"Something's wrong."
Li Pin suddenly said.
"It shouldn't be like this. If it were, at most it would merely complete a closed loop of spacetime, like completing a bout of Karma. And... if it truly was because of me that this Liu Chengyuan achieved eternity, then I could never have crossed that stretch of eternal nothingness. I would have sunk into it forever, until I perished."
After all, through Zero Return, he too would be exposed before that Eternal One.
For a moment, his gaze focused once more on Zero Return, Liu Chengyuan, and the Lord of Time.
Some wondrous state seemed to have formed among the three.
As though...
Zero Return was the Eternal One's past True Self, Liu Chengyuan was the Eternal One's present True Self, and the Lord of Time was the Eternal One's future True Self.
Originally, the Lord of Time should have been the dominant one among them.
In truth, the Lord of Time had indeed been gathering the timeline of Liu Chengyuan, that "present True Self," driving him toward transformation into the Eternal Realm. But unexpectedly...
Zero Return, the "past True Self," had stabbed him in the back.
All along, Liu Chengyuan, the Eternal One's "present True Self," had been filled with vigilance and hostility toward Zero Return, relying on his extraordinarily gifted perception.
It was as though he knew that once the Lord of Time, the "future True Self," gathered him and Zero Return, he would become part of the Lord of Time.
Yet...
The workings of all things in the world were so absurd, so bizarre.
And yet, upon careful reflection, they were also so reasonable.
Because this Eternal One's "present True Self" had been wary and hostile toward Zero Return, Zero Return had wanted all the more to earn his trust.