Inside the Crystal Wall, matter and energy changed shape as rapidly as a Rubik's Cube in a child's hands, refusing to settle.
The sealed singularity broke free. Irresistible gravity seeped into every corner of the Crystal Wall, making its presence known.
The Creation Serpents suddenly locked their jaws together, then just as suddenly broke apart.
The Evil Serpent was held fast by the Black Hole, blood dripping from its body. The Good Snake was sealed in a dimension where time flowed entirely differently from the outside world.
The altered laws and ironclad rules faded like phantoms, as though they had never existed.
The gods looked bewildered. They did not understand what had happened.
In theory, once the timelines converged, everyone's memories would change. No one would notice any shift in time.
But the gods had, to some extent, transcended the timeline. Changes to time did not affect them as strongly as theory suggested.
After the timelines converged, the gods' memories of the original timeline would gradually recede, but not vanish. Two sets of memories would coexist in their minds.
One belonged to the converged timeline, and they would instinctively regard it as correct. The other belonged to the timeline before convergence, and they would instinctively bury it deep, where it would rarely surface.
So after a brief moment of confusion, the gods searched their memories and quickly found the cause.
The Lord of Time had changed the past.
And the present, bound closely to that past, had changed with it.
In this "present," the Good Snake's attempt to rush out, lock jaws with the Evil Serpent, and create "absolute order" had been stopped by both the Dimension Demon God and the Lord of Time.
The situation was now firmly in the gods' favor.
Their memories from before the timelines converged