The fate of the sixty Black Gems was settled.
With that, the Timeline's final cleanup and reckoning were complete. As far as the Legends were concerned, they had wrung every last bit of value from it.
Zheng Qing saw Old Man Ruo Yu nod slightly in his direction. The old man raised the Silver Wolf-headed Cane and tapped the empty air once more.
The sense of confinement that had filled the great hall vanished.
In its place, a strange suffocation slowly spread. It was as though a river had been dammed upstream and its lower reaches were rapidly drying out. As the surging Magic Tide receded, Zheng Qing felt like a stranded whale—or a traveler crossing a desert. With every breath, a powerful sense of want rose within him.
This Timeline is withering.
The thought surfaced unbidden in Zheng Qing's mind.
More crimson magic poured from the Taiyi ring on his hand, swiftly filling that deep, insistent emptiness. Then he instinctively looked up in a certain direction. Through the endless void, he seemed to see a roaring river surging past this world. Magic there was near boiling, sending thick mist billowing from its surface. Like a beacon, it showed him where the new River of Time and Fate lay.
"—The first time is always hard. Do it a few more times and you'll get used to it."
At some point, Madam Shi Hui had put away the lotus platform and come to Zheng Qing's side. She patted his shoulder and offered those quiet words of comfort.
Throughout the hall, the presences of Legendary Wizards vanished one after another.
They disappeared not merely from the castle, nor merely from the Isle of Britain, but from the world itself.
"Does this happen often?"
Zheng Qing drew back his gaze thoughtfully and looked