Chapter 746: Antiquity

Liora’s backtracking through her timeline was quite easy.

She already possessed prior experience, having done so during her advancement to an Ancient Devil.

Since then, her strength had risen even further, ensuring that nothing could go wrong during the process. That was why she was so confident in eliminating her weakness.

And she was soon proven correct.

Liora’s backtracking speed was extraordinarily fast.

She awakened her past selves one after another, tracing through the River of Time at an astonishing speed.

Her history in the 173rd Demon Layer...

Her adventures in the ruined world under the influence of the Universe Chamber of Commerce...

Her journey in the Demon Weapon World...

Liora experienced all these events once more.

Glancing at the Demon God fighting alone against the influence of two higher-level worlds, Liora paused briefly, shook her head, and continued.

Her experiences among the Hollows...

Her fight against nearly a dozen True Devils upon her escape from the Inferno Valley...

With every imprint, Liora felt herself becoming increasingly complete.

Until finally, she found herself in the first world she had ever visited.

The Knight World.

Besides the Demon World, this was the place that had shaped her current self the most.

It could be said that if it hadn’t been for the Knight World, there would be no Liora today.

Yet there was something else that was even more important to Liora than the world itself.

While stepping on the waves of the River of Time and overlooking the "tiny" world beneath her, Liora reached into the Cosmic Sea and retrieved a painting from inside.

The painting depicted a woman.

With long blonde hair, blue eyes, and a peaceful expression, she looked exceptionally beautiful and lifelike.

At first glance, it looked as though the woman would break out of the painting the very next second, turning the fake into reality and descending into the real world.

Eleanor—the woman responsible for her arrival in the Knight World and the personification of the Knight World’s Will.

It could be said that everything Liora had experienced here had been influenced by that Will, all with the goal of it saving itself from the sealed Zerg Queen and the True Devil lurking outside.

Liora glanced at the painting that stored Eleanor’s soul.

Over the years, she had gathered countless precious materials and reforged the painting several times.

Combined with the large amount of energy it had absorbed, the painting had long since turned into a treasure.

Under normal circumstances, it should have gained spirituality by now and awakened a Weapon Spirit.

And that Weapon Spirit should have been influenced by Eleanor, effectively being her clone.

That had been Liora’s plan from the start and one of the ways she thought of reviving her.

Yet that plan had gone awry.

To this day, the painting had yet to awaken its spirituality.

It remained a common mortal item, albeit an extremely tough one.

This puzzled Liora.

Especially when she discovered that even with her current strength and vision, she was unable to understand what was happening, she knew something was wrong.

Now, taking advantage of her arrival in the Knight World, she was prepared to investigate this matter further.

Her feet stepped onto the River of Time, sending ripples across its calm surface.

Then, she moved through it, imprinting her traces onto her past.

While doing this, she didn’t forget to observe the Knight World.

She watched Eleanor’s final sacrifice and the creation of the painting...

She watched her fight against the Zerg Queen and the Emperor...

She experienced the schemes of Duke Dandelion...

Finally, Liora arrived at the time node where she was summoned to this world.

She watched as Eleanor’s family was attacked, and she was forced to enter the family’s secret room, using the heirloom there as a tool to summon her.

Even after she imprinted this final node and brought it into her timeline, Liora did not discover anything wrong.

But the more this occurred, the more interested Liora became.

For a moment, she stopped the imprinting process and chose to observe the Knight World once again.

She watched everything that had happened several times, as though she were watching the same movie again and again.

Still, nothing strange was detected.

Liora’s eyebrows furrowed.

A second later, they relaxed. A faint smile appeared on her face.

She glanced at the painting in her hands and stared straight into Eleanor’s lifelike eyes. Then, she looked at the scene of Eleanor summoning her beneath her.

In the end, she shook her head.

"Sure enough, the Origin Sea is full of mysteries."

"What is real? What is fake? No one knows."

"Only by becoming more powerful can one unveil these mysteries."

"As long as I reach the peak of the Demon World, every secret will be revealed on its own..."

With that thought, Liora paused no longer.

After setting the painting aside, she took several steps backward.

This time, she returned to the Demon World.

More precisely, to the many worlds under its influence—the Crucibles.

Liora witnessed herself experiencing a spatial disturbance and being thrown into a forbidden area, then looked back at her "ascension" and her many experiences in this world.

This time, she didn’t stop to observe.

The entire imprinting process was completed in a matter of minutes. The same was true for the bloodline selection inside the Demon World’s dark void.

Yet when she landed on the banks of the River of Oblivion and traced back to the time when she was still an "egg," Liora finally stopped again.

For no other reason than that she had finally completed her timeline loop.

And this resulted in great changes.

Without her needing to do anything, Liora was ejected from the depths of the River of Time.

She wasn’t brought back to reality.

Instead, she landed at the illusory river’s banks, brought directly before her own Throne.

The moment she and the condensation of her existence came face-to-face, they instantly resonated.

A deafening bang echoed in Liora’s mind.

The River of Time behind her was stimulated.

Thousands of drops flew out and shot toward her, merging with her body.

Every drop of the River of Time was powerful enough to kill any Devil below the Ancient Devil stage.

Yet for an Ancient Devil, they were anything but threatening.

As the drops fused with her being, Liora’s changes became even more violent.

Her demonic energy boiled while her body was reconstructed, leading to her physical strength soaring.

However, these were far from the most important changes.

A sense of antiquity emerged around Liora.

It was as though she had suddenly experienced millions of years, living for countless eras and bathing in their brilliance.

Other Shore. Antiquity. Primordial. Absolute Beginning.

The further an Ancient Devil advanced, the more "Ancient" they became.

Although being ancient did not necessarily bring power, in the conception of Devils, every powerful person was ancient!

Both Liora’s body and soul were washed by the concept of Antiquity.

Until finally...

Bang!

Her Throne exploded, scattering into countless fragments.

This should have led to her death.

But before Liora could even suffer any backlash, the drops of the River of Time within her took action.

It was impossible to know whether time had turned backward or sped up.

Either way, Liora’s Throne rapidly materialized again, its own fragments serving as the foundation for its reconstruction.

When the final touch was added and the Throne was completed a second later, it was revealed that its appearance had changed from moments before.

The Throne had grown several times larger, becoming far more majestic. Several mottled marks ran across its surface, serving as evidence for its long existence.

Resting on the banks of the River of Time, the Throne seemed to have become an anchor, holding the illusory river in place and preventing it from flowing away.

At that moment, Liora’s own changes reached their peak.

Her momentum soared, impacting everywhere around her.

Then...

Everything stopped.

Every bit of her aura retreated back into her body.

The fluttering world around her also returned to normal.

Even the other Thrones, which had previously been alarmed by the changes, seemed to have realized something and stopped their awakening process.

For a moment, it seemed as though everything before this had been a dream.

Yet if one took a closer look at Liora, they would discover that a river was flowing back and forth within her crimson pupils.

With every rotation, the indescribable sense of ancientness around her grew stronger.

The Antiquity Stage had finally been reached!

From now on, Liora would be able to imprint herself further into the past, into times before she had even been born.

When her imprints reached the beginning of the River of Time, and she arrived at the birth of the Origin Sea, she would have reached the Absolute Beginning stage, fulfilling one of the requirements for advancing to a Princess of the Demon World.

Liora sensed the changes brought forth by her transformation and couldn’t help but smile faintly.

When she raised her head, that smile became even wider.

The System’s progress bar, which had remained at 99.999% for many months, actually began to move again.

A few seconds later, it reached 100%.

The progress bar quickly dissolved into fragments of light.

In its place stood a familiar window.

Yet it had undergone massive changes.

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Author’s Note: Longer Chapter to speed up the plot.