Chapter 382 - 367: Time Traveler

Chapter 382: Chapter 367: Time Traveler

Shock flooded Roland’s mind like a tidal wave, and countless questions instantly crowded his thoughts.

He took a deep breath, about to carefully choose his words and probe for the truth behind this thousand-year span of time.

However, Morne seemed to have already anticipated his reaction.

A broad palm landed heavily on Roland’s shoulder, the force just enough to cut off the question about to leave his lips.

"Alright, kid..."

Morne’s voice returned to its usual hearty tone, but his eyes held a new, unquestionable depth.

"Everyone has their own little secrets, don’t they?"

He paused deliberately, his gaze sweeping almost imperceptibly over the arm that had shown signs of Roland’s Dragonification, and continued with pointed meaning.

"Like... that Power you have that doesn’t belong to a human."

"I have no intention of asking where or how you obtained it. So, by the same token..."

The old King leaned forward slightly.

"I hope you won’t dig into my affairs either."

As he finished speaking, Morne raised a thick eyebrow at Roland and decisively changed the subject.

"Speaking of which, if you don’t have a clear destination for now, I suggest you take a look at the Aiselon Continent."

’Aiselon?’

Roland’s thoughts were captured by the unfamiliar name.

"That’s right."

Morne nodded, casually sketching a simple route on the ground.

"You can head north first, pass through the Dwarven Rock Kingdom to their Roaring Harbor, and take a ship from there. That will get you to the west coast of Aiselon."

He looked up, his gaze sweeping over the charred, newborn land around them, his tone tinged with comparison.

"Unlike the continent we’re standing on, this place is just a ’newborn’—a land mass forcibly raised from the seabed by a shift in the Laws after the Eye of the Abyss invaded our world."

"But Aiselon is an ancient continent that has existed since the stars were first set and all life was born. It is a land that truly carries the history and wisdom of countless ages."

A trace of reminiscence flashed in Morne’s eyes, and his voice grew a little deeper.

"There, deep within untrodden mountain ranges and hidden in forgotten forests, countless ancient ruins lie sleeping."

"They seal away many legacies and secret treasures that have long been lost to the river of time. So if you wish to grow stronger faster and seek the essence of Power, you can’t go wrong by going there."

After saying this, Morne didn’t wait for Roland’s response. He let out a laugh and briskly stood up.

After patting the dust from his clothes, he strode with steady steps toward where Gloria was calmly giving commands.

Watching the old King’s tall, mysterious back, Roland didn’t speak immediately. Instead, he withdrew his gaze and sank deep into thought.

’Aiselon, huh...’

He murmured the ancient-sounding name to himself.

Having witnessed firsthand the unfathomable Power Morne had displayed—enough to turn the tide of battle—a desire for greater Power had already begun to burn within him, like magma stirring beneath a dormant volcano.

At the same time, while reading the ancient tomes Bronson had carried, he had already developed an irrepressible curiosity about this vast world’s buried past.

A continent that had existed since antiquity, filled with ruins of lost legacies...

It sounded like a destination tailor-made for his current desires and quest.

There would certainly be danger, but the opportunities were just as great.

After careful consideration, he felt more and more certain that heading to Aiselon was perhaps the best choice for his next step.

Just as he made this decision in his heart and his mind settled,

Lines of dazzling gold text suddenly materialized in the center of his vision without any warning.

[Acquired Trait: Time Traveler]

[Due to the Space-Time displacement event you just experienced, your existence has slightly deviated from the stable flow of time. Though you did not actively cross time, the ’present’ you inhabit was replaced across a thousand-year span. This extraordinary journey has engraved a unique mark upon your soul, establishing a faint resonance between you and the structure of Space-Time.]

[Henceforth, you will gain an extremely limited but tangible advantage in checks involving time and space. You will also be able to vaguely sense related anomalies.]

[However, because you have touched the edge of the river of time in an ’unconventional’ manner, your existence has spread like a ripple, attracting an accidental glance from ’Phaethon’.]

[This entity, who has always been indifferent to mortal affairs, now finds you... rather interesting.]

Staring at the golden text as it slowly faded from his vision, Roland’s thoughts churned like the tide.

He recalled the tangible sensations of that cold, gloomy graveyard: the familiar greeting from the black-haired man, the rough texture of the shovel’s wooden handle in his hand...

’That was no ordinary dream.’

’So that’s what happened...’

A clear deduction began to form in his mind.

That brief and bizarre experience was likely caused by the Space-Time turbulence triggered when the nexus between the Abyss, the Nine Prisons, and the Prime Material Plane completely collapsed.

Under the impact of that force, which was powerful enough to tear apart the fabric of reality, his consciousness might have been thrown from its original path in an instant, crossing over to some unknown point in time.

It could have been a corner of the past, a fragment of the future, or even a projection from a parallel dimension.

Then, just as Galvis had said,

a Guardian of the world’s Laws intervened and crudely "fixed" everything.

And so, his just-begun journey to another time was forcibly cut short. His consciousness was yanked back to this scorched battlefield as if pulled by a rubber band.

In other words, his soul had inadvertently experienced a brief "traversal."

Thinking about his own identity as a transmigrator, Roland shook his head with a wry smile. Then, he refocused his attention on the description of the [Time Traveler] Trait, carefully analyzing its effects.

’An advantage in checks involving time and space... a vague sense of related anomalies...’

These abilities sounded quite profound, but how useful they would be in actual combat likely depended on the specific situation.

For now, it seemed it was better than nothing.

As he thought this, his gaze finally fell upon the final passage.

’Attracted an "accidental glance" from "Phaethon"...’

’Phaethon...’

Roland silently repeated the name in his mind.

’Is that the Guardian of the Space-Time Law, the owner of that giant eye from before?’

Although he made this guess subconsciously, Roland immediately felt an instinctual sense of dissonance.

He recalled Galvis’s words.

If "Phaethon" was truly the personification of some aspect of the world’s Laws, then its form should be indescribable, changing according to the observer’s perception, and certainly not any specific creature anyone had ever seen.

However, the eye he remembered was a cold, pale-blue vertical pupil, shimmering with the light of birthing and dying stars.

Its unmistakably biological features, and the instinctual, life-or-death shudder its gaze induced...

’No, that’s not right...’

Roland subconsciously rejected his previous thought.

That massive vertical pupil, that oppressive gaze—it felt more like a terrifying, primordial beast that had existed since time immemorial.

A dragon, or... a serpent.

What it emanated was not the indifference of an abstract Law, but a more ancient, more primal pressure of Power, as if it originated from the very source of the world.

Just as Roland was gazing at the sky, a thousand thoughts racing through his mind, the sound of light footsteps interrupted his reverie.

The Minstrel Galvis, who had tactfully kept his distance while Morne and Roland were talking, now approached with his boundless enthusiasm for a good story.

"Roland!"

The Minstrel’s eyes twinkled with curiosity, his small notebook and quill pen having reappeared in his hands at some point.

"You can finally tell me now, right? Every detail of your fight with that Abyss Demon!"

"How did you dodge all its evil Magic? And how did you deliver that final, decisive blow? This is absolutely the perfect material for me to compose a timeless epic!"

Looking at his companion, so dedicated to his stories, Roland was suddenly reminded of something Galvis had said offhandedly outside Golden Ears City—words that made it seem as if he had personally experienced the last time the Abyss invaded the mortal plane.

Roland had wanted to ask about it then, but with the battle raging, it hadn’t been the right time for a detailed conversation.

Now that the battle was over and the dust had settled, he finally had the chance to ask a question that had been lingering in his mind.

So, instead of directly answering Galvis’s questions about the fight, he raised his eyes, looked calmly at the Minstrel, and asked softly,

"Galvis..."

"Have you ever heard of a hero named... ’Rudolph’?"