Those time travelers that year

All of this is just like the three guys here. In the original plan, by using the power to steal the tablets of Prometheus, coupled with the arrogant and disregardful attitude of the disobedient gods towards ordinary humans, they could very well have created a Campion through the plan, and then naturally have a way to influence and control it secretly.

Unfortunately, man proposes, God disposes... no, even the world itself couldn't have foreseen that an uninvited guest would arrive from outside the timeline. And this uninvited guest managed to completely sever the original timeline, forcing the world to evolve into a completely new timeline.

This led to one unfortunate individual being severely beaten by a group of 'powerful cosplayers,' rendering the three's scheme utterly absurd. The thought of this made all three feel utterly devastated…

"Amitabha..." After a long silence, the monk, still recovering from his injuries, clasped his hands together and sighed, "Cause and effect, cause and effect, sow a cause and you reap a cause, sow a result and you reap a result. All right and wrong arise from the mind, and are also due to the bewitching of external demons—greed, anger, ignorance... Well done, well done." A radiant light flashed across the monk's face, making him appear dignified, which caused the old man and the woman to exchange a glance. No one knew better than the two of them what kind of person this monk in black robes was. A human being, a human being who had transcended the realm of humanity, a Buddhist monk who, with a mortal body, could rival a god who defied authority.

Although he's currently facing a calamity, taking advantage of his status as a Buddhist monk, he's managed to gain some insight from this disaster. Even though his aura is weak now, it seems he's made further progress. Who knows, when the time is right, this monk might be able to transcend his physical body, cross the sea of ​​suffering, and reach the Western Paradise.

Seeing this, the old man and the woman sighed.

In the end, he didn't say anything more...

They could only lament their miscalculation, which led to their complete defeat, and began to ponder and discuss how to deal with the unresolved issues. After all, the forces they controlled had suffered extremely devastating losses, losses that would take at least decades to recover from. This also made some people below them uneasy, especially those who were qualified to know of their existence; nine times out of ten, resentment would arise from them.

Although it's unlikely to cause them any trouble, it's still a source of worry.

However, they probably won't need to worry about these things anymore.

In the midst of this mortal realm, as the monks entered into deep meditation and the old man and woman pondered how to handle the aftermath, a chartered plane from Europe landed at an airport. Then, three people stepped out.

No one saw them; even the airport's security cameras couldn't record them. After they disembarked, they mysteriously vanished. Simultaneously, an inexplicable influence began to spread from the airport, affecting every corner of the island nation.

Soon after, both grains and meats were affected by an unknown disease and began to rot rapidly. There was even a small but widespread infectious disease that affected the entire country, causing significant economic losses.

Of course, that's for the future. Right now, the three people who just disappeared from the airport have arrived in another world, in the Netherworld.

……

Charles glanced at Athena. When he got off the plane, he had sensed a power emanating from some kind of rule. However, in Charles's view, Athena was casually holding Lucifer's hand.

How petty of you!

He muttered to himself, then stopped thinking about it; it wasn't his business anyway. Besides, he was about to leave this world, so who would care?

Through the connection between his clone and his main body, Charles was able to sense from afar that outside this world, his true self had already begun to act, heading to a vast outer world and starting to cause trouble.

The door connecting the two worlds will probably be built soon...

"Oh dear! We're running out of time!" Charles exclaimed. "We need to pick up the pace!"

"What's wrong?!" Athena looked over, puzzled, and asked, "What happened?!"

"My true form has already begun its journey!" Charles replied. "It's probably already on its way to that multiverse... Well! Anyway, I need to speed things up here—" He glanced at his surroundings. This was the Netherworld, a world where the spirit transcends the body. It was both illusion and reality, but in Charles's eyes, it was also another 'shortcut,' a 'shortcut' to the mythical world.

The door can be opened directly from here, and the resistance will not be as high.

Not to mention...

Seeing the sealed-off space in the distance, and the ferocious and violent entity within it, Xia Er would never admit that it was Sun Wukong; at most, it was just the Demon King Sun Wukong, not the later Great Sage Equal to Heaven.

But it doesn't matter—the value of this monkey lies in using it as a medium to pull the real Monkey King over. As for the so-called alliance entangled with the Demon King Monkey, that's nonsense! That thing is more about restricting the monkey, forcing it to target the dragon, the snake, and Campione.

"I'll tear open that sealed space to release the monkeys..." Ciel said to Athena, who was still holding Lucifer's hand. "And then, those three guys, you'll be able to handle them, right?!"

“Of course!” Athena replied confidently. “He’s just a guy who relies on his cleverness, a god who abandoned his former identity, and a monk who’s almost reached the level of a demigod… They’re all the same if they’re all together.”

Within her purple pupils, swirling galaxies flowed. It must be said that, although the worldviews are different, and the power system of the cosmos can't be as unscientific and physics-insensitive as in the original work, it's clear... it fits Athena remarkably well. Upon first grasping it, Athena directly bypassed the sixth sense, instantly reaching the seventh. Having reached the seventh sense and mastered the secrets of 'time perception,' and with her triune divine status in this world, she quickly reached the eighth sense.

The Ninth Sense could have been reached much sooner, but it's likely only comprehensible within the original world of Saint Seiya. After all, the rules of that world are different; reaching the Alaya consciousness is already the pinnacle. And the will that unites with the world itself is probably inseparable from the original world.

Athena, who intends to leave this world, would not be foolish enough to bind herself to it.

Although she lacks the Ninth Sense, Athena, now in her full-power state, has genuinely reached the level of a divine cosmos thanks to Ciel's deliberate modifications. This explains why Mekal, who previously refused to submit, was still defeated by Athena despite the elemental advantage, even though Mekal was already injured. It's likely that even at her peak, Mekal would still have been defeated by Athena.

519. Disaster struck from the sky.

The black-robed monk, who had been meditating, suddenly opened his eyes. Some unseen impulse interrupted his meditation. Due to karmic connections, before the two beside him could notice, the monk looked in a certain direction. Through the wooden hut, the severely injured monk saw the figures of three uninvited guests from the outside world.

"Amitabha!" the monk chanted the Buddha's name softly, and sighed, "It is fate, it is destiny... I thought I had already survived the tribulation of death, but who would have thought that the real tribulation of this monk is only now coming - today is the day of my passing."

"What's wrong!" Upon hearing the monk's sudden question, the other two people in the wooden house looked over with puzzled eyes.

"Cause and effect, cause and effect—once the cause is planted, one must accept the resulting effect." The monk clasped his hands together again and chanted the Buddha's name softly, "Amitabha—Suddenly the golden rope breaks, the jade lock snaps… Master Zhishen once attained enlightenment and passed away on a whim by the Qiantang River in the Central Plains. And today, the monk's time has come; truly, only today do I realize who I am." After speaking, he sighed and then passed away…

This scene startled the elderly woman and the woman in the wooden hut, causing them to stand up. Unfortunately, when they reached the monk, they all stopped moving. The monk was now completely lifeless; his body was nothing but an empty shell.

He died, or rather, he passed away peacefully.

"What on earth is going on?!" Even as a female god, her expression changed at this moment. This monk was not weak; even if she had recovered to her dragon-serpent form, she might not have been able to defeat him. But for some reason, the monk who had suppressed his previous injuries suddenly passed away.

"No need to say anything! I understand!" The old man took a deep breath. He was still a follower of the divine, and upon hearing the monk's words at the moment of his passing, he seemed to understand something. Then, he looked in a certain direction from the wooden hut, and then he saw the scene the monk had witnessed. "It's here!"

……

"Huh!?" Charles looked ahead in confusion. "What happened? One of them died on their own?!" Just now, someone looked over, but before Charles could do anything, the gaze that had spotted them was withdrawn and vanished. "Looks like we've been discovered!"

"It was bound to happen sooner or later!" Athena said nonchalantly. "...I never thought it could be hidden, but now I realize that someone of this caliber dared to implicate me in the first place—they're just asking for trouble."

Just then, a wooden house appeared in front of them.

At the same time, the wooden house opened, and the old man and woman inside came out one after another. They immediately saw Charles, Athena, and Lucifer, who was still eating sweets.

"So that's how it is!" the old man exclaimed. "...So that's what the monk meant before he passed away! I never imagined that one day I would be confronted by two dragons and snakes, and an unfathomable monster!"

"May I ask what brings you gentlemen here?" The woman who followed the old man out looked uneasy, but she forced herself to ask.

"Why?!" Athena sneered, the galaxy in her purple eyes swirling. The goddess reached out and pulled out a gray stone slab, showing it to the disobedient god and ancestor before her. "Your schemes are truly amusing! If I hadn't known beforehand, I might have been caught off guard and let your plot succeed."

"So, I now beg you two—to die back into mythology, shall we?!" The murderous words had barely left her lips when everything around her turned to stone. Streams were cut off, wooden houses became stone houses, and the surrounding forest transformed into bizarrely shaped rocks.

"A goddess with winged serpents, and this kind of divinity..." The old man's expression tightened. Although the petrification effect did not affect him, this petrification ability could still work on him. "I see, and the tablets of Prometheus... It seems there's no way to resolve this peacefully."

"Isn't it obvious?!" Athena sneered as the old man drew a katana. The woman beside him, her face grim, seemed about to say something, but Athena ignored her completely. "No need for further words. Today is the day I will return you to the realm of mythology." Athena released Lucifer's hand, retrieved Prometheus's tablet, and took out her scythe. Lucifer, who had been silently eating his sweets, glanced at the two opposite him with his golden eyes, then quickly finished his ice cream.

"You have a backup plan, right!" Charles said. "That's perfect, I need that demon king monkey, so—"

The old man and the woman's expressions suddenly changed drastically. A spell they had set up had abruptly severed its connection with them. No, it wasn't severed; rather, the surrounding environment had changed. A large area of ​​space around them had been taken over by someone, effectively sealing them off here.

At this moment, Charles's figure dimmed and disappeared from this space, leaving only the words, "Don't annihilate all the divine power and divine essence. I still need them as 'sacrifices' to open the door!"

Athena: "I understand, but wouldn't it be better if they died?!"

"Two goddesses of winged serpents, are you so sure you can defeat me!" The old man's face was extremely ugly, and a suffocating killing intent emanated from his body. "I descended into this world and wreaked havoc for a thousand years. I have also slain dragons and serpents... Are you so confident that you can send me back to mythology?"

"I am Athena—the goddess of wisdom and war!" Athena revealed a cold smile. "From the very beginning, the ending was predetermined."

"Then let's see if my sword can still sever the snake's head!"

A howling storm, a swirling galaxy, and a golden morning star emerging from the inky black night began to appear in this sealed-off space; the war of the gods had begun.

——————————Divider Line——————————

This is the realm between reality and illusion, the boundary between life and death—the Netherworld, also known as the Star Netherworld. This world exists between the present world, which represents life, and the mythology, which represents immortality; it is the boundary between life and immortality.

This is also the place in this world that is closest to the mythical world.

Theoretically speaking, the space here is infinite and has no end. But this is only relative. At least in Charles's view, the space here is finite, and he only needs to take a few steps to reach the so-called 'end'.

However, Ciel doesn't need to go to the 'end'.

Because the 'end' is the mythical world, now is not the time to go to the mythical world. Instead, in just a few steps, Xia Er crossed a distance that ordinary people could hardly cross and arrived in front of a sealed space.

In this space, there is a monkey that has been summoned.

However, before finding the monkey, we still need to solve a small but significant problem!

'Amitabha…' Just as Xia Er was about to enter the sealed space, a Buddhist chant rang out. A flash of light appeared before him, and a phantom monk, hands clasped in prayer, blocked his way. 'If you wish to seek out the Monkey God, please first understand the cause and effect with this humble monk.'

520. Blocking the road

"Cause and effect!?" Charles stopped in his tracks, staring at the illusory figure blocking his view. Judging from the aura, this figure was the owner of the gaze that had first discovered Charles and his group entering this place. No, it couldn't be. The owner of that gaze had died for some unknown reason. This one seemed more like a combination of some kind of consciousness and concept. "Oh... a bald thief from Buddhism?! Speaking of which, do I owe you any debts? I don't think I've ever seen you before!"

"Amitabha!" The illusory figure, unhurried and composed, appeared to be a monk dressed in black robes, with extremely dry skin, as if devoid of real flesh, like a mummy. With a sincere expression and hands clasped together, it replied to Charles, "My passing was due to your arrival, benefactor! The cause of my current fate lies with you yourself."

"Are you kidding me! What does your life or death have to do with me!?"

"Because not long ago, this humble monk, overestimating his abilities, entangled himself with you in a karmic entanglement, and thus deserves this calamity!" Saying this, the illusory figure respectfully bowed to Xia Er. "...Therefore, before understanding your karmic debts, this humble monk's passing cannot be complete, and thus I have not immediately ascended to the Western Paradise. This obstruction is this humble monk's final tribulation, and also the repayment for the cause of my past actions."

"Make a move!?" Charles didn't think this monk was a match for him at all. He wasn't the bald Buddhist thief from the dangerous world who had tricked and killed Nicholas Gauze. Besides, this should be the first time he had ever met this monk. However, it didn't matter. Since this monk said he was involved, he could just go back in time and see what had happened.

Soon, a scene appeared in Charles's eyes. One night, the monk in front of him intercepted a group of two hundred knights and fought them. The knights almost destroyed his golden body and he was nearly killed, but he managed to escape by sheer luck.

"So that's how it is! You've fought my men before!" Charles said. "...But what's the point? You couldn't even beat my men, yet you dare to block my path!?"

"I dare not," the monk replied. "I know my magical power is insignificant compared to yours, like a grain of rice compared to the sun, utterly insignificant." "However," the monk continued, "my actions at that time involved far too much karma. If I cannot understand your karma, I cannot truly find liberation—"

'Therefore, I hope you will forgive me!'

A hazy gray space appeared in front of them after the monk finished speaking. In an instant, this hazy gray space had enveloped and covered the space that had sealed off the Monkey God.

The gray space churned endlessly, quickly evolving into black and white. The two colors intertwined, ultimately forming a black and white datura flower, coexisting and interdependent. In an instant, petals fell, and a sea of ​​flowers appeared before Charles.

A flower is a world, a tree is a fleeting life.

Seeing the sea of ​​petals before him, and the faint, ethereal figure sitting atop the black and white datura flower that shared his life with him, Charles said, “Strange. If you had such power, you wouldn’t have had your golden body destroyed by the Knights of Farron. You were just a hair’s breadth away from being killed.”

To be honest, at first, Charles thought that the strongest guy here was the old man with the katana. But seeing this scene, Charles immediately overturned his previous conclusion. In terms of strength, this monk was indeed no match for the old man with the katana, but he possessed something different. If we're talking about how troublesome he was, given the skills this monk had displayed, he shouldn't have been beaten up by the Knights of Fran, even if those street dancers were in a berserk state at the time.

"You have already attained enlightenment, so why cling to this world?!"

"It is only because this humble monk once clung to power, strength, and status—though one could say he was not in control of his own destiny—that for a hundred years, this humble monk has lingered in this place, teetering on the edge of life and death, and has become tainted by worldly karma, controlling external affairs alongside those two." The illusory figure seated atop the black and white mandalas sighed, "This cause and effect have kept this humble monk from moving forward, wasting time in vain… Without your cause, benefactor, this humble monk could not truly escape this karmic consequence. Amitabha. Every bite and sip is predetermined, so this humble monk can only repay your kindness with this final attachment, so that this humble monk can let go of everything and journey to the Western Paradise to hear the Buddha's teachings."

"So that means!" Charles laughed, "that I get to kill someone once!"

"Indeed!"

"Then you might as well just die! What are you doing blocking the way?!"

Streaks of fire appeared in the air, transforming into an endless sea of ​​fire that crashed down. A rain of flames fell, countless sparks swirling and crashing towards the falling petals of the flower field ahead.

However, the sea of ​​fire formed by the rain of flames fell, and upon contact with the ocean of petals, they were extinguished one by one, leaving not even a spark. No matter how heavily the fire rain poured down, the dancing petals showed no sign of being burned, and the illusory figure sitting on the datura flower remained quietly seated.

"Buddha?! No, you're not!" Charles sneered at the scene before him. This phantom was probably even more troublesome than the old man with the katana who was fighting Athena outside. That one was merely a disobedient god, while this one was almost certainly a being who had ascended from human to godhood. Of course, not completely; the existence of this phantom was proof of that.

The fluttering petals, this sea of ​​flowers, each falling petal a fragment of space. Yet these spatial fragments possess no offensive power; they merely contain anything that approaches. It's akin to containing a mustard seed in an instant. They have no offensive capabilities, only pure defense and obstruction.

If Ciel were to force his way in, it would be tantamount to entering a spatial labyrinth. Of course, brute force would also work; he could simply break through the petals or use sheer strength to shatter the space within them.

"What's the point? This barrier can't stop me at all!?" Charles said. "You can guess how long it will take me to tear this place apart!?"

'long time!'

"Wrong! At most half an hour!"