"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.

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"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.

"Who knows what she's up to now! If only Cyrae were here, at least she could follow and check what's happening!"

It was that same feeling again - felt like Nicola was hiding something from us after coming back. Anyway, this habit of only saying half a sentence before running off was really annoying.

But angry as we were, all we could do was wait for my body and power to recover.

...

Because I'd forced myself to use reality-changing power twice in a row, recovery took even longer this time. But after more than ten minutes, suddenly a sharp alarm sounded above the whole palace. From what the guards running outside were shouting, seems they'd discovered angels invading.

"Could Nicola have been discovered?"

I couldn't help exchanging looks with Adrian. We couldn't tell if the invading angel was Nicola who'd entered the passage, or Cyrae who'd volunteered earlier to destroy the barrier's supply formation.

Of course, what worried us most was the hurried footsteps coming from the corridor. They were heading our way - probably that Vice Captain coming back.

Dealing with just a vice captain would be piece of cake. But just in time my power had mostly recovered, and with this huge secret passage right in front of us, we should handle the most important thing first.

"Forget about him, let's go!"

Before the person could open the door, I grabbed Adrian's hand and rushed into the passage.

This was a narrow passage with very smooth walls and tiled stairs, showing that quite some effort was spent building it. But unfortunately there was no lighting inside, so we had to use our own light magic to see the path ahead.

"There's light ahead, must be the end!"

Luckily the whole passage wasn't too long. In less than a minute, Adrian saw the exit and we quickly rushed over.

"Eh? What is this place?"

After seeing the surroundings clearly, we realized we'd come out through a very elaborate door. The exit was on a huge, smooth platform with railings all around. Beyond the railings were lush cliff walls, and further away, a magnificent waterfall with mist everywhere.

"No way, who builds a passage leading to a rooftop?"

Standing by the railing looking down, Adrian couldn't help commenting in surprise. Turns out this platform was actually on top of a tall building, no wonder he was so shocked.

And this whole building was incredibly grand, both in decorative details and size. Looking around, it seemed to be built in an outdoor valley! Obviously we weren't in the capital's palace anymore.

"Must be Reider's trick - turns out that was a space-crossing passage directly connecting the palace to here!"

From observation, the passage we walked through should have been carved directly into the rock wall, then after some distance it connected to the cabinet in the palace through space magic.

We'd experienced too many crossings before, so it only took a little thought to figure out what was going on. Plus with Reider having "System" on his side, during his years as emperor, building this secret passage made perfect sense!

"I think I've heard of this place. If I'm not wrong, this should be the Ilandra Dominion Empire's royal villa! The Ilandra royal family is said to have several villas, and one of them was built in a valley not far from the capital Kyndrill. They say it's like spring all year round, with beautiful scenery... quite a few pictures have leaked out before!"

Adrian looked around the whole platform and quickly came to his conclusion.

Anyway, no matter what this place was, one thing was clear - although the capital had been tightly surrounded, the real target - former emperor Reider - had never been in the city at all, but was hiding outside! Even if the capital really fell, he could easily escape. Really cunning!

"Who are you, why are you here..."

As expected, not long after we arrived, the vice captain followed us here after discovering something was wrong. Unfortunately, as soon as he showed up, Adrian who was ambushing outside the exit knocked him out and threw him into the pond outside the railing.

"Looks like Nicola must have come here ahead of us? Strange! Why is it so quiet? Did they all go inside the building?"

I couldn't help but look with a headache at the main door leading inside the building. The whole villa was built against the mountain and was really huge. According to Adrian's knowledge, what we could see might only be part of it. Maybe the whole mountain was hollowed out - we had no idea what defenses might be inside!

Plus from Nicola's prediction, we probably were discovered as soon as we set foot here. Of course, neither Adrian nor I were afraid - if we were, we wouldn't have come here in the first place. Plus we had our trusty invisibility skills, so we rushed straight through the villa's main door without hesitation.