Those time travelers that year

Charles glanced at the still pristine gold pocket watch and fell silent.

Even now, he still can't understand what this pocket watch is. Even in the Marvel Universe, with the power of the Infinity Stones, he could endlessly copy items that only existed in his imagination, but he was helpless against the pocket watch. Even if he created an exact replica, it was just a shell, completely useless. In that sense, this pocket watch should be considered a super artifact, at least in terms of world travel. However, the fact that the world travel process could be interrupted is truly infuriating.

"Never mind! We'll see about that later!" After carefully putting away the enigmatic pocket watch, Charles turned his gaze back to the sky outside the window. "Even if I can't use the pocket watch to travel to a specific point, I refuse to believe I can't randomly find myself in a world with time manipulation abilities!"

289. The Footprints of Outsiders

On a bright spring morning, white clouds drifted across the sky against a backdrop of azure blue. The sun radiated a temperature distinctly different from summer and winter—neither cold nor scorching. It was springtime, a time of blooming flowers and the occasional chirping of birds as they flew overhead.

It was a scene brimming with the promise of spring, but unfortunately, this was neither prose nor lyrical writing. In any case, in Charles's eyes, what he saw was not a scene of fine spring weather; the outside world reflected in his eyes presented a completely different picture.

A distorted sky, a fragmented world—the entire world resembled an endless grid. Unfortunately, this wasn't the internet, nor a fishing net, but rather the outer space of this world. Its function was simply to shield outsiders and act as a high-speed highway. Of course, the highway aspect only applied to those who could see the network and influence or control it; in any case, Xia Er estimated that none of the extraordinary societies in this world could actually use it.

However, there were exceptions. For example, the faint golden mist rising from the ground into the sky was disappearing into the network above, then converging into golden streams of light that flew along the celestial grid to the horizon. This golden mist primarily originated from major cities in human society, with some small towns and villages also present. Once Charles extended his mental vision, he could clearly 'see' that the vast majority of the golden mist came from churches. His territory's churches also had golden mist rising into the celestial network, albeit very, very faintly.

"The power of faith! This is truly the first time I've ever seen anything like it..." Looking at the golden aura that filled everything within his sight, Charles couldn't help but lean against the window and exclaim. "Indeed! If you don't consider those hidden dangers, the power of faith is truly exceptionally beautiful... It's a pity I can't use it."

Those golden mists were what was called faith. Actually, Xia Er was quite puzzled before. After all, this world was a world with extraordinary power. Although the extraordinary power had begun to decline inevitably, logically speaking, since there were spellcasters, priests, and even a demon, there was no reason why the gods in the traditional tropes would be nowhere to be found, right?

Now it seems that it wasn't that they didn't exist, but rather that Xia Er's level was much lower before, so he couldn't access or see them. But now, those golden, misty powers of faith tell Xia Er that this world is indeed a world of gods, at least not like his world where faith is unnecessary, but rather a world of gods born from the power of faith—in fantasy terms, the gods of humanity.

Unlike city gods and local deities, the Church holds a near-monopoly in this world. Like Catholicism, it has directly integrated its religious culture into the civilization and customs of human society worldwide. While there may still be many non-believers, it's undeniable that the Church's religion has become completely integrated with human civilization. To eliminate the Church, one must either cultivate a new religion that takes centuries to gradually replace it, or simply wipe out human society and civilization altogether.

But Ciel wasn't interested in any of the above...

"Following the traditional path, I should have clashed with the church, leveled up while being chased and killed along the way, and picked up girls along the way..."

"But I'm already at the maximum level, not a GM anymore, so does this strategy still make sense?!"

"...Well! Whatever, it poses no threat to me anyway!" Although he was quite interested in the god of that church, well, their 'Lord', if it was just a simple god of faith, then he wouldn't really take it seriously at the moment. While worshipping a god is convenient, quick, and fast-forming, and as long as faith continues, the god of faith will never truly die; at most, it will only disappear for a period of time. Then, as long as there are still believers and people praising its name, the god of faith may very well return from the river of time, awakening from its deathly slumber.

In the D&D series, the gods are basically gods of faith. Look at Bane; he perished in the Holocaust, but even after a long period of decline, with his divine office being divided among others, people still continued to worship him. And in the end, he miraculously reclaimed his divine office and regained his powerful divine authority through rebirth, far surpassing the two useless but incredibly powerful Baal and Melkor.

However, faith in a god is not without its flaws. It can be corrupted by the faith itself, and with every act of giving comes a corresponding reward. If others worship you, you must respond accordingly. Over time, it becomes questionable whether the faith itself is still your own. Therefore, until then, Sharl was unwilling to walk this path. Although he was confident that the Primordial Flame and the Abyss could cleanse him of the corrupting influence of faith, it was simply too troublesome.

Although his sister had mentioned wanting to create a cult for him before he left, he rejected the idea. It would be far more powerful to establish a Shadow Council than something resembling a cult; at least he could be a powerful lord with millions of followers, right?

Thinking this, Charles prepared to withdraw his gaze. Since he couldn't be threatened, why should he care so much?

"...Hmm? What's that?" Just as Charles was about to turn off that mental vision, he suddenly caught a glimpse of something different in the network in the sky. "That's... a line?"

Just where the golden mist hadn't reached the grid, something resembling threads suddenly appeared. These threads were long and numerous, and as if ignoring the grid, they began to extend rapidly, slowly approaching the world beneath it.

Before long, these threads completely pierced through the grid, disappearing into this world and heading towards a certain point within it. At that very moment, Charles frowned. He sensed that something was wrong with this world after the threads penetrated the network representing the world's spatial barrier. Although he didn't quite understand, Charles felt that the threads were pulling at something… and these threads seemed incompatible with this world, as if they didn't belong to it.

"An outsider?!" Worlds can be traversed, just like he did, so Charles immediately suspected that the threads didn't originate from this world, but from beyond. "Could it be that others have the ability to directly traverse worlds?" He had a pocket watch, which meant others should possess similar or identical items. And what would happen if two transmigrators met? Charles certainly didn't think it would be a good thing.

Moreover, although he wasn't particularly concerned with the problems of this world, Charles did consider it a primary world. This blatant intrusion into his 'territory' couldn't be ignored without offering a 'greeting' and some 'polite' response…

290. Want to play together? My Genji (Yasuo) is awesome!

Although he enjoys causing trouble in other worlds, Ciel has no desire for outsiders like himself to come to this world and cause him harm. Therefore, upon realizing something was wrong, Ciel's first reaction was to sever the threads that were already connected to this world.

But then he thought again, he didn't know what kind of people these outsiders were, did he? If they were powerful figures, super experts, or even the most powerful masters, wouldn't his rash actions just give them an excuse to say, "Fellow Daoist, it is destined that you will suffer a calamity today" or "Fellow Daoist, please wait!"?

Well then, let's hold off for now! After all, Sharl considers himself a decent spellcaster. And as a spellcaster, he shouldn't be like those reckless warriors who just charge in without thinking. Even though he can now dual-wield a sword and staff, and just go for it without hesitation, that's just too unsportsmanlike. So, he'll just check what these threads are all about first, and once he finds something amiss, he'll unleash his maximum damage and wipe them out.

With this thought in mind, Charles's figure flashed, and he found himself directly in the room. Despite the seemingly endless distance, Charles manipulated space to fold and instantly traversed the vast distance. While not as swift as crossing half a planet in the Marvel universe, thanks to the spatial network mechanism of the world above, Charles instantly arrived near a thread extending from the outside.

This is a suburban forest, and nearby lies a city belonging to the empire—a mere, insignificant little city, of course. It's neither one of those emerging cities affected by reforms, nor one of those backward cities whose development has been stifled by conservatives; it's somewhere in between, the kind of city no one would care about.

If there's anything noteworthy about this city, it's that it's a land-based trade route. However, in this era of rapid maritime development, land-based trade is inevitably affected. After all, sea transport is faster and more efficient, and there aren't as many local lords collecting tolls. Furthermore, the development and utilization of colonies in the New World are primarily conducted by both land and sea.

That said, it is precisely for this reason that conservatives resolutely oppose new developments, and even more so the reformers' plan to lay railways throughout the empire. Well, it's said that the reformers intend to nationalize the railways while simultaneously laying them across the empire. Maritime transport already impacts the long-standing 'aristocratic tradition' of collecting tolls from merchants; if railway transport were added to this… would it leave any room for the livelihood of noble fiefdom lords? If the reformers and the imperial family were willing to provide welfare to everyone while simultaneously granting everyone the right to arbitrarily collect railway transport fees, then that's a different story.

But looking at it this way, it seems like the conservative aristocrats are relentlessly rushing down a path of self-destruction!

——————————Divider Line——————————

There are many random and chaotic things in the void.

Over here, the pacifists known as "evil gods," with their leader's unrestrained erratic behavior, have essentially lost control to a certain silver-haired evil god named Nyaruko... well, recently even the finances have been taken over by her. Anyway, chaos reigns among the evil gods in the void. Except for a certain chibi-style penguin evil god who immediately landed with the force of a tiger, shouting "Rich guy, please hug my leg!" and clinging tightly to the silver-haired evil god's white-stockinged leg. This guy may look cute, but his fighting power is indeed among the top of all the evil gods.

In this way, she already held absolute power, like a ruler commanding his subjects. Bubble, one of the company's founding members, was basically on her side… Anyway, the Black Goat's mother was extremely unhappy, privately referring to her as "Silver Hair," but she didn't care. Since the boss hadn't spoken, she was the acting boss—what could they do to her! The question was, 'Who else?'

Ahem… Getting back to the topic, in the void, besides the Evil God constantly expanding its business across worlds, there's another conglomerate called the 'Main God' that's also competing with the Evil God. Of course, these competitors can't directly confront the Evil God. However, despite their inability to win, the Evil God is helpless against them.

Anyway, everyone is competing 'fairly', so it just comes down to who can reach the furthest!

That's basically it...

……

No one knows how these 'main gods' originally appeared, but what is known is that they are incredibly troublesome—so troublesome that almost everyone who knows about them wishes they could just kill all the reincarnators along with these 'main gods'. Yet, they remain alive and kicking…

It's hard to say exactly what a 'main god' is. Even a certain bubble, which is theoretically omniscient and omnipotent, can't find any information about these guys, or rather, can't catch their tails.

But here, in a strange world, stands a magnificent and solemn bronze gate. Here, countless alternate dimensions and demiplanes are endlessly overlapped, and at each overlap, a bronze gate exists. This is the territory of one of the 'Gods'. Of course, there are many similar territories; some are traditional large spheres of light, some are just bronze gates for show, and some are simply empty, with only a control panel.

In a space that overlaps with the main building, a group of five people stand silently before a bronze gate, their expressions solemn and cold. They are like elite warriors about to go into battle, about to carry out a decapitation strike deep into enemy territory.

"An A-rank world exploration mission, huh?" After a long while, one of the men, wearing a hooded black trench coat and what appeared to be some kind of technologically advanced exoskeleton, with several pistol-like weapons—almost like shotguns—stuck in his chest, and some red cylindrical objects strapped to his left leg, sighed, "...It's really not easy!"

He is Lao Wu, the captain of the Vanguard Reincarnation Squad, codenamed Death. His personal enhancement is based on a hero from a certain over-the-top game, making him a assault-type character in the team.

"An exploration mission? That means there's absolutely no advantage from the storyline?" Another guy, clad in silver-white external armor, completely covered from head to toe, with a long-handled katana slung across his back and a No. 1 longsword hanging from his waist, chimed in, "And it's a Gundam A-rank mission, that's tough! It means there's a 100% chance of a hidden A-rank boss and related quests..." This guy was Old Wang (his self-proclaimed), a 35-year-old man and a Naruto fan before arriving in the reincarnation space. In the reincarnation world, the enhanced version of himself, like Old Wu above, is a hero from a certain anime/manga series.

Code name: Torso...

Recently, in the author group, some people were quite dissatisfied with the plot holes I left at the end of Marvel. Unfortunately, Marvel has over a hundred chapters, which is too long, and many people aren't happy about it. If I were to group the legions, main gods, and evil gods together, I could easily add another hundred or so chapters. Therefore, I'll use some of the plot holes from Marvel to write side stories. Please look forward to it!

I've already thought of the first act:

Hellfire rains down on New York, bringing justice; the Avengers lead a fierce battle against the demolition office.

The succubus's attempt to seduce the political commissar of the Chinese nation failed, and she was instead met with a brutal "proletarian correction of values" punch.

291. The Reincarnator Enters

For these reincarnators, an A-level mission is a considerable challenge. In fact, they all know that the Supreme God never pays attention to those who are eliminated. To put it bluntly, they, the reincarnators, are cannon fodder in the Supreme God's hands. The so-called "no guaranteed death missions" only apply if they meet the conditions for survival.

Even for the five members of the vanguard team, an A-rank mission was already considered a rather dangerous situation. Of course, unlike the S-rank missions, which were notorious for wiping out the entire team, A-rank missions at least offered a sliver of hope. However, many missions were different. For example, there were missions with a clear storyline, chaotic missions with incongruous plots and random interruptions, and exploration missions with no storyline whatsoever. If there was anything worse than having no storyline to refer to and being completely ignorant of the world the mission was set in, it would be going to a comedic world, like those featuring Bugs Bunny, Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf, or Doraemon. Even the 'gods' of those worlds would turn tail and run, and even the evil gods who were considered scourges of the worlds would stay as far away from them as possible.

Anyway, Old Wu had heard of a certain top-tier team from a past reincarnation space. This super reincarnation team, with three S-level enhanced beings and seven A+ level follow-up members, was completely wiped out just because they went to Bugs Bunny's world—they were wiped out by a dimensional reduction bomb (heaven knows how that bunny came up with it).

Of course, a mere A-level world exploration mission couldn't possibly reach the level of that overpowered rabbit. While it might be a bit troublesome, for someone who had fought their way through swarms of insects seven times, shot down dragons, slain Ultralisks, been hunted by Hive Lords, sailed on battlecruisers, and witnessed Motherships that could burn planets to glass with a single shot, and who had also experienced Star Wars, witnessed the battles between Jedi and Sith, and seen the Death Star fortress unleash planet-destroying bombardments, a mere A-level world exploration mission seemed rather insignificant.

“Not entirely!” Zhao Hao, codenamed Sun God, the tank and healer of the team, whose skills were enhanced by the Paladin system from Diablo 2, chimed in. “Last time we went to the Advent World, Sephiroth, who descended through his thought form, was only a B+ rank, but we still got wrecked, didn’t we? If it weren’t for Cloud’s overpowered power spike later in the story, we would have been wiped out!” This man, clad in a golden armor with a white robe, had twelve phantom-like streaks of light flowing behind him. He was like a giant light bulb, constantly radiating light, providing 24/7 uninterrupted illumination.

After listening to Ritian's words, the remaining ADC and AP nodded in agreement. Although the former had strengthened Hanzo's template, he was still terrified of the scene in the Advent of the Holy Son mission where he was able to cut 'Liugawaga Dieqi Okula Wu' in mid-air with a single slash even when Sephiroth was not fully descended.

As for the AP champion, although the Brand template combined with the Fire Alchemist buff gives him considerable damage output, he is indeed a squishy champion.

Just by looking at their team's lineup, you can tell that they designed a high-output team from the start. Even the tank who is practically a healer likes to wield the Holy Sword Edruin (a replica) and charge in with his aura activated. For this purpose, they have also enhanced a set of melee martial arts called Heart Sword Divine Technique.

Conversely, in a five-man raid, it's understandable that the healer focuses solely on damage output and doesn't heal, since they essentially act as a tank. However, the other members are generally quite fragile. From this perspective, this team is the type that dies before even reaching the first boss! Of course, if they can use their ultimate abilities to instantly kill the boss, that's a different story.

"However, as long as we don't disrupt the main storyline of that world too much with exploration missions, the rewards for simply digging out side quests are quite substantial." He said to Old Wu, "...And don't forget, once we've made more than 50% progress in an exploration mission world, we can apply to have it become a private world."

"That's an entire world as its support base!"

At this point, the other four people's faces showed emotion. Every reincarnator harbors the thought of escaping the control of the 'Main God' and living this precarious life. But unfortunately, very few actually succeed!

However, if one could control a story world, even without escaping the cycle of reincarnation, one would essentially no longer need to fear the vast majority of story missions. After all, in all this time, there has never been a case of anyone completing an S-rank enhancement as a lone individual. Or rather, only by having a world with a support base could one possibly raise the funds for a complete S-rank enhancement.

With just one fully enhanced S-rank member present, most reincarnation worlds can be safe. Unless they get caught up in large-scale battles between reincarnators, mythological battles within story worlds, or large-scale interstellar wars, teams with S-rank enhanced members are practically safe!

With things having come to this point, whether it was to risk everything for their own future or because of the 'God's' inescapable mission, the vanguard team had no choice but to prepare thoroughly and give it their all. Fortunately, they had previously experienced a brutal team battle, suffering some losses. The Reincarnation Space generally wouldn't throw in newcomers at times like this, so the absence of a dragging-down newcomer meant the difficulty wouldn't increase. In that case, even an A-rank world exploration mission, as long as they didn't provoke that A-rank boss, should be fine, right?

Once the vanguard team members were all ready, the countdown to entering the Reincarnation Space dungeon had begun. The bronze gate within the Reincarnation Space opened a crack, letting in white light, and a swirling white vortex appeared inside. Seeing this, Captain Wu quickly led his team members one by one into the swirling white vortex.

……

Locate the coordinates, read the Akasha's records, and deploy the Reincarnators...

On a sphere of light located at the core of this strange plane, a series of numbers flashed by. Immediately afterwards, a beam of light shot outward from the sphere, following the optical fiber that connects the worlds.

Coordinate positioning successful. Initiating timeline alignment. Unexplored world, designated SB-2333.

The reincarnator loads the local language template and the character's temporary world identity template.

Loading complete, exploration mission begins.

292. Q-version penguin

In the void, the distance between each world is neither extremely far nor extremely close. For those who cannot cross this distance, it's like an insurmountable barrier, while for those capable of traversing it, it's incredibly close. And the 'Gods,' beings whose nature defies description, are truly the most adept at smuggling themselves into the void. Even the evil gods aren't as skilled. At least for evil gods, traveling to another world isn't impossible, but they certainly wouldn't send a large group of people there as cannon fodder and expendable resources.

Generally speaking, for worlds that the 'main god' has not yet taken control of, they send out a group of reincarnation teams that are not extremely powerful but are not at all weak either, to gather intelligence. This avoids unnecessary risks and losses, and also allows them to efficiently explore their own rules and gradually erode the target world, eventually pulling it into their own reincarnation world circle.

If the target world is challenging and a single reincarnation team makes slow progress, then a team war will follow. Reincarnation teams will be continuously dispatched, and the reincarnators, driven by the principle of maximizing their own interests, will inevitably form factions and disrupt the world's development. Next, barring unforeseen circumstances, a world war will erupt, secretly orchestrated by the reincarnators, plunging the world into chaos. The 'God' can then easily pull the target world into the conflict.

In a sense, the more trouble the reincarnation team causes in the mission world, and the more deaths they incur, the easier it becomes for the 'God' to completely pull that world into their own domain. Therefore, worlds targeted by the 'God' can hardly avoid the fate of being controlled and enslaved.

The premise is that this world does not have any mystical superpowers or evil gods.

The former would likely secretly retaliate, which would be extremely dangerous for the 'main god'. If they're not careful, those powerful beings who utter slogans like "Acting on behalf of Heaven," "Let's all fight you evil heretics," "Fellow Daoist, please wait," and "You don't know your destiny, so you'll all turn to ashes" could turn the tables and kill them. This is not an isolated case.

Another possibility that is unfavorable to the 'main god' is that the world that seems perfectly normal is actually the lair of an evil god. This kind of messed-up thing is actually quite possible, after all, many worlds where evil gods are asleep or secretly guiding are indeed two-faced.

Just like what that silver-haired evil god did, you can't really see anything in the world she's involved in on the surface, but secretly... heh, ever since she distributed the manufacturing methods for mushroom bombs to all human governments capable of producing them in a certain world, she's become the most outstanding salesperson among the evil gods. Otherwise, the fact that she could rise to power and deceive everyone while the leader is constantly insane is a testament to reality.

And this wasn't the first time many 'main gods' had suffered losses at the hands of this guy.

Therefore, generally speaking, when a reincarnator is sent to a target world, the 'main god' who has their eye on that world will usually take a good look at the target world first. They'll spend some effort to read the world's Akasha records, and only after confirming there are no problems will they send the reincarnator. The Akasha records of this world had already been read by the 'main god' beforehand, and there were no external factors affecting it, except for a certain outsider from another world who possessed a low-level, primitive version of the main god's system and transmigrated to this world, becoming an outsider. There were no unexpected events…

So, this 'main god' decisively began sending reincarnators down...

However, what no one expected was that even the dispatched 'God' hadn't anticipated this. A certain transmigrator had recently become an adorable newbie. And the 'God' couldn't directly access the records of powerful beings and evil gods; indirect access was possible, but extremely time-consuming and potentially risky.

Although Ciel himself wasn't aware of this, the group of evil gods swindling and deceiving others in the void, under the control of a certain silver-haired evil god, actually... knew about this world to some extent. However, due to certain principles, they tacitly avoided venturing into each other's territory. Furthermore, with a certain parallel universe in Marvel suddenly abandoned by its controller, it was essentially exposed to everyone's view, and many evil gods were trying every means to join the fray...

However, that doesn't mean this world is untouched by evil gods, right? Like that chibi-style penguin evil god who might be the richest, but just loves to fawn over the wealthy! It has no interest in a peaceful world, because as long as it can make money, it doesn't care about peace or unrest. So this guy is already planning to grab his membership card and head over to solicit orders. And this seemingly cute and powerless evil god actually possesses unfathomable strength; in any case, a certain newcomer is definitely no match for it. As for the 'main god'... well! Let's mourn for this cycle of reincarnation.

When this 'God' cast his first reincarnation team into this world, Xia Er, who had been hiding to the side and temporarily created a mirror space, immediately looked up.

A streak of light was falling toward this world along a thread. It was moving very fast. By the time Xia Er noticed it, it had already penetrated the outer layer of this world. It only hesitated for a moment at the world's grid-like spatial barrier before it descended.

Ciel, who had planned to confront them immediately upon discovering that they were not returning, did not react at this moment.

That method of traversing into another world was all too familiar—wasn't it the same way he traveled?! The exact same method, except his was more troublesome, highly likely to be detected by the native inhabitants of the world he was traversing. But this one… was much faster and more concealed. It could be said that if he hadn't noticed the situation from the beginning, Xia Er felt he might not have even discovered it. After that stream of light entered this world, one of its threads—the one that the light had followed—completely disintegrated and vanished. Without a trace, as if it had never existed.