"Little brother, how do you want me to repay you?"

Isabella's voice—honeyed, lilting, and laden with charm—brushed Daniel's ear like silk.

In the space of a heartbeat, Daniel felt as if a hidden fire within him had been stoked to a roaring blaze. He knew perfectly well what was happening. He knew that Isabella was tempting him on purpose, flooding the air with the undertow of her domain. And yet his body betrayed him, inching closer of its own accord, drifting toward surrender.

Without the slightest hesitation, Daniel cast Purification upon himself.

Clarity returned like a cold wind.

He set a hand to Isabella's shoulder and pushed her gently—but decisively—back. When he spoke, his tone was even, almost indifferent.

"No repayment is necessary—especially not that kind."

"I can grant you temporary freedom and permit you to move about outside for a time. In exchange, when I call upon you, I expect your help."

Daniel declined her "repayment" because he understood all too well what such repayment meant when it came from a Demigod of the Charm Domain. Whatever sweet words she wrapped it in, the substance was the same: to make him a puppet—willing, eager, and bound.

Even if she was not presently his enemy, such an existence had to be approached with meticulous caution.

Seeing that Daniel remained cool-headed, genuine surprise flickered over Isabella's face.

"Little brother, you're not moved at all?"

"You… wouldn't happen to be incapable, would you?"

She tipped her head and—slyly—cast a covert glance downward. A sharp breath slipped from between her lips.

"I was talking nonsense—don't mind me!" she blurted, eyes widening with feigned innocence. "I only wanted to ask… how long will you let me roam outside?"

Daniel estimated the Corridor of Time's constraints—its radius, its anchoring effect, its reclamation strength—running the calculus of risk in silence. After a few moments, he gave his answer.

"I can allow you one hour of freedom. For that hour, you may move as you please."

At the words one hour, Isabella's lips curved into a sulk, disappointment written openly across her flawless features.

"Only one hour? That's far too short, isn't it?"

"Please, little brother—couldn't you be more generous?"

Daniel admitted—to himself—that he wavered. But the moment hesitation touched him, he steeled his will again. Nothing came before risk control; that was the principle he had always lived by. Isabella's allure was formidable, but the Corridor's containment mechanics could not be compromised.

He clenched his jaw and spoke, firm: "One hour at most. That is the limit I can give you."

Isabella pouted, scarlet mouth drawn in exaggerated grievance, a teasing glint in her eye that didn't quite reach her voice. When she spoke, though, her expression turned surprisingly solemn.

"And if I don't come back?"

The words had barely left her lips when the world around her went dark.

The seal was no longer Aurelia's, yet Isabella felt clearly and instantly that this place still exercised absolute control over her fate.

So that's how it is, she thought, tension easing into resignation. I slipped only Aurelia's binding. The leash that matters is his.

"Little brother, you really are a bad man!" she protested, summoning a quavering, wounded tone. "I already agreed to be yours, and you still treat me like this?"

Her eyes shone with artful hurt, but Daniel knew performance when he saw it. He chose silence. No reaction; no purchase for her hooks.

When Isabella realized her coyness won her nothing, she sighed—soft and genuine this time. She understood now, perfectly well: no matter where she ran, Daniel could snap her back into confinement with a thought. He hadn't lifted Aurelia's seal because he'd yielded to her charms. He had done it because he possessed a stronger binding of his own.

In less than a minute, she pieced together the whole logic of her situation. Her face softened into a smile as smooth as a reconciliatory bow.

"I was only joking. Don't be angry, all right?"

"One hour is one hour. It's still better than being sealed forever."

"But… won't you really let me repay you? I mean it this time."

"Please don't look down on me; I'm actually very clean. No one has ever touched me."

She didn't finish the last word. The air in front of her simply emptied—Daniel's presence vanished without a trace.

She blinked, stunned. She'd expected a quip, a look, something.

A long, delicate sigh escaped her. "Has being sealed so long dulled my charm?" she murmured, half mocking herself, half genuinely thoughtful.

Daniel had already left the chamber and returned to the Temporal Passage—the long tunnel of layered eras and braided instants. He walked forward in silence, though his mind was anything but calm.

Isabella was terrifying.

Not because of raw power—though she had plenty of that—but because a mere murmur of her voice had thrown his blood into turmoil, had pulled at the buried seams of instinct with insidious ease.

If not for his God-Rank Skill, he might not have resisted.

Luke had been right—painfully right. If one could avoid invoking Isabella, one should. Every time.

Still, he had, in practical terms, acquired a Demigod-rank ally. On balance, not a loss.

The question that gnawed at him was different: how long could he keep her bound?

Purification could steady his mind—but only if he cast it quickly enough. If Isabella learned patience and wove her charm like mist—imperceptible and persistent—the day would come when he wouldn't even feel the snare closing.

On that day, he would be a puppet.

He grimaced and tapped his own temple with two fingers, as if nailing a warning placard in place. No Isabella, unless necessity forced his hand. And even then—limits, safeguards, redundancies.

Time slipped strangely in the Passage. Minutes felt like hours, then like heartbeats again. Eventually, Daniel saw another portal—a door suspended in the current of causality, its frame threaded with faintly luminous script.

His instincts pricked. Kartora should be within this era beyond the door.

Yet something was off. The portal was sealed—its surface glazed with a thin film of binding force, like frost that never melted.

Daniel studied it for a breath, then raised his hand.

With a pulse of will, he invoked his God-Rank Skill: Universal Gauntlet.

Power curled into existence—sigils orbiting his forearm like a slow, cold comet. The seal on the gate unraveled, lines of force peeling back like threads tugged free from a too-tight weave. The door parted.

He stepped through.

The instant he crossed the threshold, the situation struck him like a wall of sound.

A powerful Demigod was hunting Kartora—pressing her relentlessly, her movement harried and desperate. And in the weave of the era he sensed another presence: the puppet Kartora—the will that called itself Kalbira.

The tenor of their coexistence was anything but harmonious.

"Lord Crossbridge!"

Kartora's voice reached him through the shattered air as she slipped between two collapsing waves of force. Even now, she remembered to greet him—but she looked disheveled, battered by a pressure she could not meet head-on.

For all her formidable cunning and the depth of her mastery, Kartora was still only Fake God-rank. Against a true Demigod, the gap was stark—an entire major realm of difference.

Even Daniel, with his arsenal of God-Rank Skills, had no guarantee of toppling an opponent one whole realm above him in a direct contest.

As for the Elder Pantheon's faction, he had long since decided on the only sensible approach: cut away their wings—slay or scatter their followers and lieutenants—then face the solitary core with no one left to feed them faith or intervene at the critical instant.

Only under those conditions could he reliably fight up a realm and still walk away.

Now, as the Demigod's killing intent surged again, Daniel's eyes narrowed. He took in the battlefield at a glance: the arc of Kartora's retreat, the vectors of the incoming strikes, the echo of Kalbira's distant domain skimming the edges of the era like frost on a windowpane.

He did not draw attention to himself with grand declarations. Instead, he moved—one step, then another—folding himself into the cadence of the era, into the seams of time where a single touch could tilt a cascade.

Kartora tried to break right. The Demigod pressed to cut her off, spear of condensed law lancing forward. The stroke would not kill her—not with time at her back—but it would box her, shorten the corridor she had to run, push her toward the corner where the trap closed neatly.

Daniel lifted his hand. The Universal Gauntlet flared once, almost lazily. A translucent plane of force bloomed into being—not a true shield, but a miscue in causality, a nudge in the ledger. The spear's tip slipped half a hair from its destined line and, in that half hair, the future altered.

Kartora flashed through the gap, pale but unbroken.

"Your timing," she called, breath thin but dry with humor, "is exquisite."

"Save it," Daniel said curtly, eyes never leaving the Demigod. "You can thank me after you're not being hunted."

The hunter paused, attention finally cutting to Daniel—the new interference, the new variable. Divinity rolled from the Demigod like a tide; it smelled of old stone and deep sea, of foundations laid long before this century turned.

"Kartora," Daniel said under his breath, "hold your domain tight. No rewinds unless they buy space. Every reversal you make, she learns your rhythm."

Kartora nodded once. She knew that as well as he did—but it steadied her to hear it spoken aloud.

Across the field, the Demigod's smile was almost bored. "Another meddler," she mused. "No matter."

Daniel's reply was motion, not words: the Gauntlet's orbit quickened, inscriptions swimming like stars around his wrist. He didn't launch a frontal assault; he chopped at supports, at timing, at the tiny conveniences the Demigod's assault leaned on without realizing.

The pressure shifted. Kartora's steps lengthened.

From somewhere just beyond the edge of the plane, Kalbira stirred—an awareness like a mirror tilted slightly, catching a different slice of light. The balance here was delicate, and the Elder Pantheon's patience had limits.

Daniel felt the tug of that other domain and set his teeth. This couldn't become a two-front engagement. Not yet.

"Focus," he murmured to himself—and to the era. "Wings first. Then the body."

He raised his hand again. The universal script glittered, patient and inexorable. The hunt continued, but the lines were changing, strand by strand—exactly the way Daniel preferred to fight gods and those who aped them: not with thunder, but with edits to the page on which thunder was written.

This time, he intended to turn the chase. And when he did, then he would begin cutting away the Elder faction, one supporting pillar at a time—until at last, the solitary figure at the center of it all had nowhere left to stand.

Only then would a leap across realms be truly possible. Only then could he face the ancient hunger with a clean blade and the odds, at last, in his favor.

And so Daniel advanced, a quiet line of will in the roaring chronal wind, and the era bent infinitesimally to meet his step.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.