How Can You Be Sure?

Outside, everything was still as it had been before.

That streak of dusk on the horizon seemed as though it would never change.

This avatar was immensely powerful—even stronger than Charles had been after taking this plane's source power and merging with it.

His power had now reached the plane's upper limit.

Once again, he came to Bansler, the city once destined for destruction.

Back when the Book of Causal Paths was with Charles, the karmic power it had absorbed over so much time had reversed Bansler's destruction.

But this was a destruction ordained by fate. After Charles left, the destruction continued.

Several decades later, Charles returned here once more.

Bansler's destruction had already begun anew.

From this destruction, Charles sensed a peculiar power.

It carried much the same scent as when Charles, the Omniscient Carbuncle, had steered the Shadow Nightmare Realm into the crack between past and future.

Clearly, the power of time was involved here as well.

Charles's avatar entered the tower.

The sorcery arrays here remained perfectly intact, utterly untouched by the destruction outside in Bansler.

He slowly approached the Book of Causal Paths.

The Book of Causal Paths still lay upon that altar.

As if stirred by the wind, its cover opened and its pages turned.

"You've returned, Charles."

"Congratulations on becoming a Source."

"That was a realm I never reached, even back then."

Charles looked at the Book of Causal Paths and asked, "How does it feel to return to this world?"

"Should I call you Alasta, or should I call you the Book of Causal Paths?"

The Book of Causal Paths wrote, "Either is fine, because both are me."

"But I prefer you call me the Book of Causal Paths. Alasta is already a thing of the past."

Charles looked at the Book of