Turning Point: The Holy Sword Drawn (II). Although he had known the outcome long ago, for some reason the Time Hero still stood up in a daze.
Stepping onto the stone platform once more, the Time Hero placed his hand on the hilt.
It was the height of summer. The abundant waters of Lake of Truth, coupled with the plentiful nutrients provided by the giant tree on the island in the lake, meant that this place was filled with little animals besides humans—the chirping of cicadas, the fluttering of birds' wings, the splashing of fish and shrimp.
These sounds, mingled with the rippling water and swaying grass stirred by the breeze, continuously reached the Time Hero's ears, only to freeze at this very moment.
It was as if the entire world had been covered by a gray filter.
The Time Hero turned back in surprise and realized that the five vine chairs, which should have been occupied by the other Heroes, were now all occupied by old men with their heads lowered.
"..." After a moment of silence, the Time Hero broke the quiet. "Who are you?"
At those words, only the old man nearest the left side of the tree hollow slowly raised his head, a trace of weariness in his eyes.
"Me?" The old man's voice was somewhat hoarse, but the Time Hero felt as though he had heard it somewhere before.
"My name is Zhang Xiu."
The Time Hero's pupils constricted sharply. That was his name from his previous life.
"They..." The old man calling himself Zhang Xiu glanced around. "They're all Zhang Xiu. So are you."
"You're me from the future?" Zhang Xiu had been bombarded by information in his previous life's Information Age, so he quickly grasped the situation. "Because of my Time Manipulator class? No, that can't be right. My skill should only be able to delete a segment of time."
After Zhang Xiu came to this world, he had gained a class known as Time Manipulator. Its innate skill was Time Editing, which could erase a period of no more than five seconds, similar to the ability of King Crimson's Stand from the anime jojo in his previous life.
It was an absurdly overpowered cheating skill. Though Zhang Xiu's apparent strength among the five Heroes was not as great as what Chu Ke had displayed, Zhang Xiu believed that, given enough time, he could surpass Chu Ke with this cheat-like ability.
After all, time-based powers were considered the strongest T0 category.
"We aren't you from the future. On the contrary, we are you from the past." Elderly Zhang Xiu raised one finger. "Since you're me, you should know of something called the Poincaré Recurrence Theorem."
Without waiting for Zhang Xiu to answer, elderly Zhang Xiu began speaking on his own. "Above the gods in this world, there is actually a higher existence—the source of the gods, the Heavenly Dao: the Great Unified Consciousness. From here on, I'll refer to it simply as the Unified Body."
"Let me introduce a new concept: the lifespan of a world. The matter within a world is fixed from the moment the world takes shape. If a world absorbs matter from outside, it automatically expels an equal amount in exchange. However, the world's space continues expanding. Thus, over infinite time, the world will inevitably expand until matter is sparsely distributed throughout its space. That is when the world's lifespan ends."
"Therefore, before that happens, the Unified Body initiates world destruction and resets the world ahead of time. Thus, one cycle ends and the next begins."
"What happens in every cycle is fixed. Or it should have been, until an exception appeared."
Elderly Zhang Xiu spread his hands, and surging magic formed an image. Zhang Xiu looked over and saw that it depicted Chu Ke, the Hero of the East.
The next moment, elderly Zhang Xiu said something shocking. "The Hero of the East was never supposed to be him. He was supposed to be a high school student from Earth."
"In the normal storyline, that high school student became the chosen True Hero and drew the Holy Sword."
"Then the remaining four of us would follow him to destroy the new generation Demon King, who had risen from the original Demon King's officer, War."
"But for some reason, in one cycle, a man named Chu Ke replaced the high school student who should have become a Hero and became the Hero of the East."
"Thus, at this point in time, the entire world reached its first great turning point—the Hero's Sword, which should have been drawn by a Hero with justice in his heart, was drawn by the impostor Chu Ke."
"And for some reason, this false Hero possessed power far beyond that of the Unified Body. He stopped the Unified Body's world-destruction ritual, and from then on, the world inevitably began its countdown to death."
"Fortunately, at the final moment, the Unified Body came to me. No, it should be us. It fused all of its authority into our Time Manipulator skill, causing a true qualitative change in that skill—we could directly delete the world's time and forcibly enter the next cycle."
"Though this ability could only be used five times, we could leave behind a fragment of consciousness at important points in the next cycle. That is the me you see now. In this way, we effectively had five chances to rewind and reverse this outcome, defeating Chu Ke before he grew invincible."
"However, Chu Ke's rate of growth was simply unprecedented. If I remember correctly, all his attributes should have already risen above a thousand by now, reaching the level of the previous generation's Demon King."
"Once he draws the Holy Sword, he will truly embark on an invincible path of growth. Then no one will be able to stop him!"
"Fortunately, now that you know everything, you should truly possess the Heart of Salvation. You should now be able to draw that Holy Sword."
The aged Zhang Xiu slowly walked up to Zhang Xiu. His large, wrinkled hand slowly settled on Zhang Xiu's shoulder, his solemn tone mixed with a trace of disbelief. "To strengthen your Heart of Salvation, I must tell you a shocking secret that I only discovered much later."
Elderly Zhang Xiu's body began to disperse into specks of light. He opened his mouth and said, "Actually, Chu Ke's true identity is..."
"He's the Demon King, right? I know that." Zhang Xiu interrupted him. Under elderly Zhang Xiu's wide-eyed stare, he said, "Didn't his main body tell me that in the Multiverse Chat Group?"
"Wait?" Elderly Zhang Xiu's composed expression finally shattered. Looking utterly dumbfounded, he said, "No? What main body? And what the fuck is a Multiverse Chat Group?"
"Oh? You don't know? The Multiverse Chat Group is..." Zhang Xiu was about to explain when elderly Zhang Xiu's head slowly disintegrated into specks of light, leaving only a line of words in the air.
"Fuck! We're so screwed----"
Zhang Xiu slowly swallowed, silently mourning for his elderly self for three seconds.
When he came back to his senses, his expression was grave.
Had this world finally gone insane? As the True Hero and savior, he had to help the Unified Body destroy the world, while Chu Ke, the Demon King, had to stop the world's destruction? And of all people, why did it have to be Chu Ke!? This was like stepping into a WWE ring and picking Taro as your opponent from among a crowd of Tysons! As elderly Zhang Xiu departed, this space gradually collapsed, and the familiar world returned once more.
Zhang Xiu still held the hilt of the Holy Sword in his hand. He exerted a little force.
Shing—