Zeel's mind simulation ended and he murmured "So that's how everything went…. Time to work for a living,"

Zeel remained seated and did not budge an inch even as the golden-crystal bullet had moved another millimeter towards his head.

To Zeel, there was all the time in the world to tilt his head a couple of inches and avoid the bullet altogether.

Yet, just thinking about his own survival in a moment like this would be detrimental to his future plans.

He needed Jenny for a little while more, and everyone else could probably die without disrupting his plans too much.

Zeel felt a certain appreciation for the stillness of the world around him. Truly, he had been alone most of his life, but there was something different in being alone this time.

Maybe, it was because he was never truly alone since his emotions were birthed.

The lightning coursing through Zeel's veins just made everything that much more memorable… it made all memories more vivid and slower… infinitely slower.

Sitting there as his time in [Deep Time-Zone] was ticking down, Zeel recalled the first time he actually entered this Time-Zone.

For some reason, the story just popped into his mind, possibly the first time in History a Homo-Superior had thought of something they didn't wish to.

Zeel felt his mind drift, it was like his mind was no longer a place for just memories, but also the emotions that would accompany them.

His mind went from a black and white world to something bursting with colors… colors he found as distasteful as he found weakness, itself.

A memory surfaced from the depths of his mind, the first time Zeel used [Deep Time-Zone] was to watch Alice and Elizabeth sleep soundly next to him during his time in The Mysterious Island Universe.

For some strange reason at that time, he sketched the sleeping faces of both Alice and Elizabeth into a nearby book Alexander kept.

The drawing was so exact, so bursting with color and recognition, Zeel even kept the illogical piece of paper in his storage dimension ever since.

Zeel remembered the feeling at that time, it was like he wanted to immortalize that moment for as long as he lived… or will live, which was never expected to be exceptionally long.

Maybe that was the reason he felt so compelled to immortalize Alice's and Elizabeth's likeness onto an antiquated form of human remembrance.

It wasn't long after his drawing went missing from their shared storage dimension, no doubt Alice and Elizabeth had found it to their liking.

There were about ten seconds remaining before staying in his [Deep Time-Zone] would bring Zeel pain, and that was more than enough time to complete what needed to be done.

Zeel was even careful not to breathe, his earlier talking had already caused an air distortion that could possibly become an air bullet when the time was up.

In his [Deep Time-Zone], Zeel had to be exceptionally careful about how he affected the outside world.

If he moved from his seating position, he had little doubt that the plane would be destroyed as the metal warped under the intense frictional forces his body would produce by simply moving.

"First things first," Zeel mumbled, gathering a breath of air from his lungs where it was stored.

Luckily, Homo-Superiors didn't need to breathe or really had a heart per se. Breathing was just a mechanism the nanites required to produce more energy for the body.

Zeel had spent so much time among Alice and Elizabeth that the line between his Superior species and humans had become blurred so much.

Slowly, Zeel titled his head upward slightly and blew the air from his mouth onto the golden crystal bullet Jenny had fired.

Zeel was careful to blow the air in such a direction that Jenny would not be affected by the backlash.

After all, even the act of exhaling in his [Deep Time-Zone]would produce an air bullet that could bore through a couple layers of steel in Normal-Time.

Zeel watched as the bullet aimed at his head was slightly displaced and nodded in appreciation at his efficient calculations.

Next, Zeel maneuvered his fingers ever so slightly and sent a flick of lightning flashing through the air towards Ahmanet's tomb.

Of course, death energy was not subjected to any Time-Zone since it was not within Zeel's domain, so he knew that such an action would have limited effects.

The moment Zeel's lightning touched the Sarcophagus, the runes absorbed it and became supercharged, managing to fade the black corruption of death from the runes for a little longer.

Zeel glanced at Greenway and the other soldiers around, thinking of ways he could utilize them efficiently, but that would require that he protected them from their inevitable doom.

Sure, he could protect Jenny but anyone else would become a burden instead of an asset.

Zeel sighed in lament of having to allow such useful human resources to die.

'Imagine all the government access codes they have?' Zeel thought 'The nanites won't be subjected to Restrictions because I'd have full access!'

Zeel then focused on the missiles that had been fired to destroy the plane.

Codes flickered across his pupils as the missiles were given a basic command – 'Head back to where you came from and explode!'

Zeel would have liked to give more complex instructions to the missiles, but using his nanites for 'bad' things like hacking missiles brought with it an uncomfortable headache.

There was one more task to complete, Zeel just turned his gaze in Chris's direction and already could feel the dark energy affecting the latter's fragile mind.

The death energy in the plane should have driven everyone crazy at most, but if you had an exceptionally weak mind and will, then the death energy would latch onto your mind like a disease.

It was one of those many unexplainable phenomena that humans described as 'demons' or 'possessed'.

Exactly like what was now happening to Chris Vail.

Zeel felt a little touched that Chris was so burdened by the loss of his friend, Nick, that he had a mental breakdown and also chose death.

Had Zeel known that Chris's mind was fragile because of inheriting Nick's debts, he would have immediately recanted his impression.

Maybe he was not such an expert on human connections as he previously thought.

Confirming that Chris would die, Zeel felt relieved and relaxed his body back into his seat. He was preparing to drop out of his [Deep Time-Zone] into a much more relaxed [Early Time-Zone].

In [Early Time-Zone], Zeel could move around freely, not worrying about the plane melting under his every step.

It was at this time that something strange occurred, something so strange that even Zeel was startled by the event.

Zeel was backed by his experiences and the knowledge of what was once a top race in the Multiverse, Homo-Superiors.

Yet, what he witnessed was alarming.

At first, Nick's body just twitched briefly and Zeel's eyes opened as wide as saucers.

Zeel had a few of Alice's dominions as she did with his, so he could vaguely recognize the sensation of an appearing soul.

It was like a sudden fullness was sensed from Nick's body once more, but that was impossible because Nick was not just dead – he was killed by a God!

Next, Nick unrolled himself from the ritualistic cloths and stood up in the near-frozen world like it was just another Sunday.

There was visible confusion on his face, and the dried blood from where Zeel pierced his heart was still there but there was no wound visible.

Zeel stared at Nick surprised, maybe even having a glitch or two appear in the codes that governed his mental faculties.

The surprise was not about Nick being able to move within a different Time-Zone, Nick was a Death Herald, so Zeel's divinities would have a reduced effect on him.

What startled Zeel was the fact that Nick was able to revive himself, or the curse Ahmanet had placed on him was able to revive him.

A regular death was indeed possible for a resurrection, but being killed by a God was a totally different ball game. It should have been impossible to be resurrected when your killer was a God.

That brought some startling insights to Zeel's mind.

Ahmanet was stronger than him, so he was deluding himself thinking that he would be able to keep her contained within the Sarcophagus.

He had a better chance of flying over a volcano right now and just tossing her in and hoping for the best possible outcome.

His next insight was the fact that Seth was marginally more powerful than he had estimated just a couple of minutes ago.

However, even more shocking than all those realizations was the fact that Nick had undergone a complete resurrection without even a fraction of his soul missing.

Humans had three souls which meant they had three chances to make it into heaven or drift into oblivion.

Nick was not missing even a piece of his soul despite being dead for a couple of hours.

Wasn't this exactly what Zeel needed to resurrect Aurolana, his soulmate? Wasn't he searching for exactly such a technique to resurrect her so that the darkness around his soul would disappear?

'This guy is a treasure trove,' Zeel mused internally, already imagining the twenty thousand experiments he would perform on Nick's body to unearth the truth behind this phenomenon.

Gods be damned, Heaven be damned, Revenge be damned! Aether be… well, Zeel couldn't exactly allow the Homo-Superior Aether to remain in Seth's hands, but it was never too late for a gentleman to take his revenge.

Now, he would be able to live that long anyway if he figured out what made Nick tick.

Zeel could grab Nick, jump this Universe, research Nick, come back with a resurrected Aurolana and fuck this Universe up without any problems.

Apollonians could not be restricted by the Laws of Heaven, so Aurolana was not limited as Zeel was.

Zeel was so focused on the rapid ideas that he lost concentration of his Time-Zone a second too early, which put a major blight in his perfect calculations that would have allowed him to avoid catastrophe.

By the time Zeel realized that he was in Normal-Time, it was already too late.