"I can open the portal for you, Aestrea," Horae spoke lightly.

She traced a finger along the intricate runes carved into the frame with a thoughtful expression, clearly lost in thought.

"But unfortunately, not right now. The gateway to Arcadia is bound by ancient rules set by the Creator himself. It only becomes fully accessible during a full moon, when both the white and black moons of this realm align perfectly in the sky. That alignment amplifies the flow of time and magic, weakening the seals just enough for passage."

She turned to face Aestrea, her torn gown still hanging loosely on her body, though the worst of her wounds had already healed.

"Even then, it’s not simple. The portal demands a price, a fragment of divine essence from the one who opens it. That’s why I’ve been reluctant. And there’s more. Once inside Arcadia, time behaves strangely. Days there can feel like minutes here, or centuries. The planet itself is said to test those who enter. It shows you visions, memories, fears... Not everyone who steps through comes back the same... if they come back at all."

Horae paused, letting Aestrea calmly absorb everything she just said.

Then, she exhaled slowly, almost regretfully.

"The next perfect full moon, the one where everything aligns just perfectly right, is in half a year. The celestial mechanics are strict. The twin moons must overlap in a precise formation, and the ley lines beneath the temple must be at their peak. Anything less, and the portal won’t open properly. It could trap you, or worse."

She looked at Aestrea directly with calm eyes.

"Come back in half a year. I’ll gladly open the portal for you then. This time, I won’t charge you anything. You’ve... earned that much."

Aestrea nodded lightly.

Half a year was nothing to a being like him, but unfortunately, it still delayed his plans. He turned his gaze back to Horae.

"What about the traces of Chronos? Do you know where he could potentially be?"

Horae licked her lips at those words, a slow, suggestive motion that made what she wanted in return pretty much clear to him.

Her eyes gleamed with that familiar mix of mischief and desire.

Aestrea rolled his eyes immediately.

"Later."

Noticing how he had shut her down but still agreed to the half-year timeline, Horae smiled happily, almost playfully.

She leaned back against the edge of the altar, crossing her arms under her chest.

"Chronos’s aura went south," she said, her tone turning more serious.

"Far south, beyond the Eternal Veil. That’s where his own domain is located. His domain is just a fractured realm of frozen time and looping moments. He’s exactly at home there. He’s been hiding in his own pocket dimension, manipulating time to search for Arcadia without leaving traces. But he can’t stay hidden forever... at least, not from someone like you."

Aestrea nodded lightly, committing the information to memory.

"If either Elleonora or Luna appears, send me a message," he said.

His voice was calm, but there was a clear warning beneath it that he expected her to comply.

Horae nodded slightly, her expression softening slighly.

"I will. You have my word."

She watched as Aestrea turned to leave, Seraphiel falling into step beside him.

As they walked toward the exit of the chamber, Horae raised her voice one last time, playful and teasing.

"Don’t forget to visit me for my compensation~"

Aestrea rolled his eyes again but didn’t turn back. He simply kept walking, the golden doors closing behind them.

Swish...

The hot desert wind greeted them as they stepped outside the temple.

The blood-red sun was beginning to dip lower, casting long shadows across the golden dunes.

Seraphiel walked silently beside him for a few moments before speaking.

"My Lord... half a year. That’s a long time to wait..."

Aestrea nodded, his gaze fixed on the horizon.

"Mhm... it is. There are many things I could potentially do in half a year that could change the entire Divine Realm," he mumbled.

He glanced at her briefly, his expression softening just a little.

"You did well today... You can take a break now. You’ve earned it."

Seraphiel’s wings fluttered once in quiet delight at the praise.

She bowed her head slightly.

"As you wish."

There were a few things that Seraphiel wanted to do, so she quickly teleported away from Aestrea, leaving him alone in the desert.

He looked at the sky for a moment before closing his eyes.

"...Eternal Veil, huh?"

He looked directly south before taking a single step forward.

CRACK!

The space around him cracked like glass as he traveled directly to what seemed to be the Eternal Veil in a single step.

"Oh... No wonder it’s called Eternal Veil," he smirked lightly.

The moment he arrived, the desert vanished.

In its place was a vast, cosmic void, a region of space that felt... wrong. Time here flowed strangely, like a river caught in eddies.

Stars in the distance appeared blurred, their light stretched and distorted. The air, or what passed for it in the vacuum, hummed with divine yet oppressive energy.

And there, floating in the center of this anomalous zone, was a small planet.

It was unassuming at first glance, a dusty, gray sphere no larger than a minor moon. But encircling it was a colossal ring of pure divine energy.

The ring rotated slowly, a perfect circle of shimmering gold and silver light, thousands of miles wide.

Within the ring, countless runes and sigils spun in perfect synchronization, forming an impenetrable barrier.

The energy was dense and overwhelming, the kind of power that could repel an army of actually strong gods.

Aestrea hovered in the void, studying it for a moment.

He could confidently say that only the combined attack of ten 9✯ Peak True Gods would have any hope of breaking this ring.

The barrier was layered with conceptual defenses, countless time loops, spatial folds, and raw divine authority woven together into something nearly unbreakable.

Unfortunately for Chronos... Aestrea was different.

He reached out with his senses.

Beneath the ring, he could feel it... Chronos’s aura.

It was faint... but Aestrea would never forget about that aura.

It was almost funny... after all, the God of Time was actually hiding inside, manipulating the flow of reality to stay concealed.

Aestrea’s lips curled into a cold smirk.

He summoned the Heaven Swallowing Sword into his right hand. The blade hummed with devouring hunger, its edge rippling with black chaos energy.

"Moonlit Ice Lotus Sword Art..."

His eyes shone faintly.

『 Sixth Move! (✯ Moonlight Descent ✯) 』

The sword ignited with blinding moonlight, fused with abyssal darkness.

A colossal blade of pure energy formed above him, a vertical crescent of ice and chaos, miles long, glowing with the power of a falling moon.

The void around it distorted, stars seeming to bend toward the strike as gravity itself warred with the technique.

Aestrea brought the sword down in a single, decisive motion.

Shing!

The Moonlight Descent cleaved through space itself.

A deafening roar echoed across the void as the massive blade of energy slammed into the rotating ring.

The barrier screamed in protest, runes flaring wildly, golden light exploding outward in a desperate attempt to hold. Cracks spiderwebbed across the entire circumference in an instant.

The ring buckled, its rotation stuttering violently.

For a single second... the ring remained still.

Crack...

Then it shattered.

CRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!

The ring split in half with a cataclysmic boom that shook the entire sector of space.

Golden and silver energy exploded outward like a dying star, fragments of the barrier scattering into the void like shattered glass.

The protective field collapsed completely, leaving the small planet exposed and vulnerable.

Aestrea lowered his sword, the blade dissolving back into black mist as he stared at the now-defenseless world below.

Aestrea didn’t waste another second.

The moment the Eternal Veil shattered, he locked onto Chronos’s aura. He tore open a rift in space with a casual snap of his fingers and stepped through.

The transition was instant.

He emerged inside a vast, circular chamber deep within the planet.

The walls were made of translucent crystal that showed swirling streams of time, past, present, and possible futures flickering like broken film reels.

The floor was a giant clock face, its hands spinning erratically in multiple directions at once. The air hummed with the low, constant ticking of countless invisible clocks.

In the center of the chamber stood Chronos.

He was tall and slender, with skin that shimmered like polished silver.

His hair was long and flowing, a deep midnight blue that seemed to shift and ripple as if time itself was running through the strands.

He wore a long, ornate robe of deep indigo and gold, embroidered with moving clockwork patterns that ticked and turned in real time.

But the most striking feature was his eyes.

Instead of pupils, there were two miniature clocks.

Their hands moved at different speeds, one spinning forward rapidly, the other backward in slow ticks as if they were counting milliseconds.

They seemed to stare into eternity, seeing every possible moment at once.

In his right hand, he held a tall scepter topped with a large, ornate clock face.

The hands on the clock moved independently, sometimes forward, sometimes backward, sometimes stopping entirely.

Chronos looked at Aestrea and smiled lightly.

"Took you long enough, Aestrea."