Ritual’s Success

He had finally succeeded! The last requirement to initiate the ritual was now in his hands! The Mana Crystal of a True Dragon! After battling the nightmare of a creature in the Begaritto continent for three days and three nights, he had finally managed to best it thanks to the cave-in that had distracted the creature long enough for him to land a well placed gravity boosted stone cannon spell right inside it's large snout, directly destroying it's brain in the resulting explosion, thus instantly killing it.

He was no fool, he in his old body wouldn't have managed it if it wasn't for the rapidly diminishing mana in the world as dragons were magical creatures that can siphon the mana in their environment and thus they were severely weakened in the absence of mana.

The battle had taken a lot out of him but he had gotten out of it mostly unharmed thanks to his well timed Almighty Push spell; his life's work, a highly complex repelling gravity spell he had recently perfected. It had taken more than thirty years of daily practice for him to get it right. He had come up with the idea of it from an anime he had used to watch from back in his first world and thanks to this spell combined with his use of future sight, he was basically untouchable.

He had to rest for a week after the fight just to get his mana reserves back up to shape for the upcoming ritual, but it was a small price to pay for what he would potentially get out of it if everything worked out as he had intended.

So there he was in the place where it all started, where the Buena village once existed, the place Rudeus was born. After decades, the landscape was barely even recognizable. New rivers and lakes were formed replacing the old ones, new trees and bushes sprouted from the ground where once farmlands and cobblestone paths lay connecting a warm community of villagers together and providing for them. Wildlife and critters long having laid ownership over where hundreds of families used to live, leaving nothing of it's previously vibrant atmosphere.

It was at such a place where he had found himself in after his latest victory in the Begaritto continent. He had created a makeshift underground base right under where his home used to be located in order to conduct his last and final ritual in this timeline. The reason he had chosen here of all places was not just to reduce the amount of mana required for it's proximity to his eventual destination, but also if everything went wrong, he at least wanted his dead body to rest here where he felt he truly belonged… At least until the loop ends. Even his home back in Ranoa where he had built a wonderful life with Sylphy and Roxy couldn't come close to this place, though maybe that has more to do with the fact that it was tainted with the memory of Roxy's death… But here? This was the place where he was once saved… Where someone like him was accepted… Where once a boy named Rudeus gave it his all and so here he shall die if death ever decides to claim him.

After placing the recently acquired mana crystal on the edge of the formation, the old man struggled to keep his balance but eventually managed to stand inside a complex magic circle carved right in the middle of the formation. His old bones had been cranking and screaming from overuse these past few days yet nothing registered on the man's stoic lifeless face for he was determined to finish the ritual at any cost. For he had half a centuries worth of deep hatred and resentment to fuel his motivation. In his mind, nothing else mattered but the completion of this final act against the gods, his magnum opus, for he knew his time was coming to an end soon so he had to act fast before time overcame him. It was ironic when he thought about it. In order to not be overcome by time itself, he had to be the one to overcome it!

What he had been doing for the past forty years had been leading up to this moment. After loosing Eris, he had been obsessed with time travel and aimed to achieve it no matter what it took! But it was extremely hard as Hitogami was on his case at every turn. Wherever he hid, Hitogami's apostles somehow always found him. He had to change locations multiple times just to stay safe. That's when he had learnt of Hitogami's reach and omnipresence. So he had repeatedly tried to seek asylum in Perugius's castle as that was the only place safe for him but was denied at every turn as he was viewed poorly for the massacres he had committed in the Millis Continent.

Now that he thought about it, even he was shocked with himself after the deed. After the knight templar of Millis used his absence in order to raid his home in Ranoa as an act of revenge and lesson for stealing their secrets, brutally murdering many of his family members as a result, and having already lost both his wifes he had unleashed his wrath upon the Millis Continent. With ruthlessness he didn't know he had possessed, he brought entire cities to ruin with King and higher rank magic, nearly bringing a whole nation to the brink of destruction, millions dying in the aftermath. Only after seeing to the complete destruction of the Knight Templar did he stop, leaving the broken country to heal. But his enemies didn't just stand still, they acted whenever and wherever he wasn't present, probably with Hitogami's influence. People who knew him, who cared for him and who he cared about were brutally massacred one by one and displayed like cattle for all to see… He still couldn't forget Elinalise's lifeless form hanging just like her granddaughter, his dear wife Sylphy had been… He had failed them… No matter how powerful he had become, he was only one person and fighting against a whole nation, not to mention a divine being set on making his life a living hell was just too much even for him.

Before he knew it, he had become the enemy of the world, killing people left and right. His morals had degraded to such an extent that he even remembered killing off a bunch of adventures just because they annoyed him a little. He was also indiscriminate when hunting for apostles, not caring about how many innocent bystanders die. He had felt bad about it at first but later on rationalized that only by being ruthless in his methods could he secure enough time for his research which had the potential to undo all of his wrongs. Also if he didn't reduce the number of apostles at all costs, it would be much easier for them, with the help of Hitogami, to trace his hidden location only to bring deadly forces from all around the continent to destroy him. Thankfully he was good with sensor magic circles so he would escape each time without harm no matter what they sent at him, but a few times it was a close call.

He could build teleportation circles as well thanks to getting his hands on an ancient text belonging to the elven race he had found in a ruin, but Hitogami would just use his apostles to deactivate them so after a few failed attempts he gave up. He doesn't remember how many times he had to change locations, but only after he had succeeded in a ritual which would protect his mind from the Divine that he had succeeded in keeping himself hidden.

The ritual was one he had invented using many other dragon race rituals as his guide. Of course such powerful rituals required heavy prices such as how Kishirika Kishirisu, the former Demon Empress was forbidden to ever acquisition wealth, resulting in her 'starving phases', a particular knowledge he had come to learn after he had successfully seduced her one night, giving her a good tumble under the sheets!

He on the other hand had to sacrifice his right to use magical enhancers such as Magical Staffs and equipments like the ones Cliff had developed. It was a devastating blow for his fighting prowess and especially defence as he had no touki. But he had to do it if he was to continue on his research on developing a time travel ritual.

After the success of the ritual to keep his mind safe, Hitogami could still locate him but as he couldn't read his mind, Rudeus would just easily escape with his teleportation magic circles he had littered many continents with which couldn't be trace by said God! So due to the impracticality of chasing after him, Rudeus was finally left alone to finally focus on his research.

In the leading years, his time was either spent on exploring ancient ruins or researching in one of his temporary bases. Of course with the occasional dalliance with the local beauties… He had tried to contact Orsted to ask for help in his research as he was a dragonkin and their race was well known for their primacy in magical rituals. Not to mention he too was an enemy of Hitogami, but somehow the Dragon God evaded him for some reason. When he had asked Kishirika Kishirisu, she said that the Dragon God had the ability to block any clairvoyance, but for some reason when she used her All-Seeing-Eyes, she was not blocked by anything with Orsted nowhere to be found, which means that somehow the Dragon God must have passed on from this world. And the added knowledge that the sightings of the Dragon God had stopped had pretty much confirmed it.

What had disturbed him was the correlation between Orsted's time of disappearance and the date of the beginning of the death of Mana in the world. Yes, for some time now all the mana around the world were simply evaporating. Slowly mages were loosing their powers, monsters were dying off, and magical plants could no longer be cultivated. Even Kishirika's powers were beginning to fail her. Funnily enough he was unaffected by it. He had attributed it to his Lapras Factor which must have some properties he was unaware of that could resist such changes or maybe it was because he was originally from another world.

It wasn't until recently that he was finally able to gather enough knowledge about the civilization of the dragonkin which he had chanced upon in one of his explorations of a hidden catacomb that belonged to the race. All these years he had always wondered why the mana would die out and if it had anything to do with the disappearance of Orsted, but now he was certain. Orsted, the Dragon God was a time looper!

He was using the whole world's mana supply and source as a fuel for his ritual to send him and only his memories back! Rudeus did not know how many times the Dragon God had looped, but he remembered now that then when he cornered them, the Dragon God had mentioned that Paul should only have two daughters after hearing his name and who his parents were. At the time he thought he was speaking gibberish and hadn't paid any mind to it, but now it makes so much more sense! It means that he didn't exist in the previous loops and considering Nanahoshi's and his own existence who were most probably the main reason for the Metastasis event as the pair of them were the only foreign entities in this world as far as he was concerned, it can easily be concluded that no mass teleportation happened in the previous loops! This brings up many potential problems! Was Orsted the one responsible for it? But Nanahoshi fervently denied Orsted's involvement, saying that even he was quite surprised buy it. Then it must have been cause by some higher power that is outside of time! Then if so, what was the guarantee that the powers that influenced the current loop by bringing in foreign entities from another world couldn't just not do the same in the next loop!

So this loop was about to end and he didn't even know if there will be a Rudeus alive for him to send his memories back to in the next loop! It didn't matter if there was 'a baby Rudeus', if his own soul was not there, then what would happen would be a Rudeus with his memories which wouldn't be him.

But there was nothing he could do, he didn't have much time left so he needed to hitch a ride on the Orsted bus so to speak or else his family's safety would not be in his control as he would likely make the same mistakes after the new loop started, with no memories of his failures… Of course, provided he even does exist at the time…

As he had already made some major headways in time travel research, all he had to do was to hitch a ride using Orsted's ritual as the primary focus. That brings him back to the present as he pulled out an eloquent knife he had kept for ritual purposes out of his pocket and without any hesitation opened a deep cut on his arm, filling the carved runes with his blood. And from the looks of it, it was going to take some time as the whole room was technically a magic circle. But it didn't bother the old man, on the contrary it was cathartic in a twisted sort of way as he watched his own blood slowly travel through the carved lines and converge with many others, forming into countless intricate shapes as the ruins began to glow a deep blood red. Feeling proud of his life's work, he sighed in relief as the first stage of the ritual was now complete.

And he was right to be proud of it as for the very first time in history, a 'three dimensional in time' type magic circle was being used. A magic circle array coined by him as many layers of magic circles which interlaced with each other not just in the three dimensions but also in time as well to form many complex runic shapes. They began glowing one after another, sucking mana out of both the present and the future state of the mana stone which worked on the principle of duplication of any mana it comes into contact with apart from the already duplicated. So he had monstrous amounts of mana available at his disposal!

The runes now changed their previously blood red glow into a blue hue as the mana fed the formation. These runic shapes were only known by those select few who delved deep enough into the arcane to be of the ancient dragonkin alphabet. Even they, the so-called almighty dragonkin, hadn't thought of using it in such a way as any records he could find about their magic circles and rituals seem to suggest that they were stuck with the three dimensional formations and had been in stagnation for a very long time. And his research on their time travel ritual suggested that their methods, though ingenious for their time was awkward at best.

Firstly they could only turn back a certain amount of time, approximately 200 years, nothing more or nothing less. It also presented the obvious problem that he was not of the long lived dragon race, but a mere human! Meaning, he did not even exist at that time! Nor did he have the means to acquire the mana which the ritual demands! Secondly they had to resort to using most of the available mana that exists in the world just to time leap two hundred years back which was extremely inefficient compared to his own ritual which could time leap to a time of his choosing! Though his was not a standalone time leap ritual, but an auxiliary one connected to Orsted's. And lastly and the worst in his opinion, was that the user's mana recovery rate would be permanently reduced after the leap! How much reduction he didn't know, but maybe that was the reason why Orsted didn't gave it his all in fights, to preserve as much mana as possible… But thankfully with his ritual, he could gain all the benefits of Orsted's ritual without any of the negatives! The only obstacle he had was the required mana to send his memories to the past as well and now that he had obtained the Mana Core, he just had to gain access to Orsted's ritual, and use the mana core to duplicate enough mana from Orsted's to time leap to his desired time!

It had to be noted that it was only thanks to Nanahoshi and Cliff that he had made such rapid progress this quickly. Though they were long gone, their research and memories of their long hours of discussions had stayed with him and thanks to that, he was now here.

If only Nanahoshi could see this… If only he had tried, he could have prevented her death. But as with many people he cared about, he had failed her too. If only she was still alive, with this he could have sent her back to her world… Yes, hers but not his as he does not belong there anymore. He doesn't even remember his once parents' faces, even their names elude him. The Japanese language slowly forgotten, the 34 years old neet no longer exists as in his place, only a bitter old man forsaken by the gods, suffering in his regrets is what remains. Not yet broken though as he had come a long way for this day!

He cracked his knuckles, with determination burning in his haggard eyes he took a deep breath and muttered a pray to his Goddess, "Please let this work" as he began feeding huge amounts of his own mana to the formation for it to recognize him as the intended target.

If the magical formation works as he had intended, it would connect to the power source of Orsted's ritual which was currently in progress and he would finally be able to send his consciousness and memories to his past self just after he was reborn into this world. That is IF the Ritual doesn't reject the core of a true dragon. If it is rejected, then the second ritual would kick in and automatically initiate a last resort full body time travel using his own mana and life force if necessary as a fuel to the time just before of Roxy's death which, if he was being honest with himself, will most likely kill him but there was no other way! It was no time for second guesses! He had come this far after decades of research, blood and tears! He would either succeed or die, no in-betweens!

He watched as the ruins now glowed in pink, the sign that the last phase was over. He checked his other pocket where his now wrinkled hands felt the worn out texture of the cover of his faithful journal which he had kept since before everything went to shit. "I hope it doesn't come to that…" he mumbles as he felt a strange sensation envelope his heart. When he opened his eyes, he saw his body glowing brighter and brighter and the space itself fluctuating all around the room. With each heartbeat, he felt his thumping headache grow exponentially. And after only a few beats, the pain was simply unbearable as he screamed and instinctively tried flailing around but quickly found that he couldn't as he was forcefully fixed in his position by the ritual! The pain was unimaginable! He could feel the mana from the True Dragon entering his brain as if to squish it into a pulp. He couldn't think anymore as the only thing in his mind was pain. Thumping pain one second, then stinging, then thumping again only to revert back to stinging as he felt his brain turn to mush.

He didn't know how long it took but suddenly the pain had gone and he felt a strange wet sensation enveloping his face along with the rest of his body which was like the best feeling he had ever had in his life. Almost like getting out of a raging fire into the kind arms of the cold calming water! Then he heard it, a high pitched crying voice… Almost like… A baby's… His own?

He slowly opened his eyes and it didn't even take him a second to come into the unbelievable conclusion by what he had seen! He had certainly hoped for it, he had planned for it, he was desperate for it, but he didn't believe he could actually make it! As he had long since lost belief in himself for the many unforgivable mistakes he had made. For in front if him was the one scene he was sure he would never forget even if he had lived for tens of thousands of years… For in front of him was the scene where he was welcomed to this world with smiles and open arms and being accepted unconditionally! For in front of him were the two people much younger than him who had somehow entered in his heart and gained the right to call themselves his father and mother!

Rudeus hadn't viewed them as his real parents for the longest of times as he was a reincarnated man in a child's body and felt bad for them about it, but as time went on, he had come to love them as they had shown time and time again what he really meant to them and not too long after that, he had come to see them as his own parents. Maybe it had something to do with his fading memories from his old world, but the more probable reason in his opinion was the time when he had first acknowledged that he had became a father when he first looked at her, his Lucy's eyes. At the time he had just lost Paul who had sacrificed himself for him, dying while giving him a loving smile only a father could give to his son… As he gazed at those red eyes, he had asked himself how he should treat this child if she too were reincarnated like him, a useless stinking old man… As he gazed into his own reflection in her eyes which was the same beautiful colour as her mother's, the answer he had come up with was as shocking as it was liberating!

Why of course he would still love them as his own children and try to do his best to welcome them into this wonderful world that had once welcomed him as well and made him who he was today!

Since that day, he had accepted his role as the proud son of Paul and Zenith Greyrat and this time, he had every intention to truly be a part of their family and be the son they could be proud of!He had finally succeeded! The last requirement to initiate the ritual was now in his hands! The Mana Crystal of a True Dragon! After battling the nightmare of a creature in the Begaritto continent for three days and three nights, he had finally managed to best it thanks to the cave-in that had distracted the creature long enough for him to land a well placed gravity boosted stone cannon spell right inside it's large snout, directly destroying it's brain in the resulting explosion, thus instantly killing it.