TGS - Chapter 196

Chapter 196: The Beginning of Creation

The divine core of the Sheep God, lying before them, looked like a fluffy, white ball. If one didn't know better, it would be hard to imagine that it concealed a power related to time—that most mysterious of forces, one of the fundamental rules of existence.

Sheli Pu hesitated for two seconds before saying quietly, "The time authority I possess is very weak. It's basically useless."

"I know," Lotus said. "It's fine."

The River Goddess contemplated the divine core for a moment, then, as if having made up her mind, turned and took out the bronze mirror she had kept in reserve.

The coiled Ouroboros glinted golden in the sunlight. As Alyuin’s eyes fell upon it, a strange, baseless panic rose from the bottom of her heart, and she subconsciously grabbed Lotus’s wrist.

Lotus turned her head. "What is it?" she asked gently.

Alyuin bit her lower lip, the movement barely perceptible.

"Where are you going?" She paused, as if realizing the question was out of the blue, and added in a low voice, "It's nothing. It's just this mirror..."

This mirror, which had caught Alyuin's eye at first glance, now made her feel inexplicably uneasy in Lotus's hands.

—As if it would take Lotus away.

Lotus was taken aback by the princess's perceptiveness, her gaze softening. "I have to go change some things, but don't worry, I won't be gone for long. Perhaps you'll blink, and I'll already be back."

Alyuin lowered her eyes, then raised them a moment later with a faint smile. "You sound like you're coaxing a child."

"Do I?"

"Of course. If you want to soothe your lover, I recommend another method."

Alyuin took half a step forward, tilted her head, and kissed the side of the goddess's ear. With a swift motion, Lotus opened a god power field, shielding them from the Sheep God's sight.

They exchanged a brief kiss in the hidden space. It was barely more than a touch, but it soothed Alyuin perfectly.

Lotus’s lips brushed against the corner of the princess’s mouth, their breaths mingling.

"Alyuin, I will only return to a place where you are."

Alyuin didn't reply, only looked at her deeply and nodded.

When the kiss ended, Lotus dispelled the god power field.

Holding the bronze mirror in her left hand and the Sheep God's divine core in her right, she slowly extracted the divine power of time from the core with Sheli Pu's assistance, guiding the energy to cover the mirror.

The slow-moving divine power of time touched the gemstone set as the serpent's eye on the Ouroboros ring.

In the next instant, the bronze mirror trembled. An arc of light flashed across the gemstone's surface, and the serpent ring began to rotate, segment by segment, creating the illusion that it was slithering vividly around the mirror's edge.

With a soft click.

Lotus and the bronze mirror vanished from the spot.

The Sheep God held her own divine core and sensed it carefully, discovering that the power of time within it was completely depleted.

This actually made Sheli Pu quite happy. After all, seeing fragments of the past from time to time was rather troublesome.

So, should she stay here and wait, or return to the divine kingdom of Solancia?

Sheli Pu raised her head and peeked at Alyuin.

The princess gave her a calm nod, her attitude suggesting she was free to stay or go, then continued to stare at the spot where Lotus had been.

Sheli Pu: "..."

She'd better wait a little longer.

Lotus found herself in a bizarre, kaleidoscopic tunnel. In every direction—front, back, left, right, all around—were twinkling points of starlight.

It was utterly silent, as if sound could not travel here. The starlight illuminating the area was also profoundly strange and magnificent, as if it existed outside 【The World】; even the arrangement of light particles seemed peculiar and unpredictable.

But for some reason, Lotus found it a little familiar.

She must have been here before.

A fragment of memory flashed past. A long time ago, it was the Ouroboros bronze mirror in the museum that had pulled her from the modern world. In the second before she lost consciousness, the light that had rushed toward her seemed to be just like this starlight.

This was... 【Spacetime】.

The thought arose from the bottom of her heart, and Lotus knew she had succeeded.

Those points of starlight, upon closer inspection, were actually a special kind of "door." Their entrances constantly contracted and expanded, like breathing passages leading to different times and spaces.

Observing even more carefully, one could see arcs of light as thin as hairs connecting the stars.

These arcs linked the stars, continuously spreading further and further, growing wider as they went. Together, they formed a majestic, grand, yet exquisitely beautiful river, surging endlessly through the tunnel.

Lotus watched quietly for a moment, took a deep breath, and flew against the flow of starlight, toward the river's source—or rather, toward a more ancient time.

Compared to the magnificent 【Spacetime】, Lotus was just a tiny figure.

This figure searched among the starlight. After an unknown amount of time, she suddenly stopped.

The black stone that Lotus had brought out from the underwater temple was emitting an invisible resonance, corresponding with a star-door before her, as if it had found the time of its own birth.

"Is this it?"

Lotus murmured, extending a fingertip toward the star-door.

The passage opened, growing wider and taller until the star-door stood before her like a mountain, the entrance within its stellar outline veiled in iridescent light.

Lotus pressed her palm against the barrier of light and passed through it easily, like moving through an invisible curtain of water.

The next moment, she stepped into the star-curtain without hesitation.

The star-curtain rippled, and the trailing white silk of her sash disappeared inside the star-door.

At the same time, a translucent, pale golden silhouette slowly materialized above this torrent of time and space. Numerous golden instruments encircled with Ouroboros symbols rotated segment by segment behind it, marking seconds and minutes.

"She has returned to that past and is about to return to her own 【World】."

"Everything is still on the right track. 【Destiny】 is too, right?"

Another silhouette appeared beside it in 【Spacetime】. It was taller than the silhouette surrounded by golden instruments, taller even than the nearby star-door. What was visible was not even its entirety—its lower half was submerged in the river of starlight, making it impossible to discern the true form of this colossal shadow.

Like an ancient giant, or a sky-piercing tree, it was pale yet shone with a soft, gentle light. The silhouette called 【Destiny】 remained silent.

In a certain moment, both silhouettes dissipated.

Lotus was completely unaware of what had transpired outside the star-door.

After stepping through the star-curtain, she was hit by a dizzying sensation. When her vision stabilized and she saw the scene in this new world, Lotus's eyes widened, two completely opposite emotions flashing through her heart.

Just as I thought.

How could this be?

To say she felt dizzy was not entirely accurate, because there was no sky or earth before her. As far as the eye could see, there was only a vast, empty grayness, and within that grayness, a single pool of water.

—The Primordial Water.

The origin of the world in Solancian mythology, the Creator God acknowledged by the rules, was a chaotic, unconscious body of water.

Lotus suddenly felt a wave of relief.

The path she had envisioned was correct, though there were some minor deviations in the details.

Before truly using the power of time and the mirror of 【Spacetime】 to cross the river of stars and arrive in this ancient era, Lotus had thought she would use the mirror to travel again, to the time when the creation myth first began to be told among mortals, and give the Primordial Water a name... her own name.

After all, the underwater temple had clearly indicated this. Although she didn't know what kind of confusion might arise from the Primordial Water sharing a name with a later River Goddess, Lotus could no longer worry about such things.

Solancia needed a Creator God.

A being who could contend with Perseus after the seal was broken.

To achieve this, planning ahead was necessary.

Not only did she have to add a divine name, but she also had to find a way to circumvent the principle that a Creator God could not appear in the real world—just as Perseus had once done, and in the least costly way.

Lotus had already been prepared for this, but she had never expected that by following the resonance between the black stone and its corresponding time, she would arrive in the mythological world of a bygone age.

In actual history, the world certainly did not begin as a pool of water in chaos, but in the void of mythological space, it was indeed so.

This was the past as it existed within the concept of myth.

In that case, could changing the "history" within the mythological world resolve the crisis of the future?

Facing the chaotic world, Lotus's eyes gradually brightened.

She would have to try to find out.

And so, the River Goddess threw herself into the origin of the world.

The moment her body entered the water, it was as if she dissolved into countless points of light, becoming the Primordial Water itself. She was the Primordial, and the Primordial was her.

Lotus's heart settled.

Yes, this is it.

So, the next thing to do was...

Creation. Or rather, conceptual creation.

Lotus, facing the empty, chaotic world: "..."

This felt like it was going to be a huge project.

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