"The wings of an oath engraved on my back, the feathers of hope born from tears~"
"..."
"How many endings and restarts, in ever-extending memories~"
"..."
After bidding farewell to God Mei, Bronya, and the others, Ryn hummed "The Beginning of the End" and set off on his return journey, carrying the dragon egg God Mei had chosen.
The world of the Fire Moths was still developing, constantly moving towards the future.
They were all working so hard, so bravely striving for the future, so how could he be content to fall behind.
———————————————
Some time later, Ryn's figure appeared in the Sea of Quanta.
It had been a long time since he last came to see Seele, so the first thing Ryn did after arriving in the Sea of Quanta was to look for her.
Ryn released the blessing left on him by the Great Will of the Sea of Quanta to sense Seele's location, but after a while, he only received a faint, weak signal.
"Seele...? This is... something's happened!"
Ryn's smile instantly vanished. He stored the dragon egg in his Stigmata Space, took out the Star Sword, and prepared for battle.
Following the weak signal he detected, Ryn folded the space of the Sea of Quanta and began to space-time jump towards the source of Seele's signal.
The time and space of the Sea of Quanta are relative to any specific world. A single step could lead to an ancient forest a billion years ago, or a desolate world a billion years in the future.
No one could say for sure, and Ryn couldn't guarantee it either.
But with the blessing of the Great Will of the Sea of Quanta, he essentially possessed something akin to the Eternal Pose from One Piece.
As long as he kept his destination in mind and followed the determined direction, even if time and space were chaotic, he would eventually reach his desired destination.
——————————————
In some unknown, shattered Bubble Universe, Seele lay in a corner, unconscious and her condition unknown.
The Cocoon of Finality's attack back then hadn't specifically avoided Seele, because 'It' knew that Ometeotl had to protect her.
If anything happened to Seele before the appointed time, both 'It' and Ometeotl would probably be slapped to death by the Sea.
So the Cocoon gave Seele a blessing, and Ometeotl protected Seele and teleported her to another Bubble Universe.
The sky hummed as a ball of light distorted it into a chaotic black dot, which then boomed open into a black hole tens of meters wide.
Ryn walked out slowly from the black hole, holding the Stars, its tip pointing to the ground, his eyes glowing red.
He looked around, then fixed his gaze on the unconscious Seele not far away.
"Hmm... her aura is not right..."
Ryn rushed to help Seele up, transferring life energy to her and checking her condition.
But even though Seele looked gravely injured and her consciousness was fading...
What Ryn found strange was... Seele didn't seem to have any injuries on her body?
It seemed it was Dark Seele who was injured!
"I swear, which bastard did this!"
Ryn gritted his teeth, unable to stop a curse from escaping. The Sea of Quanta was fraught with danger, so getting injured was normal.
But why was Seele relatively unharmed, while Dark Seele's soul was incomplete, shattered to the point where it could barely hold together!
If it were physical injuries, Ryn could heal them in minutes, but soul injuries...
The Authority of the Herrscher of Sentience? No, that thing manipulates the brain and alters consciousness... its effect on the soul is limited.
Ryn's research on souls was limited, and it was too late to start now. So the simplest method was to call for help.
"Big Sis Tianqi! It's an emergency, help!"
"Alright, alright... Sis is here~"
Tianqi cheerfully floated out of Ryn's body and circled around Seele a few times to check her condition.
Then, with a surprised look, she pressed her fingertips to Seele's pale face, sliding them across her cheek, neck, and down to the Stigmata on her chest.
"Tsk, this is serious! If you had come any later, that other person inside her might have perished."
Tianqi's blood-red pupils, just like Ryn's, began to spin like a spiral, and the surrounding scenery started to change rapidly.
The wind blew in reverse, fallen leaves returned to the trees, as if time was flowing backward.
Time was rewound, quickly returning to a specific moment in the past.
In a desolate and empty world, the figures of Kiana and Seele appeared together.
Though it was just one world, in the eyes of Ryn and Tianqi, it was as if two different worlds had appeared: one with a normal Kiana and Seele, and another with Sirin and Dark Seele...
The past cannot be changed, but precisely because it cannot be changed, it can be traced back!
Right now, Tianqi was using Seele as a base to reverse time, to look back at everything that had happened.
Seele and Kiana, Sirin and Dark Seele, two different pairs, two different worlds.
Seele and Kiana were attacked by an entity whose form was unclear. At the critical moment, Kiana teleported Seele away, while she herself was critically injured and near death.
In the other world, Sirin and Dark Seele overclocked the power within their bodies. In the end, Dark Seele was drained by Sirin to the point of weakness and fell into a deep sleep, while Sirin returned to Kiana's world, preparing to rescue her.
But then the vision cut off. Some things exist outside the river of time, and even if Tianqi reversed time, she could not observe their existence.
The moment Ryn saw Kiana get hurt, his grip on the Star Sword tightened unconsciously, leaving imprints on the hilt.
Afterwards, Kiana and Sirin were beaten to near death by the invisible entity...
"Alright, alright..."
Ryn took deep breaths, tossing aside the Star Sword whose hilt he had crushed to powder.
Seele's soul injury had already angered Ryn, but seeing Kiana hurt, Ryn felt he was still a bit too calm.
Tianqi didn't explain or offer any comfort, she just continued to reverse time.
She and he both knew that this had happened in the past. It couldn't be changed. What was more important was to know how Seele was injured, how Dark Seele's soul was shattered, so that a remedy could be found...
For Ryn now, it was a matter of saving whoever he could...
After both Kiana and Sirin died, the scene changed again, as if another unknown entity had descended upon this space.
Immediately after, Kiana and Sirin were taken away. A purple light that was both familiar and strange to Ryn descended from the sky, erasing the world and blasting it into fragments.
The previous unknown entity had protected Seele, but not the Dark Seele in the other world...
Although it was unknown why that purple light didn't seem to cause any harm to Dark Seele, the world she was in was devoured by the purple light...
Dark Seele, who was sleeping in that world, had her soul torn apart as the world shattered, her existence severed.