the golden strand of energy that calmly coexisted with all of these energies.

Regis blurted out in shock,

"I gained... divine power!?"