Chapter 468: Wonderland Paradox

Aether sighed, looking up at Avrie as her arm moved to stab him in the neck. But the moment he made contact with its skin, the blade broke... This made the girl stagger in fear, staring at the handle of the knife that now lacked any ability to hurt anyone.

’Not like it would ever hurt me.’

He got up from his seat, chuckling. "Do you really think a mundane knife could ever hurt a Seeker? Let’s be honest with ourselves. Maybe if you were also a Seeker, but you aren’t. Am I wrong?"

Avrie laughed nervously, hiding the knife behind her back. "I have no idea what you are talking about." She slowly backed away, but Aether slowly approached.

"I could question you on how you killed Reno. But I already have the answer." Avrie hit the wall with her back, as Aether leaned forward until their faces were almost touching. "You didn’t. It’s as simple as that."

He pointed to his arm with his eyes, making Avrie look as Voidpiercer slowly made its way out of his marks, not rushing. "There are many things that could have killed him; maybe I would want to know, but I doubt that you know." He raised the blade to her neck, not cutting yet, but it was clear that he could cut it right off if he wanted.

"So I will ask you something else. What do you mean by Readers from another world?

...

What is this place exactly?"

Avrie looked at the blade, her eyes shaking. "And you promise you won’t kill me if I tell you?"

Aether put a hand over his heart. "I swear on my own mother’s life."

The Witch relaxed a bit, sighing. "Fine... truly, for a while we also had no idea what had happened. Then suddenly, there was a message, a weird system saying that our world had merged with Wonderland... and suddenly, we were here. Stuff from our world transferred, but not the whole world was the same. I mean, the place you saw outside. It never used to be like this... and can you please get the blade away while I explain?"

Aether nodded, letting his arm fall to his side as he gave her some space.

"Continue." He said, smiling.

"As more time passed... we started to realize that we weren’t the only ones alive, and many other structures we had never seen appeared. People who had no idea of what our world was like started to appear. And so, everyone started realizing that a lot of worlds had merged.

...

That was when Readers appeared, well, Readers for most, but for us, since we are also Readers and share the same system as you guys, Readers from the future, or another world, since we aren’t sure yet."

She paused for a second, a little hesitant to continue speaking, but she knew that if she didn’t say the full story, her head would get cut off, so after a quick break, she began again.

"At first we had been really curious, especially us, since, as I said, the same powers... but then we learned more about you guys, how you intrude on other worlds and change them, most of the time for the worse, just to get powers... so we retaliated."

She leaned forward, smirking. "We accepted that our worlds had merged, and just chose you guys as the enemy-"

Before she could continue, Aether sliced her head off her shoulders...

"As much as I don’t like bringing her up, since it’s quite disrespectful... My mother is already dead."

Letting Voidpiercer back in his arms, he sat back in the chair; after all, he had a lot on his mind. He had gained a lot of information from Avrie, who, at the same time, he didn’t consider Avrie, the one he knew was afar better person than whoever he had killed now.

But he felt as if he had more questions than anything, bigger questions than the ones he had gained answers to.

’So that’s what the Codex meant by unstable; this part of the Wonderland somehow managed to break that half-sphere dome and fully merge with the books inside of it.’

He frowned. "But at the same time." He leaned back in his chair. "I already finished Frozen Crown; the book should be closed, no reason for it to be inside this place... the only explanation would be that..."

His eyes went wide for a second. "Wonderland is also slowly merging with the real world, bringing the past here... but is it a copy, or the past itself... but if it is, should we forget? I mean, a part of history is gone..."

...

"But what if it really is gone... not even Avius knows about Frozen Crown, at least from what I’ve seen so far; I only know of the book written after it inside the Infinite Library."

Aether covered his face with his hands, groaning. "This is so annoying; I don’t understand anything!"

There seemed to be more and more signs pointing towards the fact that their world was in trouble, in a very bad position; the future might not turn out as they thought... but it made no sense.

’If Frozen Crown took place in the past... then how has there not been documented anything about this? I mean, from what I think now, after seeing the ending, the world was frozen to stop Wonderland from merging with the real world, but why was it happening now? There is no logic to it!’

...

And really, he felt that the more important question was for himself.

...

’What is my role in all of this?’

...

...

...

After all, the Abyss had been the one to freeze time somehow; he had no idea how it had done it. So what was he supposed to do, after all... Sena said it herself; he was the only one of the Vessels who had the string of fate connected to him.

’But I’m nowhere near the level of the queen, so how am I supposed to do anything like that?’

...

’Do I even want to do that?’