The Ad Infinitum had pulled back all of its omnipotent awareness that it had bestowed upon Darcie right after she had gotten her hands on the Wand of Salazar Slytherin.
No.
It was not Salazar Slytherin's Wand. Not anymore.
The moment Darcie had finished imbuing her Will into the Snakewood tree and the Basilisk's Horn Core that it carried within it — by combining her innate magical rules of Specific, Belief, and Intention with Parseltongue and the Wandlore of Core Resurrection Method — she had become the sole master of that Wand.
After that moment Darcie had passed out at Ilvermorny and Black had become a toy.
Had it not been to avoid a coincidence, no matter how small, the Ad Infinitum would have sent Black into total hibernation, too, because it couldn't spare even a fraction of its processing power.
With the help of Lucky Intuitions, the Ad Infinitum had begun dissecting, analyzing, and projecting the magical experience Darcie had undergone while simultaneously collecting an enormous amount of data.
This was it.
This was the moment Kai had been waiting years for!
The sole reason he had chosen to let Darcie be Darcie, instead of controlling her constantly, was the Core Resurrection.
Ever since Kai had learned of Ollivander's Wandlore, he had been using almost ninety-nine percent of Ad Infinitum's capabilities to decipher the Core Resurrection Method.
So, when Darcie finished her life's greatest mission at Ilvermorny, the AI pounced upon the data it had collected through her like a starving beast.
Data on how a Core was connected to Nature.
Data on how a Core behaved within a Wand Wood.
Data on how a wilted Core resurrected, becoming stronger.
And data on millions upon millions of tiny fluctuations of Concepts, whether related to Mana, Life, or even Breath, that were involved in the process.
Even for Ad Infinitum, merely sorting out this data related to the grand magic of Core Resurrection needed days.
Nothing must be lost, the AI had known.
Everything had to be compiled in a meaningful manner, combining it with the mysteries it had already deciphered over the last few years, before finally beginning its analysis.
And with that came vulnerability.
Both Kai, who had voluntarily allowed himself to hibernate as Darcie, and Black, who had become a walking, tired zombie, entered their most vulnerable state… right after almost losing their lives to Darth Kars' Void Fist.
Neither of the two could spare the slightest thought for just about anything.
Even the hundreds of thousands of Echoes that he had implanted into Characters and Contestants across the Multiverse stalled, becoming junk in the mindscapes.
Kai didn't know what was happening in his Verse Fusion Bubble.
He didn't know that Shinobu was cursing him, screaming as she experienced an unnaturally long period of labor.
He didn't know what was happening in the Primordial Tower, either.
He couldn't even register the blinking of a Notification as Celestials tried to contact him through the Primordial Tower Trade Market… at least a dozen times.
And letting himself voluntarily fall into such a listless state seemed like a huge mistake, especially at his level, with him being surrounded by enemies across worlds and dimensions.
However, there was a reason Kai had allowed it to happen anyway.
First and foremost, the greatest and closest threat to him was the half-destroyed Death Star, hanging murderously in space next to the planet.
Death had already explained why He couldn't initiate an attack on Darth Kars.
At least, He wouldn't do it unless the Sith did something that went against the Great Old Contract.
Surprisingly, attacking a planet and reducing it to ashes was well within Darth Kars' limits — the limits that had been bestowed upon him by his Item, the Death Star.
Timeline couldn't do anything, either.
As long as there was no Character outside the planet, Her authority was limited to the planet, too.
In such a case, there truly was no escaping the calamity, it seemed.
The question was — why hadn't Darth Kars already acted on his rage, firing the world-ending weapon?
It was because a winged angel had appeared between the planet and the Death Star.
An angel who could hold his own against even the likes of Darth Kars and was more than capable of tanking the Death Star's attack, countering it, and obliterating it to smithereens.
Red Sun — a Top-level 12th Floor Contestant — the newest member of the Billion Club!
Bounty — 1.6 Billion Berries!
Leaving the security of the Harry Potter timeline in Red Sun's hands, Kai had only one thing left that he cared about.
Shinobu Kocho.
Or, specifically, the child she carried within her.
The child — destined to leave a mark in the Verse Fusion Bubble — destined to tower above anyone else — destined to die… and resurrect — bringing Kai's greatest scheme to completion — making the Stormborn Clan members citizens of the Primordial Tower.
That child was Kai's legacy.
Even the matter of Core Resurrection wasn't as important as that.
Moreover, the threat of Darth Kars destroying the Harry Potter timeline was not nearly as large as the Verse Fusion Timeline-backed Demon King acting against the Demon Slayers — against Shinobu — against his legacy, in his absence.
Even if Kai had an intuition that the new Muzan wouldn't act, not this soon, he knew that intuitions could be wrong, too, especially when they were about eldritch entities like Deep Ones and Timelines.
So, naturally, just as in the case of Red Sun, Kai had taken similar steps for Shinobu's safety, too.
Steps that ensured that no one in the Verse Fusion timeline could lay a finger on his wife and child… on his legacy… not until that person had a strength that was well above a 13th Floor level.
With the Verse Fusion timeline's Characters' strength tied to Kai's own, he knew the chances of the latter happening were nil.
So, for the coming week, Kai and Black remained like that, the Ad Infinitum pouring everything into sorting, deciphering, and analyzing the Core Resurrection Method so much… that it even gained a percentage in its Advanced Proficiency.
Of course, in doing that, Kai also heralded his doom…
… the Celestials deciding against him upon not receiving his timely response!