BXBX NOVEL Chapter 546: Time Is a River
Chapter 546: Time Is a River
Be it angels, demons, or other extraordinary creatures, the only one Roy had seen who could control the power of time was Lilith. Although the Infinite Worlds might have other creatures that could control time power, at least he only knew Lilith.
The power she displayed, her style of doing things, and her thoughts were vastly different from ordinary demons. If he hadn’t learned from Benia that Lilith was one of the first ancient demons to exist in the Abyss, he would have mistakenly thought that she was a Chosen One of the Abyss like him.
On the ground, Lilith had already stood up. She looked around and probably knew what had happened after she lost consciousness. She sighed slightly, and a trace of sorrow flashed in her cold eyes. It was unknown if she was sighing for herself or for the nephalem who had followed her and died.
This sorrow only lasted for a moment, so short that no one could notice it.
Lilith had already calmed down. She raised her head and looked. “Come down, Osiris! I said that I would come find you soon!”
Her voice wasn’t loud, but she was certain that Roy could hear her in the sky. Sure enough, a moment later, a gigantic dragon meandered down from the black clouds.
Roy jumped down from Rafaro’s head and landed in the deep crater. He stood face to face with Lilith. After looking at each other for a while, he frowned and said, “This is not the meeting I imagined…”
“Oh? Then, what did you think it’d be like when I came to find you?” Lilith said expressionlessly. “Like Mephisto, appearing quietly in your freezing territory and having a secret conversation with you?”
“You really know everything…” Roy said in surprise. “Did you see this in the River of Time?”
What he didn’t expect was that she shook her head. “No, it’s just that old fellow
Mephisto’s nature is like that. I don’t need to ‘see’ to deduce it.”
Roy was speechless for a moment. Lilith had the potential to become a conversation killer.
After thinking for a moment, he asked, “So, you appeared on the battlefield this time because you knew that I would come here and came to see me?”
“On the contrary, I only came to see you and killed Inarius conveniently!” Lilith tidied her tattered baroque dress. “To me, what you have is more important than killing the heartless Inarius!”
Hearing this, Roy frowned again and probed, “The Red Sea Egg? You obtained memories from… other Liliths?”
This time, Lilith didn’t refute Roy but nodded. “That’s right. I’m here for the
Red Sea Egg.”
Roy shook his head. “Pardon my frankness, but how do you know that I brought the Red Sea Egg?”
“It’s very simple!” A cold smile suddenly appeared on Lilith’s face. “Because among tens of thousands of future possibilities displayed by the long River of Time, you brought the Red Sea Egg. As for the probability of you not bringing the Red Sea Egg, it’s really so small that it can be ignored…”
“Tsk…” Roy smacked his forehead with a headache. “You’re almost making me dizzy. I’m most afraid of dealing with people like you who can play with time. It hurts my brain too much…”
“It’s completely wrong for you to say that!” Lilith suddenly became serious when she heard what Roy said. “I’m not playing with time. No being can play with time! It seems like you have some kind of misunderstanding about my ability. What I want to tell you is that I’ve never deliberately controlled time to achieve my goal! I will only make slight adjustments at time nodes when there is a high chance of success in the River of Time!”
“I still don’t understand…” Roy frowned. “Please explain in plain language.”
“You’ve seen a clone like me in another world, right?” Lilith asked. “It’s the world where the clone sent me her memories.”
“Yes, I call it the Darksiders world!” Roy nodded.
“Strange naming method…” Lilith didn’t care too much and just explained to Roy, “This entire matter is due to the Lilith of the Darksiders world. After you met her, she saw a scene of you bringing the Red Sea Egg to me in the River of Time. Moreover, this scene was highly likely to happen in the future branches of the entire River of Time, so she handed the Red Sea Egg over to you to preserve. This way, she could ensure that I could get the Red Sea Egg back from you!”
Roy asked thoughtfully, “Then, what would have happened if the Lilith of the
Darksiders world hadn’t given me the Red Sea Egg?”
“Is there a need to think too much about it?” Lilith said expressionlessly. “It means that countless future possibilities have been erased and changed! After you came to this world, I wouldn’t know who you were or what connection you had with me, let alone came to find you. If I wanted to find the Red Sea Egg, I would have had to think of another way.”
“So, the Lilith of the Darksiders world giving me the Red Sea Egg belongs to the ‘adjustments’ you mentioned?” Roy frowned. “By slight adjustment, you’re referring to following the general trend of the River of Time as the starting point, right?”
“Yes, that’s what I mean!” Lilith waved her hand and drew a silver belt of light between her and Roy. “Time flows forward forever. This is also the true reason why many people describe time as a river. And during the process of flowing forward, this river allows for infinite tributaries!”
While speaking, Lilith pointed a few dots on the belt of light with her finger. The dots were like a few drops of ink dripping into the silver belt of light. When the ink spots appeared, the flowing silver belt of light immediately brought out black threads from them. These threads flowing in the silver light belt then branched out into all kinds of forks.
“Do you see these forks?” Lilith said. “The black dots I pointed at are time nodes. Any choice made at these nodes will have all kinds of tributaries appear in the River of Time. As they flow forward, some tributaries will dissipate, meaning that a wrong choice caused the subsequent termination. Some tributaries will continue to extend forward, meaning that they will continue to affect the future. But in the end, they are all flowing in the River of Time and can’t jump out of the entire river. The long River of Time has already encompassed all future possibilities.”
“Then, is it possible to jump back in time?” Roy asked.
In fact, a long time ago, when he had been racking his brains to design abilities to strengthen himself, he had once thought about whether he could design an ability to control time through definitions in the system. At the time, he had thought that he would be invincible if he could control time.
But the system showed him that this ability to control time required infinite souls, the kind that there was no end to…
From then on, Roy realized that the rigorous requirements of a time ability might exceed his imagination, so he didn’t think about it anymore. Now that Lilith, an existence who understood a time ability, had finally appeared, he definitely had to seize the opportunity to consult her.
“It’s impossible to jump back in time!” Lilith shook her head. “The area where the River of Time flows is history, established facts that are unchangeable! Unless there is really some existence or some kind of powerful force that can affect the entire River of Time, it’s impossible. You have to know that the River of Time exists in countless worlds and countless universes at the same time. If you want to move the entire River of Time, you have to move countless worlds and countless universes at the same time! The grandfather paradox of humans is just a logic game. This kind of thing is fundamentally impossible.
“At least, it’s like this in every River of Time! The creatures in the River of Time can’t jump out of this river…” Lilith concluded.
Roy acutely heard the words Lilith said. “Every river? You mean that there might be other Rivers of Time?”
“Of course!” Lilith nodded. “Rivers have a source, and the River of Time is the same. If there are different sources, then there might be other Rivers of Time. This is the origin of the parallel universe theory. Haven’t you heard of it?”
“Of course I’ve heard of it, but let’s not get off topic for now. I have a headache now!” Roy waved his hand and pointed at the wounds on Lilith’s body. “Let’s still talk about jumping back. If it’s as you said, and it’s impossible to jump back in time, then how do you explain your current situation? You became a Void Demoness just now. If not for the power of time reversal, how could you have changed back?”
This was what Roy wanted to ask the most because this matter was completely contradictory to what Lilith had just said.
But Lilith smiled and asked Roy, “If it’s really as you said, and I can reverse time without restraint, then why didn’t I reverse my state back to before I was contaminated by the Void?”
Hearing this, Roy was stunned. Yes, since she could go back in time, why not go back to when she was most complete?
“Because I can only look back at the established facts that have already occurred, which is history, as an observer!” Lilith explained. “But I can’t interfere with anything or change anything!
“In fact, the ability to control time sounds very powerful, but only when you truly have this ability will you realize that most of the time, you can only stare at this River of Time as an observer. With our current time as the dividing line, the future is in front of it, and history behind it. So-called seers can see certain scenes of the future. As for me, a time controller, I’m slightly more powerful and can see a long continuous future. If I really want to control time, I actually use the current time node as a reference point. Only then can I affect the future.
“As for the history behind it, I can only look back at it as an observer. The older the history, the more difficult it is to look back. For example, if I make a choice now, but a second later, I find that it will have a tremendous impact on my future, I’ll quickly change my choice. This way, there’s still a possibility of redemption in the future. But if I want to redo a decision I made a month ago, it’s too ditticult. The tartner the interval between time nodes, the more variables are produced, and the greater the price I have to pay!”
“Price? What is it?” Roy asked.
“You don’t need to know this. In short, you just have to know that the price is very high!” Lilith said. “And the ‘looking back’ I’m talking about is actually a kind of time snapshot. It’s a snapshot of a certain point in history and maps it onto my body, letting me show the same state as in the past! This process is also achieved with the same price, so there’s simply no way to look back at a state in the more distant past. Understand?”
“Understood. In other words, this time reversal phenomenon on you is actually… a historical illusion! ” Roy deliberated. “But through your ability, you made this ‘illusion’ become the ‘reality’ of the current node. Is that right?”
“Yes. In fact, this is the truth about my ability to control time! This snapshot only allowed me to regain my consciousness, but the eruption of Void power in my body is an unchangeable fact…” Lilith nodded. “If I hadn’t seen your needs and that what you wanted to do in the future had no conflict with me, I wouldn’t have told you this…”
At this point, Lilith suddenly raised her hand and stopped. “Okay, I know what you’re going to ask next. I can only tell you that Nozdormu will play himself to death sooner or later! Now, cut the crap and take out the Red Sea Egg!”
Roy was stunned. He did want to ask about it just now. According to Lilith’s time theory, it would conflict with the abilities displayed by the bronze dragons and the bronze dragon leader, Nozdormu, in the Warcraft world. He wanted to ask what was going on, but she knew what he wanted to ask in advance and stopped him from chattering.
Thus, Roy could only take out the Red Sea Egg first…