Xiao Ran did not give it much thought before stating his decision. He acknowledged his identity as a participant, acknowledged the identity of Unit 678's participant, and would rather give up the right to permanently leave Prometheus with all his rewards than stay behind.
Perhaps Prometheus had not deceived him or deliberately misled him, but there truly were things in those territories that Xiao Ran could not abandon no matter what: friends, lovers, family, and teammates who had followed him as he grew until this day—Basak and Naluo.
Perhaps even if Xiao Ran left, there would still be Jeffrey, Naza, Yuzes, Char, Shirakawa Shuu, Basak, and Naluo. They could follow the others and form a new team.
Yet although Yuzes, Char, Shirakawa Shuu, and the others seemed to have a good relationship, that was only because Xiao Ran, the leader, kept them all in check. Once Xiao Ran vanished, Yuzes would likely become the first to slip out of control. Shirakawa Shuu would likewise develop thoughts of his own, and the various territories would gradually descend into chaos after losing Xiao Ran and his entire team.
That was right—the territories could be taken away, but what he took away would not be territories frozen in Time Stop. It would merely be coordinates and keys connected to those territories. If Xiao Ran shed his participant identity and returned to Earth today, even if he stepped forward to resolve Earth's dimensional invasion crisis and opened the gates linking to the territories, what then? Perhaps ten, twenty, or even a hundred years would already have passed in the territories. By then, everything there would have long become something else. Whether Shanamia would still exist, what would happen to the children—no one could guarantee it. How could Xiao Ran, who was about to become