Everyone exchanged glances, but not a single person showed any intention of backing away.
If anything, they were finally about to see what lay beyond the door…
Bzzzz—
Ripples spread outward one after another.
The massive gate, which had once resisted every attempt to open it no matter how much force was used, now began to dissolve as though melting away.
Gradually, Kanzaki Rei could finally see the scene beyond the door.
Shhh—
And with that single glance—
what he saw was not merely the girl standing within.
Kanzaki Rei actually saw his own back as well.
He saw Ansu too.
None of these figures were physical entities. They were merely blurred projections—and there was more than just one such projection.
"This is not the first time we've spoken."
The ivory-haired girl stood quietly at the center of the space.
Even simply standing there, she embodied the very flow of time itself.
But previously, when Ansu shattered the gate, Kanzaki Rei had only caught a fleeting glimpse of the person inside through the broken opening.
He had not seen deeper.
Had not seen farther.
But this time, they had been invited inside by the other party herself.
And at last, his gaze could reach farther beyond the door.
After looking toward Aehkator, Kanzaki Rei lifted his eyes toward the distance.
Within this incomparably silent space, multiple different streams of time were somehow flowing simultaneously.
And faintly, he could even see multiple different versions of her wandering through the area.
As for her existence…
Kanzaki Rei's perception and talents transmitted an unusual sensation.
The feedback produced by his Divine-Tier Talent—Deepest Truth—indicated that she was a nonexistent, false lifeform.
Yet at the same time, she differed from ordinary unreality.
If he had to describe it—
the feeling she gave him was unlike anything he had ever experienced before.
She was half-real.
Ordinarily, something was either real or false.
What did "half-real" even mean?
"Has your wish been fulfilled, visitor?" Aehkator asked calmly.
Iz's expression immediately lit up with excitement.
"Oh! So this is what it looks like inside!"
Multiple different timelines were unfolding here simultaneously.
Kanzaki Rei saw Ansu.
And within this place, Izparut also saw reflections of several different versions of himself.
In only a very short amount of time, they had already grasped what kind of place this was.
"So what you mean is… you believe you yourself are unreal?" Kanzaki Rei asked directly.
The instant those words came out, Akase's face twitched beside him.
Damn, do you really have to be that blunt?
Aren't you basically stabbing right into her wounds?
Faced with Kanzaki Rei's question, the ivory-haired girl merely answered indifferently:
"What else would it be?"
"Just as you can already see, at this very moment, multiple different timelines are unfolding simultaneously."
"And in the end, only one can ultimately be confirmed."
"All the other versions of me are nonexistent. False."
"Once one timeline becomes fixed, all the remaining versions of me will disappear."
"And the version that disappears… may very well be this current self as well."
Now they finally understood what she meant by "disappearance."
"Why is it like this?" Kanzaki Rei asked again.
He could already vaguely guess that this question might touch upon secrets from the ancient era.
"Why…"
"Because this is the price I must bear."
Suddenly, Aehkator asked:
"Do you know the true nature of time?"
Kanzaki Rei replied, "Perhaps. I understand at least a little."
For example, theories such as the immutability of time, the irreversibility of time, and the relationship between time and matter—
he had already studied many such concepts.
And in addition, he himself had already comprehended the primordial forbidden magic—Time.
To some extent, he had already glimpsed a fragment of time's true essence.
"You are not entirely wrong. But your understanding is still far too shallow."
"Time truly was unique. At least it is now. At least from your perspective."
"In the beginning, time genuinely existed as a single, unique flow. There were no complicated changes or branching structures."
"And because of that, I found time unbearably monotonous."
"So I attempted to alter the nature of time itself…"
"At first, I believed such a thing would be extraordinarily difficult. Yet unexpectedly, I discovered that merely interfering slightly—simply making a tiny adjustment to time—"
"caused the perfectly stable and immutable flow of time to suddenly split into countless branches."
"In that instant, time transformed into multiple uncertain paths."
"Each timeline existed independently."
"Yet some timelines also began influencing one another."
"And within every split spacetime, there would eventually occur a convergence toward a single ending."
"That ending was the complete destruction of the entire spacetime itself."
"At the time, I immediately realized something was terribly wrong."
"So I immediately sealed everything."
"I sealed away every additional spacetime that had branched out."
"And in the end… it became the current state of time within this place."
Shhh—
Chaotic beyond measure.
Utterly disordered.
"And remaining here alongside those timelines… were all the different versions of myself from each separate timeline."
After she finished speaking—
Kanzaki Rei finally understood why his talent had identified her as half-real instead of entirely real or entirely false.
Rather than false—
it would be more accurate to call her a possible existence.
"Once the time of the main world becomes fixed, the countless versions of me across the branching timelines will also disappear alongside the confirmation of the primary timeline."
"In truth, even this current self speaking with you now is meaningless."
A faint tremor gradually entered her voice.
"After all… by the time I finish speaking with you, I will probably disappear as well."
Kanzaki Rei met Aehkator's gaze directly.
Within her eyes, he could see timeline after timeline collapsing.
The reason she remained here was not solely for atonement.
It was also for correction.
To correct every branching timeline—
until only the original one remained.
"Uh… I still don't really get it," Akase said while scratching his head.
"Why can't the other timelines exist?"
Aehkator shook her head.
"If that happened, uniqueness could no longer be established."
"Different spacetimes would become entangled with one another. In some timelines, powerful individuals could even influence alternate versions of themselves."
"If every possibility were allowed to exist, then it would even become possible for the development of another timeline to cause the collapse of the primary timeline."
"And every form of divination in the world would fail."
"One could mistakenly treat a prophecy observed from another timeline as the correct future."
"There are many other consequences as well."
"But the greatest problem is uniqueness itself."
"If an Eighth-Tier class-holder seeks to ascend to godhood, and in another timeline another version of themselves ascends first—"
"then they would permanently lose the qualifications necessary to become a god."
"They would lose the opportunity to obtain that divine throne."
"That is the uniqueness of time."
"If time were not unique…"
"Then the path to godhood in this world would become tens of thousands of times more difficult than it already is."