With the painted world established as a safehouse—and with all the dinnie and Ether materials previously transferred to the Fire Keeper now brought here—there was finally nothing left hanging over their heads. For the first time, they could look forward.
Ling, Wise, and Eisen sat together on the couch.
Eisen cleared his throat, then fixed his gaze on Ling and spoke in a low, steady voice.
"Our highest priority—and the ultimate objective—is beyond dispute: fully awaken and seize control of the dormant Creator Authority inside you, until you can completely suppress… or even eradicate the Anti-Creator—the Origin. Only then is it truly done. Only then is the threat removed at the root."
Ling sat upright, spine straight as a blade.
Her expression was unusually solemn, eyes sharp and unwavering. She nodded hard.
"Good."
Her voice was crisp and decisive, eyes boring into Eisen like a spotlight.
"The goal is clear. So, Group Owner—what do I do? What's the first step?"
Under that burning stare, Eisen looked oddly uncomfortable. He scratched the back of his head, his face showing a rare flicker of embarrassment.
"Ahem… don't look at me like that."
He forced a dry chuckle, tone helpless.
"I don't actually know the exact route. Back when I got stronger, it was simple and brutal—I just fought my way through. As long as the soul's mass piled high enough, whatever authority or rules you had didn't matter. I didn't have to deal with all these twists and detours."
The answer made Ling sigh, shoulders drooping slightly.
She rubbed her temples, exhaustion and frustration seeping into her voice.
"That's exactly the problem. If we're talking 'mass,' the Origin has the absolute advantage. Most of the Ether—hell, you could say nearly all of it—is locked in the Origin's hands."
She lowered her hand, eyes weary.
"The main quest is identified, but we're under-leveled, the EXP is hard-gated, and the system has locked the entire quest chain. We can't even reach the doorway… This real-life garbage game is beyond awful."
She paused, then refocused, looking between the two of them.
"So what now? We can't just sit here. Is there a prerequisite quest? Side content we can grind for experience?"
On the other end of the couch, Wise—quiet until now—leaned forward and cut in.
He was the only one of the three without future memories. That outsider perspective gave his thinking a slightly different angle.
He cleared his throat and looked at Ling carefully, as if testing the ground.
"I think our most urgent mainline right now… is to grab that officer named Bringer."
His voice was calm, aimed straight at the core.
Seeing Ling's eyes shift, he continued.
"Ling, you said it yourself. In the last loop, right before he died, he seemed to blurt out that he knew an important lead about Teacher's whereabouts. But by the time we got there, Ya had already cut him down to his last breath—there was nothing left to interrogate."
Wise's eyes stayed locked on her.
"If this time we act early—before he injects that Oni drug—if we control him first… can we pry his mouth open and force out the truth?"
Ling fell into thought, brow tightly knit.
Eisen didn't weigh in. He simply sank back against the couch, quiet as a spectator, waiting for Ling to decide.
After a few seconds, Ling lifted her head and began to analyze.
"Based on what we saw, once Bringer turned into that… thing, his strength was at least at the level of a Grade 5 Ethereal. That kind of existence is absurdly hard to kill. Even with just one arm left, he might not die cleanly. He could even revive somehow—like possessing other remains."
She paused, her tone turning cautious.
"At that point, he was desperate—cornered—but not truly at the point of surrender. And…"
Her eyes sharpened.
"The moment we showed up, he didn't say a word—he chose to self-destruct. That kind of decisiveness… I can't believe he'd casually hand us Teacher's location. His loyalty to the Origin is probably deeper than we think."
"Hah?!"
A clear, cross-shaped vein popped on Wise's forehead.
He stared at Ling, voice suddenly climbing, equal parts disbelief and exasperation.
"Listen to yourself. You didn't hesitate for half a second to use word-spirit and forcibly brainwash your own brother—me—but when it's Bringer, an enemy, you start making excuses for him? And you're analyzing it like a professor! Do you even hear how ridiculous that is?! Am I your brother or is he your brother?!"
Ling froze for a beat.
Then her eyes widened.
"Wait—yeah!"
She slapped her thigh, the sudden excitement making her voice go slightly weird.
"Word-spirit! How did I forget that?!"
Her face flashed with a mix of annoyance at herself and sudden realization. Then she gave an awkward little grin.
"Tch. Guess I'm still too 'upright' at heart—always trying to do things the clean way… Forgot that for certain people, you use certain methods."
Wise snorted. "Finally remembering?"
Ling nodded, regaining her composure.
"Then it's simple. As long as we can control Bringer, word-spirit will crack his mouth open. Teacher's lead is probably in there."
She looked at Wise; he nodded back in agreement.
Eisen, reclining to the side, also dipped his chin. A faint smile flickered at the corner of his mouth.
"Good. Then the prerequisite mainline for toppling the Anti-Creator is officially opened."
He leaned back casually.
"Phase One: bring down the Anti-Creator's claw—New Eridu's heroic Public Security officer… Bringer."
Then he glanced at them, voice light.
"So how do you want to do it? Need me to step in directly? Grabbing a person isn't difficult."
Eisen had a reason to ask.
Using the First Flame to rewind time came with cooldown constraints.
Even the First Flame—if it wanted to ignite a blaze vast enough to burn through possibility and turn all branches to ash—required a prerequisite:
Enough fuel.
And the fuel was the river of time itself—its ceaseless flow, its endless new futures and possibilities.
After the last rewind, the downstream of that river had become a dry riverbed.
New water was only just beginning to appear—and before it could even flow, the lingering residue of the First Flame along the riverbed would instantly burn it into nothing.
From the standpoint of rewinding again, that meant fuel was severely insufficient. He couldn't expand the First Flame to cover all timelines again.
And from the standpoint of the world's stability, those lingering embers were like enormous obstacles wedged into the riverbed, preventing time from flowing forward.
So Eisen needed to stay in the Zero Zone Zero world for a while—collecting and reclaiming the scattered embers of the First Flame from the dry bed of time—so the river could flow again, so the future could unfold again.
While he was here, solving a few "small problems" for a group member—like grabbing someone—wasn't a big deal.
But after hearing him out, Ling shook her head without hesitation.
Her eyes were fierce, decision absolute.
"No, Group Owner."
"I can't rely on you for everything. When it comes to the Origin, when it comes to the past being rewritten—those are massive crises. Asking you to step in is necessary. But something like capturing Bringer? That's within our ability, and it's something we should do ourselves."
"If I let you handle even that… then what am I? A useless tagalong who only knows how to shout 'Group Owner, save me'?"
Her eyes burned with pride—self-respect and the hunger to become strong in her own right.
Wise stood beside her, a proud, satisfied grin spreading across his face. He nodded hard.
"That's my sister! That's the spirit!"
Eisen watched Ling's resolve and Wise's support, understanding warming his expression.
He spread his hands, conceding easily.
"Alright. Your call."
Wise immediately dragged the discussion back to the practical core.
"Then we continue the real question: how, exactly, do we bring Bringer down?"
Eisen shifted into a more comfortable posture and offered a direction.
"That depends on what method you choose. If you go outside the rules—simple and brutal—then with Ya and Yixuan at your side, both top-tier Void Hunters, you can just ambush Bringer when he's isolated, subdue him, and take him away for interrogation. Clean. Fast. Highest efficiency."
Ling shook her head again, rejecting it cleanly.
"Kidnapping the Public Security Bureau's 'hero' in public? That's too loud. That's basically declaring war on all of New Eridu."
Her brow tightened. She was clearly wary of that risk.
"At least until you've fully recovered the First Flame embers and secured the ability to rewind time again, we need to stay steady. No unnecessary shockwaves. No tipping the board into chaos."
Then her tone shifted, and a sharp glint flashed in her eyes.
"Of course—once we've got a rewind safety net, it becomes a viable backup plan."
"If we need to, we can use it to blow the water and see how deep New Eridu really is—how many monsters are hiding under the surface."
She tapped her knee, thoughts accelerating.
"As for staying within the rules…"
"In New Eridu, the forces that can meaningfully threaten someone with Bringer's authority are basically these: the top administrative layer led by the Mayor; the entrenched top-tier 'Tops' corporations; the military's hard power; and finally… Public Security's internal checks and balances."
She laid them out one by one.
Wise cut in, half-teasing, half-worried.
"None of those sound easy. And by your own account, the last loop's 'Mayor line' nearly got you killed. You were basically one step from being erased."
He clearly disliked the Mayor already, despite never meeting them.
"Correct." Ling nodded openly.
"That route is extremely high-risk. We don't have trust, and we don't have enough leverage."
"The military…"
She hesitated briefly.
"We're on decent terms with the Obol Squad, but they're still just a special operations unit. In the broader military structure, their influence is limited. They can be a sharp knife for specific jobs, but using them to topple a deeply rooted Public Security executive? Not enough."
She continued, expression sharpening.
"And the corporations are even worse. The real decision-makers hide like old turtles. The people we've met are mostly runners and proxies. We haven't even seen the true core."
"In the last loop, near the end, we did manage to build good relationships with a few Tops-level executors—there might have been a path toward real leadership."
"But we never had the time. The Origin threat was already at our throat."
There was a trace of regret in her voice.
Wise nodded and looked at her.
"So after all that… the most reliable, lowest-resistance 'within the rules' approach is still to start inside Public Security itself."
He'd noticed it: out of all the forces she listed, she hadn't explained Public Security's internal path yet.
"Exactly."
Ling's face shifted into the confident smile of someone who'd already plotted the board.
"This is the optimal rules-legal solution. We already have a ready entry point—Zhu Yuan."
"She's senior enough, strong enough, and has a lot of respect among frontline officers and part of the mid-tier leadership. If she stands up under her own name and initiates an investigation or pushes for impeachment, it has weight."
She began counting on her fingers, the plan crisp.
"Seth's brother is also a high-level figure inside Public Security—someone with real influence. And then there's Jane, the spy. She's perfect for collecting hard evidence of Bringer colluding with the Exaltation Society."
"Reputation, authority, and evidence—three axes—hit him at once. He won't be able to run."
Wise listened to her structured breakdown, a warm, proud look on his face.
"Sounds like you went through a lot in that year. You grew up. Met the right people. Waded into plenty of mud."
"Yeah."
Ling's eyes softened with memory. The hardship of that period seemed to flicker just behind her gaze.
"All our assets evaporated along with the Phaethon account… and we had this electricity-devouring monster called Fairy."
She laughed weakly.
"It forced us to swallow our pride. Take any commission. Do any job. We ran New Eridu from corner to corner just to stand up again."
"And that's exactly how we met people like Zhu Yuan and Jane—partners we can actually trust."
In the middle of that reflective mood, a name surfaced in Ling's mind without warning—
Morningstar.
That older-sister-like figure who had tried so hard to guide her and give her warmth.
Not that Ling, a max-level veteran forced to reroll a new account, really needed it…
Still.
It had been a long, long time since she'd seen her.
A faint, almost imperceptible melancholy passed through Ling's eyes.
Join here to read ahead.
In Star Rail, Ultra-Beast Armored — Have I Caught "Equilibrium"? l (Chapter 80)
Uma Musume, But I Only Have Five Years Left to Live (Chapter 178)
Zenless Zone Zero: I'm a Doctor, Not a Bangboo (Chapter 150)
Ben Tennyson Wants to Join the Justice League ( 126 )
TYPE-MOON: Redemption Beginning with the Holy Grail War (Chapter110)
Yu-Gi-Oh! — Transmigrated into the White Dragon Girl (Chapter190)
"Is this chat group even serious?" (Chapter105)
I, Lord Ravager, Utterly Loyal! (Chapter225)
Can Playing Games Save the World? 65
Crossover Anime Multiverse: The Demon Hunter of an Unnatural World 77
From Junkman to Wasteland 66
Weekly Refresh of Overpowered 31
I'm Grinding Proficiency Like 46
From Kiana, Lord Ravager, Onwa 195
Honkai: Is This Still the Prev 42
Elf: My Starter Pokémon Is Inc 65
Warhammer: My Primarch Is Remi 170
From Demon Slayer to Grand Ass Volume2/5
The Way the Umamusume Look at 68
Uma Musume, but My Cheat Power 225
Naruto: Weaving the Future, Be 65
Zenless Zone Zero, but Kamen R 76
Multiverse Crossover: The Perf 66
My Cyberpsycho Girlfriend 65
Uma Musume: The Dark Trainer 210
Uma Musume: A Calamity Born fr 154
I, a Reincarnation-Loop Player Volume4/30
The Violent Girl Group Is Beat 115
Uma Musume: The Horse Girl Who 67
Uma Musume: From Beginner 130
Becoming a Horse Girl, I Will 85
Uma Musume: I Want All 105
I Can Copy Unique Skills 100
Summoning an Evil God, but the 70
Supernatural Multiverse 90
My Harem Is Indescribable 85
Jujutsu Kaisen: Heroic Spirit 90
"I'm just a Valkyrie passing through." 68
Uma Musume: Today Is Another Romantic Battlefield 100
Still playing traditional Honk 69
The Most Filial Son Under Heav 75
What Should I Do After Switchi - Volume2/3
Reincarnated as a Demon, Skill 60
Hell-Difficulty Dungeon? 55
Transmigrated as Sukuna 71
Checking In in Demon Slayer 75
The Reincarnating Trainer of Tracen Academy 80
I Refuse to Become a Heroic 66
My Best Friend Into a Slime? 58
A Saiyan Stands Above Marvel 65
What Do You Mean by Using a Lab Mod to Be the Hero? 63
Tanya Starts from Re:Zero 59
Why did they assign me to Uma 55
MYGO Beauties 56
DanMachi: Emiya the Giant Hero 45
The Gacha Merchant Who Started 49
Honkai's Otherworld? Wait—Who Are You People?! 36
Emiya Shirou, Determined to Slay Every Curse and Evil Spirit 35
The Uma Musume Who Became 30
I'm Definitely Not the King of 35
After Maxing Out Every Class 35
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