Ethereal Ascendance: A Journey of Transformation (Volume 6)

Vol 6/Chapter 35: The Royal Villa

"Again?"
Although I'd only shown off once, I never expected Nicola would understand my ability so well already.

To be honest, I'd just used it not long ago, and I seriously doubted if I had enough strength left to do it again. But seeing Nicola's smiling face staring at me, she didn't seem worried about failing at all. Plus, we had no other good way to open this secret door, so I had no choice but to give it a try.

A few minutes later...

Looking at the now-disappeared cabinet wall, sure enough, there was a dark passage with stairs inside! As for me, no surprise, I collapsed on the ground again from exhaustion.

"Strange, you should have gotten back some of your original power like me. How come you end up like this after using your power just twice?"

The alarm didn't go off as hoped, but Nicola was very doubtful about my stamina.

"Easy for you to say... you know very well I only have part of a broken Water Angel soul, and you're still making such comments!"

I couldn't help talking back, feeling unsatisfied. Unlike Nicola, I probably could only reach this level. Adrian quickly helped me lie down on the nearby bed to rest, while asking her with some confusion.

"From what I know about your time control ability, if nothing goes wrong, you should be able to destroy the secret door and its alarm system by changing its time flow, right? Why must Feliciana do it?"

Adrian seemed a bit worried about me. According to his theory, just rewinding an object's time to before it was created or fast-forwarding to after it was destroyed could achieve almost the same effect.

"It's true I can change the time of objects and even the whole world, but didn't I say before? I've only gotten back part of my original power too. Unlike simply looking into the future with my mind, once it involves the real world, I can only control time within about ten minutes. Unless I reach twelve wings and get back all my complete Authority, this small time change won't do much."

Nicola rolled her eyes at us, answering a bit impatiently. At the same time, she carefully examined the now fully open secret passage, and suddenly looked shocked.

"This isn't right! I remember this is in a second-floor room, so why does this passage go upwards?"

She wasn't wrong - when Adrian and I landed, we saw this was just a normal two-story building, meaning we were already on the top floor. Going up would only lead to the attic!

But how come Nicola had predicted earlier that she'd find traces of Reider through the passage? Surely Reider, being the emperor, wouldn't hide in this building's attic - that seemed impossible!

"This is definitely the right path, but why... Wait! I can see those people again, and they seem to be talking about some book, and they're saying 'our world is actually...'"

Just then, Nicola seemed to use her time prediction ability again.

"Impossible. You two wait here, let me go check it out first!"

With Adrian the Fate Breaker still around, facing countless possible future scenes, she seemed to accidentally touch some very important information. Her face changed, and she quickly threw down a few words to Adrian and me before rushing into the passage ahead by herself.

"Huh?"

I looked at Adrian with a confused face, but unfortunately, I hadn't rested long enough to recover and didn't even have the strength to stand up, let alone chase after her.

"What book was she talking about? Which book exactly?"

As for Adrian, he was even more clueless. Plus he didn't want to leave me alone, so he could only watch her disappear at the end of the passage.