Chapter 550 - 494: Transaction! An Opportunity for Godhood

Chapter 550: Chapter 494: Transaction! An Opportunity for Godhood

"Roland!"

Avril and the others were the first to notice something was amiss with Roland. Weak gasps of alarm escaped them as they tried to rush forward to his side.

But they found it agonizingly difficult to even move their fingertips. All they could manage were faint, terrified cries.

Roland didn’t turn back. With extreme difficulty, he simply waved the hand not leaning on his sword, signaling them to be silent and still.

The simple gesture nearly exhausted the last of his strength.

His arm immediately fell limp. Only Bright Moon, plunged into the earth, and his spine—still ramrod straight as he shielded his comrades—proved he had not yet collapsed.

The atmosphere sank into a dead silence.

Above the ruins, beneath the vast sky.

Time lost all meaning.

Perhaps only a moment had passed, or perhaps an eternity had gone by.

Only the mournful howl of the wind through the rubble and Roland’s heavy, ragged breaths were starkly clear in the vast, dead quiet.

The pale-white vertical pupil still hung high in the sky. Inside, ’hesitation’ and recalculating streams of light swirled silently, coldly illuminating the tiny, defiant figure below.

Finally, the whisper echoed once more, directly in the depths of Roland’s nearly shattered consciousness.

"It seems... I have underestimated you."

The whisper began slowly, its calm surface rippled by a faint, peculiar undulation.

"Between you and the predetermined weft and warp of fate... there exists a connection I have never before witnessed."

"It is neither a tight Entanglement, nor a complete separation... Your very existence seems to be in a constant state of ’disturbing’ the trajectory, yet it strangely... resonates with certain crucial ’nodes’ in an inseparable, latent way."

"Contradictory... yet harmonious. Repulsive... yet symbiotic. Interesting... truly marvelous."

Phaethon’s voice paused, as if it were digesting an observation that surpassed its existing cognitive framework.

Then, its ’tone’ subtly shifted.

There was less detachment, replaced by a tone of negotiation that was almost... ’equal’.

"In that case..."

"Roland... that is the name, correct?"

"How about... we make a deal?"

"A deal?"

Hearing that word was like spotting a rope bridge while teetering on the edge of a cliff. Roland’s mind, stretched to its absolute limit, suddenly slackened.

’A deal... that means negotiation is possible. It means that, in some sense, we’ve both been placed on a platform where we can bargain.’

’This is no longer a one-sided declaration of "eradication" or a condescending warning of banishment. It’s...’

’...the beginning of a conversation between equals.’

’It seems Fate Deviation has worked...’

The realization brought a sliver of comfort to his nearly depleted Spirit.

However, the side effects of this sudden mental release struck just as quickly.

A powerful wave of dizziness and Darkness washed over him. His vision began to shake violently and go black, and a ringing filled his ears.

Every cell in his body screamed at him to rest, to collapse, to sink into a deep slumber.

’But I can’t.’

’If I fall now, this chance at ’dialogue’ that I just bought with the trauma to my soul could vanish in an instant.’

’I have to stand. I have to stay conscious. I have to show...’

’...that I still have value.’

"Hhhh..."

At this thought, Roland let out a nearly silent hiss. He clenched his jaw, the veins on his temples bulging.

Drawing on the near-paranoid, tenacious will branded into his very bones, he forced himself to fight back the surging wave of blackness.

His body, which had been slightly hunched from the excruciating pain and backlash, was slowly, painstakingly straightened, inch by inch, using the last of his Power.

Though his face was deathly pale, his body trembled minutely, and he was covered in bloody gashes.

But he stood there, his spine like an unbending spear.

"The deal... what are the terms?"

No time for probing; he went straight to the heart of the matter.

’I need to know what I have to give and what I might get. Only then can I judge if this is a viable path to survival, or even an opportunity I can exploit.’

Phaethon’s whisper quickly responded.

"In the distant past, at a time node that has since been sealed, a certain ’event’ caused the weft and warp of time to undergo an improper... and severe disruption and distortion."

"This disruption was not detected and corrected in time. The ’paradox ripples’ it generated have been continuously eroding the foundational structure of the world’s Order, like a fissure in a cornerstone that expands with the passage of time. This is one of the... root causes for this world’s current proximity to structural collapse."

"My purview is to maintain the Purity of the ’record’ and the stability of the trajectory. To directly intervene and repair such a deep ’scar,’ one already in Entanglement with history, would require a cost and risk a chain of disturbances... that exceed the current acceptable threshold."

"And you..."

Phaethon’s ’gaze’ seemed to sweep over the essence of Roland’s being once more.

"Your ’unique nature’ makes you one of the very few individuals who can travel against the stream, reach that ’source of disruption’ node, and potentially exert ’limited intervention’ upon it without being utterly rejected by history itself."

"This is the basis of my deal."

"Return to that node in the past. Ascertain the true nature of the ’event’ that triggered the temporal disruption, and... do everything in your power to stop it, or at least limit its impact to the smallest possible scope."

"And in return for you accepting and executing this contract..."

Phaethon laid out its bargaining chip.

"You have, by your own will and Power, directly defeated the ’World Serpent,’ Yemiga. Although it was artificially created, it was a conglomerate that had touched the threshold of a Divine Attribute’s Authority."

"Such a feat is sufficient to, beyond the ken of mortals, brand you with the mark of a ’Godslayer.’ It can also be considered... a unique form of ’qualification’."