Shut Up, Malevolent Dragon! I Don’t Want to Have Any More Children With You

“Strictly speaking, I wound them back to the point before they were injured.”

With the two of them mended, Safina brushed off her hands and stood, explaining, “I turned one possibility from the Time-Web into reality.”

Leon blinked.

“Turn a possibility into reality?...”

“Mhm.”

Safina said:

“Out of thousands of possibilities, I found one where Constantine lit the sun and did not have to pay with a life—and I forcibly converted that branch into the reality we stand in.”

It’s not hard to explain—doesn’t even take many words.

But as everyone knows, when a technique’s principle is simple while its effect is absurdly strong, such a power often runs beyond most people’s comprehension.

Even Aurora—who herself commands a measure of time’s power—was a little taken aback. “I always thought the Time-Web was for seeing. I didn’t expect you could forcibly convert one of its possibilities into reality...”

Aurora: [Worldview_Compiling.jpg]

Safina smiled like a little fox, eyes half-moon.

“Heh~ I only discovered it after I came to master more of time’s power.”

“If you can force possibilities into reality...” Rosvisser seemed to spot a blind spot. “Doesn’t that mean none of us will ever have to die again?”

“Mm... it’s a nice thought, but—” Safina promptly bopped that dream on the head. “In fact, no.”

She looked back to Constantine as she went on. “First, finding a possibility in the Time-Web that perfectly matches your current needs is not easy.

“Take this time: because the one in crisis was Constantine, all I had to search for was a branch where he was still alive and successfully inherited the power of light. Not too hard. But... what if others had run into disaster at the same time?”

She drew her gaze back and swept everyone with her eyes.

“Say, Noa. Or Muse. Or Leon, Rosvisser. If you were gravely wounded—or fell in battle? Then I’d have to add ‘you did not suffer misfortune’ to the preconditions of the branch I’m hunting. And now I can tell you, quite responsibly...”

With a flick of her hand, countless strands of the Time-Web unfurled behind her. Faced with the dazzling array of scenes, Leon and the rest couldn’t help a soft chorus of awe.

“Out of tens of millions of possibilities, I found only five where ‘Constantine lives and successfully inherits the power of light.’”

At a tap of her finger, the countless webs narrowed to five. She went on, “On that basis, if I add a few more preconditions—well, think it through. How many possibilities do you suppose remain? ...Right. It’s...”

Her fist closed. The last five Time-Webs winked out.

“Zero.”

Leon was struck dumb.

“In short, the more preconditions you pile on, the fewer viable possibilities the Time-Web contains.”

“Exactly.” Safina nodded.

“Second, it touches the temporal rules Chronos set down. What I’m doing, at the lowest level, is modifying reality—and modifying reality entails time. You’ve all heard of the butterfly effect?”

Moon shot up a hand.

“I know—I know! A small, insignificant butterfly flaps its wings somewhere, and seconds later a gale rises in another corner of the world. That’s how the tens of millions of possibilities in the Time-Web come about!”

Safina smiled, pleased, and made a heart to the little Moon before continuing:

“Right. Forcing a possibility into reality creates a similar effect. And the more important the target you modify, the greater the impact on reality—also... The longer before I can use the move again.”

“Ohh—I get it,” Leon said.

In short, though this ‘force reality’ move is broken, it has heavy limits:

The more preconditions you set, the fewer branches in the Time-Web will satisfy them—so even if this power overturns the table, you can’t fling it around heedless of casualties.

The more important the target is to the real world, the larger the ripple your modification creates. Those ripples can’t be foreseen—and could lead to consequences that are harder to control.

Cooldown: the more important the target, the longer the wait before this can be used again. At Constantine’s level—now that he bears the power of light—I might need seven or eight years, even a dozen, before I can invoke it again.

Safina scratched at her hair, a little vexed, then lifted her eyes to Leon.

“So—don’t look at me, the time-goddess who can rewrite reality, and start getting sloppy. Leon—every battle from here on, you still fight with everything you have. Understood?”

Leon nodded, serious.

“Understood.”

“Um... I have a question.” This time it was Orion.