Chapter 974: 166. Against the Current

“You believe me?”

Muen was rather surprised. He had thought he would have to waste a bit more breath. After all, those reproduced images were easier than words when it came to moving a person, but they still could not serve as decisive proof.

“There’s nothing to doubt. From the moment you said that name, I knew your words probably had some degree of possibility. Besides, I don’t think the famous son of an Imperial duke would suddenly come knocking just to amuse himself at the expense of a cripple.”

The priest withdrew his hand, but there was still wonder on his face.

“Time reversal... to think such a wondrous ability truly exists in this world. No wonder you dared drag me along back then to flip off the Holy Lord of Salvation and an Evil God.”

“Since we’d already decided to play big, how could we not be extravagant about it?”

Muen spread both hands.

“If there’s mockery to be thrown, I throw it directly. That’s my personality. What’s the point of cowering?”

“Heh... true.”

The priest laughed along with him, and his whole person relaxed quite a bit, because he knew an ability as powerful and miraculous as time reversal was certainly capable of rewriting the ending.

In other words, those sins had not yet become final.

This city could still be saved.

“But I still don’t understand.”

“Don’t understand what?”

“I don’t understand why you came to me first.”

The priest suddenly grew serious.

“Time should be extremely tight for you, shouldn’t it? After all, innocent people are dying every moment in the entire West District right now. You should have been able to save them immediately, but you only saved one child from an orphanage, and then... ran over here to reminisce with a cripple like me?”

“...You mean I can already save this city?”

Muen’s tone did not change because of the priest’s sudden accusation. He only asked back casually.

“Of course!”

The priest said with certainty.

“You’ve already reversed time and learned of the Salvation Society’s plot. Isn’t the method to save this city very simple?”

“For example?”

“For example, you can contact the Empire and the Church outside the city right now. According to the information you just showed me, there should be hundreds of thousands of Imperial troops and Church elites outside the city at this very moment! As long as they enter the city, whether it’s the Salvation Society or these soldiers being manipulated by the Salvation Society, they absolutely won’t be able to stir up any waves! When that time comes, all of this will be saved! Instead of more innocent lives being sacrificed because of your delay!”

The priest’s voice was forceful and resonant, as if he had never been injured.

What he said also made a great deal of sense, because time was an unreasonable thing in exactly this way. Since you already knew the result that would happen several days later, then rewriting the result at the source of everything should be simple, shouldn’t it?

But Muen had no intention of doing that at all. Therefore, in the priest’s eyes, what he was doing right now was a bit...

Not attending to his proper work.

“Yes... if I had reversed time and arrived at the source that caused everything, then all of this would be very simple.”

Muen’s expression was complicated. He gave a melancholy, bitter laugh, but did not refute him. Instead, he invited him.

“Can you come take a walk with me?”

“At a time like this...”

“I want to show you something.”

“...”

The priest still wanted to say something, but looking at Muen’s azure eyes, he ultimately said nothing.

“All right.”

The priest said, “I hope you aren’t merely planning to stroll with me under the night sky.”

“And I hope you won’t use such a disgusting way of putting it. I’m not one of your beloved little boys.”

“You...”

Before the priest could explode, Muen grabbed the lantern beside him.

This was the lighting tool the priest used most often in daily life. It had accompanied him for several decades already. The brass body of the lamp had faded and was covered in mottled marks.

Muen snapped his fingers, and the wick inside immediately began to burn fiercely. Only this time, what burned was not a normal orange flame, but...

A pitch-black flame... with a white outer edge.

The flame jumped soundlessly. Nothing was illuminated anywhere. Instead, the surroundings became even darker.

“What is this for?” Even the priest was somewhat puzzled.

“Nothing much. A newly developed method of concealing my aura, that’s all. After all, a certain old woman may already be looking for me all over the world right now, and I imagine you don’t want to run straight into her at a time like this either.”

Muen gazed at the black flame inside the lantern, also rather melancholy.

As the saying went, when a rabbit was pushed into a corner... it would run faster. Since the Witch of Repentance was so relentlessly persistent, he could only be forced to continuously iterate new methods of fighting so that he would not be ruthlessly sanctioned by the current of the age... no, by a deranged old woman.

“Let’s go.”

Muen led the priest out of the small wooden hut.

Outside, the people from the orphanage were no longer wandering around the graveyard, but had gathered at the warehouse on the other side, so the surroundings seemed especially quiet.

Muen did not greet those people. He merely confirmed the direction a little, then led the priest somewhere.

They crossed alleys and streets, walked over broad roads, and passed crowds of people struggling on the edge of death, helpless and in pain.

The two of them only walked quietly, making no move at all, because even the badly wounded priest had noticed that countless powerful auras were constantly sweeping through this area, frantically searching for something.

And one of them was very obviously the old woman the priest both loved and hated, and Muen hated and hated even more: the Witch of Repentance.

“The Salvation Society can also detect changes in the timeline?”

The priest’s expression was grave.

“They’re looking for you?”

“Of course. They caused such a huge disturbance precisely by relying on that trick of playing with time. Naturally, through that magic, they can also detect a little abnormality.”

Muen gestured with his thumb and forefinger.

“But only a tiny little bit. Maybe they can’t understand what happened. They can only sense my danger. After all, the Ancient Magic they’re using and the thing I’m using aren’t on the same level.”

“Heh. Is there a difference? You’re still a stray dog being chased everywhere.” The priest sneered.

“The guy who only hides at home trembling and cutting himself shouldn’t say things like that. It’s very easy to get hit by your own boomerang.”

Muen suddenly stopped and pointed ahead.

“We’re here.”

“This is...”

The priest raised his head, looked at the grand gate standing wide open and revealing the pitch-black night beyond, and said instinctively, “The city gate?”

“Yes. As you can see, this is Saint Blancfazesiya’s city gate. It’s just open like this, completely undefended. As long as you want to leave, you can leave immediately.”

Muen lifted his chin slightly.

“Want to go out?”

“...”

The priest gave Muen a suspicious glance, completely unable to understand what this brat was up to.

But driven by curiosity, he still carefully stretched out one hand... and reached outside.

“How is that possible?”

Yet with only half an arm extended, the priest’s expression changed violently.

“How can there be... nothing outside?”

Yes.

Nothing.

And not “nothing” as ordinary people understood it under normal circumstances.

Rather, there was truly nothing.

Breeze, dust, earth, rain... all things tangible and intangible, even space and time themselves... did not exist.

The priest stared tightly at the city gate again, then suddenly understood. That was right. With his strength, even if it was night, how could he only see a stretch of darkness?

Because that was not darkness.

Beyond the gate was only a silent void.

“What is going on?”

The priest withdrew his hand, his lips trembling slightly.

Even with his experience and strength, it was very difficult for him to understand this phenomenon.

“Nothing is going on. It’s exactly as you see. Outside the city is a void. There’s nothing there.” Muen shrugged.

“I’m asking why it’s like this.”

The priest said in a low voice, “Why is this city floating alone in the void, like... it has been completely isolated?”

“Because it has been completely isolated to begin with. It isn’t in the present, and it isn’t in the past. It’s in... an independent timeline,” Muen explained.

“...”

The priest’s cheek twitched.

“Say it more plainly. I don’t understand.”

“Do you know what the first thing I saw was after I successfully used the reversal method and opened my eyes?” Muen did not answer directly, but asked instead.

“What was it?”

The priest naturally did not know.

But he knew that this was what Muen wanted to tell him next.

“It was the Archbishop gradually collapsing in front of me. I wanted to reach him, but no matter what I did, I couldn’t touch him.”

“This...”

“That’s right. I returned to the past, but not to a past sufficient to let me easily rewrite everything. In this timeline, the Archbishop’s death is already set. Therefore, the Salvation Society no longer needs to worry about anything. They only need to keep slaughtering people in this city and turn everyone into puppets that obey them completely, and they can once again reach the ending they desire.”

“I see...”

After thinking seriously for a moment, the priest nodded.

“I still don’t understand.”

“...Then I’ll explain in more detail. In the Salvation Society’s theoretical plan, time was divided by them into three stages.”

Muen imitated the Witch of Repentance’s manner when she had explained it before and used black flame to depict a great river of time rolling forward.

“The first stage is the stage when they are still preparing. At that time, they’re hiding in the dark, accumulating strength in order to fulfill the later conditions. As the ‘invited audience member,’ the stage I arrived at before was that stage. That stage was when I was the most lost, and also when the Salvation Society was at its weakest. As you just said, as long as I had enough intelligence and ran outside the city to raise my arm and call, naturally there would be hundreds of thousands of troops and Church elites to help me crush the Salvation Society.”

“The second stage is the stage that connects the previous and the next. Only one thing happens in this stage, and that is the Archbishop’s death.”

“As for the third stage, subjectively, it comes after the second stage, but objectively, it is a stage that proceeds at the same time as the first stage. Because it is the ‘present’ separated out by the Salvation Society. It is an independent timeline. Its existence is founded on the Archbishop’s death. So if the condition of the second stage is not completed, then it will forever remain something that has not yet happened, only able to exist in the cracks of time.

“But if the second stage is completed, then the third stage, which has reached its conclusion at the same time as the first stage, will return to the main flow of time, replace the ‘past’ of the first stage, and become the true present.”

Muen raised his head and looked at the priest.

“That’s roughly the situation. Understand?”

“Wait. I’m a little dizzy. Let me think carefully.”

The priest fell into deep thought.

All these twists and turns almost overloaded his brain.

But fortunately, he could still sort out the lines a little.

“In other words, your time reversal isn’t a complete time reversal. You didn’t reverse back to the first stage where you could easily crush the Salvation Society. Instead, you returned to that third stage that hasn’t yet become reality... but where the situation is rapidly worsening.”

“That’s right. The biggest problem is right here.”

Muen sighed.

“With myself alone, even if I truly offered up everything I have, how could I really reverse time completely? I’m not some savior descending with divine might. At most... I’m only a tiny vortex trying to go against the current in the river of time.”