Anomaly

After verifying part of their conjectures, Benjamin and the other two quickly left that Outpost Camp.

On the way to the next location, information flowed continuously through the mental link connecting the three of them.

"The Sickle-Skull Race that was stored intact and vanished immediately after being taken out triggered the paradox in a clearly different way from those old instruments that also disappeared," Vivian analyzed calmly. "The instruments were stored in the fourth cycle, used in the fifth, and only erased after time began reversing in the sixth. But from what we just verified, the existence of those Sickle-Skull Race members had already been deleted from the timeline at the very beginning of this cycle."

Roland continued, "The difference may lie in two aspects. First, material origin. The instruments were made by us wizards using 'foreign' materials from outside this plane, while the Sickle-Skull Race is composed entirely of native elements from this plane. Second, the nature of their existence. The instruments are nonliving objects, while the Sickle-Skull Race are living beings with souls, memories, and complex karmic connections."

"Even if they are already dead, there may still be other ways of marking them..."

"Or perhaps both." Benjamin flew at high speed while rapidly working through deductions in his mind. "We need to control the variables to verify it. Fortunately, we stored enough samples in the previous cycle."

In the previous cycle, with the help of the Logistics Department research team, Benjamin had collected quite a few native ore and soil samples from this plane.

Those samples had been stored intact within the Pocket Dimension, and their places of origin were clearly recorded.

"So next... we'll go here first." Benjamin shared a set of coordinates through the mental link. It was a valley roughly eight hundred kilometers from their