Chapter 536 - 488: The Desperate Finale

Chapter 536: Chapter 488: The Desperate Finale

The process itself was no longer important. What mattered was the undeniable reality this outcome had revealed.

Yemiga could, and would, do it again at any moment.

"Now, get out."

Roland finally turned his head, his gaze sweeping over the rigid faces of his companions. His expression left no room for negotiation, only an undeniable command.

"Leave the archives. Go as far as you can. This is between him and me now."

He had anticipated his companions’ reactions.

Shock. Anger. And perhaps, a sliver of fear.

But regardless, they had to leave.

If Yemiga could ’rewind’ time once, he could do it countless times.

As long as they remained, they were Yemiga’s most effective hostages, his most powerful leverage—a sword of Damocles hanging over Roland’s head, ready to fall at any moment.

He couldn’t bear it a second time.

Not even the *possibility*... of witnessing them be annihilated.

Yet, his words were not met with the hesitation, fear, or obedient retreat he had expected.

After a brief, dead silence.

"What a load of Dwarven firewater bullshit!"

The first to explode was Duraga.

The Gray Dwarf leader’s eyes instantly turned bloodshot, not with fear, but with the incandescent rage of a man who’d been deeply insulted and provoked.

He stomped forward, his heavy war boots thudding against the floorboards, until he was nearly shoulder to shoulder with Roland.

"Annihilated? Hah! I’ve spent my life being treated like cattle by Heartstealers without so much as flinching. You think I’m gonna let some jumped-up, wannabe-god bastard scare me off?"

"You want to play the hero all by yourself? Not a chance! The sons of Durag die fighting! We don’t run scared!"

Avril said nothing.

The Elf Maiden’s face was so pale it was nearly translucent. Her emerald eyes trembled, clearly stung by the "death" Roland had described.

But when she looked up, the sorrow in her eyes was swiftly replaced by something more resilient, something brighter.

It was understanding. It was resolve. It was the unspoken bond forged by those who have faced death together.

She took a silent step forward, her fingers resting on her bowstring. Her movements were as steady as stone.

Galvis glanced down at the lute in his arms. The strings were intact, but he knew that in another "past," it had been utterly shattered.

He looked up, the usual warmth and playfulness gone from his face. In its place was a rare, almost tragic solemnity.

"Roland..."

His voice was soft, yet it reached everyone’s ears with perfect clarity.

"A poet may fear a quiet death, but he fears more being absent when his friend’s dirge is sung."

"My song may not move the Gods, but at the very least... it can make your sword swing a little faster."

There were no grand pronouncements, no impassioned declarations.

Only the Gray Dwarf’s gruff curses, the Elf’s silent solidarity, and the poet’s quiet resolve.

This was their answer.

They understood the warning of "death." They had felt the terror of the "rewind."

But they chose not to flee to safety. Instead, they chose to entrust their lives to the man who had just crawled back from the hell of having "lost" them.

Roland’s hand, gripping Bright Moon, suddenly tightened.

The cold, hard hilt felt real in his grasp, as if it were channeling the warmth and weight his companions silently offered from behind him.

"I understand..."

He gave a resigned shake of his head. No longer trying to persuade them, he turned back to face Yemiga, slowly raising his longsword until its tip pointed directly at his foe.

Behind him, his companions stood like a wall of solid rock, forming a single, unbroken line.

"Utterly foolish."

Yemiga shook his head slightly. For the first time, a flicker of genuine confusion appeared in his amber, vertical pupils—a bewilderment that went beyond anger or ridicule, a purely cognitive dissonance.

"I cannot comprehend."

He spread his hands, his posture like that of a scholar confronting a flawed equation.

"I have offered you a perfect cycle, eternal tranquility, a ’future’ stripped of all suffering and uncertainty. And yet, you insist on embracing a reality filled with conflict, pain, and an unknown end?"

His gaze swept over Roland, over the companions poised for battle behind him, and finally settled back on Roland.

"This... resistance of yours. It has no rational foundation, driven solely by so-called ’emotion’ and ’free will.’ In all of my predictive models, it is classified as an inefficient, dangerous, and worthless error variable. Why do you cling to it?"

Roland did not answer his question.

His gaze traveled past the tip of his sword and settled on Yemiga.

There was no anger in his eyes, no fear. Only a calm so profound it bordered on the Void, like the surface of the ocean just before a storm.

"Yemiga..."

He spoke, his voice quiet but carrying a strange, penetrating quality that cut straight past the core of Yemiga’s argument.

"As the ’World Serpent,’ master of the river of time, overseer of the fabric of space... tell me, can you see your own future?"

Yemiga’s brow twitched almost imperceptibly. He seemed not to have expected such a philosophical, speculative question.

After a moment of silence, he replied in a matter-of-fact tone, as if stating the obvious.

"I am one of the sources of time itself, the maintainer and definer of the cycle. For me, there is only the ’established’ and the ’pending.’ The ’future,’ as an uncertain concept, does not exist."

"Past, present, and future, within this city, are all supposed to be determined by me..."

"But I saw it."

Roland cut him off, his voice as sharp and final as hammered steel.