Another failure.

Goddess Ilias could only sigh in frustration as she viewed her chosen hero's recurring defeat at the hands of the self-proclaimed Queen Succubus from her perch in heaven.

"I'm gonna squeeze out a lot, Luka-Boy."

Ilias winced as she deactivated her crystal ball. She didn't need to see what came next. She already had, several times. And as satisfying as it would be to see Luka beat down that harlot properly, at this point, she wished he'd just accept her half-hearted surrender and move on to the rest of the so-called 'Heavenly' Knights.

The only silver lining was that being beaten by Alma Elma meant that the next loop would start much sooner than usual. She did not overly care about keeping her prey alive after all.

Unfortunately, that sentiment was unlikely to be shared by the others, excluding the Slime Queen Erubetie, who utterly despised humans.

...Probably. Being an amalgamation of thousands of slimes and other beings made her a bit unstable, and knowing Ilias' recent luck, Erubetie would keep Luka alive just to spite her, even unknowingly.

Ultimately, it did not matter much. Luka was never fated to live a long life. With the holy energy inside him gnawing away at his body, he would perish soon anyway. Not even Tamamo, with all her tricks and schemes, would be able to prevent his death. Only an angel could aid in controlling the rampaging energy, or better, a goddess like herself.

It was practically a miracle he made it this far in the first place. Without his Mother's keepsake suppressing his angel half, he would have died as a child, his body tearing itself apart. And had his father's side of the family been any lesser men, he would have likely expired in the womb. A feat he nonetheless managed to achieve on his journey, an event Ilias had to bear unfortunate witness to. And while it was far from pretty, it was somehow still not the worst thing to happen to him among his many failures.

Ilias had to take a moment to suppress both the memories and the accompanying bile that were threatening to emerge.

Now, all that was left were the Four Heavenly Knights and the Monster Lord. A mere five monsters, yet Ilias fully expected Luka to take another fifty loops or so. Despite the insightful Evaluation Meetings she offered to help against his foes, he often seemed to lose almost intentionally.

Even with her infinite patience only being rivaled by her beauty, power, knowledge, and compassion, she could not help but grow anxious as Luka neared the end of his journey and consequently annoyed when he kept failing.

For once Luka defeats the Monster Lord, he will have to make a choice.

And Ilias knew the likely result; he would forsake his Goddess. Deciding to ally with those vile monsters. He would betray her just like Heinrich did. Just like Michaela, Lucifina, and so many others did. And she hated it.

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But as distasteful as the thought of impending betrayal was, she had planned for it, steered him towards it even, as it was the keystone of her plans going forward.

However... if he defied her grim expectations and remained faithful instead by slaying the Monster Lord, she intended to thoroughly reward him for his service.

The flow of time started to reverse itself. It seemed like Alma Elma finished toying with Luka. Everything would return to the day that he started his journey. His memories would be mostly lost, only some vague impressions and the information from the Evaluations remaining. The only one to be truly unaffected would be Ilias herself.

Ilias was quite proud of Soul Return, which was likely the most complex spell she had ever cast. Far greater than even the casing of holy energy around the world that rendered angels virtually invulnerable, which itself was a feat only made possible thanks to the somewhat recently vacated spot of an equal to contest her dominion.

Even Ilias herself couldn't hope to comprehend all the intricacies of Soul Return as it had truthfully been largely trial and error, but by now, she was quite confident in it.

And it was a good thing too. While the loop was originally only meant to be a safety measure, it soon turned out to be a necessity as Luka failed over and over again.

And now it was time to once more express her disappointment in his repeated failure to do his duty, and so she waited for Luka's soul to arrive to begin his Evaluation.

It never came.

For the first time in millennia, Ilias felt genuine confusion.

The world had almost reset, and Luka's soul still hadn't reached her.

She reactivated her crystal ball to check on it.

The soul had barely moved from where Luka had perished, still connected to the succubus queen, and seemed to be struggling heavily to move from its spot. As Ilias considered interfering, space began to twist and crack. The distortion grew, and for a moment, it was impossible to see what was going on, and then, just as suddenly as it began, it ended, and all was back to normal. Only the soul there was no longer Luka's.

Ilias was shocked. Despite the rather absurd amount of contingency plans she had developed over the years, this was a development she actually hadn't planned for. Her first thought went towards outside interference, but there was no one left in this world who could perform such a feat, especially not with her spell already in progress.

Aliens? The odds for that were so low as to be laughable. She knew just how empty space was; after all, it had taken her eons of drifting before ever meeting another living being, which, to her massive disappointment, had been that wretch Alipheese, first of the Monsters and the complete antithesis to herself.

It was far more likely that this was caused by Soul Return, yet she had not noticed anything going wrong until it was already too late. On the contrary, it had worked flawlessly until now. Even up to the very point the souls were switched, there had been no malfunctions in the spell itself.

Unbeknownst to her, Soul Return had side effects.

The space-time continuum had to suffer the consequences of reversed time hundreds of times until it grew so weakened and strained that a hole ripped open right at the focal point of the loop, which just so happened to be Luka's soul.

Unfortunately, she would not get a chance to investigate the spell deeper as with its centerpiece missing, it slowly started to collapse. But it wouldn't just go down without at least completing its final task.

The new soul, now unconstrained, seemed like it had to make up for lost time, quite literally, as it was promptly catapulted towards its already waiting new body at a dizzying speed.

Ilias, still deep in thought, did not stop the soul. It bypassed the Evaluation and smashed right into Luka's body. And thus, a new loop began.