After traveling through Boundless Mountain for half a day,
Kanzaki Rei found that although monsters were ravaging the region, there were indeed very few Rank 8 monsters.
After sweeping forward all this way, he had encountered only seven Rank 8 monsters in total.
Compared to the numbers in the Moon Sea, the difference was not even on the same scale.
Of course, these seven were correspondingly much stronger.
But when they encountered Kanzaki Rei, they were still swatted to death as casually as roadside strays.
As a result, countless people were saved.
Kanzaki Rei also gradually began to sense a kind of call.
Though they did not know his name, he could feel a hazy conviction gathering around him.
A force known as faith was beginning to settle upon his body.
There was no need to know his true appearance.
No need to know his name.
They worshiped only the indistinct source of light in the sky.
And that alone was enough to form faith.
The power was extraordinarily weak.
Even if he chose to wield it, it would amount to no more than the force of a few Level 3 Lightning Arrows.
In truth, many people throughout history had researched the path of faith.
But nearly all had failed.
Even the gods did not use faith as their primary source of power.
It was too unstable.
It arrived with praise.
And vanished with disappointment.
To this day, Kanzaki Rei had never heard of anyone who had successfully walked a purely faith-based path.
Besides, faith itself was born from people admiring powerful beings.
To rely on faith to nurture one's own strength was to put the cart before the horse.
Still, Boundless Mountain was simply too vast.
Even Kanzaki Rei could not save all of it.
Monsters were rampaging everywhere.
Disasters were unfolding in every direction.
After expanding the Absolute Mana Sea to a radius of 800 billion kilometers across Boundless Mountain, Kanzaki Rei finally halted his hunt.
He left behind only a constantly expanding violet-black solar core, illuminating the heavens.
At the same time, he began to notice certain "gazes."
The most famous features of Boundless Mountain were its many Forbidden Zones.
Within the area covered by the Absolute Mana Sea, he had finally come into contact with one.
When the Mana Sea reached the edge of that region, it bypassed it entirely.
It was as if a pure land had appeared within the sea of mana.
Kanzaki Rei also sensed a profound gaze from within the Forbidden Zone, examining him from afar.
With a single exchange of eyes,
he immediately understood its essence.
It was not a Level 8 existence.
It was something akin to a god.
However, it merely observed him without taking any further action.
At the same time, a faint thought was transmitted to him.
A warning.
Do not interfere with the Forbidden Zone.
Very well.
Then I won't disturb you.
Kanzaki Rei turned and vanished directly from Boundless Mountain.
When he appeared again, he had arrived at the Secret Sea.
He wandered through it casually, marking several regions for future expansion of the Absolute Mana Sea.
There were no monsters in the Secret Sea.
As far as the eye could see, there was only destruction.
Even mana itself was thin here, making it difficult for the Mana Sea to spread.
Next, he traveled to the Murky Sea.
The Murky Sea had always been a chaotic region.
Yet compared to the Moon Sea and Boundless Mountain, it was almost peaceful.
Even where monster invasions had occurred, the situation was nowhere near as severe.
Left alone, life here would not differ much from normal.
"Hm?"
After the Infinite Mana Sea spread outward, Kanzaki Rei sensed some unusual traces lingering in the area.
It was not mana.
It was fragments of chaos.
The thought process of his Enigma Scholar class reversed cause and effect, using the residual traces to reconstruct what had happened here.
Someone else had been here.
And they had already cleared out the monsters.
Ding—
The scattered, intangible fragments of chaos condensed in Kanzaki Rei's hand into a tangible substance.
The information was traced backward.
Kanzaki Rei followed the power directly to its source.
It was not far away.
Only tens of billions of kilometers in the distance.
The source was…
Roya?
His gaze immediately captured the familiar figure.
The same brown curly hair.
The same carefree, grinning demeanor.
It really was him.
Come to think of it, Roya had also been in the Secret Sea back then, always shrouded in mystery.
And Kanzaki Rei remembered that he possessed a Destiny that allowed him to turn enemies into allies.
"What a coincidence."
"Then I should go see him."
Boom!
The space where Kanzaki Rei stood exploded in place.
But his figure had already disappeared.
…
Roya strolled leisurely above the Murky Sea, both hands tucked into his pockets.
His perception swept over the waters below, focusing mainly on several nearby continents.
Then suddenly, his senses issued an overwhelmingly violent warning.
An incredibly powerful existence was approaching him without the slightest attempt at concealment.
Brazenly.
Blatantly.
Its aura surged from the west like a tsunami.
Roya immediately steadied himself and fixed his gaze in that direction.
Billions of kilometers seemed to shrink to a single glance.
But—
Whoosh!
That face appeared before him in the very next instant.
Cold.
Handsome.
Whoosh—
The moment Kanzaki Rei's hand touched his body,
Roya's form dispersed into chaotic mist.
Chaos Trickster — Class Mastery: Phantom Body
Upon first contact, regardless of whether the target was the true body or a decoy, one would always touch the decoy.
"Hey! You could at least warn me before showing up like that…"
Roya's figure re-formed in the distance.
But when he saw Kanzaki Rei's face clearly, his pupils contracted violently.
"You're—!"
Flash!
In the next instant, Kanzaki Rei's hand was already resting atop his head.
"Hey…"
As Kanzaki Rei performed this action, he simultaneously felt a force descending onto his own head.
It was as though pressing down on Roya's head had caused his own hand to press against himself as well.
Time froze.
Kanzaki Rei discovered that an invisible field had already spread around Roya.
Within this field,
every combat action produced random and unpredictable feedback.
This included, but was not limited to:
Attacks rebounding onto the attacker.
Spell effects reversing.
Perception becoming distorted.
"Do we really have to fight?"
"Can't we make peace?"
Suddenly, Roya spoke.
Within frozen time, he was still able to talk.
At this moment, all things should have been suspended.
This was the absolute stillness of the Supreme Realm.
Kanzaki Rei released the time stop.
He lowered the hand from Roya's head, patted him lightly on the shoulder, and chuckled.
"I was just saying hello."
Just saying hello?
Roya's mouth twitched.
Your idea of a greeting nearly scared my heart out of my chest…
"You're that kid from the Secret Sea ten years ago, aren't you?" Roya said.
Kanzaki Rei kept his hand resting on Roya's shoulder.
"Oh? You remember quite clearly."
"Of course I do… A child appearing in a place that dangerous isn't exactly easy to forget."
"How did you end up in the Murky Sea?"
Kanzaki Rei replied calmly.
"I just wandered here."
"But what about you?"
"What are you doing here?"
When facing Roya now, he no longer felt the anxiety and wariness he had once experienced.
Instead, he felt only a relaxed sense of ease.
As Kanzaki Rei asked the question, his gaze lost focus for a brief instant.
His eyes pierced into the future.
In that single moment,
he simulated everything that would happen throughout the entire day.