Within the true silence, the kind untouched by time, laws, or even the Void, descended like a falling veil.
The hyperboloid behind Destin Saint shone brighter and brighter until every strand of its geometry sharpened into threads that resembled past destinies resurrecting from extinction.
Immortal Nimrod’s void eye widened, and his avatar spasmed in disbelief as, at the moment the words ’The Winter of Past’ left Destin Saint’s lips, the very reality convulsed!
However, it wasn’t an explosion, nor did it seem like a collapse. Still, it was the sensation of all existence being yanked backward by the roots, as though creation suddenly remembered that the present was nothing but a stubborn lie.
The next moment, the space cracked, and ethereal kaleidoscopic threads, thin as spider silk yet thicker than world-rivers, shot out from the hyperboloid.
At first, there were millions, and then billions...before the next moment, they were innumerable, so many that even the Void lost count!
Each thread subtly glimmered with a different color, emotion, echo, and forgotten intent. Some were warm like childhood memories; others were cold like karmic debts abandoned eons ago. Some murmured with long-dead possibilities like choices never taken by anyone, anywhere.
At that moment, reality screamed as the boundary between Shadow Expanse and Abyssal Void quivered like a dying beast. Immortal Nimrod’s form froze, his purplish flames stiffening, not because he chose stillness but because he was expelled from time’s right to move.
’W-what is this—!? Why... why can’t I... move...?!’
His thoughts were raging with horror which he can’t express because of that ’silence’, and the Void-eye behind him suddenly shrank violently, as if fate’s threads were throttling it.
At that moment, Destin Saint’s ethereal, fleeting voice sounded like a faint dying whisper, but at the same time, it was like an absolute decree...
"Prevernal Past!"
The next moment, a faint wind blew, whispering like the softest echoes of forgotten memories brushing the surface of existence, and images of long-discarded probabilities drifted around Nimrod like harmless dust.
Thereafter, Destin Saint’s voice appeared again...
"Vernal Past!’
The dust turned into blooming visions, and the Void’s own past choices materialized like real scenes, showing the moments he had hidden, moments he had severed from himself. Immortal Nimrod’s flames hissed as his composure fractured.
"Estival Past!"
Suddenly, past memories solidified as they swallowed the present, like a devouring beast, and for an instant, it felt as though the past was more real than the present, and the Void shuddered.
’This...this is impossible! This is not fate! This is not memory! This is...!’
"Serotinal Past!"
But it wasn’t over, as his thoughts were disrupted again by every lost opportunity he never allowed himself to consider, crystallizing around him like mirrors of what he could have become.
Immortal Nimrod trembled as each reflection was a blade cutting through certainty!
"Autumnal Past"
Old causal threads, the ones he had severed, decayed and fell away before Pieces of his void dominion flaked off like dying leaves in front of Immortal Nimrod.
"Hibernal Past!"
This time, Destin Saint’s voice was majestic and inevitable like the final moment has arrived...and it does indeed!
The Past froze, became absolute before it became the truth, and Immortal Nimrod, despite his power, despite the Void behind him, despite his arrogance, could not negate a truth!
At that moment, the threads of the hyperboloid seemed to tighten, and suddenly it began to turn like an hourglass, and with it, the space folded inward as time coiled like a serpent eating its tail.
"Immortal Nimrod, I hope the inexorable Winter of Past isn’t too cold for you!"
At that moment, Destin Saint’s phantom grew brighter, while the Void-eye dimmed and shrank further, like a divine punishment erasing pride.
The realm shattered backward, from horizon to point, from complexity to simplicity, from consequence to cause, until only primordial silence remained.
At that moment, Immortal Nimrod was struck by a horrifying realization, but alas, it was too late. However, in that singularity, Immortal Nimrod had finally realized that Destin Saint had played him, and extremely badly so, to say the least.
Furthermore, he couldn’t even resist, and according to Destin Saint’s assessment, Immortal Nimrod couldn’t use his Arcane Law, but he definitely has a Universal Godly Scripture.
However, Destin Saint seemed to be extremely confident when he revealed this so-called ’arcane law’ as if even if Immortal Nimrod had it, he wouldn’t have been able to resist it.
As for why, Immortal Nimrod finally realized in his last conscious thought, before even thought was reclaimed by the past, was a scream drowned in disbelief...
’T-that’s... a Universal Godly Abil...!!!’
Then everything, Nimrod, Destin Saint, the boundary, the Void’s presence, the hyperboloid...everything collapsed into reversal.
It wasn’t vanished but rewound as if none of it ever happened.
As if the entire conflict was merely a dream the universe decided to forget.
---
In the next instant...
’Boom!’
Jacob witnessed the exact same scene of the Cosmic Gateway of the Verdantia Life Galaxy being blown into ethereal particles, while his cloak fluttered gently, and the vitality-laden air of the Verdantia Life Galaxy trembled.
Everything was exactly as it had been before everything began... but this time, an imperceptible layer of frost lay over the moment, a hint of the Winter of Past still clinging like morning dew on the edge of time.
Furthermore, Jacob’s eyes were unfocused, as if he were in a dream, despite the ripples from the cosmic gateway’s destruction, and his aura was unstable.
At that moment, Immortika’s familiar, eerie voice suddenly echoed within Jacob’s mind, like the rumble of a thousand bells, and the cursed book said something familiar.
"How nostalgic...in the silence between choices and chances, destiny weaves its noose..."
However, it wasn’t followed by that familiar laughter; instead, the very next moment, Immortika spoke another unseen part, the part the cursed book hadn’t spoken the first time...
"...and when the rope snaps and rewinds, a story erased seeks its rightful stage again. For some, threads refuse to forget—even when the past is forced to!
"Hahahahahaha!"