I, the final BOSS of the beta test server!

"Do not……"

"no……"

"not like this……"

An unprecedented fragility and panic flashed in the gray-haired girl's emerald green eyes.

Gray thought that she had buried all her joy and sorrow, laughter and tears... on that rainy night three years ago.

And three years later, she has grown enough.

I have completely bid farewell to the weak self I was three years ago and am now qualified to stand in front of Brother Last again.

As long as he can wake up Brother Rast and correct his values ​​of regarding gaining power as the supreme pursuit... then he will be able to bring Brother Rast back, and the two of them will return to the Shore Watchers together.

Then, in the watchtower, the dreamlike peaceful time of the past continued.

Of course, as the successor of Sissel's leader, facing the increasingly dangerous situation, the surging forbidden creatures in the endless sea, the beast tide, the Iron Cross, and the oppression of the cults... he will inevitably suffer severe tests.

But, if I could be with Brother Rust...

No matter how dangerous the situation or how severe the test, as long as the two people work together and the entire Shore Guard organization fights together, they will definitely be able to find a way to break the deadlock and continue the civilization of the Sixth Epoch.

This has always been Grey's belief, and it is the driving force that supports her to move forward like a life-saving straw.

But, at this moment.

If what Brother Luster said just now was the complete truth—

Then what is the difference between her persistence and obsession over the past three years and a joke?

The inheritance from the shore keepers was regarded as the biggest pillar that he could rely on to compete with his brother Last, and actually his brother Last also possessed it.

His biggest trump card is that he can go back in time and reload the game unlimited times, and his brother Last is also immune to it.

I thought I had gained strength and was fully prepared...

But, until this day.

When she finally returned to the royal city of Paradise and faced the young man she had been thinking about day and night, Gray finally remembered... the despair she felt when she was dominated by her brother Last on that night of heavy rain.

It seems that I have completed my transformation.

In fact, she was no different from the girl three years ago who could only be grabbed by the neck and rage helplessly in mid-air, kneeling in the mud and crying helplessly.

If that were all, that would be fine.

It's nothing more than facing your own weakness again and admitting your own incompetence...

However, the other message implied in what Brother Rast said was even more despairing.

The young man who inherited the legacy of the Shore Keeper came from an era when the name of "Shore Keeper" had long been forgotten by the world.

The meaning of this is self-evident.

"I still remember the six months we spent living in the Watchtower—"

"That Monopoly game I used to play with you, Grey?"

The boy's voice was no longer as majestic and sharp as before, but became soft and gentle again, exactly the same tone that Rust and Gray used to use when they lived together.

Switching back and forth between the two completely opposite images of the King of the Underworld who has one foot on the throne of God, and the gentle and calm young shore guardian...Last's performance was undoubtedly extremely abrupt in Gray's eyes.

With a sense of incongruousness, unrealistic absurdity.

However, it was precisely this sense of unreality and absurdity that made Grey even more uneasy.

"In the Monopoly game, we use clay figures to represent the characters controlled by the players, and use dice and drawn cards to simulate the life of the characters we control in the Monopoly game."

"For us, it was just a casual pretend game we started to kill time."

"You can interrupt it at any time, and you can restart it at any time, and call it a day."

"But for those little clay chessmen... the Monopoly board is their entire world."

"And what we see as a half-hour round of Monopoly is their entire life."

"so--"

"You should understand now, Gray..."

The words were like sharp blades, carried by the strong wind and echoing across the wilderness.

"The world you live in is no different from a Monopoly board to me."

"However, compared to that crude Monopoly game... this game, set in a vanished era, appears more realistic and richer in details, even convincing enough to be mistaken for the real thing."

"But no matter how realistic the gaming experience may be, it's still just a game—"

"Some players who are so absorbed in the game that they forget themselves do indeed put themselves into the role they play as a chess piece on the board... but players are always players, and chess pieces are always chess pieces."

"When the game is over, everything will be settled."

He paused for a moment before speaking again.

"The world we're in right now can be thought of as a divergence in time... just like the different world lines you've created as a result of your time travel, only on a much larger scale and lasting longer."

"And in the real history known to the world, where I live... the organization known as the Shore Guardians has already been destroyed."

"Only the Gravekeeper continues to exist unchanged."

He stared quietly at the gray-haired girl in front of him who looked devastated and broken.

In those eyes, there was neither the indifference of the two as enemies, nor the gentleness of their early days as friends... Only the darkness that swallowed up the light remained.

"As for how I saved you from Frozen Water Town, and later betrayed the shore keepers and joined the gravekeepers—"

"All I did wasn't because I truly supported the ideas of either the shore keepers or the grave keepers..."

"It's like even if you're in a game of Monopoly and you're controlling the chess piece to do all sorts of evil things...it doesn't mean you're actually a bad person."

"I would do that just to please myself—"

"Or rather, it's all about winning the game and getting the prize given by the game organizers. That's all."

"From the beginning to the end, I have never fallen, and I have never betrayed the shore guardians—"

"It's just that the players changed their game style and switched to a different camp..."

"The player switches from one of the multiple endings to another. How can this be considered a betrayal?"

Rast's voice spread across the entire wasteland with the wind, explaining all the truth in detail.

At the same time, it also shattered Gray's last psychological defense.

"No... I don't believe it."

"I don't believe this is true."

"It can't be true."

At first, it was just the girl mumbling to herself.

But, then.

The whispers turned into mournful wails, echoing throughout the wasteland.

Even if we know it, we should follow the razor principle of "do not add entities unless necessary".

The explanation given by Laster was more consistent with the various anomalies he had noticed before.

but--

Almost subconsciously.

Grey chose to escape reality.

She didn't want to think about it, let alone admit such a reality.

Because, if she admitted it... then the belief that had kept Gray moving forward for the past three years would be completely shattered.

Even the meaning of one's own existence will be denied.

Yeah…that’s not true.

It is rare to be able to retain the memory of the previous timeline when going back in time.

However, just as legendary warriors are immune to time reversal, perhaps it was because of the Death Star Cup that Brother Rast possessed a similar legendary status, thus creating such a special coincidence...

Although the ability to simulate other people's skills is rare, it is by no means impossible.

As for the inherited flame that is identical to his own... perhaps, it is just an illusion created by some kind of magic. The Shadow Sequence has similar abilities.

After all, that was the fire stolen from the gravekeeper.

It's not impossible that Brother Rast learned the corresponding information from the gravekeeper... or even obtained a replica with similar abilities.

Yes, that must be it.

Brother Rast must be deceiving himself.

This was a psychological strategy he had devised to counter his own time travel—

Trying to use words of deception to destroy one's inner defenses... giving up on looking back, giving up all resistance and struggle, and just surrendering obediently.

……

The girl's thoughts were like the tide, surging violently.

And amidst the ups and downs of emotions.

click-

Gray clearly heard a voice coming from the depths of her heart.

That was the sound of something called "fate" shattering.

Followed by.

boom--

Around Grey, the illusory time that had originally flowed slowly, completely controlled by Grey and able to be controlled by her at will, suddenly surged.

The originally trickling stream turned into a roaring river in an instant.

The whole world is twisted.

The carriage, the winding muddy path, the azure sky, the frozen dusk light, and the royal city visible in the distance against the blazing sky light.

Whether it was the floating clouds or the breeze blowing across the wasteland, everything was frozen in time, caught in a strange stagnation.

That was a time of rampage.

It is the great power called "Destiny".

In the past ten years, even in her dreams, Grey has been subconsciously suppressing the riot of "fate" deep in her soul.

Because this was the promise Grey made to Last when they first met - to no longer escape, but to face fate.

Suppress the force of fate that has brought many misfortunes to those around him in the past and made him a lonely star, bring it under his own control, and completely transform it into his own power.

It's for yourself and to protect those around you.

But, at this moment.

Gray chose to give up.

I released the subconscious suppression and gave up the constraints I had always held on that power...

They simply let the majestic power of destiny run wild, turning the originally slowly flowing river of time into a raging sea.

Then, the entire world was twisted and engulfed, roaring towards a more distant direction.

Since Brother Rast didn't want him to go back again, he wanted to use words to make him surrender and give up resistance.

Then, I will do the opposite.

Use up your last bit of strength, squeeze out the last bit of potential in your soul...regardless of the cost, launch a longer time travel.

Back to the starting point of my encounter with Brother Last, the source of everything——

The original frozen water town.

Then, expose the lies he made up.

This is a flashback spanning a full ten years, far exceeding the boundaries of all previous Gray's time flashbacks.

Even Gray herself didn't know what price she would pay for this retrospection... She didn't even know if she could complete it.