"What she said is all true."
While Cipher was still in disbelief, 'Luo Lin' suddenly spoke a sentence without context, her voice calm and steady.
"Luo Lin?"
Hearing that voice, Cipher frowned. But seeing the calm expression that clearly didn't belong to Luo Lin, combined with the strange phrase "what 'she' said is all true," Cipher reacted in the next instant.
"No, you aren't Luo Lin."
"Correct, I indeed am not Luo Lin."
'Luo Lin' nodded, admitting it.
"My name is Celeste Callisto. I am a mage from another world. You may call me Celeste."
After hearing the self-introduction from the 'Luo Lin' before her, Cipher remained silent for a while before reporting her own name:
"You may call me Cifera."
"Very well, Your Excellency Cifera."
Celeste bowed, expressing her respect to Cipher.
After the introduction phase was complete, Cipher looked at Celeste and asked point-blank:
"Is it because of your influence that Luo Lin has become so self-blaming and guilt-ridden?"
"Yes and no." Celeste shook her head. "Her current state is indeed related to me, but another important reason is... her personality."
"Personality?" Hearing those words, Cipher lowered her head in thought. "Are you referring to her tendency to help others while resisting help from them?"
"Mm... to be more precise," Celeste paused for a moment before saying the words, "it is 'kindness'."
"When a person of such nature learns that because of her, thousands or even tens of thousands of people have died, it isn't strange for her to turn into what she is now, is it?"
"It indeed isn't strange."
Cipher nodded, agreeing with Celeste's words. But in the next heartbeat, her tone turned ice-cold.
"But I don't believe that she could cause that many deaths with just her own ability. So, the deaths of those people have a lot to do with you, right?"
"It indeed has a great deal to do with me."
Celeste did not try to defend herself and directly admitted it.
"Because the Spiritual Tide was something I caused."
With that, she began to gradually explain the beginning and end of the Spiritual Tide.
She was Celeste Callisto, a child who had been blessed by space since birth.
From a young age, she showed traits that set her apart from other children. While other children knew nothing of magic and were still forming their basic perceptions, she was already able to use intermediate spatial techniques like Space Transfer—commonly known as teleportation—at the age of six, thanks to her powerful spatial talent.
Subsequently, because of this immense talent, Celeste became the strongest spatial mage on the Eresia Continent in less than a century, without exception. Of course, this achievement was also greatly related to a fortuitous encounter she had in her youth.
It was a Time Ruins hidden within a subspace. There, time was accelerated tenfold; ten years inside was only one year outside. Celeste was trapped in that place for fifty years. During those fifty years, she not only gained insights into the time magic engraved within the ruins but also discovered a composite magic that required the simultaneous use of both time and space elements.
After escaping from the ruins, Celeste began to improve her mastery of time magic while researching that composite magic. Finally, after another hundred years, she began to look for people to attempt the first casting of the spell...
Although they had made what they considered perfect preparations, the strength and uncontrollability of the spell eventually exceeded their imagination. Thus, an incalculable, large-scale magical accident occurred.
A massive spatial rift leading to other planes appeared in the sky above a large forest called the Emerald Forest. And she, Celeste, as the culprit of the magic and the person closest to the spatial rift, was swept into the accident.
Immediately afterward, a storm composed of endless spatial rifts attacked her violently. Even as a powerful spatial mage, she found it difficult to resist. Consequently, her physical body was completely destroyed by these spatial storms, leaving only her soul to drift through space until she finally arrived in this world.
And back then, after she finally crossed through the spatial rift, the first human of this world she encountered—
"Was her, Luo Lin."
Saying this, Celeste placed a hand on 'Luo Lin's' chest.
"So, Little Lin is a person from a hundred years ago?" After hearing Celeste's narrative, Cipher frowned. "Then why doesn't she remember the past?"
"And... how has she lived from a hundred years ago until now?"
As the words fell, an illusory gold thread tightened slightly, digging into 'Luo Lin's' wrist.
But strangely, even though the gold thread had begun to contract, there was not a trace of a mark on Luo Lin's wrist.
"Hiss..."
After the gold thread tightened, Celeste let out a small cry of pain and instinctively felt for Luo Lin's wrist. But sensing nothing there, she looked down and realized the gold thread had passed directly through 'Luo Lin's' physical body and was instead bound to 'her' soul's wrist.
"A gold thread that directly binds the soul..." Watching this scene, she murmured to herself. Then she looked up at Cipher. "This status... is actually quite normal."
'Status?'
The cat ears atop Cipher's head twitched; she caught the word immediately.
'Did she sense something? But to be honest, I don't even know my own status.'
She complained silently in her heart. Although she often called herself a Demigod of Trickery, the world had changed after all. How could she know where a Demigod of Trickery from Amphoreus would be categorized here?
"Answer my question."
Seeing Celeste staring at the gold thread in a daze, Cipher spoke flatly to remind her.
Celeste startled, as if coming back to her senses. Then, she clutched 'her' chest, her breathing becoming slightly labored. After a moment, she looked up again and answered Cipher's question:
"Because... back then, I exhausted almost all my power to cast a time magic, freezing the time around her."