Chapter 206: Brother Rast, Long Time No See
That cold mechanical voice caused Rast to be slightly dazed.
Immediately after, he saw pure white radiance suddenly illuminating within the dark library.
All the lights turned on at the same moment—bright and blazing.
Just like—
It was welcoming a certain figure who had departed for centuries, now returning once more.
"Whoa, such a grand gesture."
Dean Silver slipped out from Rast’s embrace, jumped onto his shoulder, and used those ruby-like beast eyes to scrutinize everything around.
That fluffy, snow-white tail slightly raised, carrying a trace of vigilance.
As the Unique Sequence Holder of the Higher Sequence Tiers “Moon”, Dean Silver might usually appear lazy and unwilling to use its brain, but with the blessing of the Sequence, its spiritual intuition was incredibly sharp.
And ever since entering this Mechanical Spire, Dean Silver’s spiritual intuition had been sounding alarms without pause.
It was as if in this tall tower, there existed something immensely powerful—powerful enough to pose a threat to Dean Silver’s life.
This kind of dangerous spiritual intuition made Dean Silver instinctively adopt a defensive and guarded stance, ready to flee with Rast at the slightest disturbance—
There was no helping it. After all, it had been smuggled in by this guy. If Rast died, it couldn’t return to the Present World, so no matter what, it had to protect this guy’s life.
However, facing the extremely alert Dean Silver, Rast merely extended his hand and stroked its smooth fur, gradually calming it from its huffing state.
"It’s alright."
He spoke softly: "I can feel it—this place, this tower… holds no malice toward me."
As if to verify his words—
The next moment, in the air before man and ferret, a crystalline ripple stirred.
Then, a hazy screen of light materialized before their eyes.
It seemed to be a kind of projection technology, but far more advanced and sci-fi than that of the Present World. It did not require a physical screen to function; instead, it could directly manifest a clear image in the void.
"Welcome to the Watchtower, two hundred years later."
A melodious female voice echoed through the vast, empty library.
The girl’s voice was pleasant, like the chime of wind bells at night.
And Rast would never forget the name of the one this voice belonged to.
A woman with such a voice—whether in the past or the present, whether in the Nightworld or the Present World—there was only one Rast knew.
Grey.
Two hundred years ago, after their farewell by the Fractured Coastline, he once again heard the voice of that grey-haired girl he had bestowed a name upon.
"Long time no see, Brother Rast."
"And—nice to meet you, Dean Silver..."
"Although I’ve never met you in person, I’ve heard Brother Rast mention your existence. They say you’re a snow ferret who can talk and loves to feign cuteness with ill intent."
The light screen continued to distort, never fully manifesting a clear figure.
Yet the soft, bell-like voice of the girl rippled out with the waves.
Rast calmly listened to Grey’s voice, while on his shoulder, Dean Silver couldn’t help but widen its eyes.
It hadn’t expected that this girl from the Sixth Era, one of the Historical Echoes, would actually know of its existence.
"Such a pity—after a two-hundred-year separation, we can only meet through a recording..."
"Although I glimpsed a corner of the future and knew that Brother Rast would return to this world alongside Dean Silver—"
"By the time that future arrived, I probably would no longer be here, already vanished from the Present World."
The girl’s voice carried the joy of reunion, yet also a faint sorrow.
"I know, at this very moment—"
"In Brother Rast’s heart, there must be many confusions and doubts."
"Countless mysteries and hidden whirlpools are buried within you. It’s to unravel these puzzles that you’ve returned here after more than two hundred years..."
"So, let me help you, Brother Rast—unravel these mysteries and doubts."
"Those matters concerning Brother Rast’s origins, Canaan, Deep Blue Port, the 'Artificial Angel Project', and—"
"The truth about 'Emis'."
Grey’s clear and pleasant voice paused slightly at this moment.
The originally ethereal tone now carried an indescribable pain and struggle.
"Even if..."
"I made many irrevocable mistakes during that time..."
"Brother Rast, it doesn’t matter if you end up hating me for it."
...
The once blurry and distorted light screen suddenly rippled with a faint, almost inaudible wave.
Then, the previously hazy image slowly condensed into a clearly defined form.
The scene shown on the light screen was a large map—the mid-period of the Sixth Era, the map of the Western Continent.
"Brother Rast, your speculations and assumptions with Leader Sisel were not mistaken."
"For a long time after the Battle of the Fractured Coastline, there were no longer any living legendary beings capable of walking the earth."
"And the Shoreguards organization, along with the remaining humans, seized this opportunity to obtain an extremely precious chance to breathe."
On the map displayed within the light screen, red and blue points and lines outlined clear boundaries.
Blue represented human settlements, while red represented activity zones of the Iron Cross Clan and the Beast Tide.
And along with Grey’s explanation… it was visibly apparent that the blue light spots on the map were expanding rapidly.
From an utterly desperate situation where they were nearly swallowed entirely by the red zones, they began to escape, growing and developing swiftly. In a short amount of time, they had expanded enough to stand on equal footing with the red zones.
"Brother Rast, the knowledge you left behind in the 'The Fool’s Library' is a treasure that surpasses the entire era."
"It allowed human civilization at the time to completely bypass the risks of trial and error, and instead directly utilize this knowledge to step onto the expressway of rapid civilizational development."
"Looking back now, this knowledge, which was two hundred years ahead of the then Steam Age, must have come from another dimension—it must have come from the future, right?"
Grey’s voice paused slightly. "It’s just a pity that I didn’t realize it back then."
On the light screen, the map outlined by the red and blue light points continued to shift.
Soon, the once nearly extinct blue light points swiftly launched a counteroffensive against the red points. The red regions representing the Iron Cross Clan and the Beast Tide were quickly compressed and overrun, becoming the disadvantaged side instead.
This situation was exactly the same as when humanity was once crushed under the pressure of the Iron Cross and the Beast Tide—only this time, the roles were completely reversed.
"About ten years after the Battle of the Fractured Coastline ended, a new king arose among the Iron Cross Clan and ascended to the legendary rank—becoming the Iron Cross King."
"And from the deep-sea Beast Tide, a new Forbidden Creature was finally born."
"And almost at the same time, I too ascended to the legendary level."
Grey’s voice rang out calmly.
"That was another battle between legends after the Battle of the Fractured Coastline... A racial war that completely determined the fate of the Sixth Era and the ownership of the continent's future."
"And in the end, humanity won—"
"I slew both the Iron Cross King and the newly emerged Forbidden Creature from the deep sea Beast Tide."
"And the two greatest threats to humanity during the Dark Era were thoroughly purged in the decades that followed, completely vanishing from the stage of history."
Grey's narration remained plain and emotionless, without any waves.
As if... it was as easy as crushing an ant.
But as he looked at the fierce clash between the brilliant blue and crimson red points on the map—
Rast could completely imagine just how brutal the battle Grey described so lightly had been.
As the only one among all humanity with a chance to reach legendary rank, Grey must have been racing against time.
She had to ascend to legend before the new Iron Cross King and the Forbidden Creature from the Beast Tide.
Had Grey been even a moment late in her breakthrough, everything would have been lost.
Only a legend could counter a legend. Without a legendary protector, no matter how prosperous, human civilization would crumble under the crushing force of a true legendary being—
And everything the Shoreguards had fought to uphold, all of Leader Sisel’s sacrifices... all of it would have become nothing more than an illusory dream.
This was not a fair competition.
Whether it was the newly born king of the Iron Cross Clan or the Forbidden Creature from the deep sea, they had already existed for hundreds of years. What they lacked was merely the final push to break through to the Legendary Realm.
Grey, however, was different.
When she broke through to legend, she was only in her twenties. Compared to her enemies, the accumulation of her short life was undoubtedly far more meager.
What supported Grey’s breakthrough into the Legendary Realm was only the conviction and persistence in her heart—and the ideals of a Shoreguard.
Fortunately—
In the end, it was Grey who won.
In that second legendary battle, which was no less brutal than the Battle of the Fractured Coastline, she survived until the end.
From that point on, the entirety of human civilization was set free, gaining a vast and boundless world of infinite freedom.
"In the years that followed, relying on the scientific knowledge left behind by Brother Rast—knowledge from the future—human civilization thrived and flourished."
"It was a golden era, as if basked in radiance."
"It felt as though I had fulfilled the vow I made when I became a Shoreguard, fulfilled Leader Sisel’s final wishes, and fulfilled the promise I once made with Brother Rast."
"Only—"
Grey’s voice paused slightly again.
"As the inheritor of 'The Fool’s Library', I have never forgotten the information stored within—that judgment from the Order of the World, the so-called cataclysm of the Era’s End."
"Even if human civilization prospers and flourishes, blooming like flowers and boiling like oil... if it cannot withstand the final calamity of the Era’s End, then all of it is nothing but an illusory dream."
"Therefore, after I broke through to the Legendary Realm, after the second legendary war ended, and after the Human Federal Government fully established itself on the continent, I stepped down from power."
"I transferred most of my authority as Shoreguard leader to the subordinate branches of the Shoreguards and the governmental bodies of the Human Federal Government... I barely interfered with worldly affairs, and devoted all of my body and mind to cultivation and meditation."
"I referenced past cases of civilizational destruction across different eras. I discovered that whether it was the Wizard Civilization of the Second Era or the Virtual Realm Civilization of the Fourth Era, they each had multiple legendary powerhouses at their peak... Yet that did not stop these civilizations from being destroyed by the Era’s End cataclysm."
"Therefore, I believed at that time, all of this... was because the Legendary Realm was still not powerful enough—"
"Maybe, if I could go one step further, reach the eighth tier of the Angel Domain, I could accomplish what no past human civilizations of the old eras had done... protect all of civilization from the calamity of the Era’s End, and reverse the fate of countless generations of Shoreguards."
Rast could sense that Grey, at this moment, was smiling in self-mockery.
"Looking back now, I really was laughably naive back then."
"From the Age of Gods until now, across six eras and hundreds of thousands of years—how could there not have been humans who reached beyond legend and achieved the rank of Angel?"
"The most obvious example: the creator of 'The Fool’s Library' and the Gravekeepers, that nameless Fool from the First Era."
"And the first-generation Shoreguard who stole the Fireseed... they must have reached the eighth tier and become powerful Angels."
"Yet even such ancient Angels were still trapped within the whirlpool of fate, unable to break free—"
Her voice paused again.
"Sorry, I seem to have gone off-topic."
"In short, after nearly a hundred years of cultivating in seclusion without concern for worldly matters... a few years ago, I finally broke through the Legendary Realm and achieved Angelhood."
Grey smiled bitterly. "Every extraordinary being, upon advancing to the eighth tier and becoming an Angel, gains a unique, one-of-a-kind ability of that Sequence. It is the ultimate trump card of every Angel and Mythic Being."
"As an Angel of the Fate Sequence, the ability I received was the right to 'Make a Wish to Fate' three times."
"And the very first wish I made upon becoming an Angel—was to exhaust every divergent possibility, to traverse all tributaries of the River of Time..."
"To help the human civilization of the Sixth Era find a way to overcome the cataclysm of the Era’s End."