Chapter 531 - 487: An Irreversible Sorrow

Chapter 531: Chapter 487: An Irreversible Sorrow

That familiar voice made everyone’s expression change abruptly, as if they’d been plunged into an icy abyss.

What happened next nearly froze the blood in their veins.

Before their eyes, the stone slabs shattered by the fierce battle, the bookshelves pulverized into dust, the scorched and cracked ground, and even the lingering dust and embers of Energy in the air...

Everything began to "rewind" at a speed visible to the naked eye, like a film played in reverse.

Shards of debris flew backward and reassembled, cracks sealed themselves shut, scorch marks faded, and dust settled...

In the span of just a few breaths, the utterly wrecked front hall of the Morning Star Archive had returned to the same pristine, solemn, and undamaged state it was in when they first entered.

When they looked up...

Yemiga was still standing there, his posture erect and not a speck of dust on him.

His long hair was not a strand out of place, and on his simple robe, there wasn’t a single wrinkle or stain. It was as if the life-or-death battle from moments ago had never happened.

His narrow, dark-yellow vertical pupils watched them calmly. Deep within his gaze was the absolute composure of someone looking down upon ants struggling in a cage.

And Roland...

He looked down at his feet. He was in the exact same spot where he had been standing when he first stepped into the archive, not off by a single inch.

Looking around, he saw that Avril, Duraga, Galvis, and even Bronson, who was a little farther off, were all standing in their original positions.

It was as if a giant, invisible hand had precisely "placed" them back at their starting points.

Only the very real pain on their bodies...

Duraga’s bruises beneath his armor, the bloodstains on Avril’s torn Leather Armor, the still-wet blood at the corner of Galvis’s mouth, and the numbness in Roland’s own arm and the sharp pain in the web of his hand...

It was all cold, hard evidence, a cruel reminder.

That all-out burst of power, that perfectly coordinated, life-risking strike, that glorious moment of piercing the god...

...had not been an illusion.

"Time reversal..."

Roland took a deep breath. The frigid air stung his lungs, and it stung his nearly exhausted spirit.

The room fell silent for a moment. Then, Yemiga elegantly raised a hand, his fingertips brushing over the spot on his chest that had been pierced, the gesture as graceful as if he were straightening his lapel.

"Thirty-seven million, four hundred and ninety thousand projections and eighty thousand simulations... In all my calculated pathways, not a single one resulted in me ’being killed by your combined attack.’ And yet..."

He slowly shook his head.

"Ah, Mr. Roland. Your very existence is the greatest mockery of ’certainty.’ You are a truly... fascinating variable."

The smile on Yemiga’s face remained composed, but deep within his dark-yellow vertical pupils, the absolute rationality of the "World Serpent" was rapidly reassessing the situation.

Appreciation was one thing, but the cold sensation of his chest being pierced and the feedback of a momentary "rupture" at the level of Law remained with stark clarity in the core of his Perception. It had been anything but false.

’He is merely at the Extraordinary Tier, has not yet touched upon the mysteries of a ’Domain’, and his command of Space-Time is limited to a crude resonance and clever interference... By all logic, his Power is fundamentally insufficient to shake the very foundation of my ’existence’.’

’And yet, the power he just displayed, and that terrifyingly precise timing...’

’If I hadn’t already set the ’rewind anchor for this time fragment’ to the instant before the conflict erupted, and mobilized a considerable portion of my source power—outside of what’s needed to maintain the loop—to ensure its immediate activation... the damage from that strike might have truly exceeded my instantaneous regeneration capabilities, leading to an unpredictable collapse.’

These thoughts flooded through Yemiga’s inhuman consciousness in an instant, like an icy torrent.

Outwardly, he maintained his facade of absolute control. But when he looked at Roland again, a fleeting, almost instinctual wariness and an ever-deepening curiosity in his eyes spoke volumes.

This "Artificial God" now truly regarded the "Time Prisoner" before him, whose Power seemed far inferior, as a potential threat that had to be taken seriously—one capable of shaking the very foundation of his "Immortality."

"Interesting... truly interesting..."

After exclaiming in silent admiration, Yemiga leisurely raised his hand.

His fingertips lightly brushed the now-pristine fabric of his robe, as if savoring the memory of the wound that was no longer there.

His dark-yellow vertical pupils were like deep pools, reflecting the exhausted and tense figures of the group.

"I am the will behind the flow of space, and I am the one at the helm of the river of time."

His voice wasn’t loud, yet it carried a strange resonance, as if faintly harmonizing with the pulse of the archive, and indeed, of all of Silver Radiance City.

"In this Domain that I have woven, destruction is mended, deviations are corrected, and even ’death’... is nothing more than a state parameter that I can rewind."

His gaze slowly swept over Duraga, who gripped his War Axe with trembling hands. It passed over Avril, her Quiver empty and her shoulder stained with blood, and finally landed on Galvis, pale-faced and nearly drained of all Spiritual Power.

At last, his gaze came to a rest on Roland’s face. His breathing was still ragged, but his eyes remained sharp.

"Give up, Mr. Roland."

Yemiga’s tone was sincere, almost placating.

"Your will and your courage are both admirable. But it is for that very reason you should see reality for what it is."

"Here, you have no chance of winning. Every effort will ultimately be reduced to nothing, like words on a beach washed away by the tide."

This matter-of-fact pronouncement was more oppressive than any arrogant declaration.

Because what it described seemed to be an irrefutable fact.

A suppressed growl rumbled in Duraga’s throat. His knuckles turned white as he gripped his axe, the muscles on his bronze face taut.