As Kanzaki Rei slowly raised his hand, faint ripples spread outward from his fingertips.
Temporal fluctuations began to distort into strange disparities.
Because the scales of time differed, the moment the effect spread onto Shin Senka, even her body began to warp slightly.
"What is this…?"
Kanzaki Rei smiled lightly.
"A derivative evolved from the Second Forbidden Primordial Magic—Time."
Fwoosh!
At the same moment, a multicolored flame ignited within his left hand.
It resembled burning ice, yet thunder rumbled within it, radiating brilliant prismatic colors.
"Well?"
"To be honest, I'm not entirely sure what Lottie thinks of me now. But I've always been someone who keeps his promises. If there's something I once failed to do, then I want to make up for it."
Shin Senka hesitated for a moment, trying to see through Kanzaki Rei's thoughts.
But the expression on his face was bright and open, with a faint trace of bitterness hidden beneath it—as though he genuinely carried guilt over what had happened before.
At least on the surface, he truly looked remorseful.
Shin Senka bit her lip.
"Hmph… it's not impossible to give you another chance. Honestly, Mistress Lottie didn't seem especially angry with you either."
"…Really?" Kanzaki Rei pressed.
"Well, when I brought it up before, Lady Lottie just smiled helplessly and changed the subject."
"But I still think you're awful."
"You clearly promised her, and then you broke your word."
Not angry?
Well… gods were never as simple-minded as Shin Senka.
Lottie had undoubtedly experienced far more than she had.
Who knew what she was truly thinking?
Would she come to the present world seeking revenge against him?
Probably unnecessary.
He hadn't helped her, but he also hadn't harmed her.
And he hadn't taken anything fundamentally important from her either…
If he hadn't entered the Deep Stratum back then, Lottie still wouldn't have escaped anyway.
Kanzaki Rei sighed softly.
"You know I didn't really have a choice."
"But enough about me. You should tell me how you got out—and why you came here."
Shin Senka shot him another suspicious glance.
Still, she answered.
"Lady Lottie sent me out…"
"She told me to come here and alter fate."
Kanzaki Rei narrowed his eyes slightly.
"Alter fate?"
Shin Senka nodded proudly.
"That's right! This place is the Interstice of Fate for all existence. It carries the destinies of every living being… Lady Lottie wanted me to modify certain destinies for her."
"Changing fate isn't exactly a simple matter."
As a Prophet, the deeper Kanzaki Rei's understanding of fate became, the more unfathomable it seemed.
"Is there a specific method? How much can actually be changed?"
Even as he smiled casually while asking the question, countless future projections reflected within his eyes.
The Level 3 Prophet ability had already begun simulating the near future.
An endless stream of dazzling symbols swept past his vision.
But…
He still could not find his own name.
"It's actually not that difficult."
"Rather than changing fate, it's more like receiving guidance. You locate your own name, then establish a destiny… and afterward, search for the path that leads to it," Shin Senka explained.
The more Kanzaki Rei listened, the stranger it sounded.
It really resembled…
A wish.
The wish-granting effect of 「God-Tier · My Heart's Desire」.
Didn't I already possess a method like this?
Kanzaki Rei possessed the Book of Answers. As long as he wrote a question into the book, it would reveal how to seek the answer.
But merely knowing how to search for an answer and genuinely changing fate were two entirely different concepts.
Shing—
Kanzaki Rei's gaze returned from the future to the present.
The Absolute Mana Sea had already begun expanding.
Even within this bizarre space, the Absolute Mana Sea still spread outward without obstruction.
His perception rapidly enveloped an enormous area.
And the expansion speed of the Absolute Mana Sea kept accelerating.
It wasn't as though leaving a previously occupied region forced the spread rate to reset from the beginning.
Rather, during the process of expanding the Mana Sea, Kanzaki Rei's total mana reserves permanently increased.
Pshh!
In only a few minutes, the Absolute Mana Sea had already expanded across a radius of hundreds of billions of kilometers, engulfing massive amounts of floating characters.
Kanzaki Rei saw familiar names.
Kumironi.
Sekisei.
Izparut.
Roya.
Luluwei, Kiyohime, Konkurei, Los.
Even Zhuya, Naraku, Egmisa, Kaiga, Yangming—even Aehekatol's name appeared within his perception.
Whether familiar or unfamiliar, nearly everything entered his field of awareness.
His perception continued extending farther alongside the Absolute Mana Sea, and Kanzaki Rei focused entirely on accelerating its expansion.
By concentrating fully, the Mana Sea spread even faster than normal.
Finally, after a long stretch of expansion—
He touched the limits of this space.
A radius of two trillion kilometers.
That was likely the absolute boundary of this realm.
And within that boundary existed the names of every living being in the world.
Countless characters floated through the air.
Some names were tiny, no larger than grains of dust. They drifted through the sky like golden powder, overlapping endlessly with one another without colliding or rebounding apart.
Every single one represented a living being.
Other names were incomparably massive.
For example, Yakadikto's name towered like a radiant golden mountain at the very center of the space, elegant and beautiful in form.
Trying to locate a single name among countless others through eyesight alone—
One might spend an entire lifetime searching without success.
After all, this place contained every living creature in existence.
Fortunately, names could also be located through instinctive resonance.
That was how Kanzaki Rei had found Los and the others.
As for figures like Izparut, Obades, Sekisei, and Kumironi—
Their presence was simply too conspicuous to ignore.
Meanwhile, someone like Los possessed a name so tiny it was smaller than a firefly, buried within endless layers of overlapping names and tangled into utter chaos.
Only because Kanzaki Rei had sensed her intuitively was he able to find her existence.
And thanks to that instinctive resonance, he had managed to locate nearly everyone he knew—everyone connected to him.
But only one person remained absent.
Himself.
There was no "Lu Cang."
No—no "Kanzaki Rei."
In this entire world, there wasn't a single name belonging to him.
Not merely a reference to himself—
In a world this vast, with countless people sharing surnames, there wasn't even another person with the same full name.
That alone was strange enough.
What, was "Kanzaki Rei" some kind of taboo?
Was he the only one allowed to bear that name?
Could no one else use it?
Did a second Kanzaki Rei simply not exist anywhere at all?
…No.
The problem was that this place didn't contain the name "Kanzaki Rei" whatsoever.
Did that mean even he himself wasn't included?
No past life.
Possibly no spirituality.
No destiny.
And now, in a realm where every single being possessed a corresponding name—
He alone had none.