Cipher stood outside the gate, Lyra still resting in his arms.
He looked at the place where the gate had once been. Nothing remained. Not even a trace.
"It really closed," he thought.
His expression brightened.
He had always wondered why the Time God had placed the worlds in these time capsules when they would eventually die anyway. But it made sense now.
The Time God was hoping that someone would take out these worlds. That’s why the gates closed.
He wondered if the Time God knew that he would personally close the gates. Was that why he had sent him that skill?
Cipher didn’t believe receiving the Regression skill was a coincidence.
And Lyra too...
Was all of this part of the Time God’s plan? For him to discover the spiritual sea through Lyra and have the idea of putting the worlds inside it?
If that was the case, then the Time God was significantly more powerful than the other gods he had encountered. At least from the little he knew about them through their Saintesses.
The amount of things that could possibly go wrong were staggering. Yet he still felt that he wasn’t under anyone’s control.
For someone to predict and guide things to this level, they had to be extremely powerful.
As he thought that, he realized something.
"Oh no."
His expression grew grim.
The planet he had absorbed was still undergoing destruction. Since he didn’t stop time for it, it had continued its collapse.
He wondered what to do now.
He couldn’t just stop time. If he did that, he didn’t know what would happen to the living people.
As he was panicking, he remembered something.
Terrain Scanner.
The plugin-type cheat he had received for Map Editor.
He quickly activated Map Editor and flew high. He used Speed Hack, increasing his speed even more and flying even faster.
His current base speed was about 500 miles per hour. Combined with mana circulation and the Speed Hack boost, he was moving faster than the speed of sound.
Within just three minutes, he was in space.
He still felt this was slow though. The situation inside the spiritual sea wasn’t looking good.
He extended his hand toward the planet below. He didn’t have a full view, but this was good enough.
Instantly, his Map Editor cheat scanned the terrain of the Earth.
...
Inside the spiritual sea, on the new planet.
The world was tearing itself apart.
The earth cracked and split. Massive chunks of terrain rose into the air only to come crashing down. Mountains crumbled. Rivers vanished into newly formed chasms.
The sect masters defended their people against the falling debris, deflecting boulders and shielding disciples with barriers of qi.
Maya and her teammates huddled inside a barrier she had erected. Dante was still in his berserker form, but she restrained with magic to keep him from rampaging further.
They dodged left and right, but it seemed impossible to escape. Everything seemed to want to slam into them.
At the same time, Maya was searching for Cipher.
She could sense him. But she couldn’t quite pinpoint his location. There was a layer of abstraction between her and him, as if he was close and yet impossibly far away.
Just what was going on?
At that moment, a figure appeared in the sky.
Cipher drifted down from above, descending slowly through the chaos.
He opened his arms.
All the destruction seemed to pause.
The falling debris froze mid-air. The crumbling mountains stopped crumbling. The collapsing earth held still.
Then, slowly, everything began to reverse.
Debris floated upward and settled back into place. Cracks in the ground sealed themselves. Mountains reformed. Rivers flowed back into their banks.
Slowly, everything calmed.
Until the world was completely restored.
As if nothing had ever happened.
...
Cipher looked around him.
He had almost failed to restore it.
Turns out, some parts had been completely destroyed and couldn’t be used by Map Editor as resources.
Luckily, he had thought of using the infinite dead worlds in his spiritual sea as materials for repair.
Although he had consumed over a dozen of them just to find the little material he needed - likely because they were already dead and degraded - he didn’t mind.
He had a virtually infinite number of them anyway and no real use for them otherwise.
He paused.
Where had all these dead worlds come from anyway?
Could it be...
The Infinite Inventory wasn’t affected by time. Were these worlds he had saved before the world looped? Worlds he never repaired and then everything reset?
But the skill had glitched back then. He had kept his memories, so the world never looped. At least, it only did once.
His expression grew serious.
But what if...
"Cipher!"
Maya’s voice cut through his thoughts. She flew toward him, his teammates following close behind.
He shook his head.
Maybe he was reading too much into it.
...
Cipher floated down toward his teammates.
Maya rushed to him immediately, her eyes wide with relief. "Cipher! I was so worried about you!" She looked him up and down, as if checking for injuries. "You were asleep this whole time and then suddenly you just... appeared like that and then disappeared"
"I’m fine," he said. "Sorry for making you worry."
Ryker crossed his arms, shaking his head. "I haven’t seen you for just a second and you’re already so strong. How are we supposed to catch up?"
Cipher could only offer a smile.
"It feels good to finally be back together," Selene said.
Then she pulled out a folded paper from her pocket.
"That being said, it’s going to be a PR disaster when we get out." She sighed heavily, scanning the document.
As expected of Selene, Cipher thought. Even at a time like this, she still thought about work.
"I’m really sorry about what happened. I..." Li Chen began, but Cipher raised his hand.
"Don’t worry about it. I actually somewhat expected this," he said.
He then looked to the side.
Dante stood there, still restrained by magical bindings, a faint red aura flickering around him. His eyes were unfocused, feral.
Right... I almost forgot.
Cipher floated toward him.
Dante growled, straining against the restraints.
Cipher simply placed a hand on his shoulder.
The berserker mode canceled instantly.
The red aura dissipated. Dante’s muscles relaxed. His eyes cleared, focus returning to them as he shrank back to his normal size.
He looked down at himself, confused.
Then he noticed Cipher.
"Brother Cipher!" His face lit up. "You’re finally back!"
"Yeah," Cipher said with a nod. "Now let’s fix that skill like I promised."
Dante felt his mana resonate. Something stirred within him - the berserker skill shifting, changing. He let go, not restricting it.
He felt the skill disappear.
But then he felt an energy entering him once again. It was the same skill, but it felt different this time.
His body began letting out a red aura. His muscles bulged. Power surged through him just like before.
The others tensed, preparing for another rampage.
But Cipher just observed with a calm smile.
Dante looked at himself.
He was still conscious.
Even after using the skill, his mind was clear. He was in control.
"I... I can think," he said, staring at his hands in disbelief. "I’m not losing myself."
He deactivated the skill, returning to normal.
Then he jumped at Cipher.
"Thank you, Brother Cipher! Thank you so much!" He wrapped his arms around him in a crushing embrace. "You actually fixed it! I can finally use it without going crazy!"
Cipher struggled to pry him off. "No need to be so grateful. I had already promised you."
Dammit, how is he so strong? Cipher thought as he pushed against Dante’s grip.
When he finally managed to get him off, Maya approached.
"What do we do with those people?" she asked, pointing toward the ground.
Below, the sect masters looked up at him. Their expressions were a mixture of awe, confusion, and uncertainty.
Cipher looked down at the people below.
He suddenly realized something.
He hadn’t been using the Heavenly Phenomena skill.
Would his plan fail?
The people below all bowed in unison, pressing their foreheads to the ground.
"May we ask the Venerable Immortal’s name?" they asked together.
Cipher blinked.
Seeing the looks the people below were giving him, he smiled.
It seemed he never even needed the visual effects in the first place.
Well, with what he had displayed - killing the Evil God with a single word and restoring the collapsing world with a wave of his hand - compared to the real deal, the Heavenly Phenomena was just a bonus.
He smiled.
"Looks like it’s time to pull out my god-tier acting skills from Chapter 8..."
...
Author’s Corner
Just one today. Happy new year everyone.
Btw, the novel is nearing its end. Ik ik. My kind of writing is one of freedom to the characters where I try my best not to make the power unreasonable but also not to nerf my characters too much. At the moment with Cipher, he has almost reached the point of no return at which the story simply can’t go on. There’s still some mysteries to unveil so it won’t end like tomorrow but...idk, might have a hard time going on for another month or two. After that my next novel will be more laid back, well, not really but it will be much slower with no insane broken powers.