Timeline

The journey from the Endora Kingdom to the Dream Kingdom took over four months.

On the way there, Seth spent the entire time teaching Meg destruction theory. When they reached the plains at Dream’s entrance, Seth had already used almost all the energy left in his piece of divinity to create a fifth shell destruction source inside her body.

The source was quite unstable, but he managed to keep it under control due to the piece of divinity tethered to his will.

Stephen was bored out of his mind the entire way since, despite having to travel with a lovely girl, she kept ignoring all of his tried to make conversation the whole way. Eventually, he gave up and spent all his energy taking her there as fast as he could.

With them arriving at a giant mountain on the Dream Kingdom’s western coast almost five months later, Meg said to Stephen: “This is far enough. I appreciate your help getting me here, and you are free to leave now.”

Stephen nodded and acted like he was given a royal pardon, dropping her off at the mountain’s base and flying back towards Noth as fast as his energy would take him.

Meg looked around for a moment before fixing her eyes on the tall mountain ahead of her and asking: ‘Big brother, is this the place?’

‘Mhmm. I don’t have time to go about it the normal way. Dig a hole straight to and walk forward.’

Meg nodded and raised her hand, destruction energy forming in the palm of her hand. Since she didn’t want to do it in front of Stephen, this was the first time she had used her energy. After messing around with it for a while to get used to the sensation, she began using it on the cliff wall, following Seth’s directions to carve a path for herself straight through.

After tunneling for a few hours, they arrived in a large, cold room, where five people sat around a table while staring at the intruder wide-eyed.

Meg felt a bit embarrassed by her situation and lifted one of her frail hands, waving it in greeting. “Hello…”

A woman and a small child were pushed back by the other three, whose faces turned severe. A tall man sitting at the front frowned as he grabbed the handle of the sword at his waist and asked: “Who are you?”

Meg blinked twice as she waited for Seth’s instructions before saying: “I don’t mind explaining, but could we please speak inside the dream world? This place is not safe.”

The man frowned and was about to say something when the child in the back interjected: “It’s alright. They are not an enemy.”

Following his words, the small cave became blurry as the space around the six people got covered in a purple mist.

When the mist faded, the cave walls turned wavy and translucent, painting a beautiful and mesmerizing picture for everyone inside.

“Now speak.” said the man in the front, not sparing the change of scenery a single glance.

Meg was about to ask for instructions, but she suddenly felt dizzy and started moving forward involuntarily.

‘I will speak to them.’

Seth, who had just taken over, looked over everyone in the room with a subtle smile before nodding toward the man in the front. “You must be Sun. Good to see you in good health.”

Seth then looked at the child covered in a violet mist and nodded again. “You too, Dream. Where is your guardian?”

The kid opened his mouth to speak, but Sun raised his hand, blocking Seth’s sight with the boy, and asked with a frown: “You didn’t answer my question? Who are you? You carry the smell of that thing in the south.”

“I guess so…” said Seth with a sigh before turning towards Pearl with a smile. “My name is Seth. The ruler of the Endora Empire.”

Silence befell the whole room following his declaration.

Pearl’s hands holding onto her knives shook, and she took a step back while staring into Seth’s dark red eyes. He looked like a woman, but his ability to change body form was no news to her. And those eyes were something she could never forget in a million years.

As she was about to walk forward again, Sun placed a hand on her shoulder. “Don’t trust her. The horror of Noth is well known to deceive people.”

Pearl was already doing her best to stop herself from crying as she shook her head and pushed Sun’s hand away, coming before Seth with slow and nervous steps. Her jaw kept trembling as she asked hesitantly. “M-my lord?”

Seth’s smiled and lifted his hand, gently touching Pearl’s cheek. “It’s me, Pearl. Sorry for taking so long.”

“MY LORD!!!…” Pearl let out a loud wail, dropping to her knees and hugging Seth’s knees, tears flowing down her cheeks nonstop, and she buried her head in his thigh.

Seth sighed and started massaging her soft hair, letting her cry in peace as he turned his eyes to Lisa. “Good to see you too, Lisa.”

Lisa, who was still ready to attack, darkness energy circling her palm, also shook at his words.

“I-is it you, teacher?”

Seth nodded with a subtle smile. “It is me. Late congratulations on reaching the sixth shell. I already knew you were quite the prodigy.”

Lisa’s energy also dissipated as a happy look appeared in her eyes. Just as she was about to speak, a chuckle rang from the back. “You old bastard. You finally came back.”

Seth chuckled and nodded toward the woman sitting next to Dream in the back. “I see the years have been kind with you, Julie.”

‘Why is she so young? I can’t feel any energy inside her body.’

< She’s carrying the human heart.>

‘Oath’s human heart? But that was meant for… oh, Kronos.’

“What took you so long to come back to us?” asked Julie from the back.

Seth looked at Lisa’s eyes, which were already turning red, before gazing at Julie in the back. He felt things were strange with both of them, but he had no idea how much everything had changed with Kronos’ intervention.

Deciding to let things as they were, Seth sighed and said: “I wish I had an answer for you two, but I also don’t know what happened.”

As Seth was shaking his head, Julie walked up from the back and stunned Seth by kissing his lips passionately. Her hands found their way around his neck as she used her tongue to part his lips.

Seth was using Meg’s body, and his eyes widened as he pushed her back, looking in confusion at Julie before doing the same with Lisa, who was blushing on the side.

As Julie looked just as confused back at him, Seth asked: “What was that for?”

“I missed you. What else could it be?” replied Julie.

Her answer only made more questions pop into Seth’s head as he asked: “What about Saif?”

“What about him?”

“Where is he?” asked Seth next.

“Why are you talking about that bastard now? How would we know where he went after leaving us?”

‘Can you make sense of what is happening?’

<With the timeline changing, you might have made either mind-controlled Saif or even killed him this time. We can’t account for all the changes that have happened or are still happening.>

Shaking his head, Seth sighed and rubbed Pearl’s head again before saying: “Let’s sit down so we can speak. There are a lot of things all of us have to know.”

Julie looked into his eyes suspiciously before nodding and moving to sit down, dragging Lisa with her. Seth looked at Sun next and said: “Do you mind listening in as well?”

Sun looked at Pearl for a moment before moving to sit down, leaving Seth to bend down and try to lift Pearl.

Pearl clung tightly to his thighs, making Seth sigh and say: “Let’s sit down with the others so we can speak, Pearl… there are many things we need to figure out.”

Pearl nodded reluctantly and finally let go of Seth. After everyone was seated at the small table inside the cave, Seth looked at everyone and asked them to give him a quick resume of everything that had happened since they met him.

Everyone was surprised by his question, but the girls still did as Seth asked and started telling him their stories.

In the current timeline, Saif has disappeared from the capital of Oath, leaving only a note and abandoning Julie and Lisa. Knowing Saif, Seth quickly figured out he must be responsible for everything.

After Saif’s disappearance, Seth started having an affair with the lonely Julie, which completely baffled him.

Lisa was also his student, but there was no bad blood behind them anymore. She was even happy that he was there to comfort her gloomy mother.

The history of Pearl has also changed. Her family had died before Seth reached Wrath, and after helping her have her revenge, in her grief, the two slept together in the Wrath King’s room, right over his dead body.

Seth found everything quite overwhelming, but he didn’t stop them from speaking as he had the system slowly put things together.

The current king of Wrath was just a puppet king set in place by Seth. As for why Sun and Pearl were inside the Dream Kingdom, it was the same as last time, mostly.

Pearl had wanted to walk the world after avenging her family, and Seth directed her towards Sun. When she returned to Seth later, she had changed entirely, and they had a complicated relationship in which she was both Seth’s knight and lover.

With things falling into place in Seth’s head after everyone had finished their stories, he sighed and told everyone: “The history you’re all remembering is not the same history I had lived. At least not completely….”

Seth began telling everyone about his memories, his fight with Kronos, and how many of his lovers were erased from the timeline.

As Seth explained how everything happened, everyone was looking at him with visible confusion and skepticism, everyone besides Dream and Julie.

Noticing their lack of surprise, Seth looked at Julie and exclaimed: “You knew.”

With everyone else turning towards her, Julie sighed and nodded: “I felt it… 20 years ago.”

“With the Calamity happening, all these memories of a life I never lived started flowing into my head… A life where the things between us never happened, and we were just slightly more than strangers. I also remember the others. I just chose to pretend nothing had happened.”

‘System?’

<The simulation is, in the end, not a complete universe, and the existence of parallelism is impossible. When a new timeline is formed, the previous one is destroyed, and events are simulated again, taking form around the new parameters.>

<But there are still things born inside the simulation that respond to the rules of the exterior world—the treasures. Due to Julie owning a treasure in the new timeline, a bridge has formed between her past and current life, and all records were also downloaded into her new template before the change was complete.>

<Your existence was also protected by me from alterations since I’m also an entity from the outside. If you ask Dream about it, he should be able to confirm everything.>

Seth looked at the mark on Julie’s hand before looking at Dream and asking: “You also kept your memories of the former timeline?”

“Timelines. I also know about you turning time back once before, God of Destruction. We all know what you did to us in the past.” Said the kid with a sigh, “...but we’re here to serve the human race, not interfere in their decisions. We’re simply observers and weapons against the horrors.”

“Then… can you tell me what happened in my fight against Kronos? You should know better than everyone else….”

The kid nodded, and the space around them slowly changed, painting a picture of the underground seclusion place where Seth and his wives had spent their seclusion.

“I can do more than that. I can show it to you.”