Everything ended.
When Rhode came back to his senses, he had returned to the library. The only difference now was the sleeping young lady in his arms. He felt her weight on the crook of his arms, as well as her scent. If this were to happen under normal circumstances, he would have enjoyed it. But now, he solemnly placed her on the chair and shortly after, the air around them vibrated, and the other Alice walked out of the thin air and went up to him. She stooped over and gave a respectful bow.
“Thank you for your assistance, Your Majesty.”
“You’re welcome. I have something important to ask you.”
“I understand. Please wait a moment.”
Alice nodded. She approached and touched her body on the chair with both hands. Then, she closed her eyes and her body emanated the dazzling brilliance of light specks and illuminated the dim library. The brilliance merged into an enormous sphere of light that enveloped Alice and her body completely.
“————”
At this moment, a huge magic ritual appeared in midair and shrouded the sphere of light. Shortly after, the radiance dispersed and strong airflow shook the shelves. The mysterious magic ritual disappeared and apart from the table and chair on which the asleep Alice was sitting on, there was nothing else.
“Argh…”
After a few seconds, Alice opened her eyes and saw Rhode standing before her. She slowly stood to her feet and gave a humble bow.
“The fusion was successful. Thank you for your assistance, Your Majesty.”
“You’ve thanked me just now, so you don’t have to repeat yourself.” Rhode heaved a sigh of relief before gazing at her sternly. “I have an important question. I guess you understand what I mean.”
“Of course, Your Majesty.”
Alice responded without a change in her expression. She waved and gestured with her right hand and a chair appeared behind Rhode out of thin air. The empty cups on the rather messy table were refilled with piping hot red tea. Alice smiled and laid down her right hand.
So this is her ability…
Rhode looked at the teacups before sitting down on the chair. Even though Alice didn’t explain further, based on his judgment of Deity Wardens like Marlene and Christie, Alice who held the ability to grasp history couldn’t possibly only possess the harmless ability of hiding herself in the past. Perhaps she might also be able to use certain ways to repeat history in the present time. Based on this point, she definitely wasn’t one to mess with.
The images that he had witnessed while helping Alice search for her body definitely weren’t something that he could forget about in a flash. It was especially so for the unexplainable scenes that appeared in the Deepest Labyrinth. He was pressing for an answer now.
“I know what you want to ask, Your Majesty. But before that, please pardon my rudeness. May I know how much you understand about the Dragon Soul Continent?”
“Understand?”
Rhode knitted his brows as he felt that this topic seemed to be unrelated to his doubts. But he eventually gave his honest answers. In fact, this was the most basic of basics for any player. The Void Dragon opened up a territory of Order from a land of Chaos. The five Creator Dragon Souls created heaven and earth with their own means. Their souls became the dragon soul protections and they used the Seven Fantasy Boundaries and Four Main Elemental Planes of Existence as the basis to create this world. In the deep underground, the territories of demons and devils bordered along Chaos. Ever since this world existed, both sides had clashed in endless battles. As for the surface, it consisted of the Country of Light, the Country of Darkness, and the Country of Law that were established by the Creator Dragon Souls… At least, this was what was written on the official website.
“That’s just the history of future generations.”
Alice extended her arms and a heavy book with historical images appeared in midair and floated between her arms.
“Initially, after Her Majesty created this space of Order to avoid Chaos, the other four Creator Dragon Souls submitted to her. Back then, the Dragon Soul Continent was a territory belonging to my lord and everyone surrendered to her. There were no exceptions for anyone.”
“In other words…”
Rhode suddenly recalled a mission that he completed with Marlene. Back then, he unintentionally entered the ruins and that was when one of his cards awakened. Not only that, but he also gained new strength. According to Marlene, it was one of the ruins of the Fassicarl Kingdom and it was just as Alice had mentioned. Its ruins and signs of civilization were distributed in every corner of the Dragon Soul Continent. If it were just as Alice mentioned,that Dragon Soul Continent only had one kingdom, this mystery was then resolved. But…
“Since that’s the case, why did it split up later on?”
“It didn’t split up. It was merely entrusted to others.”
Alice spoke and flipped the page.
“You still don’t understand, Your Majesty? Why did we build the continent?”
“Why? Isn’t that simple…” Then, Rhode came to a sudden realization. Indeed, he had never considered this important question. Although he found many clues and answers in the past, he realized that things weren’t as simple as he imagined until Alice laid out all the facts. The establishment of the Dragon Soul Continent was to resist Chaos and give a survival space to the people of Order. The dragon soul protections built Order like an egg shell, at the same time resisting Chaos. Once the dragon soul protections lost their effects, Chaos would infiltrate through the gaps. This was common sense for players and they experienced it in the later stages of the game. But… Rhode discovered that he had neglected the fact that perhaps this continent was much more fragile and dangerous than he had imagined.
Take Earth, for instance. With the protection of the atmosphere, humans were able to live on the surface. But if they lost the atmosphere, without the support of devices, they couldn’t survive in a vacuum. On the contrary, unless humans destroyed the atmosphere themselves, they would hardly feel threatened.
So what if the Dragon Soul Continent was Earth while the universe was Chaos?
The universe tried to eliminate the atmosphere and destroy all creatures on Earth. If that happened, would Earth survive? On the contrary, the Dragon Soul Continent had been fighting against Chaos, so just how much Chaos were they facing?
Unlimited.
Rhode felt a chill run down his spine. A scene that had his hair standing on end instantly appeared in his mind—a beautiful globe floating in the universe while all around, the universe was shifty, turbid Chaos. It was as though a marble was thrown into a dangerous sea of raging waves and reefs. What made things worse was that the sea was also filled with the consciousness to destroy the marble.
Under such a circumstance, the fact that the Dragon Soul Continent hadn’t been smashed to bits by Chaos was too miraculous.
“Yes, it is just as you think, Your Majesty. The day will come when the Dragon Soul Continent fails to stop the end of the past and future and crumples. This world ultimately isn’t a temporary shelter and can’t exist forever. What the five Creator Dragon Souls had to do was find an alternative path for survival. For that, they left this world and their powers behind to preserve the dragon soul protection. This was how the dragon soul heirs came about. Although they were named dragon soul heirs, they were only vessels to maintain stability and absorb power.”
After plainly describing the dragon soul heirs without the use of respectful speech, Alice flipped the page again.
“But the will of life can be changed. When the time is long enough to erase warnings of the past, foolish and meaningless battles will resurface. They forgot about their responsibilities and indulged in meaningless battles and evidence, wreaking havoc and doing despicable things with powers that don’t belong to them. But… this is just the desires of mortals and… Isn’t worthy of a mention.”
With just those last five words, Alice obliterated the hard work and results that all the dragon soul heirs achieved ever since the Creation War.
“So everything that you did in the past was for…”
Rhode spoke.
“Since it was inevitable for the world to perish, it only meant that the trajectory of fate for the Dragon Soul Continent was fixed. As long as history repeats itself over and over again with sufficient changes to make a difference, it may crumple the trajectory of fate, which in turn gives us the future that we desire. As a result, we return to the past repeatedly and take different decisions, hoping that the trajectory of fate will shift. That was our plan.”
“So, did you succeed?”
Rhode said.
This time, Alice didn’t answer immediately. She pondered for a long while.
“We won’t have our answer until the real results are out.”
The black-haired young lady spoke with an unwavering tone.
