Chapter: 36. The Threat Temporarily Away
Tick-tock—tick-tock—
“…… What?” The expression of the Unique Entity finally showed surprise for the first time.
When He arrived, He had made the Kaola Box of this world line ineffective.
But now, what echoed in His ears was the sound of the world line rewinding.
In an instant.
He reflexively mobilized the magic power within Him.
Thus, the “possibility” and the “self-rewriting” in the “world line” were all activated at that moment.
The Unique Entity immediately transformed into the “absolute nemesis” of almost all existence.
Though He did not know who had managed to activate the Kaola Box that was supposed to be ineffective.
As long as He was the “absolute nemesis” of the opponent, He should be immune to the effects of this “world line rewind”—that was right.
“…… How is this possible?”
Since becoming the “Unique Entity,” or rather since being born as the “Unique Entity,” He had seldom encountered anything that surprised Him.
But now was the exception—
He realized that the “self-rewriting” had not taken effect.
The rewind of the world line was still having an effect on Him.
His body became ethereal during the rewinding process, and the traces and facts of His previous presence in this place were being erased, becoming uncertain.
Not just Him.
The entire sky shrouded in darkness was also dissipating at a visible speed along with the “tick-tock” sound, revealing a starry night sky below.
“Master…”
Seeing this, Shūen Nagi could not help but murmur in her heart.
In this world, there is only one person who can hinder the Unique Entity’s steps.
But it seemed the Unique Entity saw through Shūen Nagi’s heart. As the sound of rewinding continued, He turned His face to Shūen Nagi’s side.
“…… Your master? An interesting possibility.”
The surprise on the Unique Entity’s face had disappeared, replaced by a playful smile.
“I didn’t expect that Shūen would actually have a master?”
The Unique Entity laughed: “I really want to meet the person who could make that ‘Shūen’ willingly become a contracted beast.”
Then He looked up at the stars in the sky.
“So, does that mean that all of this was also orchestrated by that contractor?”
His body was nearly completely transparent, and the darkness enveloping the world was about to entirely vanish.
“But do you really think the Kaola Box’s power would be effective against me?”
【Rewriting oneself】
Although the opponent was an existence He had never encountered before.
For the Unique Entity, who had “infinite” rewriting opportunities, He only needed one rewriting to—
At that moment.
Suddenly, a radiance burst forth in the starry sky, with brilliant and sacred light as if the Creator had descended to the mortal realm.
This caused the Unique Entity’s actions to falter momentarily.
It was in that instant of pause.
He did not manage to complete the rewriting, and His entire body completely vanished from this world.
The world line without the Unique Entity once again transformed into uncertain “possibilities”—
Time began to rewind.
Star Academy.
Kanade’s figure returned before Alice once again.
Hawaiian airspace.
Nagi’s figure returned above DD-chan, with Professor Amagi’s star-shaped machine still yet to initiate its spatial folding.
The traces and facts of the Unique Entity’s arrival were completely erased.
This world returned to the time before His arrival.
Tick-tock—tick—tock—
The sound of the Kaola Box echoed in Nagi’s heart.
However, even though the Kaola Box rewound the world line and sent the Unique Entity away, He, in essence, was an entity beyond the world line, so His power would not disappear even if the world line was rewound.
Thus, Kanade’s Kaola Box was still restricted by the Unique Entity.
And although Nagi’s Kaola Box could still be used, the next time she used it, the Unique Entity would immediately pinpoint her location—
Next time, her power would be hard to affect Him.
In other words.
At this very moment, the power of the Kaola Box had completely vanished concerning this world line.
Neither Kanade nor Nagi had the ability to “try again.”
And more troubling was—
Though Nagi successfully activated “Light-Wrought Truth” and the “Kaola Box,” her shattered soul gave her excruciating torment.
So much so that the moment she finished rewinding the world line, she fell unconscious and plummeted from the sky.
The many fantasy creatures that returned to the Hawaiian airspace held no memories of other world lines.
When they saw Nagi suddenly faint, they ignored DD-chan before them and the star-shaped machine about to depart, rushing towards the falling Nagi instead—
Even though the world line had been rewound.
Professor Amagi and DD-chan successfully escaped from the fantasy creatures and Nagi just as they had in the previous world line.
Meanwhile.
Star Academy.
Although Kanade retained memories from the previous world line.
He, struck by black lightning, still bore the injuries inflicted by the Unique Entity.
Having lost all magic power and unable to enter the Kaola Box, he lost consciousness in pain and collapsed in front of Alice.
Alice, witnessing this scene, was momentarily stunned.
Clearly, just a second ago, Kanade stood before her exuding confidence.
And in the next moment, he suddenly fell.
This made Alice unconsciously rub her eyes.
Even having witnessed many grand events, she was taken aback by this scene.
She even thought it might be Kanade’s little scheme to tempt her into revealing a flaw or something…
Until Crimson Maria arrived by Alice’s side again, taking her away from Star Academy.
—————–
When the Unique Entity finally regained composure.
He found Himself still standing at the intersection of countless world lines.
He had neither entered any world line nor locked onto that foolish “self” still using the Kaola Box’s power to alter the world line.
“…” For some reason, the Unique Entity felt a sense of urgency.
In the past, He would never have felt such emotions at any time.
Only now—
He vaguely felt as if He had forgotten something.
But that was impossible.
He was a collective entity independent of any single world line, capable of utilizing and reviewing all abilities and memories.
So without a doubt—this was merely an illusion.
Everything is “normal”… right?
—————–
The threat from the “Unique Entity” temporarily receded.
However, for Star Academy, Kanade, or Nagi, the development of events did not head in a positive direction.
Both the core personnel leading that plan—Professor Shigekazu Amagi—and the core key item of that confidential system had been taken away by the intruder.
What’s more, the main teaching building of Star Academy was destroyed in this incident.
No intruder was captured.
And most importantly—
The S-class esper from Moon Academy, “Black Flame King – Tsukimi Kanade,” performed disappointingly in this invasion event, not only destroying the main teaching building of Star Academy during the battle but also allowing the mastermind of the opponent to safely leave Star Academy.
Although this was the Black Flame King’s first failure.
The consequences of this failure were severe.
To the extent that another plan was hastily brought forward—
“Deploy X-class espers, and no matter what, retrieve Professor Amagi and the key!!!”
