Chapter 185: The Strike That Shatters History
"You're really too much, Yin," Kuroka groaned, pinned face-first to the ground, her arms twisted behind her like a criminal. The moment the binding spell had been lifted, her younger sister wasted no time subduing her with blunt physical force.
"You deserved it," Yin said curtly, holding firm. But her eyes flicked nervously toward the silent figure nearby. Would he really kill her sister?
Rias Gremory stood before them like a crimson tempest barely held in check. She tilted her head, one brow raised. "Talk, Kuroka. What's your real objective? And don't tell me you came here just to fetch little Koneko."
A surge of pressure radiated from Rias—her magic billowed outward, no longer restrained. It was intimidation. A calculated display. The discomfort that had lingered across her skin—a tacky, viscous sensation from her sudden transformation—was now fading. Most likely, her own surging magical energy had evaporated the effect.
Originally, her flirtation had been aimed at catching him off guard. But he hadn't flinched, hadn't reacted at all. Instead, the awkwardness now hung solely around her. And his punishment had come swiftly: a choice.
Option one? Continue the awkward charade.
Option two? Submit to his brand of discipline—akin to the divine lightning that had humiliated Akeno during her transformation.
Rias had chosen the first. And now she faced the consequences.
"Tch…" Kuroka clicked her tongue and sighed, her feline ears drooping, her posture resigned.
Just as she opened her mouth to answer, the sky ruptured.
A jagged crack tore through the violet firmament above. Not because the sky had changed color—this was the Underworld, after all. It had always been purple.
But now… it was breaking.
"A dimensional fissure?" Rias muttered. The desolate expanse overhead was splitting open?
A shape forced its way through the breach—massive, metallic, and gleaming with alien radiance.
"A battleship?"
It was sea-blue and shimmered with both technological and arcane brilliance—an unlikely marriage of science and sorcery.
Rias sensed it instantly. The ship emanated a power that did not belong to this world.
Its main cannon—a gargantuan turret mounted on the prow—glowed fiercely. Already charged.
The pulse of light that followed made Rias's heart seize.
The shot fired. A beam of luminous death surged forth, and her expression darkened with dread.
This wasn't a warning shot. It was the prelude to full-scale invasion.
But… where was it aimed?
Before she could track it, the beam vanished in midair.
Not abruptly. Not without trace.
The way it vanished resembled water rippling after something heavy pierced its surface. Reality distorted, shimmering briefly like a pond broken by a stone.
And then—
Chapter 186: To Kill Solomon, Three Millennia Ago
The attack had not simply vanished.
It had transitioned.
Rias, who had previously witnessed Harzeirus—the Second Moon King of the Rahu Seven Luminaries—being swallowed into a warped space, recognized the pattern.
Again, the alien warship followed suit. Reality twisted and a temple unlike any religious structure Rias had ever encountered materialized before her. It was a place entirely foreign to her theology, yet steeped in divine authority.
Within seconds, she moved.
No hesitation. No restraint.
She gathered power—true destruction, not a bluff like her earlier magic—and condensed it into a sphere. Not one to threaten, but to annihilate.
A sphere of ruin pulsed in her hands. With a cry, she hurled it toward the warship.
A defensive barrier met the blast, shimmering like crystal.
But it was no match.
Glasslike fractures webbed across the barrier before shattering completely. The destructive orb kept going—slamming full-force into the ship's hull.
A thunderous explosion tore through the strange realm.
The ship became a blazing fireball, its mechanical corpse dragged to the ground.
Within the wreckage, Rias found it: a strange metallic orb. As she returned to the others, the sphere pulsed with energy.
Apparently, the vessel had expended most of its power unleashing a single mysterious blast. That weakness had allowed Rias to destroy it swiftly.
"What was that cannon aimed at?" asked a voice—not Rias's own, but that of the temple's sovereign.
Rias turned to see his figure—his robes had changed into ancient ceremonial garb, his presence now regal.
Laughter echoed from the metallic orb.
"That was a temporal shot," it said. "An attack cast backward through time."
Rias paled.
"A shot into the past?"
A weapon forged not to wound the present, but to mutilate history itself.
The implications were staggering. Where had it landed? What had it changed? How would reality unravel in its wake?
"I am Lumaydora," the orb continued, its voice disturbingly cheerful. "Proud servant of the great Rezoroado—one of the Rahu Seven—and strongest of his Four Generals. That was my greatest gift to him. A blow aimed at the past you cannot prevent. Your history will become unrecognizable!"
It didn't care that its body had been destroyed. Its mission was complete.
Lumaydora… was a martyr.
Rias's face lost all color.
That cannon blast—one potent enough to threaten even her life—had been fired across time. If it struck the human world three thousand years ago, it could erase nations.
And if a nation vanished from history?
Then myth, religion, geopolitics—all of it would fracture. Ripple.
The known timeline would collapse.
"History will change…" Kuroka whispered, her voice faint.
This wasn't like the exaggerated rumors she'd heard from Vali. She'd seen it. Witnessed it.
And Lumaydora? He was just one of four generals under a single Rahu Sovereign.
If each Sovereign had four such warriors, and there were seven Sovereigns…
That meant twenty-eight generals. Twenty-eight entities at least at Demon King level.
Her mind reeled.
The alien world was terrifying beyond measure.
And if that attack had altered history, then even their own lives might be erased.
They could vanish.
Right here. Right now.
"Do you think we'll disappear?" Yin whispered, trembling.
Rias clenched her jaw.
"No. I won't let that happen."
She forced certainty into her tone, shielding Yin from her own doubt. Even if she couldn't be sure, she had to be resolute.
Perhaps things wouldn't change. Perhaps the rumored priestess from another world truly was from the future.
Maybe they were entangled in some kind of time paradox. One theory suggested that even if the past changed, its effects wouldn't ripple immediately. If they were still here—unchanged, with intact memories—maybe the blast hadn't yet reached full impact.
Suddenly, Rias threw up a shield.
"Boom—!"
Lumaydora had self-destructed.
"Rias! Don't lose sight of her—it's not too late!" called the temple's guardian: Byakugetsu.
Without waiting, he collapsed the pocket dimension, pulling everyone back into real space.
The temporal disturbance—the ripple—was still visible.
Not lingering naturally. It was artificial.
Byakugetsu had manipulated the flow of time inside his temple, accelerating its passage. Minutes had passed within—but only a second had ticked by outside.
Thus, with precise timing, he hurled himself into the ripple—vanishing inside the rift.
"Ah—!" Rias gasped.
He was gone. Already absorbed into the temporal anomaly.
And in that same instant—
"Black Kuroka!!"
She had followed.
In a moment of distraction, when Rias had hesitated, Kuroka had seized the chance—teleporting herself into the ripple as well.
They had both crossed the dimensional fold.
Back to a time long lost.
To an era untouched by modern sorcery.
To the age of Solomon.