After the War
"Ascended Great Khan" turned his head in surprise and stopped rewinding the timeline.
"What are you doing? Don't you know I'm busy?"
"What could you possibly be busy with? Let's chat for a bit, just a bit."
"No, kid, don't you know what I'm busy with?"
"I do. Aren't you taking this chance to go back and bluff the Interstellar Great Khan, patch the spacetime loopholes, and prevent spacetime paradoxes?"
"You know that and you're still stopping me? Do you want the Spacetime Administration to invite you for tea?"
Senior Engineer raised his eyebrows suggestively.
"You know how it is. We're all on the same side. No one understands me better than you."
"What, are you planning another shady trick?"
"Yeah. It's rare for me to come back, so shouldn't you leave something behind? Don't worry. I understand everything you understand. I know the 'future' is unknowable, but the experience and knowledge you gained after ascending can't be faked. Give me a little. Just a little. Also, send me some of the blueprints I'll need for my own ascension. Use the system to send them to me so we can avoid detection by other existences as much as possible."
"Ascended Great Khan" gave him a strange look.
"Come closer."
"Sure thing."
"Ascended Great Khan" turned halfway around, revealing the other half of his body.
Senior Engineer suddenly froze.
His left half was covered by an indescribable existence.
It was not a shadow, but something more fundamental than "darkness"—"nothingness." Light fell upon it without reflecting, and any perception that entered it vanished. It was an absolute void in the outline of a humanoid figure, the shadow of an observer whose very "existence" was silently devoured.
The edges of the shadow were not still. They constantly rose and fell