"This is.. strange."

When the black crystal left a hole in his heart, the illusion froze. As in, the time within the illusion froze.

[Abnormal state detected. Activating Protection Protocol..]

'Panel?'

Lugh tried to call it out, but it didn't respond.

"What the hell did just happen?"

Seeing that he couldn't do anything here, he was left with analyzing the illusion here.

"For starters, I could only recall the memories and the thoughts that I had today."

Meaning, he couldn't recall the rest of his memories except for some. Alina told him that this is just an illusion created by his mind, but it is really the case?

"I have no reason to make this up. The illusion should've been a traumatic one or a paradise. It's neither of them. This illusion didn't have the elements of despair and fulfillment too."

Even though his [Sixth Sense] told him of this danger, this isn't something that he would fear. He had his revival chance too.

"What's strange here is my panel. What the hell did happen to it?"

For him, the panel is something that even his teacher, a high-rank Deity-Realm Combatant, couldn't see through. Alina isn't much stronger than him, so she wouldn't be able to do this too.

"Forget it, I should do what I can first."

He scanned through the memories first. Dawn Cult, the death of the Royal Family, the decisive battle..

One by one, he found out more about it. What's strange is that Lugh found these memories reasonable.

"If I deduce the general trend of planet Aquamarine, it would be something similar to this. Then, the single possibility is left."

These memories belonged to him- the him from Red's 1st life. The time when he didn't have the panel.

"My life was this tragic? I knew it. Only with my own power can I have a better life."

When he looked at it, he estimated that the events that occurred in his memories should be the mid-stage of the Aquamarine war. How did he tell?

Simple. The him of this day thought of Red, in which it was revealed that the guy's at SS+ Rank already. Even for Lugh, this is freaking unbelievable. In less than 5 years, the guy rocketed through the Mortal Realm and rose to a whole major rank in the Law Realm.

Take note that going up a minor rank on the Law Realm is very difficult. One might take years before he does.

"This should be the result of his luck and his talent. If so, just how terrifying would his growth rate be now that he regressed?"

Lugh didn't bother on thinking anymore. He organized the rest of his memories and began understanding them. He took a couple of hours before finishing.

"Panel."

Lugh tried calling it out again, but there is still no response. Without anything else to do, he stood up and began exploring this frozen world.

"Hm. Alright, i'll begin memorizing these faces."

Since he already knew the faces from Aquamarine's side, he went to the Dawn Cult's base instead. To his surprise, this is the same one as the one that they escaped from!

"Fate.."

Lugh began exploring each hallways. Unlike before, he had the time to explore. He took around 6 hours to thoroughly explore this base.

He kept the layout of this base on his mind before leaving.

"It's still unresponsive."

Shrugging it off, Lugh started to fly at the direction of the Empire. Thanks to his S+ Rank power, he's fast enough to reach it in less than 8 hours. Sadly, <Savior's Armament> and <Myriad Forms Armament> weren't present here, along with the enhancement s that they gave to Lugh.

Thanks to him being familiar to the Imperial Palace, he got to the Study Room immediately. There, he saw Aria. She got this elegance and overbearing aura of an Emperor. Lugh felt it even when she's only doing some paperwork.

Though, Aria looked quite different from before. She matured a lot in these 5 years.

"A cold beauty.. This is how she looked like during school."

Looking at her, Lugh naturally recalled the memories earlier. There, he saw Aria being cute and adorable as usual. This is a stark contrast on what she's showing to other people.

Not only that, he recalled some special memories too. He couldn't help but be flustered.

"We.. did that. Right."

They didn't even kiss and he had to see those already..

"Sigh.. Our past selves lived too tragically."

Lugh touched Aria's hand while reminiscing. What he didn't expect was that he'll get dragged into another memory. There' Lugh saw that he's in an astral state.

He looked at the sight in front of him. Destruction. That was all he saw.

"What the hell? Aria?!"

There, he saw Aria kneeling down. Everything, including space, is a mess. it is full of black holes and cracks. He went closer to her in a hurry.

"Aria?"

When he finally had a closer look, he saw that Aria's still alive. Unlike before, she has golden dragon eyes along with the white scales that covered her entire body.

"Lugh.. I'll see you soon."

"Aria.. No!"

After saying that, she lost her signs of life. The pressure that she emitted disappeared too. Lugh knew that it can only be the pressure of a High Rank Deity-Realm Combatant.

"She died?"

He still couldn't believe what he's seeing. If she died in the future..

"Fuck.. I'll not let this happen!"

Sizzle!

"Huh?"

ugh saw some purple embers from the thing that Aria's been crushing on her hands. Knowing that these stuff might help on preventing Aria's death, he took a closer look.

A broken purple flame. Others might not know of this, but Lugh saw this in some records.

"Origin Tinder?"

Origin Tinder is a type of flame that one couldn't interact with. Even if you attack it with all types of attack, it won't damage it. It is naturally because of its importance.

Origin Tinder might seem like a normal flame at glance, but its actually the lifeline of every races. Even if a race goes extinct, they won't truly go extinct if they still have this Origin Tinder. Most of the time, a member of their race who's a mixed blood would go through Atavism, thus making him a pure-blood.

That's why races won't go extinct easily. Of course, there are some ways to deal with this.

"Purple and the corpses of demons.. It's actually the Demons'?"

He fell into a deep thought. Lugh began going deeper when an entity appeared in front of him. Its something made out of darkness. The world began glitching the moment it came out.

"@#!$%$@@$"

It began speaking in an unknown language. As if the world couldn't tolerate its existence, Lugh saw that it's disappearing.

It was about to completely disappear, but a single word managed to reach Lugh.

"Fake."

With that, silence was restored in the surroundings..