The tranquil courtyard maintained a distinct silence. Aleph, who was dressed in a set of bck kimono, stared bnkly at the sky.

  ‘...Their sun.’

  One week.

  That was the time Aleph spent since his entry to this instance.

  ‘There’s always this dreary and depressive mood even during the day. They might have mistaken this as the normal.’

  He came from a retively normal world. He felt the difference of Izumo’s day oh’s day.

  The former’s citizens would've notiothing, for they did not have the knowledge of a normal ‘day’; it's not gloomy at all.

  Only when Aleph saw the sun in the sky did his questio answered.

  Simir to his experieh the Co, his eyes bled by tag it.

  ‘Bck Sun… Aeons.’

  The sun in the sky was normal. It was still glowing with a hint of dark e. However, Aleph saw a different sight on his elemental sight.

  It was a Bck Sun that emitted the cept of dev everything—that all things served no purpose.

  ‘...So this is why.’

  Aleph uood why Acheron stated their endings were decided from the start.

  The Bck Sun, IX’s shadow, was already affeg the world they were standing on. The cepts he saw were steadily being distributed across the world, silently pushing it towards nihility.

  Aleph recalled the manner he destroyed aire world. That same thing would happen to Izumo in a matter of hundreds of years.

  ‘The collision of plex informatioed by high-level lifeforms was enough to do that… uhey were trolled.’

  tless rays of light fshed in his golden pupils. Great Sage’s thought acceleration and parallel minds were w at this moment, along with Iigator.

  Numerous simuted sarios fshed in his mind. The possibilities tained every choice popped up.

  All of them was to aplish ohing—

  ‘To fight god.’

  Bam.

  The tatami doors behind him were slid open, revealing Mei with her typical gym clothes. A gray towel ced atop her shoulders.

  ‘...She doesn’t mind this at all, does she..?’

  Aleph was no lohe type to shy away from such a sight. He did not possess dirty thoughts in the first pce, more so when he already had a detailed grasp of his Mei’s body.

  Mei’s thoughts weren’t too plicated either.

  ‘Like a great sage…’

  Such words were apt to describe him. He did not do mu the entire week but to stare at the skies—that, and his tinued instru with the three teiques he handed over.

  It was for that reason did she trust him. At the very least, this person whose ins were in ‘another world’ did not pn to do anything bad.

  “Swordsmanship… It’s been a while since I fought someone using pure skills…” He paused his breath as he made a decision. “Care for a light spar?”

  Hearing his question, Mei looked at him silently. The taciturn noble dy did not leak out her ihoughts until a while ter.

  “I will gdly accept it.”

  Aleph’s sight left the dreary sky. After a while, she came out of the training room.

  Bam-!

  He caught the sheathed easterhrown at him. The moment he pushed the handguard upwards, he saw its silver sheen. The most noticeable thing was the dull edges, a perfectly made training sword.

  Perhaps it was courtesy, Mei did not propose using sharp edges.

  Her souched the grass on the courtyard. Her attire formed a sharp trast with Aleph’s.

  Shiing-!

  The two of them uhed their bdes. Surprisingly, Aleph took the initiative to throw its sheath on the ground. It could have been used as ara guard, yet he chose not to. Instead, he held the sword’s hah his hands.

  The bde’s tip ointed not on Mei’s throat, but between her eyebrows.

  This produced a shog effect for the tter. Her body froze for a sed.

  g-!

  The single sed she wasn’t able to react alloh to reach her position in a few steps. His bde parried hers before the tip reached her snow white neck.

  “The majority of swordsmen teach utilization and proper application of bat does. I could see you went through a lot to reach your current level.” Aleph ented. “But, there’s something before that… I.”

  Aleph demonstrated his knowledge regarding ‘martial arts’. His attais after one year and four months were exaggerated. Coupled with his simirly exaggerated base power, it reached a new level beyond its creator’s expectations.

  “You already have it. Yht with the Fmebringer showed that. All that’s left is to maintain it. To polish your bde… that’s how i works.”

  Aleph lowered his bde auro his previous positiohen raised his bde

  “I will limit my strength to yours. You are fighting your mirror… no, the better you.” Aleph thought for a while and ged his ws. “...fet about that. We shouldn’t be setting limits on ourselves… I’ll give you the ove first this time.”

  *****

  Past.

  Present.

  Future.

  These three words could not be expined easily. They represehe anchors of time, showing how it moved along a linear manner.

  The past remains the same no matter what happens to the present;

  Anything done in the present will affect the future.

  In a world, an absolute anchor exists. This represents the ‘present’. Of course, it does not mean that there weren’t leaves of the future. These exist beyond the absolute anchor. Each of them was born out of a possibility—a set of avaible information that ‘exists’ in the ‘present’.

  In simpler terms, they were the ‘future possibilities’ that did not happeheir fate was to tiing… or to fall off on the sea as bubble universes.

  At this moment, an anomaly occurred.

  A single leaf became special.

  An intangible tree made out of plex information began experieng ges.

  The special ‘leaf’ blossomed, turning into a pure white branch.

  Just then…

  Hum.

  Was it a vibration? A wavelength? A fluctuation?

  Nothing could describe it. In the instant it appeared, the white branch became noticeably transparent. It took a while until it gradually stabilized to its previous state… or so it did.

  The indescribable phenomenon occurred for the sed time. A wave of brilliant colors—tless they could not be distinguished—swept the eree. Its leaves shook, its branches shaking from its ‘impact’. It soon elicited a rea from the metaphysical sea.

  It began interfering with the white branch. It formed a e with them, turning these ‘unstable anchors’ into a more ‘realistic’ world. It wasn't wrong to say that a special parallel world was created right at this moment.

  Naturally, it did not escape the beings with simirly plex information. Most of them were left to wonder.

  Only a siity stood still amidst all the ges.

  It was the destination of all things, the cept belonging to the future. It reigop every other Aeo did nothing in the present; for its existence was meant to start from the future.

  Out of all the information it spat out, two words stood out:

  ‘Eternal light…’