The next morning, although she was told to keep last night's matte a secret, Lucy still recounted everything to the surprised Arthur.

As it was Lucy who told him, he completely believed her words but was confused.

"What do you about this?"

After listening to everything, Arthur asked the silent Claud. His copy clicked his tongue and replied

"Unlike you, I've heard and witnessed everything. It was indeed surprising to see you appear like that. By the look you had, you were aware of the consequences of time travel and already accepted your imminent death, but to resort to something as dangerous as time travel, you must have been very desperate. Then again, it couldn't have been just to force you to go to the dragon's lair. Something is definitely fishy here. Nevertheless, I think we should follow his words."

Arthur frowned, clearly not agreeing Claud but he didn't object and continued to listened.

"I don't think he lied to Lucy. He may be from the future, but a different one, another timeline. Perhaps he decided to not go the dragon's lair which resulted in tragic consequences. One thing is for sure, however, he's from a faraway future. He was Overgod but was extremely weak, surely due to the Time Wraiths."

"Let's stay."

Lucy interrupted them and voice her opinion. She stared at Arthur with a complicated expression. However, Arthur didn't nod his head but shook it while retorting

"No way, for my future self to travel through time, something must've happened to you."

"But we don't know what will happen to you or me if we go there."

While caressing her head, he smiled and said

"Not knowing is better than waiting here and expecting a tragedy to happen."

*****

"Puhahahahahahahaha ain't this a motherfucking surprise!"

A humongous white roc flapped its wings, which cast a large shadow over the land below. Right next to the roc was an equally big lizard, it had two head, one was blood red while the other was jet black. The lizard had a tall tail that unleashed black flames and thick fog of blood wrapped around its body.

"Indeed it is."

Radolf licked his lips as he and Midolf stared at the beast floating in front of them. With a body just as big them, a majestic aura and a suffocating pressure. It was a blue dragon that glared at them angrily.

"And here I was thinking that it'll be an easy mission!"

Midolf roared in laughter as his body shone with a bright light, indicating his rising excitement. The two ancient beasts gazed at the Azure Dragon, a Divine Beast and apparently, a leader!

A distance away from the three beasts, a small group of robbed individuals was cautiously watching the beasts and discussing their presence among themselves.

"Tsk! To think we'd have to use our trump card so early!"

"What can we do? They appeared out of nowhere and attacked us!"

Hearing this, an old woman who was busy inspecting the white roc and the two-headed lizard, retorted in anger

"Attacked us? Are you dumb? You're the stupid ones who were scared shitless and deactivated the time-freeze!"

None dared to talk back to the old woman, they dropped their head in embarrassment and didn't dare to even glance at the elderly.

…

The Azure Dragon was the one to attack first, it opened its mouth and spat a savage energy accompanied by half illusory red flames. Midolf started flapping its lengthy wings, causing the winds to become turbulent.

Surprisingly, just the raging winds were enough to disperse the illusory flames. As for the savage energy, the lizard opened its mouth, from which an unstoppable absorption power sucked all the energy.

This was but the beginning of a bloody fight, which lasted three days.

…

Arthur set up a special formation that needs to be continuously fed with Nether Energy or Mana. It's a two-way tunnel that led him to Astria. As Lucy needed to supply the formation with her Mana, she was forced to stay.

The only reason he came here was to make sure if Saly disappeared or not. As he questioned the surprised Anastassia, his fears became true.

Saly disappeared a bit after he and Lucy left Astria. They searched for her everywhere but neither the little girl nor Astrith could be found.

After making a short trip South of the West Continent to check on the undead, he swiftly traveled to Earth. His trip only stayed there for four hours, at most, nonetheless, he became a professional tomb raider.

He possessed every skeleton in the graveyards. He didn't have much time to possess everyone but he focused on famous doctors and physicians.

He needed to be acknowledgeable about things like that as they are much needed in the near future. He ended up possessing 641 doctors and 89 Physicians. The skills he got were useful and his medical expertise became unparalleled.

"I think this is enough for what you want to do but you have to heal your other eye first."

Claud stated his opinion while returning to his usual silence, merely watching everything from Arthur's point of view.

Arthur went back to Astria and teleported to where he set up the formation, after a blue flash of light, he found himself standing before Lucy.

She stopped supplying the formation, which crumbled a few seconds after. Arthur relied on such a disposable formation to not leave any traces. Although he can use his Space Magic to teleport to Astria or Earth, there's a strong chance God Monarchs or Overgods will sense such a strong spatial fluctuation. Moreover, he needs the specific coordinates for this residence so when he teleports back to Green-Leaf, he won't end up in the Wasteland.

***********

"Argh!"

In a world of darkness, a little girl a beautiful white fur that covered some parts of her body, was crouching and holding her stomach. The pain from just a single kick was unimaginable.

The first three days of her training were just a beating from the Joker. She would charge at him to attack only to receive the same kind of kick, even when she dodged to the side.

After three days, she managed to dodge his kick, which made him pleasantly surprised. To congratulate her, he put a blindfold on her eyes and demanded she attacks him.

Unfortunately, this was but the beginning of this hell as the kicks she received when blindfolded were ten times stronger.

She could hear here ribs cracking and taste the bitter blood in her mouth. Though she doesn't see him, she still heard his berating voice

"What? Down after one strike? Isn't that pretty pathetic? If Arthur saw this, he'd truly be disappointed. I bet he would even cast you out of the family."

His words incensed the groaning Saly, who leaped at him only to be kicked again, however, she managed to shift her body as to receive less damage from the blow.

The Joker forbade her from using her magic or skills, telling her that those are useless. For two weeks straight, she was beaten black and blue. No sane person would be able to do this to a little girl yet the Joker didn't care and never stopped.

He didn't even let her sleep. He'd use some kind of a weird card to restore just enough Stamina for her to get up and get rid of the sleepiness. As for eating, the Joker was actually generous as he'd let her rest for twenty minutes and provide her with all kinds of extremely delicious dishes, she would often cry both from the pain and the delicious taste of the food.

…

"GET UP!"

As Saly cried from the pain as she laid on the ground while holding her broken arm. It is exactly the 48th time her right arm was broken yet the Joker showed no signs of stopping.

"I gave you a chance to give up but you refused. You can only blame yourself."

He walked up to her and pressed his foot on her stomach, causing her to cough blood. He waved his hand, getting rid of the blindfold.

The little girl glared at the man before her eyes, he was leaning his head close to hers while still pressing his foot on her stomach.

"What? You're angry? You think anger will make you stronger? Come on, then, attack me."

Saly shook her weak body to free herself from his grasp but the pain was agonizing and the strength behind his foot was monstrous, it was like a mountain.

Seeing her futile and weak efforts, he shook his head and ruthlessly kicked her far away. Her body was on the verge of breaking, her usually stubborn will was nowhere to be seen.

"And you wanted to help your 'mommy' and 'daddy' like this? Don't make me laugh! This is not even pathetic, this is ludicrous! I've never had a student this weak and disobedient."

He spat on the ground in disgust while turning away and waving his hand

"I'm not going to bother anymore, find someone else."

Just as he took two steps, a white shadow appeared behind him. He nonchalantly turned around with a speed that seemed extremely slow yet was more than enough for him to see the assailant and block the incoming kick.

His hand turned illusory as it was suddenly holding a small leg that was about to hit him. Just as he was about to throw the petite body, she suddenly twisted her body in a weird manner and disregarded her broken ankle while punching the Joker in the face.

Unfortunately, before her punch reached its target, she was sent flying far away but unlike last time, she didn't even land on the dark ground but transformed into a white shadow that attacked the Magician again…