Chapter 614: The whole family [3]

"WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK?!"

She pointed a shaking finger at Brandon, then at Amelia, then back at Brandon again.

"You’re telling me that woman is my ancestor... and you had three kids with her... which means I’m... I’m your great-great-whatever granddaughter?! Are you serious right now?!"

Elize pressed a hand against her forehead and closed her eyes for a brief moment as if fighting off a headache.

"This is getting worse by the second..."

Yverine scratched her hair ’Isn’t this... kind of like incest?’

Meanwhile, Dhayun had a thoughtful look on her face ’So... Woonie’s DNA runs through Aunt Flo and Eira?’

Ravene finally found her voice, "...Kael. Please tell me she’s misunderstanding something."

Brandon met her gaze and gave a small, almost apologetic shake of his head.

"Well... She’s not. The bloodline that started with Amelia and me continued for five hundred years. Florence, Eira, Kiera... you’re all part of that line."

Eira made a strangled sound and dropped back onto the sofa, burying her face in both hands.

"I can’t... I can’t process this. I slept in with my own ancestor’s husband. No! My own ancestor himself! I-"

She cut herself off with a muffled groan.

Amelia, who was silent till now, finally spoke in fascination "...So the Bleaufort bloodline truly survived this long."

She looked at Florence again, looking her with new eyes "So you are like... my... grand-grand-grand-grand-grand-daughter?"

Florence clutched her forehead in confusion as she still couldn’t understand what exactly is happening.

The woman who looked almost exactly like her was claiming to be her ancestor, and the man she loved just admitted to fathering children with that same woman five centuries ago.

Meanwhile, Freya’s gaze condensed slightly "So... basically, he travelled through time to 1502... huh..."

Eira shot up from the sofa in frustration "How does that shit even work?!"

"We spent an entire week searching for you, going crazy, and the whole time you were in the past... banging my ancestors?!"

Several people in the room flinched at the blunt wording.

Eira kept going, "Doesn’t that mean when you change the past, the future also changes? Shouldn’t half of us have disappeared the moment you started living back there because of the butterfly efect?"

Brandon exhaled slowly "It doesn’t work the way you’re thinking, Eira."

"This wasn’t normal time travel. I didn’t go back and rewrite history."

He glanced at Rheanne, then back at Eira and the others.

"It was a bootstrap paradox. A closed loop. Everything I did in the past... meeting Rheanne, living in Eurasania, being with Amelia and Freya, having children, founding the Holy Land... was already part of the history that led to this present."

"My actions didn’t change the future. They created the future I came from."

"If I had never gone back, none of this would exist in the first place."

"The fact that all of you are still standing here, that Florence is a Bleaufort, that this world remembers Goddess Rheanne... is proof that the loop was always complete. I didn’t erase anything. I fulfilled what was already written."

Eira stared at him, mouth slightly open, clearly struggling to wrap her mind around the concept.

"So you’re telling me all those time travel movies were bullshit?"

Eh? Brandon was dumbfounded by her question.

Dhayun let out a short laugh hearing her ridiculous question, "That’s what you’re focusing on right now?"

Eira dropped back onto the sofa with a heavy thud, dragging both hands down her face.

"So... basically, because of some time travel paradox, you fucked my ancestors, and we were born through that."

She lifted her head just enough to look at Brandon. "And your blood flows through our veins."

Brandon gave a small nod "...Should be diluted by now, but yeah."

"Guk! Stone me already!" Eira made a strangled noise and covered her face again.

Yverine, who had been silent for a long time, finally shook her head as if trying to clear it.

"Brandon... you said some... what was it again? Some boota paradox."

-_- Brandon’s eye twitched slightly "Bootstrap paradox."

"Yeah, that..." Yverine frowned, clearly still lost. "W-what does it do?"

As she spoke, she turned toward Ravene with a hopeful expression "Aunt Rave?"

Ravene blinked, caught off guard "...What?"

"You’re a genius scientist, right?" Yverine said. "Do you know how this kind of thing works?"

Ravene stared at her for a second, then let out a short, incredulous breath.

"I specialize in etheric sciences," she replied flatly.

"Energy structures, ether cores, skill manifestations, that sort of thing. I don’t know the first thing about time travel. Why would you even ask me?"

She waved a hand toward the rest of the room "Go ask someone who actually deals with time- ah."

Almost in perfect unison, every woman from the present side of the room turned their heads toward Charlotte.

Feeling their collective stare, Charlotte gave them a flat look "...Don’t look at me like that. I can stop time in a limited area and rewind short periods. That is the extent of my authority."

"I don’t control time travel. The Dead Clock Spire is a completely different existence from my abilities. I have no expertise in whatever ’bootstrap paradox’ this is."

The room deflated slightly.

Eira groaned into her hands "So none of you smart people actually understand how this works?"

"I understand it," Brandon said dryly. "I just lived it."

"That’s not the same as explaining it in a way that doesn’t make my brain want to melt," Eira muttered.

Rheanne, still standing quietly beside Brandon, glanced around at the present-day women and showed a gentle smile.

"It is difficult to accept when you encounter it for the first time," she said. "Even I needed time to fully grasp what he was saying."

Dhayun leaned forward with her elbows on her knees, "Okay, but walk me through this again,"

"You fall into the past. You live there for centuries. You have kids. Those kids have kids. Eventually Aunt Florence is born, then Eira, then the rest of us... and somehow none of that creates a different future? It just neatly loops back to the exact same present we already had?"

"Yes," Brandon replied.

Jiyeon raised a hesitant hand, as if they were in a classroom "Um... if you already lived all the way to 2051 once... does that mean there was another version of us that met you the first time you reached this year?"

Brandon shook his head "No. There was only ever one version of this present. The first time I reached 2051 was this time. The years I lived were the path that led here."

Jiyeon slowly lowered her hand, looking even more lost than before ’Fuck, I am even more confused now.’

Looking at their face, Brandon smiled dryly ’Maybe I should create a flow chart or something to explain everything to them.’

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A/n: Also if you guys have any questions regarding this paradox, leave a comment or join my discord where we can have chats

Or if you search "bootstrap paradox" in Google or something and ask for analogy or example, it will explain its better for you to understand

I just want to make it clear so every reader understood what happened