Karu was nervous. The future she had been haunted by for so long had been shattered. She did not know all of why but eting her future companion had lood over her ever since she awakened her elents.
She rembered the horrors the Dreaming showed her. Entire continents lost to the Fiends as the war between Lind and the Great One beca a ga of push and pull.
In the end, none of it mattered. She saw everything die but that was when Lind would ask to be sent back.
He had figured out that his harmony allowed him to nudge his past self below the Divine Realm. It should not have mattered but it did! Each ti he returned to the Divine Realm, he was a little different but the events unfolded essentially the sa.
The last ti he had been vastly different. He had been prepared and things had gone well at first until sothing changed on the Fiend side.
It was as if the Great One could also shift his past self but in the Divine Realm!
Such a thing should not be possible but Lind seed to light up when it happened. It gave him so kind of answer but he refused to say what.
She recalled his Dao Swords blazing in the final battle when everything was coming apart. The dark laughter haunted her nightmares and the Dreaming.
Yet, all of that was gone! She had been with him for weeks as he gathered intelligence and a rough idea of how the pylons worked.
He was given nas of Divine Realms that could be trusted to an extent while also places he could go to learn. He desperately needed more knowledge there.
That was odd. Every other ti he beca a Divine Realm, he was already fairly proficient in Dao Grade creation but now he wasn't. His other abilities, however, were terrifyingly powerful!
He did not know but as an Apprentice Tier he was intimidating to Journeyman Tiers! She also listened to his stories and frowned.
He now had a staff Dao weapon unlike anything she had heard of. He spoke of people he had never t before too all the way back in his mortal life.
Cyntilla was also dead! How?! She had been the Fang of Death in the wars. With Fearso Prism Dragon at his side and her, they had blazed a trail of death but now he had so many wives!
He had so similarities from what she could recall but things were vastly different from before. What had that last version of him done?
It was only at one point when her Dreaming ca upon her in a waking state that she received the greatest shock of all. The chains of Fate were gone!
They were still around her and everyone else, but not him! His Dao of Fusion had been insanely powerful but it needed the links of Fate to bring all things under his power.
The earliest contact had been in the World Realm, as nothing before that was possible, yet sothing had shifted long before that event happened!
Lind had always had so many questions about her ability. He seed to think it was being restricted sohow and it seed he had understood sothing finally. So why didn't he tell her?
Why all the secrets?
The current him did not know anything and with the future shattered, she would never know. Her gift to send him back affected her in the past and future. She would not have the strength and–
She froze. The future had already changed. Could she regain what had been lost? Or would it be as if it never happened?
She did not know. The future was locked in fog once more and only the Dreams would give her flashes eventually. She had to advance and she had to learn what the current Lind was following.
He was far more inquisitive and bright than any other ti she had seen in her Dreams. All those dark ends and the final go seed better. What had happened to him?
All her thoughts must have given sothing away because his reptilian erald eyes locked onto her.
"Did you agree with what I just said?" Karu snapped out of her thoughts and quickly tried to rember what they were discussing. Usually, she could rely on her Dreams to recall anything as it had happened so many tis but now, there was nothing.
She blushed a deep red as she shook her head.
"Is sothing wrong? Do you need more ti to grieve?" His voice was gentle as looked at her and Karu could recall how he looked at people like that in the early days.
When Ethry was torn apart in front of him, he lost that gentle side.
She wanted to change it! Change it all!
It could happen now, possibility had been opened again!
"I drifted, I am sorry. I think we were going to discuss where to lay low and learn the current events as well as increase your abilities in your professions?" He slowly nodded and pointed at a more detailed map of the Nar Peninsula.
It was not uptodate regarding the various local powers but topography and major routes had been added to an accurate degree. His ability to make such a map with just words and so other images to go by was shocking.
"Shadow Seal Cove will want
gone but we should head west from there and then a little north. There is a mountain range there where a mining facility with several cities supporting the operation exists. It is ideal for my Forging and elixir mastery to improve. It is also a good way to collect information without actively seeking it." She nodded as she recalled stories of that place.
The Ore Heaven Pavilion was simply nad but the dark stone mountains there were rich in several ores across grades and elents. A natural vein was the most common thing to find but a demonic one near a natural was quite rare. It also indicated a possible Ruin or Inheritance might be lurking nearby.
The cities had grown as the deeper people had dug, the more profound the resources discovered. It was a dream for any refiner, Forger, and any cultivator looking for material for their weapons and artifacts.
Amateurs to supre experts learned there or ca for the possibility of grasping an opportunity.
Lind would be able to blend in that sense but she frowned.
"The Silver City is not going to let us in. It is not just about being beasts but they are the closest to the highest grade mines. They restrict access unless you have true ability as a professional backed up by a reference from a respected native leader." Lind seed surprised but she had been through it enough tis to warn him without thought.
It was a long established rule so she could explain it away easily enough with the truth she had heard of it when speaking about the Pavilion mber cities.
"Any other issues?" She thought and then a frown crossed her face at a rather foul mory.
"They may not be there but there is a traveling caravan that brings legal slaves through. The legal part is that the slavers are employed by a righteous sect to take on criminal slaves to work off their sentences in the mines or other offices where they are sold." Lind had heard of that from Haro as well.
Rather than crippling or killing, so sects and powers used a system to let them have a chance at freedom. It seed reckless until he understood that escaping did not really help them unless they could go to soone to remove the formation, artifact, or weaving put on them.
Similar to a Soul Slate or Candle, if it is removed improperly, the slave dies.
Lind nodded at her words but looked at her as if waiting and Karu felt a flare of anger from the future.
"While the slavers are legal, they are not always carrying legal slaves. They make a profit and do not always ask questions they should. So are brazenly selling children and no one bats an eye." Erald light flared around him and she flinched.
He then seed to calm down and made so notation in his jade slip.
"I see, I will keep that in mind." She felt a chill at his tone! They would be leaving soon and all the things she had expected were gone. She was traveling with a stranger that wore the face of soone she would one day consider family!
The contradiction was hard to accept but the hope burned in her. Even if they were never to be together in the future, it would be worth it to avoid what she had seen.
She then outlined anything else she might know but given that he had changed, she suspected it was not the only changes to the future to co. A single stone sent out ripples. What else had he changed?
????????
It had shifted. The man stood shrouded in the darkness he chose to live in but his white eyes opened and seed to look beyond the world around him.
A frown marred his ash gray face before he summoned a mirror. It was polished to a degree that made it seem like a window but it gave no reflection of the current room or owner. It was supposed to show another place but it had gone all murky.
"What has happened?" His voice was vile and even the stone around him creaked under the assault of that alone.
He infused his power into the mirror and a rough image flickered to life before being snuffed out again and his frown deepened.
"It has changed?! How?! Why wasn't I warned?!" Only 1 cause ca to mind. The 2 had t and it had not gone as it should!
What had that bastard snake done?! How had he shifted the future?! He had killed him so many tis and it was the end. Nothing could change his final victory but now it was murky. His unbroken road to true immortality was now robbed from him!
"LIND FREY!" The Great One roared and any in range felt their souls shrivel but none knew the source of his rage. On one side of the world, hope was kindled but on the other, it was wiped away.
The future was unknown once more and possibility was born again.
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