"Darn!"

"Why can't I still open this darn gate...!"

After a violent shaking, Merka left a deep pit on the door leading to level β.

His long, bamboo-like arm plunged deeply into the door, about three feet in, but could go no further.

Merka sighed heavily and slowly withdrew his blood-soaked arm from the door.

He witnessed in shock as the terrifying inorganic creature in front of him gathered its tentacles, picked up the scattered pieces on the ground, and effortlessly repaired itself.

"..."

Silent in front of the gate for a while, Merka sighed.

Leaning on his crutch, he exerted all his strength on the shaft of the small axe, panting heavily for quite a while.

The disorienting feeling of weightlessness, almost like hypoglycemia, seemed to pour cold water from his trouser legs into his clothes, leaving him suspended for a whole day and night.

He felt his mind becoming more and more fuzzy, his thoughts increasingly unclear.

He realized that if this continued, he might soon become a lifeless walking corpse.

"Ugh, hah."

Dragging his weary body, Merka descended the stairs.

He knew he had to push himself harder.

"I remember... I should have gone to the Curseborn district by now."

"I need to draw some power from there again."

No time to waste, with his goal set, Merka quickly headed towards the Hope District.

In the Hope District, Merka saw his past self. Without hesitation, he resorted to old tricks again, trying to force him to use the backdrop.

"Your time is up, Merka."

"Unless... you dare to use the backdrop again."

Merka, with an air of a villain, chuckled lightly, applying pressure on his past self.

He understood himself very well, confident that he would not give up the fight in any form, so he could exert pressure freely without worrying about whether he could handle it.

The Merka he knew would find a way out, surviving through the cracks of terror and the brink of death.

Unfortunately, Merka forgot that at this moment, his past self no longer had the backdrop.

Finally, after a brief scare towards himself, Merka remembered this fact.

Yet, he thought to himself, since he had already gained the ability to use the backdrop.

Why not just use it directly to catch Merka.

Just capture Merka, utilize the backdrop, and get stronger in whichever way he desired...

But much to his regret, in the short time Merka spent pondering, he let his past self slip away again.

The two of them were back to their old ways, chasing each other in the vast smoke-free zone.

Merka unexpectedly couldn't catch up with himself for a moment.

He was just too relentless.

Looking from an objective perspective, he couldn't believe how difficult he was to deal with.

"Wait... why do I feel like something's not quite right."

"Within this cycle..."

"I seem to be missing... missing some details."

Merka suddenly realized, finally remembering something he had overlooked all along.

He recalled entrusting Lillith to reverse the cause and effect of turning himself into the Owl God before understanding the secret of the Owl God.

The cause of this matter was likely himself.

If he had planted this request in his past subconscious using aside, then everything made sense, the logic was complete.

He dared not think about what might happen if the logic didn't come full circle in this cycle of cause and effect reversal.

Would he cease to exist, or even disappear altogether?

Merka became anxious, desperate to catch up with himself.

At last, in the final moment when his past self flew into the observatory, Merka transformed part of his body into a giant owl head, breaking through the observatory's door and splattering the black tide onto his past self.

Using this black tide, he modified his own subconscious.

Adding the final piece to close the loop of this logic.