Changes and return

The Tower’s doors closed as a temporal distortion spread throughout the simulation. Minor changes were happening to every planet, but Seth’s world was the most affected, its surface getting bathed in time energy.

The timeline mended itself under the watchful gaze of the Goddess of Water Razim, who was waiting just outside the planet’s atmosphere, carrying a passed-out and frail Aleena in a ball made entirely of water.

When the time energy encompassing the entire planet finally deactivated, Razim looked to the side, where Aleena remained asleep.

Seeing that she was still there and had not disappeared, Razim heaved a long sigh and floated into the world before her.

Back in Noth, a portal opened at the periphery of its capital, and a young lady with white and black hair slowly stepped out of it.

The first thing to enter Meg’s sight was Razim.

Both women stared at each other until Meg knelt and solemnly said: “This little one greets Her Excellency Goddess of the Deep. May the tides of the world forever carry you to a brighter sky.”

Razim smiled and nodded back toward the kneeling Meg.

“May the tides of the world forever carry us to a brighter sky. Welcome back, Seth.”

Meg lifted her head with a smile, asking shortly after: “How did you know?”

“You told me to wait for you here. Come, you have a lot to do,” answered Razim, extending her silky hand toward Seth.

Despite being confused by what was happening, Seth took Razim’s hand, allowing a wave of water energy to cover Meg’s body as Razim carried them toward the northeast.

Since Razim already seemed to know who he was, Seth asked hesitantly: “Razim, can you tell me more about what happened? I just woke up and have no idea what’s going on. My memories are from before I even got to meet you.”

“You’ll find out when we reach the Dream Kingdom. It’s too much for me to start explaining,” said Razim indifferently, swiftly flowing through the land towards the northeast.

Seth could only nod, but then his eyes landed on the other bubble beside him. He couldn’t see inside, but he guessed from the size of it that another person should be inside.

“And this is?” asked Seth.

“When we reach our destination,” replied Razim again, giving Seth no choice but to wait patiently.

The journey to the Dream Kingdom took quite a long time, and Seth tried a couple more times to get answers from Razim but failed. With nothing else to do, he started speaking with Meg, teaching her destruction theory to keep himself busy.

Once inside the Dream Kingdom, Razim headed straight for the mountain that housed its treasure, but before she could get inside, a river of blood flew down from the mountaintop, heading straight for them.

Razim lifted her head, watching the Blood Sun at the river’s source with a slight smile. She would have liked to teach the insolent brat who attacked her a lesson, but she also knew it was one of Seth’s companions and held back.

“I come bearing a gift for you, but if you don’t stop attacking, I might teach you a lesson or two instead.”

Razim’s words proved effective as the blood stopped a few feet away, forming a human silhouette in midair.

“Who are you, and what do you want?”

“Razim, ruller of the Water Throne.”

Hearing Razim’s short introduction, Elise quickly stopped using her Blood Sun and exited the mountain. She possessed the body of an ascended woman from the Kingdom of Hope, a young and voluptuous woman with the blood race’s characteristics of ashen hair and blood-red eyes.

“You are Razim?” asked Elise in surprise, her eyes quickly darting to the two spheres hovering by Razim’s side.

“I am; you must be Elise,” replied Razim with a nod, having the two orbs containing Seth and Aleena float forward and land before her. “I made a deal with him to bring these here. I trust that he gave you instructions on what to do next.”

Elise’s breathing quickened as her eyes got fixed on the two orbs of water. Still, before she could reply, Razim disappeared, the two orbs breaking apart, allowing Meg and Aleena’s bodies to fall to the ground.

Ignoring Aleena on the side, Elise rushed toward Meg, clasping her petite body in her arms and hugging her tightly, squashing her head between her large breasts. “You did it. You did it.”

Seth recognized Elise despite her new body but was stunned to see her reaction. He had no idea what had happened worldwide for over 20 years.

Awkwardly moving his hands to pat Elise’s back, Seth whispered: “Elise, I… I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Elise shook, quickly pulling herself back and wiping the blood tears in her eyes. “Sorry, I forgot about that.”

After apologizing, she stuck her hand inside the Blood Sun, pulled out a small orb of destruction, and handed it to Seth. “You told me to give this to you once you returned.”

“A destruction seal?… should I open it?”

Everything was so strange and happening so fast that Seth was utterly overwhelmed. After a quick nod from Elise, Seth was about to focus some of his energy, but the orb seemed to react to his touch, the seal breaking off by itself.

With the undoing of the seal, Caitlin’s source flew out, accompanied by another sealed orb of destruction. Before Seth could understand what was happening, Caitlin quickly rematerialized her body, looking around in confusion.

“Elise? Is that you?”

She quickly recognized Elise by her blood race features and ignored Meg completely, having no idea that Seth’s will was inside it.

“I am. We’ll leave the catching up to later. Can you make a body out of life energy for Seth?”

“Seth?” asked Caitlin in confusion, finally noticing Meg looking at her with a wry smile.

“Seth!!” she quickly exclaimed, jumping over and hugging Meg’s petite body even harder than Elise did, much to Seth’s dismay.

While Seth awkwardly hugged her back, Elise cleared her throat and said: “Can you leave the hugging until he has a body of his own?”, ignoring that she did the same just a while back.

Caitlin blushed and pulled back, looking into Seth’s eyes and asking: “Are you alright? What about Kronos?”

“Kronos?” asked Seth, equally confused, prompting Elise to hit Caitlin on the back of her head in irritation. “Can you two listen to me for a second and do what I tell you?”

Both Seth and Caitlin lowered their heads, Caitlin quickly revolving her source to create a physical body for Seth.

“Finally. Now place the sources Seth gave you inside the body and keep supporting them with your energy. Seth, you break the other orb.”

The two did as they were told, and a small destruction source appeared from the second orb.

“That is a source you created for yourself using your divinity. It also contains all the answers you seek in a fragment of your soul to which you can bind your will. “

“Caitlin, place it inside the new body. Seth, allow your will to sink inside the body. The treasure of life had also strengthened the soul pieces around your sources, so you should have no problem taking over.”

Seth used the last power of the divinity inside to shred his connection to Meg’s soul, drifting inside his new body as Elise instructed.

Seth’s body lay down unconscious under the anxious eyes of the three girls for over an hour until one of Seth’s fingers twitched, and he opened his eyes.

<The body is in optimal condition. Sources are also beginning to slowly integrate due to the traces of your soul left in each of them. Do you wish to start fusing with the other soul and absorb the memories inside?>

‘Do it.’

With his order, memories started flooding Seth’s mind, memories of two different timelines he knew nothing about before today. He witnessed his fight with Kronos; he saw himself detonating his divinity, his return from Noth, the war with Death, the rescue of Caitlin, and even his plan to have his divinity leave the simulation altogether.

The memories stopped right when he decided to head for Kronos’s location to get everyone back.

Finally understanding everything, Seth sat up and looked at the still unresponsive Aleena, the worried Caitlin, Meg, and then at Elise.

“Did I do it? Is everything back to normal in Endora?” asked Seth right away.

Elise heaved a sigh of relief before saying hesitantly. “You did it. Kronos has disappeared, and the timeline has returned to what it was before, but calling it normal is not exactly right….”

Noticing her hesitation, Seth quickly asked: “What happened? Is there anything wrong?”

Elise sighed and looked at the three other girls before saying: “Let’s head inside. There are things you still need to know.”

Seth looked at Aleena and nodded, standing up and carrying her in his arms as he followed Elise in walking a staircase made of blood leading to the depths of the mountain.

“What happened to her?” asked Caitlin on the side, noticing the blank look in Aleena’s eyes.

“Her mind has closed itself to deal with the trauma she had experienced… Another long story. I have a way to fix it, but it will have to wait until I can finally use my lust and perception sources.”

Caitlin nodded and didn’t ask anything else, occasionally peeking curiously at the silent Meg, who felt completely out of it surrounded by so many unfamiliar beautiful girls.

Elise brought everyone to a table where Pearl, Sun, and Dream chatted casually. The chatter stopped, and Pearl quickly sat up, fixing her conflicted eyes on Seth.

“Pearl, I know you want to speak to Seth, but he doesn’t know the current situation. Leave it for later,” Elise spoke before Pearl had any chance to, sitting down at a seat and asking Seth and the others to do the same.

Seth had Pearl make a bed on the side, where he laid Aleena down before joining the others at the table, along with Caitlin and Meg.

“Good. Now it’s time for you to understand everything about this timeline. Dream, can you do it? You’re better at this than I am.”

Dream nodded, asking the others not to fight back as he spread his power around, dragging everyone into his dream world. He then started replaying the history of the current timeline iteration for Caitlin and Seth, who were utterly disconnected from time.

Everything remained the same until Seth and Kronos got to fight, both disappearing entirely right after. That’s when everything changed.

Not even half a year after Seth’s disappearance, while the entire Endora Empire was crazily searching for their emperor, a blinding light encompassed over half of the world.

Light energy from all over the universe gathered towards a single point at the center of Endora’s capital. A bright divine crown manifested above the whole world, falling until it shrunk and sank deep under Endora’s capital.

Leora had finally got her divine crown, and a new god was born inside the simulation. Not long after its creation, a bright comet appeared, rising from Endora’s capital and disappearing into the darkness of the universe.

While Seth was watching everything with a downcast look, Elise spoke.

“Since you were gone and the Blood Sun had not returned to me yet, I couldn’t follow your directions to seek Razim’s help. If only it had happened just a few years later….”

“That’s fine… it seems I already expected something like this to happen. Where did Leora go?”

“Hollie, Maya, and I spoke with her, and we all agreed it would be safer if she left Endora. We don’t know where she went, but I imagine she’s still skipping through the simulation, trying to lead the other gods away from this place.

Seth sighed with a nod, agreeing that was probably the best solution. “What about everyone else?”

“Two years later, the Blood Sun returned to me, along with the memories of the other timelines, and I could inform everyone of what had happened. They had mostly focused on growing stronger and further developing the empire while waiting for you. Dream, show him.”

Seth watched as everyone returned to a relatively normal life, the empire slowly developing and growing stronger despite his absence under Maya and Hollie’s rule.

The empire also had constant skirmishes with the new-formed alliance of the Life and Death kingdoms, but nothing too big was happening. If Seth had to make a guess, Death must be aware of what happened in the other timeline by now and was reluctant to go all out, in fear of Seth returning and coming after him.

With the Dream projection ending, Seth turned toward Elise.

“I see. Leora’s situation is still unknown, but with her speed, I doubt anyone could catch her. She is probably hiding somewhere, slowly getting accustomed to her power.”

“There’s nothing we can do about that, so we’ll have to wait and react to whatever happens. For the moment, I will wait until I can use my sources again before trying to heal Aleena’s mind, and then we’ll all return to Endora.”

A slight smile appeared on Seth’s lips as his thoughts traveled back to Endora.

“I can’t wait to see everyone again….”