Ares looked down at the sword lodged in his chest, his expression frozen somewhere between disbelief and fury.
For a moment, he tried to move.
His hand lifted slowly, reaching toward Diana as if he would strike her down even now, even at the very end. The power around him flickered violently, lightning breaking apart across his armor as his strength began to fail.
But it wasn't enough.
His fingers trembled.
Then stopped.
The strength left his body all at once, and he collapsed forward, the weight of a god finally giving in to something greater than himself.
Diana stepped back as he fell, her grip still tight on the sword, her breathing heavy.
From a distance, Daniel watched the scene unfold, his gaze calm but focused.
"I knew she had it in her," he said.
The storm above began to fade, the thunder dying down as if the world itself was settling after the fall of the God of War.
Then, from the dead body, a golden ball of light rose, drifted toward Daniel, and entered his body.
[Congratulations: You have obtained the Mark of the Nexus]
Daniel frowned.
"…That's it?" he muttered. "No explanation?"
Before he could think further, a burning sensation spread across the back of his left hand. It wasn't painful enough to force him down, but it was strong enough to demand his full attention.
He looked down.
Black and golden markings began to form across his skin, shaping themselves into a perfect circle. One half glowed with intricate golden lines, arranged like a clock face, precise and structured. The other half remained dark, covered in shifting black patterns with no clear structure at all.
Daniel turned his hand slightly, studying it.
"What kind of weird mark is this?" he muttered under his breath. "No description, no explanation… nothing."
Then—
The black half changed.
Numbers began to appear.
Faint at first, then clearer, arranging themselves in a sequence that didn't look random. They shifted slightly, almost like coordinates trying to stabilize into something precise.
Daniel's eyes narrowed slightly as he stared at the shifting markings on his hand.
"Ummm…"
He clearly didn't understand what he was looking at.
Then the golden half—the clock-like pattern—reacted. A thin needle formed at its center and began to move forward with precise, ticking motion, each movement steady and deliberate as if measuring something beyond time.
Daniel's expression changed immediately.
"This doesn't look good," he said, watching it closely.
The needle kept moving.
At the same time, the black half of the mark responded. The numbers flickered rapidly before stabilizing into a fixed pattern, almost like coordinates locking onto a destination.
Then everything stopped.
The needle froze.
The numbers held.
And in the next instant, Daniel vanished from where he stood.
There was no flash, no warning, just sudden absence.
He reappeared inside a vast, shifting tunnel that didn't resemble any space he had ever seen.
Darkness stretched endlessly, but it wasn't empty. Streams of light twisted through it like galaxies pulled into motion, bending and folding in impossible directions as if space itself had become fluid.
Daniel was falling.
Not downward, not upward, but through something that felt like depth without direction.
"Holly shit… what the hell is happening?" he muttered, trying to orient himself as the space around him warped and shifted.
The sensation wasn't just movement; it felt like he was being dragged along a path he couldn't control, carried by something far beyond his understanding.
Instinctively, he tried to activate his system.
Nothing.
The dimensional travel ability was still on cooldown.
"Still four days…" he muttered, frustration creeping in. "You've got to be kidding me."
With no way to stop it, he looked back at his hand.
The mark was still there, glowing faintly..
"This mark… is it some kind of teleporter?"
Then the pull ended abruptly.
Daniel was thrown out of the tunnel and into open sky, the sudden shift from warped space to gravity hitting him instantly.
Wind rushed past him as he dropped, and below him a sprawling city came into view—dense, unfamiliar, and clearly not where he had been moments ago.
He adjusted his fall and angled downward, landing in a narrow alley with controlled force.
For a second, he just stood there, taking in his surroundings.
"What kind of world did I land in?" he muttered, glancing around at the buildings and the unfamiliar layout of the streets.
His attention shifted to his hand.
The mark had stabilized.
The black half no longer flickered, and the numbers had locked into place.
[5689]
The golden half showed the clock needle fixed at a quarter position.
Daniel studied it carefully, his mind already working through what he had just experienced.
"Hmmm… so the black half seems to represent space," he said slowly, "and the golden clock… time."
Curiosity replaced confusion.
"Let's see if I can mess with it."
He focused on the golden half and forced the needle backward.
The moment it moved—
The world snapped.
The alley vanished, replaced instantly by open sky.
Daniel was falling again.
The same city appeared below him, unchanged, as if everything had reset to an earlier point. He adjusted mid-air and dropped down once more, landing in the exact same alley, in the exact same position.
Nothing was different.
Not a single detail.
Daniel stood there for a moment, processing it.
Then a grin slowly spread across his face.
"Holy fuck…" he muttered.
"I've got a mini time machine."
*****
A/N: If you'd like to read ahead of the Webnovel release schedule, you can join my Patreon!
The Patreon version is 30 chapters ahead.
👉 patreon.com/Universal_Peace