TGS - Chapter 197

Chapter 197: The Ring of Spacetime

Creating a world from nothing was undoubtedly a monumental undertaking.

This was not reality, but an ancient, distant mythological space. All Lotus needed to do was complete the concept of "creation"—to bring into being a world that fit the characteristics of the myths, but did not yet contain humans. This alone would satisfy the conditions for ascending to the level of a Creator God.

Fortunately, she did not have to replicate the lands of Solancia one-to-one according to its actual topography, or it would have been a severe test of her memory for detail.

With a rough concept in mind, Lotus began the practical work.

As a river deity, things outside the domain of water should have been beyond her authority. But after becoming one with the Primordial Water, the power of creation naturally passed into her hands.

Land rose from the vast Primordial Water, guarded by the sea. Beyond the horizon, a transparent celestial dome emerged like a hemispherical glass barrier, sealing off the gray, murky chaos.

This was the heaven and earth as imagined by the ancient Solancians.

Upon the earth's surface, mountain ranges and peaks rose high while ravines and deep valleys sank low, sketching the initial contours of the landscape.

In some of the pre-existing depressions, the clear water left behind by the Primordial Water became streams, rivers, and lakes, forming Solancia's intricate water system.

Up to this point, the nascent world was still dark.

Lotus scooped up two spheres of water. She closed her palms, and when she opened them again, two luminous wheels lay quietly in her hands. One was dazzlingly brilliant, the other was pure and gentle.

These were the sun and moon wheels as the Solancians knew them.

According to the myths, at the dawn of creation, the sun and moon were suspended on opposite sides of the sky, fixed and unmoving. Thus, the eastern side of the world was eternally day, and the western side was eternally night.

It was not until the birth of the twin sun and moon gods, who drove the wheels of light across the celestial dome, that the cycle of day and night began—as one sank into the distant western sea, the other would rise from the eastern sea.

Lotus released her hands, allowing the sun and moon wheels to fly to their respective ends of the sky. The land illuminated by the sun was bright and pleasant, while the moon cast a faint silver glow over the darker half.

Stars, clouds, mist, wind, rain, mineral veins, and rocks of various shapes… all sorts of natural things appeared in the newborn world.

Lotus defined temperature. The sunlight became warm, and plants broke through the soil, stretching out their branches and leaves. Moonlight covered the frozen wasteland, and the high mountain peaks condensed with ice and snow.

There was green vegetation covering the surface, but no animals had yet been born, nor were there any people.

According to Solancian mythology, the flesh, bones, and spirits of humans and animals were all created by the gods. This meant that the task of creating people had nothing to do with the creation of the world, so Lotus did not need to consider it.

The framework was complete. Next, she had to add various details to make this land richer and more real.

Lotus single-handedly managed the entire process of conception, design, construction, and decoration. By the time she finished supplementing the space between heaven and earth, she had no idea how much time had passed.

The final step was to establish the divine realm—

Above the sky, a floating island of eternal light appeared. Complex runes were slowly inscribed upon a central stone platform, and magnificent temples rose one after another, forming what would become the Kingdom of the Gods.

The Underworld, which should have been located near the floating island, was unrelated to the world's beginning. It only appeared after the existence of humans and did not need to be created by Lotus.

However, there was one more project that had to be completed.

Lotus detached herself from the vast body of the Primordial Water, passed through the celestial dome, and entered the newborn world, coming to a stop on the shore of Lake Jadaar.

She needed to leave a hint for her past—and future—self.

Recalling the towering stone pillars of the temple at the bottom of the lake, Lotus stepped forward.

Wherever her snow-white sash passed, the soft black earth of the ground transformed into smooth white stone tiles. Stone pillars rose up on both sides, the distance between them growing shorter and shorter, until Lotus slowed her pace and stopped at a certain spot.

The moment she stopped, several tall pillars shot up before her, standing side-by-side to form the forbidden wall at the end of the temple.

The solemn magnificence she had witnessed at the bottom of Lake Jadaar was meticulously replicated before her eyes.

Then, a circle of delicate, smaller stone pillars, only half a person's height, formed a supporting frame. A square stone slab was placed upon them, its surface blank.

Lotus lowered her gaze and waved her hand.

Her own handwriting appeared on the stone slab. It was the script she had been most familiar with in her first life, the characters carved deep into the black stone's texture, ensuring they would not fade or diminish in the slightest even after thousands of years.

She knew this, because she had seen it—

【It is the origin, the chaos, the beginning of all things.】

【Oh, master of this Temple of Jadaar, It is all things itself.】

【It is the Primordial Water, its name is Lotus.】

Lotus raised her hand and cut off a piece of the stone slab. On it was written a single word: Jadaar.

The moment she entered this mythological space, the "key" she had brought with her had quietly vanished. But Lotus remembered its shape; it was identical to the black stone fragment before her. This was its predecessor.

Carrying the black stone, Lotus ascended into the air.

At the same moment, the Creator God's temple began to sink slowly, causing the nearby land to tremble and hum. The temple would sink to the bottom of the lake, sealed by rock and water, waiting for the deity who built it to come again and discover everything hidden within.

Lotus placed the black stone by the lakeside, setting a restriction so that only she would notice it.

After all this was done, a strange and profound resonance rippled from the bottom of her heart. The Primordial Water outside the celestial dome responded with rising and falling waves. The oscillations gradually intensified, then, in an instant, suddenly returned to calm.

Lotus knew this meant the primordial world was complete.

She raised a hand to her chest. Where the godhead of the River Goddess had once rested, the frost-blue, gem-like godhead was now gone.

In its place—or rather, having enveloped and merged with the river godhead—was a chaotic, translucent gray orb.

Patterns like clouds and water vapor swirled around it. On closer inspection, it bore a striking resemblance to a snow globe; one could almost see the miniature world contained within through the misty, chaotic surface.

It was the godhead of a Creator God.

The world originated from chaos. Many mythological systems agreed on this point, much like the cosmic singularity. It was the source, the "nothingness," and the essence of a Creator God's power.

Upon ascending to the rank of Creator God, the ability to perceive divine power, which Perseus had stripped from her, returned in its entirety. The transparent power of chaos spread both inside and outside the celestial dome, seeming to fill the entire space in the blink of an eye.

Lotus closed her eyes for a moment.

The purpose of this journey back in time had been achieved. Recalling the performance of Perseus-as-Klotho now, the sense of insurmountable, undefeatable intimidation from the creator level was completely gone.

I have to go back. Perseus's seal was time-limited. Although the time spent in this mythological space was likely not synchronized with the flow of time in the future, it was better not to delay, just in case.

The stargate's passage was still open somewhere beyond the celestial dome, as if deliberately waiting for Lotus to leave.

Before stepping out of the stargate, Lotus took one last look back.

Within the chaos, the hemispherical dome and the earth sealed off the gray murk, supporting a world that was half light and half dark.

Logically, Lotus had constructed this world based on mythological descriptions and her own impression of Solancia. But ever since she had added the sun and moon hanging at opposite ends, the style of this world had begun to deviate from reality.

Looking at it from a distance, one couldn't say it was very similar to the actual territory of Solancia; one could only say it was completely unrelated.

And yet, this was indeed the predecessor of the future mythological space.

Born from human imagination, it became a world unto itself, growing as humanity's understanding of nature progressed, just like a mirror.

Lotus withdrew her gaze and took a step out, returning once more to that river of stars, that tunnel of time and space.

Following the direction she had come from, Lotus headed toward the time she belonged to.

In the vast river of stars, only this single figure journeyed steadily onward, returning from the upper reaches of time to the lower.

Suddenly, Lotus frowned slightly.

Without the black stone key to be drawn by the distant mythological space, what Lotus should have been able to sense was the point in time just before she entered the river of spacetime—that is, right after she had parted with Alyuin.

But now, two different pulling forces came from ahead.

One, naturally, was from the time where Alyuin was.

The other came from a later point in time, on a different branch of the timeline.

A thought stirred in Lotus's heart, and she glanced at the bronze mirror hanging by her side, held by divine power.

She would not return to her original world. That was a decision she had made long ago. But there was one thing she still needed to confirm.

Bypassing the closer stargate, Lotus continued forward, arriving at a place further downstream in the long river of stars. She stopped before a stargate on a branch quite distant from the others.

She looked at the iridescent, rippling curtain of light at the stargate's entrance, but made no move.

A strange voice sounded from behind her.

"Are you not going back?"

The question held no discernible characteristics that might offer a clue to its origin. The tone was distant, as if carrying an echo that reverberated above the river of spacetime.

Lotus had heard such a voice before. Before the divine war began, in a sleeping dream, 【Spacetime】 had conveyed information to her in a similar manner.

Lotus turned, but what she saw was not the pale golden silhouette, but the silhouette of a giant—or perhaps a great tree.

It was pale and colorless, its entire body glowing with a bright, soft light. What should have been its waist was submerged in the river of stars, but the upper half of its shadow alone, visible above the river, was more immense than the tall stargate beside her. That stargate, and the world behind it, seemed like a child's glass marble in comparison.

The silhouette's form was still, only the fine shadows around it, like branches or long hair, floated rhythmically. Before Lotus could ask, it introduced itself:

"【Destiny】, as you call it."

Lotus nodded and turned her back again, gazing at the stargate before her.

"What will happen if I don't go over?"

"Then the ring of spacetime cannot be joined, and you cannot return to your own destiny line."

Lotus said softly, "But if I do go, the Solancian pantheon in the other world will be unable to resist Klotho. Or is it that destiny has decreed Solancia will be destroyed at this juncture?"

The silhouette did not deny it. "Destruction here is indeed one of Solancia's destiny lines. However, this line will not be initiated by your departure."

With her back to the silhouette, Lotus's brow furrowed.

"Your original world has no gods, nor can it contain divine power," the silhouette said. "When you return, your Creator God-level power will travel to the other world to fight against Klotho, who has disrupted the balance."

So, the rules know about Perseus, and they call her ascension to Creator God a disruption of the balance.

If one side disrupted the balance, naturally another side had to maintain it. But there was one thing…

"And after that? After Klotho is dealt with?"

【Destiny】 paused, then said slowly, "Your divine power may be nullified by Klotho's power. If any remains, it will be invested into the rules, becoming a part of them."

I see.

A faint smile touched Lotus's lips. She stopped trying to fish for information.

Of course, it couldn't really be called fishing, since 【Destiny】, like 【Spacetime】, answered every question.

Lotus picked up the bronze mirror inlaid with the Ouroboros. The mirror's surface reflected her current expression.

It was one of calm resolve.

When she had seen this mirror in the museum, the reflection that had flashed across its surface had looked just like this.

Pale hair—she had silver hair now.

A resolute expression—because she had already made her decision.

This very moment, for the Lotus who had been visiting the museum, was the future.

But for the mirror that had been displayed in the glass case, it was the future, and also the past.

Just as 【Spacetime】 had said, it was a ring.

Its mirror traveled back and forth between two worlds, with no beginning and no end, like an Ouroboros, forever cycling within this period of time.

Lotus raised her hand and threw the bronze mirror toward the stargate without a shred of hesitation.

As the mirror passed through the iridescent curtain of light, Lotus's fingertips hovered less than half a finger's breadth from the stargate. She closed her eyes and sensed.

Perhaps due to the authority of a Creator God, Lotus "saw" where the mirror landed.

It was the modern era. The year of her birth.

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