"Alas, I always feel like there's a shadow lingering in my heart. I think it’s better if I take baths alone from now on," Sakuya murmured, leaning against the wall and staring blankly at the ceiling above her head.

"Ugh, I think I've developed some serious trauma from this. It's always better not to meddle in fields you’re completely unfamiliar with," Kaguya sighed, sprawled lazily on the floor, her interest even waning in playing games.

Seeing the two of them looking so dejected, Lin Luo also wore a crestfallen expression. He had no idea how deep Kaguya’s and Sakuya’s psychological scars ran, but he knew for certain that his own were much deeper. While a ‘Shuraba’—a chaotic love triangle—was certainly frightening, compared to what had happened before, it was merely a passing cloud. At least after that prior incident, he would be missing out on a certain pleasure for a very long time... especially since both Reimu Hakurei and Lily were so skilled at biting.

"Sigh!" A heavy, drawn-out exhalation, filled with unspeakable sorrow.

The three of them occupied separate corners of the room, quietly lamenting their respective tragedies. No one spoke. Regarding everything that transpired in the hot springs, they were all selectively choosing to forget, in order to safeguard their own realities.

"Well, you two figure out how to get along. I’m heading back to bed now," After an indeterminate amount of time, only when the room grew dim enough to require a light, Lin Luo finally stood up, bid the two a brief farewell, and walked toward the door with a look of profound disappointment.

"Wait, you can’t leave yet." Kaguya, however, stopped him just in time.

"Why? Are you asking me to stay and sleep with you two?" Lin Luo’s brow immediately furrowed. While that might sound like a good thing, he had every reason to believe that under Kaguya’s chaotic management, a good thing would inevitably turn into something awful, so he wanted no part of it, even if there were 'benefits.'

"Did you really think I called Eirin to bring you here just to give you some free pleasure?" Kaguya shot him a sideways glance, her teeth slightly gritted. Clearly, her method of erasure hadn't been entirely successful, and she still harbored lingering resentment.

"If it was for serious business, you should have just said so earlier," Lin Luo slumped back into his seat with resignation.

"I was going to say it ages ago, but you kept rambling about irrelevant nonsense! You're really good at shirking responsibility!" Kaguya glared at him, her eyes wide with indignation.

Hey, hey, could you try making a little sense? I did ask why I was summoned to Eientei in the first place! It was you two who kept drifting off topic! Who exactly is shirking responsibility here?!

Lin Luo was truly speechless. The logic was clearly on his side, yet they were finding fault with him. This was truly... Ah, forget it. Trying to reason with women is pointless, especially with tsundere women. You can argue with them about etiquette, or even about intimacy, but logic has never been one of their strong points.

"Fine, it was my fault. Now, can you tell me what this is about?" Lin Luo finally understood why the world, and perhaps even Tokiwa, had gone astray—it was simply out of sheer necessity.

"Mhm. Simply put, we need you to guard us during our practice," Kaguya nodded. Seeing Lin Luo’s bewildered expression, she elaborated, "You know that our abilities are all related to time, and right now, we are traversing various diverging world lines and timelines."

"I know that, but what does that have to do with guarding you?" Lin Luo asked, puzzled. If they were just beginning this kind of cultivation, he could understand needing protection to ensure their safety, but given their current mastery which allowed them to move about freely, it seemed entirely unnecessary.

At this point, Sakuya approached from the side, inserting herself into their conversation. "Perhaps we should start from the beginning. Originally, Kaguya's and my training were separate. But about six months ago, we both hit a bottleneck. Then, following that woman's cultivation system, we realized that to ascend further and allow our powers to develop fully, we needed to compensate for our deficiencies... After all, you know that neither Kaguya nor I have complete mastery over time."

"That is precisely the case," Lin Luo nodded. Kaguya’s power involved manipulating the eternal (Eternity) and the infinitesimal (Moment). She could turn eternity into a brief instant, or stretch an instant into eternity—time frames imperceptible to humans. Because of this, Kaguya could create multiple histories. Theoretically, her power operated on time that ordinary people couldn't perceive. An instant and eternity—while people understood the concepts, how could they perceive them? Only Kaguya could manipulate this specific stratum of time.

Sakuya’s ability was the exact opposite: she could slow time down, accelerate its flow, stop its passage entirely, or even reverse it... She controlled the time recognized and perceptible by the general populace.

It was like two martial artists: one trained in unseen internal energy, the other practiced external force.

Because of this difference, although both Kaguya and Sakuya were time-wielders, their domains were completely distinct... One was an explorer of hidden time, the other, a controller of external time.

However, even within their respective domains, they were incomplete. For instance, even if Kaguya created one or several eternal worlds where nothing changes, those worlds could never be known to outsiders. If she released the enchantment of eternity, those eternal worlds would instantly vanish.

Sakuya’s incompleteness was conceptual. Although she could exert time control over vast areas, she couldn't alter things that had already occurred. For example, eaten food or sustained injuries couldn't be erased through time reversal... In essence, she couldn't truly turn time backward; it was merely a manipulation of the appearance of time.

Of course, these were their previous limitations. So, what about now?

"And this is the level I have currently reached." Sakuya pulled a throwing knife from her sleeve and lightly slashed it across a nearby table... In less than a single blink, before even a sound registered, the table had turned into fine dust.

Turning a table to dust is something many could achieve, like a very strong person shattering it with one punch. But Sakuya’s method was different; she used a pure slicing motion, and besides reducing it to powder, not a single atom of the table was lost... In other words, if one weighed the resulting dust, it would match the original weight of the table. Any other method of attack would likely result in some loss of mass.

Sakuya elegantly recalled her knife and stated calmly, "Twelve hundred and fifty-three million, six hundred thousand slashes. That is the number of cuts I made just now."

"..." Lin Luo was momentarily speechless. To execute that many slashes in such a short instant, even he couldn't manage it. Unquestionably, Sakuya had utilized time stop.

Then, Sakuya brushed her hand over the pile of dust, and in an instant, the dust reformed into the table... This was time reversal. Clearly, Sakuya had grasped the true essence of time!

"Can this ability be applied to living beings?" Lin Luo inquired.

"Of course," Sakuya nodded, and a pigeon suddenly appeared in her hand... Sakuya was a magician; it was common knowledge that empty hands could suddenly produce all sorts of objects.

But that wasn't the point. The important thing was what happened next: the pigeon in her hand suddenly began to swell and age rapidly. Its feathers withered, and it decayed at a speed visible to the naked eye, turning into a heap of withered remains, dissolving into ash until it vanished. Then, as if playing a film in reverse, the vanishing ash returned, reforming into bone, then rotting flesh, then the pigeon, then a hatchling, then an egg, and finally, it too disappeared without a trace.

Whether at the extreme end of time reversal or the extreme end of time acceleration, the pigeon would disappear. But as Sakuya returned time to its original setting, the pigeon stood alive and well in her palm.

It was an astonishing sight. If Lin Luo were an ordinary person, he would surely be dumbfounded, but even now, he was amazed by Sakuya’s current level of skill.

Sakuya snapped her fingers, retrieving the pigeon, and continued, "My current abilities can not only act directly on objects but can also be indirectly imposed through tools... For example, if I shoot this throwing knife at an enemy, they would instantly age to dust."

"That’s truly heaven-defying," Lin Luo admitted, slightly shocked. Although he could completely ignore Sakuya’s ability, anyone without a Celestial Intent Realm mastery would likely perish no matter how many came.

"No, it’s pathetic," Sakuya countered, dissatisfied with her own power and shaking her head. "Such precise temporal manipulation requires an enormous expenditure of energy, and the effective range is also quite limited. It’s still far from being able to control the life or death of an entire planet."

Hey!

Lin Luo desperately wanted to tell her to stop mentioning such dangerous things, but then he paused. Just a while ago, he himself had shattered thousands of planets, so perhaps he wasn't in a position to criticize Sakuya.

"Then what about you?" Lin Luo had understood Sakuya’s abilities, so the next focus was Kaguya.

Seeing Lin Luo turn his gaze toward her, Kaguya smiled faintly. "Don't you already know my abilities? I haven't stopped using them at all."

"Huh?" Lin Luo was momentarily stunned, but then he quickly recalled what had been mentioned earlier: Kaguya and Sakuya had been traveling across different world lines and timelines continuously. So...

"Are those different world lines the Eternal Worlds you created?"

"One thousand and one of them, though you might call them parallel worlds. Naturally, they aren't at their complete state yet; at least, beings above the ordinary human level cannot appear in those worlds," Kaguya said vaguely, a hint of regret in her tone.

Lin Luo sighed. "Stop being dissatisfied, both of you. You are already terrifyingly powerful. Even in a place where gods and demons walk the streets and the ‘arrogant overlords’ are as common as dogs, few have reached your level."

Then, Lin Luo’s expression turned serious. "So, the 'guarding' you mentioned isn't just about helping you traverse world lines and timelines, is it?"

"Of course not. We can do that with our eyes closed," Kaguya replied. Her expression also grew grave as she stated in a deep voice, "What we are about to do... is to seize mastery over every single parallel world existing below this main world, reaching the true axis of time, to gaze upon the uttermost Beginning and the absolute End!"

This was... what an overwhelmingly magnificent declaration!

P.S.: Someone in the group chat today kept posting pictures of Sanae, stimulating my latent desire for good wives, coupled with how intensely I've been pushing myself lately, so I'm taking a break today; only one chapter. I'll write a risqué story focusing on Sanae later to ease the tension, as those don't require much brainpower... The risqué story will be posted in the fan group; the group number is available in the review section.

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