"Good thing that you have teleported us away from Obelia..." Athanasia said as she stopped in her tracks, her feet sliding through the ground as she forced herself to stop, she threw her spear to the enemy at an incredible speed, blowing away hundreds of trees around them. "So I can do this!!"

The spear then split into hundreds of its copies and flew towards Nicholas without losing speed. Athanasia added her time mana in every spear to fast forward to the enemy.

"Oi, oi, you've got to be kidding me..." Nicholas stopped, he let out a nervous chuckle as he saw hundreds of spears flying towards him. "Is this the princess that I know?" He questioned himself while raising his hand towards the weapons, facing them head-on.

An explosion occurred as soon as the spears touched Nicholas, he unbelievably stopped a hundred spears in just one hand and absorbed the mana imbued in it.

"You better watch your back, old man." Lucas appeared behind Nicholas, giving him a strong chop on the side of his neck, sending him sidewards to the ground.

"That's for making me bleed, you trash," Lucas said with a huff, looking down on Nicholas with his eyes glimmered in amusement. Ah, since when did he have this so much fun? As expected, Nicholas is the perfect punching bag.

Nicholas coughed as he tried to stand up. His eyes widened seeing a puddle blood beneath him, his blood.

Before he could even fully stand up, Athanasia threw a handful of pins and threw it towards Nicholas, pinning him down on the ground. The man yelled in pain as one of the pins stab through his shoulder.

"Sorry, Kiel..." Athanasia huffed as she arrived to Nicholas's side with Lucas behind her, too focused on his hand that send Nicholas down to the ground.

Athanasia turned to Lucas and asked, "Could you make sure that Ijekiel is not hurt and just Nicholas?"

"I'm not the magician of the black tower for nothing," Lucas said with a chuckle, snapping his fingers. "Done, you can do whatever you want to that old man."

"W-What did you do to me?!" Nicholas yelled, struggling from the spell.

"Now, where were we?" Athanasia questioned, turning back to Nicholas with glaring eyes. The look made the latter feel shivers under his skin.

He's now fvcked up.

His eyes widened as Athanasia raised her hand, making a sphere out of mana, it was half the size of the earth. How did the princess have this much mana? And how did she handle it so easily?

"The one who bears the mana of time is the punisher to the sinners who tried to change the timeline, and this is a spell that they used to those sinners," Athanasia said. Nicholas noticed her jeweled eyes changing into a golden transparent clock, he suddenly heard a ticking sound out of nowhere.

"And you Nicholas is the sinner," Athanasia ended.

She finally understand the time loop. It wasn't a curse between Her, Lucas, and Nicholas, it was only a curse for Nicholas who accidentally saw the future and tried to rig it, causing the death of his family and his sanity.

The punishment was when the future is not what it supposed to happen, he will have to go back in time to when he was punished to watch his family getting tortured in public along with Athanasia, the next bearer of the mana of time. Her goal was supposed to turn the future into what it was and stop Nicholas from trying to change it.

Athanasia grimaced at the thought while seeing Nicholas's expressionist she don't quite get.

"T-The future..." Nicholas unconsciously muttered under his breath, his body began to shake.

This was the future that he saw from Athanasia years ago.

He was wrong.

It wasn't the end of the world.

What he saw at that time, was his fate.

He was destined to be a villain of the story that Athanasia was in. And die at a painful death.

He wasn't the hero of the story.

Adrianna... Giselle... I'm sorry...

Athanasia took a deep breath, seeing Nicholas suddenly starting to cry. She scoffed, biting the insides of her cheeks to calm her anger.

"Crying in front of me won't work. You-!" Athanasia choked on the tears that's about to come. "You don't know how I felt as you killed my loved ones in every loop! Lily, Felix, Mom, Dad... Lucas... you took everything away from me! So don't you dare cry like that hoping to be forgiven. What you have done is unforgivable... And you deserve to be punished..."

Nicholas didn't answer and held his head low, still crying, apologizing in his heart hoping for the gods to hear.

Athanasia sniffled, flicking away the tears that rolled down her cheeks. "This sphere contains all turns you made to change the timeline and it is 10× more painful than what you have done."

She took one last look at Nicholas before letting go of the sphere. "May the gods forgive you cause I don't."

The sphere flew up to the sky and let out a flash of light. Lucas was fast enough to cover Athanasia's red eyes from the light with his cloak, he silently comforted her with his arms as if telling them that she did great.

Yeah, she did great.

Nicholas watched the light going towards him. And for the first time, he cried in joy at what he first saw in the light.

It was his family.

Nicholas tried to reach, leaving Ijekiel's body. His hands then turned into dust, giving him an immeasurable burning pain before he could even touch a strand of his wife's hair.

His soul was dragged down to the depths of hell.

The light then disappeared, Athanasia immediately fell on her knees but Lucas luckily saved her knees from scratching on the ground. He looked down to see Athanasia sleeping while clutching onto his shirt with relief on her face.

Lucas worriedly smiled and softly kissed her forehead. "You were brave princess..."

--

sorry for the late chapter T~T

btw 6 chaps to go