"I...I didn’t think I’d be gone for so long." Varian was panicking.
"It’s fine. I can vaguely feel your presence now." God Emperor said, his voice controlled and low.
"You can?"
"Yes. A faint consciousness. To think you helped me so much despite being on the verge of dissipating, Jai empire was lucky to have people like you."
"I..." Varian wondered if Thoren was suspecting him. A high rank 2 saw things much more clearly.
"I won’t ask you if you were one of the previous emperors, which you likely are. You wanted to correct your mistakes and you did it through me." God Emperor spoke casually.
With a snap, he reached the silver city, the capital of Jai empire. Unlike in the future when it was reduced to ruins, this city was exuding grandeur.
"While you were away," God Emperor walked to the court hall and sat on his throne. This was the same throne that Hades stole.
"I saw many things, learned many secrets. Primordial gods, fusion of slivers, God’s Eye and Architect." The Emperor continued.
"You..." Varian was shocked.
"Looks like you know them too." God Emperor shook his head with a small laugh. "You were definitely an emperor too, huh. Only a few emperors know this and not even all of them."
Varian didn’t correct this misunderstanding and instead asked. "So, what do you want to do with all that new information?"
"I want to save people." God Emperor said without hesitation.
"...Okay." Varian’s hanging heart settled down. As long as this guy remained positive, the rest didn’t matter.
"I want full, complete peace." The Emperor continued. "I stopped the fightings based on races. They started it on language. I eliminated all languages except one. They started it on dialects.
I eliminated all dialects, they started for regions. I redrew the regions, they started for philosophies. I crushed all philosophies except mine and they started on interpretations.
I crushed the interpretations and they started on legitimacies, legacies and personalities.
There is nothing...nothing I can do to achieve peace.
No matter what I want, the people keep finding reasons to fight. I do not know how to solve this."
Varian was shocked at these experiences. But he was also confused why God Emperor was still unsatisfied.
"That’s how people are. They will find reasons to fight. As long as the frictions are contained and reasonability prevails, you shouldn’t be bothered by such small frictions."
"Small?" God Emperor raised a brow, his face darkening. "Tens of thousands of people are dying unnatural deaths every day. Are those lives worthless?"
"Jai empire has how many people? Trillion? Quadrillion? Those numbers are more than fine."
God Emperor clenched his fist and slammed his foot rest. It broke into two and he stood like a beam of lighting.
"Teacher, you don’t care about life."
"I do, but I’m also realistic. Even the best systems will have some flaws. You can keep improving them, but flaws will also keep improving."
"Then that system is simply not perfect." God Emperor shook his head. "Just because no one built it before doesn’t mean it can’t ever be built. Jai never dreamed of a day without interracial conflict. Today, they don’t even have a conflict for language.
Things that seem impossible are only impossible until they are done."
Even when Varian became the ruler of solar system and wanted everyone to live happily, he didn’t harbor such ideals.
"Thoren, reality isn’t a paradise where everyone is always happy and no one ever gets hurt."
"I will create that paradise." Thoren said, voice filled with zeal.
Varian wasn’t buying it. "People, by their very nature, will fight for something. You think you can change this? You can monitor them 24x7 round the year as long you’re alive. What about after you die? Be practical."
Thoren didn’t answer. He fell back into the throne and fell silent.
"Thoren."
"Thoren?"
"Thoren!"
Varian looked at him with worry.
The God Emperor moved after a full week.
"Peace is the greatest ideal. Elites, races, languages, dialects, regions, ideals—all of these are mediums of conflict, the source is the people themselves.
If people are designed this way, then I will change the design.
If this universe is flawed, then a new, better universe.
For peace.
The vision you showed me when I was young, the very vision you’re denying now deeming it impossible...
Teacher, I’ll make it a reality.
A new universe. A new people. A new reality."
Varian’s eyes widened and his thoughts froze for a moment.
"Are you crazy? What the hell are you saying? A new universe?"
God Emperor remained calm at his outburst and instead switched topics."I have been seeing this pair of eyes in my soul after learning about the Architect.
The eyes spoke only once. They said you’re not an emperor of Jai. Or even a person of this era."
Varian fell silent.
"You belong to the future, teacher." God Emperor said softly. "You had the chance to say the truth, but you didn’t.
Because to you, instilling me with that ideal of peace was more important than being honest with me.
And I don’t resent your ideal.
That ideal saved my life, gave my suffering a meaning and my life a purpose.
I will realize the ideal, teacher.
No matter who stands in front of me.
Even you."
"The Architect is not your friend. He wants to destroy the universe for his own sake!"
"The universe has to be destroyed. I will defeat him and rebuild a better one."
"Thoren, this is not peace. You’re probably corrupted by him."
"No, I know what I am doing." God Emperor’s eyes showed no confusion. "I learned a lot of things from the primordial spirit in God’s eye. I have a plan.
"We can work together in my present. You don’t have to do anything monstrous."
"It is the only way." God Emperor said with conviction. "I’ll be heading to God’s eye to hold off the expansion.
It’ll eat up most of my lifespan and leave me powerless to pursue some important steps.
Teacher, I need your help.
You’ll have to go through a lot of pain.
But for our shared ideal of peace, it is all worth it."
The slivers of time and space emerged, locking onto Varian’s consciousness.
"What are you doing?"
"Creating the future, no, for you, it is creating history."
Boom!
Varian’s consciousness shifted violently and he was thrown into the long river of time by the power of slivers.
It was difficult to change the past. That’s common knowledge.
But peeking into the future was significantly easier. It might only be a basic feel of the future, but still, it’s easier than the past.
The slivers, empowered by the God Emperor used Varian’s consciousness to track the moment his soul signature first appeared in the river of time.
And then, they tampered with his fate.
"I can do the remaining steps. But the fusion of slivers needs a very fateful individual. Other than me, who else has a better fate than you, my teacher?
Do not worry about failing. I will have plenty of back up. But somehow, my intuition tells me you’ll be the one to fuse them."
Varian watched as the slivers of space and time worked on that dungeon. And the fire wolf broke into his house on the seventeenth birthday.
It was then that he realized.
He didn’t change history at all.
Everything was it was supposed to be.