"Partner, next we're supposed to drive the ritual sword through my chest, right?"
"But since we've replaced the original past with ourselves, won't Fuli notice that something is wrong and look over here?"
Caelus glanced at Cyrene, who was holding up the ritual sword as though trying to estimate just how severe the wound would be if that bent blade pierced her chest.
"It's fine."
"The future has already been fixed in place."
"As long as we don't make any large-scale changes to the past, what is supposed to happen will still happen."
"And stop waving that ritual sword around."
"We're not following the original script."
"All right."
Cyrene smiled and put the sword away.
Then she placed the final Coreflame into the basin before them.
The stars in the sky suddenly blazed to life.
At the same time, the twelve symbols representing the Twelve Titans began shining.
A notebook appeared in Caelus's hand.
It was the same notebook that had accompanied him ever since the Holy Grail War.
Then two tigers appeared behind Caelus and Cyrene, one black and one white, each engraved upon a stone slab.
The two slabs joined together and began spinning rapidly.
In the end, they formed a circular sigil of perfectly interlocking light and darkness.
A faint pink hue appeared within Caelus's golden eyes.
At the same time, enormous amounts of Nihility energy began transforming into the power of Remembrance.
With the sound of frost rapidly spreading, Caelus suddenly felt as though his existence were being elevated without limit.
Higher and higher.
Until he seemed to transcend reality itself and reach an entirely different dimension.
It was like breaking through the surface of an ocean and looking back down at the world beneath the water.
"The past..."
"Reappear."
Taking advantage of that brief elevation in his level of existence, Caelus invoked one of the greatest abilities of the Path of Remembrance.
He made the memories of the past manifest in the present.
The image of Fuli, the Aeon of Remembrance, whom Caelus had personally witnessed while creating Penacony, appeared once again.
Beneath that divine crown, something resembling a pair of eyes seemed to look across endless space and time.
Those eyes fell upon Caelus.
For a moment, Caelus thought he heard someone whispering beside his ear.
But the voice came from so impossibly far away that he could not make out the words.
Then he heard another sound.
Like tightly bound ropes suddenly being cut apart.
When everything ended and Caelus regained his senses, he discovered that he had returned to a golden wheat field near the small village known as Aedes Elysiae.
Caelus rose from the field and looked around.
He knew that this place was merely a temporary resting point before Creation was fully completed.
The reason it had taken this particular form was simple.
As the one guiding the process, Caelus subconsciously regarded this village as the place where everything in Amphoreus had begun.
"Partner, I think I suddenly gained a lot of blurry memories."
Cyrene flew out from Caelus and sat down nearby.
Looking at the golden wheat stalks that rose nearly half her height, she continued,
"Right after Fuli looked over here, I think I heard something break."
"Then all kinds of vague memories suddenly appeared in my mind."
"But they're still too unclear for me to understand."
"I heard something too."
"It sounded like someone was trying to speak to me from an incredibly distant place."
"Then I heard the sound of a rope snapping."
"After that, I appeared here."
The two discussed it for a while.
They even examined one another's memories, but neither could find the missing fragments from before.
In the end, they had no choice but to give up trying to determine what had happened.
At this point, someone might ask why they did not simply ask the all-knowing System.
The System's answer would naturally be:
[I would love to tell you, but this concerns future events.]
[I can't spoil the story.]
Caelus left the wheat field and wandered through the village.
There was not a single familiar person anywhere.
It was nothing more than an empty stage.
Then Caelus took out his book and began turning through its pages.
Every page represented a story.
And every story corresponded to an individual who had genuinely existed.
Phainon's figure gradually changed from illusion into reality.
Then the rest of the villagers appeared one after another.
Hieronymus, Phainon's father.
Otta, Phainon's mother.
Garba, the hunter.
Pisces, the teacher.
Along with Piso, Orvia, and the others.
One by one, the villagers emerged from nothingness.
They seemed completely unaware of what had happened in the future.
They knew nothing about the fate that had befallen Amphoreus.
They simply returned to the ordinary lives they had once known.
"Caelus, Cyrene!"
"What are you two doing today?"
"Want to come hunting with Uncle Garba and me?"
Phainon approached them with a bright smile.
He complained that Garba was already getting old but still insisted on pushing himself far too hard.
Phainon simply could not stop worrying about him, so he planned to go along and help.
"Cyrene and I are practicing Oronyx's prayers today, so we won't be coming."
"All right!"
"Then practice hard."
"I'll bring back a huge boar later and we can roast the whole thing for everyone!"
Phainon still smiled with the same cheerful brightness as always.
After finishing his sentence, he hurried away to find Garba.
The two watched him disappear into the distance.
Then Cyrene smiled.
"Phainon's been like this ever since he was little."
"It's almost like he never changed at all."
"Even Uncle Garba still says he hasn't grown up."
"Even in the future, Phainon remained Phainon."
"Even after becoming trapped in eternal recurrence, he never stopped being himself."
"He relied only on the pure dream he had carried since childhood, and that alone allowed him to endure those endless cycles."
"He experienced the despair and agony of fighting his companions countless times."
"But he still endured."
"From beginning to end, he never bowed to Destruction."
"And he never surrendered to fate."
Caelus looked at the villagers around him.
He knew that, for now, these people were still only fragments reconstructed from memory.
They were already extremely similar to genuine individuals.
But something was still missing.
Change.
The chaotic and unpredictable emotions that belonged to living beings.
That was something only time could provide.
Countless years of accumulation.
Record after record.
The books would continue growing thicker.
The memories would become richer and more complete.
And once that happened, everyone would finally be capable of truly living within memory.
"Partner."
"Are we setting out again?"
Cyrene reached out and took Caelus's hand.
"Mm."
"It's time to go."
Caelus and Cyrene walked toward the only harbor connected to Aedes Elysiae.
Their figures gradually disappeared into the distance.
Behind them, the lively sounds of the village slowly faded away.
The scenery around them began rapidly rewinding.
Then a burst of white light flashed.
A new cycle began.
The counter representing the eternal recurrence changed from zero to one.
Elsewhere, an imprisoned saintess was trying to escape from the place where she had been confined.
She wanted to spread the divine oracle.
To save others.
To gain her freedom.
To help as many people as possible.
Unfortunately, her strength was still insufficient.
There were too many guards.
Too many obstacles standing in her way.
Just as escape seemed certain to fail, a voice suddenly sounded beside her ear.
"Run forward."
"Don't look back."
The voice sounded almost as though a man and a woman were speaking to her at the same time.
Yet it was so faint and unreal that it could easily have been mistaken for an illusion.
Trisidios no longer had time to question it.
She lowered her head and charged directly toward the guards blocking her path.
With hope already fading, she stopped worrying about the consequences.
She simply followed that voice and ran forward without hesitation.
Then the guards suddenly seemed to become nothing more than intangible projections.
All they could do was watch as Trisidios passed straight through their bodies and continued running into the distance.
Only when she finally stopped and began gasping for breath did she realize something.
There was no one around her.
No one behind her.
Nothing remained to stop her.
She was free.
Afterward, she divided herself into countless fragments and carried the divine prophecy throughout Amphoreus.
And with that...
The story of the Flame-Chase Journey began.
(To be continued.)
◇◇◇
◇ One bonus chapter will be released for every 200 Power Stones.
◇ You can read the ahead chapter on Pat if you're interested: p-atreon.c-om/Blownleaves (Just remove the hyphen to access normally.)