POV: Rygar Adoldia
As I flew toward the Combat Temple through the storm, a strange feeling washed over me.
And then, there was a thud.
It was hard to explain… it was as if the world had suddenly cracked, a huge sense of incongruity, as if the world suddenly felt deeply wrong.
The lightning kept cracking without pause.
Without thinking twice, I pushed my mana through my entire body and began to speed across the sky back toward my home.
I activated my Demon Eyes to their fullest and extended my senses as far as possible. Until I saw again the home where my women and children were.
My eyes focused specifically on Verdia.
For some reason, that sense of incongruity was present in her as well, but she seemed to be studying Healing Magic as usual.
After investigating and confirming my family's safety, I felt more relieved. Then I turned my attention to the source of that enormous strange feeling.
It was different from the feeling I had when facing Orsted, who held power and instability in his actions.
And it was also different from when facing Hitogami, who was constantly scheming and plotting down to the smallest actions.
What was I facing?
I floated in the sky, ignoring the rain. The whole Great Forest opened up to my senses. Sound, scent, mana — nothing escaped.
Not even the torrents of water, the raging rivers, could hide from me. And yet, no one else seemed to have noticed anything — only I seemed to feel that incongruity.
I continued investigating.
Below, a fish was being eaten alive by a Lizardman in the dark waters.
On the branches, a forest fox leapt after a desperate mouse, trying to reach the safety of its nest.
Further on, a Doldia warrior jumped between the trees, keeping his patrol in the midst of the incessant rain.
There was an elf, with long green hair, walking over the turbulent waters, observing everything with curiosity.
Huh?...
Suddenly, I was confused.
What was I even doing?
My mind scrambled for a moment.
My heart raced anxiously.
Then I remembered: right! The incongruity! I need to investigate!
-
I spread my senses across the surrounding forest, nothing escaped my reach.
I floated in the sky, ignoring the rain, while all the surroundings for miles entered my consciousness through smell, sounds and mana.
Not even the torrential rains and raging rivers could hide anything.
A Doldia warrior patrolling under the rain.
An elf with the largest mana capacity I'd ever seen in my life, floating in a spot where the rain didn't reach, analyzing a tree.
A fox eating a forest mouse.
A Mud Crocodile slipping under the river.
Huh? What was I doing again?
At that moment I began to break out in a cold sweat.
What is happening?
I activated the Holy Beast Battle Aura, and lightning snapped around me.
But there was a thought that still wouldn't leave my mind: what was I protecting myself against?
I shot into the sky and drew the sword Doomsday.
An irascible heat flowed instantly from the blade, and blue flames rose like a sea covering everything, even me.
The pain of being burned awakened my consciousness to the fullest; my senses were at full throttle thanks to the Beast Aura.
-
I spread my senses over all the surroundings of the Great Forest. Lightning crackled at the slightest movement, and my blade was ready to cut anything.
I floated in the sky, the rain melting before getting close due to the heat of the translucent blue blade.
All the surroundings for miles entered my consciousness through smell, sounds and mana. Not even the torrential rains and raging rivers could hide anything.
Leaves burning due to Doomsday's heat.
The rain turning into steam due to the heat.
An elf a few kilometers away, with long green hair and golden eyes, walking through the air and looking directly in my direction with a smile.
A Doldia warrior on patrol who, curious, looked at me from afar, shining in the sky.
Wait.
What? The leaves burning… what was I doing?
At that moment, my body instinctively shot off in a direction that to me seemed random, but I did it anyway.
I covered a few kilometers, leaving everyone who was watching me behind.
And then, suddenly, without warning, I arrived at a place where the rain did not reach…
The torrential rains that covered the entire Great Forest seemed to ignore this place within a hundred-meter radius. The rivers, which should have been raging, seemed instead like a calm lake.
There was even the impression of a warm, pleasant sunlight spreading through the place involuntarily.
A cold sweat ran through my whole body as I tried to understand why I hadn't known this place was here a moment before.
And then, a gentle and extremely happy voice spoke with a mischievous tone:
"My, my, my! How did you get here?"
I froze.
How is this possible? Someone had been here the whole time… how did I not feel any presence? If she can hide from me, how strong is she?
I slowly turned my face to the side.
And then I saw her.
Sitting on a branch, swinging her legs playfully, was an elven woman of unbelievable beauty.
Her long green hair fluttered gently as if there were a breeze that surrounded only her.
Her golden eyes, similar to mine, conveyed a sense of joy, serenity and something else I couldn't define.
She wore a dress made of green leaves. On her forehead there was a delicate circlet, adorned with a pink stone that emitted a soft glow.
Everything around her seemed more vivid.
The air was fresher, the vegetation greener, the sounds of the forest clearer. Small animals surrounded her without fear, as if naturally drawn to her presence.
She seemed to be part of the Great Forest, as if she were its personification.
But what puzzled me most was not her beauty or the strangeness of the scene. It was something else.
I could feel a connection to that unknown elf. A deep, inexplicable bond, even though I had never seen her before.
Unconsciously, my body reacted on its own. I dispersed the lightning that crackled around me. The Beast Aura dissipated.
Even Doomsday, in my hands, silenced its burning rage, the blue flames retracting under my will.
I felt that hurting this person would be an unforgivable mistake.
It was irrational. Part of me wanted to stay on alert, but another part told me I should not raise my blade against her at all.
And the more I stayed there, the more comfortable I felt in her presence.
I took a deep breath and activated my Demon Eyes. I needed to see this woman deeply.
It was then that I noticed something even more frightening.
Her mana reserves were colossal. Not just immense — they surpassed even Rudeus Greyrat. And, even more impressive, they were higher than the Dragon God Orsted.
Never, in my entire life, had I witnessed someone with so much mana. Besides, it wasn't ordinary mana.
The mana radiated and shone as if it were divine.
There was something familiar about it to my own mana, but even more mystical.
Her mana seemed extremely unstable for some reason.
And there was another detail that left me even more confused: her body emitted no trace of Touki. That made no sense.
Even normal people possessed inactive traces of Touki, however small.
To this day, I had only seen something similar in Rudeus Greyrat… and that girl who accompanied Orsted, who possessed no mana at all.
The total absence was anomalous. Yet still, I could feel a gigantic power contained in that apparently fragile figure.
As I analyzed her with all care, she finally opened her mouth and spoke.
"Hehe… you weren't lying, you're really excessively cautious…"
Even with the strange sense of peace she gave me, my body stayed ready.
I kept the exact distance to advance or retreat in the next instant, if necessary. My muscles were tense, completely ready for a sudden battle.
"Who are you?" I asked.
There was no direct hostility in my voice, but I needed answers. Mysterious beings who appear out of nowhere cannot be treated carelessly.
She chuckled softly, closed her eyes and opened her arms with a joyful, natural gesture, as if we were meeting again.
"I am your daughter! It's a pleasure to meet you again, Daddy!"
I froze at hearing that. I felt my heart skip a beat. I stood still, silent, staring at her trying to guess if I had heard wrong.
She remained there, arms open, waiting for me to embrace her. When she noticed I didn't move, she cleared her throat slightly, averted her gaze and murmured:
"How rude…"
My eyes must have been wide, and my expression was probably funny, because she laughed, clearly amused by my reaction.
I was trying to read her intentions, scanning every detail of her posture, breathing and gaze. The most disconcerting thing of all was that she didn't seem to be lying.
But… how did that make sense?
She looked like someone in her twenties. But, as an elf, she could be older than she appeared.
Still, in every possible way, it didn't fit. There was no logic.
"How can you be my daughter?!" I exploded, unable to contain my incredulity.
"Hahahaha!"
She laughed, barely able to contain herself while I was still incredulous, completely speechless.
She laughed for a while, leaning forward, hugging herself while holding her belly. Then, finally, she ran her hand across the corner of her eye and wiped away a tear that had fallen.
"Well, see…" she said, composing herself, though still with a mischievous smile on her face.
"I haven't been born yet. I'm from the future. I am the Immortal Fairy of the Kingdom of Gaia. I won't tell you my name, because names have power, and revealing it carelessly could drastically change the future."
She resumed swinging her legs casually, as if we were just on a sunny afternoon, without the colossal storm that devastated the whole Great Forest.
I, however, was struggling to absorb it all.
"Time travel...?" I murmured to myself, confused. "Is that possible?"
No... I was thinking from the wrong point of view.
If there is Teleportation Magic, capable of folding space, then Space-Time must inevitably also be subject to the laws of Magic.
But what would be necessary to accomplish such a thing? An unimaginable amount of mana, certainly...
Suddenly, I finally looked at her more closely.
My Demon Eyes picked up something terrifying: her mana reserves were being drained at an inconceivable speed.
It was as if an entire ocean was being swallowed by a black hole in a matter of seconds.
Mana reserves that alone would be enough to destroy the world and rebuild it from scratch were being consumed without pause.
And, strangely, she didn't seem to be doing anything special.
My thoughts sped up thanks to the Demon Eye and immediately led me to a conclusion.
"You have... a time limit?" I asked in a low voice, my eyes fixed on the luminous aura flowing from her.
The elf opened a cheerful smile, but with a hint of tenderness.
"You really are the daddy. Noticing that so quickly... Yes, I have a time limit." She paused briefly, raising her arm and pointing to a higher branch of the tree nearby.
"But I wrote everything that needs to be known in that book. So we can talk without hurry."
I followed the movement of her hand and saw a book there.
"If you have doubts about this," she continued, shaking her head slightly, "the Magic I'm using requires an absurd amount of mana. Only someone like me could cast it and survive to tell the tale. That is also why your future self sent me instead of coming personally."
With my thoughts racing, I processed every detail of the words she had spoken.
'If she is my daughter... that explains the connection and the familiarity I felt from the start. It also explains the incongruity I perceived in Verdia...'
She was probably her daughter. Which, at the very least, made sense within that chaotic tangle of impossibilities.
Many questions arose in my mind. About time and space, about how they fold, about how timelines cross, affect or cancel each other out.
About how her presence here could influence the entire future.
But if the time limit was true, then even someone like her could not remain here for long.
I breathed deeply, putting aside the hundreds of doubts boiling in my head, and focused on the only question that really mattered.
"So... why would my future self feel the need to send a message to me? What went so wrong that he couldn't simply... let fate follow its course?"
The elf, for the first time, let out a sad smile.
Then she spoke:
"Well... this is nothing more than an attempt. An attempt to free ourselves from the bonds of fate. Something that wasn't possible originally..."
Her voice trembled for a moment. "In the future... we already failed."
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