Noah's voice was a steady, low cadence, the words worn smooth by twenty years of repetition in her mind.
"Seeing her like that… it was like after Muen and I were born. That same emptiness. Back then, she'd just sit and stare at you in your coma for hours."
"But this time was different."
"She had no one to stare at. No one to wait for. No certainty that the waiting would ever end."
"No one could fathom the depth of her grief after losing you. Anna said that without you, she became the loneliest queen to ever hold the throne."
Leon listened, his face a mask of growing anguish, the weight of Noah's words pressing down on him until he seemed on the verge of shattering. Seeing this, Noah subtly shifted her tone.
"Do you know why I was so desperate to get strong when I was little?"
Leon managed a weak shake of his head.
"For you two," Noah said. "I thought if I was strong enough, you wouldn't leave, and Mom would never have to look so sad again. But in the end… I couldn't accomplish either. You vanished. And Mom… she cried every night."
"My greatest fear, since I was a child, was this family falling apart. Even if it was built on a lie at first. But as you said, the shell of a home might be false, but the love inside it is real."
She took a slow, deliberate breath.
"In the sixth month after you disappeared, the Silver Dragon clan was attacked again. Two Dragon Kings, alongside that human, Nacho Salaman, assaulted us relentlessly. Aunt Isha was blockaded and couldn't reinforce us."
"Mom killed one of the Dragon Kings, but she was spent. She couldn't defeat the second. Yet, at the last moment, she unleashed a power none of us had ever seen. She obliterated him."
"It wasn't a self-destructing scale sacrifice, so she lived. But the cost… was that she was left too weak to even rise from her bed."
"She knew this wouldn't be the Empire and the rogue Dragon Kings' last attempt to eradicate the Silver Dragons. But as their Queen, she was broken, and there was no one left in the clan strong enough to inherit the throne."
"So, she disbanded the tribe. Told them to flee, to survive. It was the only way to save them. But Anna and Shirley… they refused to leave. They swore to stay with her until the very end."
"While she was bedridden, she told us everything. How the two of you met. How you came to know each other. How you… eventually fell in love."
"Mom said she never really understood human romance, but she thought… she must have loved you."
"She said she would wait for you. Wait for you to come home. So you could tell her, face to face, that you loved her. She wanted to hear it properly, not in some desperate, life-or-death moment."
"But…"
Noah reached out, her fingertips gently brushing the cold crystal. "She never got to wait long enough. The one she longed for never returned. That final attack… it wasn't powered by her Heart Scale. It was a miracle conjured by a mother on the brink of death. The price was this… this deep, unyielding sleep."
"Her last words to us were to survive. To live, no matter what, until our father came back. Because she believed, as long as you were here, everything could change."
"Later, Great-grandmother returned. She created this crystal. It sustains Mom's body. Once she awakens and uses a bit of her power, she can shatter it from within. An external spell could also break it."
"Great-grandmother said that even in this sleep, Mom can probably still hear us. That's why Muen talks to her. So she isn't alone in a dream, just longing for you."
"For twenty years, Great-grandmother and Aunt Isha have searched for a way to heal Mom. And we… we've been waiting for you. Hoping to change everything another way."
Muen quietly pulled the room's only chair behind Leon and tugged his sleeve. He sank into it like a marionette with its strings cut, hollow and lost.
Noah waited, giving him a moment of silence. "Are you better? If so, Little Light will explain our plan. We don't have much time to give you to grieve."
Leon blinked hard, pinching the space between his thumb and forefinger. The sharp pain helped anchor him. "Alright. I'm listening."
Aurora stepped to his side.
"First, let's correct a misconception, Dad. You didn't 'sleep' for twenty years inside the rift. No spatial magic can last that long. During that battle, Ravi used his Heart Scale to forcibly alter the nature of the spatial magic, causing a runaway reaction. It was that reaction that 'sent' you twenty years forward. To here."
"Sent… here?" Leon murmured.
"Yes. 'Here' is a simple way to put it. You could think of it as a 'point in time,' a 'space-time,' or, more accurately—the world twenty years later, a world where 'Leon Cosmodeous' does not exist."
"For you, only a few hours passed. But for us, living in this world without you, twenty years passed. Truly."
"Let me simplify it: The world is like a stable, running production line. Every person is a component. But one day, you, this component, jumped off the line. It didn't collapse the whole system, but everything connected to you changed."
"For example, me, Big Sis, Second Sis… without you, we became who we are now. But if you had been with us, I'm sure we would be different."
She paused, glancing at Noah, trying to lighten the heavy mood. "At the very least, Big Sis would have long hair."
Leon quickly processed her analogy. He understood the concept, and the joke. A short-haired cool sister versus a long-haired beauty was just surface-level. A father's absence shapes a child's entire world. Aurora was right. If he had been here, they wouldn't be who they are now. They were strong, yes, but they could have been so much more.
It also explained the pervasive sense of "wrongness" he'd felt since waking, the feeling of not belonging. He didn't belong to this world—this world where he never existed.
"Now, the key point," Aurora continued. "I've spent over ten years researching the reverse spell of Ravi's spatial magic."
"Reverse spell?" Leon's mind raced. "You mean… time travel? Going back to the past?"
"No, no, Dad. Time doesn't work like that." Aurora immediately corrected him. "Through a series of coincidences, you were sent forward to the future. We can call that 'Forward.' But according to the rules of 'Time,' you cannot go 'Backward.'"
"All events can only move forward as time passes. No magic, no matter how powerful, can violate this. Even Ravi's Heart Scale-infused runaway magic could only send you forward, not back."
Leon's brow furrowed. "Then… doesn't that mean we can't change any of this?"
"Don't worry, Dad. While the rules of time are fixed, I found a loophole in the system." A confident, researcher's smile touched Aurora's lips. "The reverse spell I mentioned."
"Although we can't go back in time, that doesn't mean we can't reverse a known spell."
"Over the past ten-plus years, I've been studying Ravi's original spatial magic. I've successfully created a prototype of the reverse spell. Once the research is complete, you can go back and fix everything."
Leon's mind whirred. After a moment, he asked, "I think I understand. But earlier, you said… 'only six months left'? What did that mean?"
"The battle that put Mom to sleep happened six months after you entered the rift," Noah interjected.
"But shouldn't that be irrelevant to Little Light's research? As long as the reverse spell is ready, couldn't you send me back to the moment I left?"
"No, Dad," Aurora explained patiently. "For example, from the moment you woke up until now, about eighteen hours have passed. That means eighteen hours of time have already passed for you. Even if I finished the spell now, I could only send you back to a point eighteen hours after you entered the rift."
"Time is linear. It affects the world, and it affects you. If you, in your 'eighteen hours later' state, returned to the world 'eighteen hours ago,' no one knows what would happen—it might even tear your body apart."
"Do you understand now, Dad?"
Leon shook his head, confused. "No, I don't."
Aurora seemed to expect this. She turned to Muen. "Second Sis, explain it to Dad your way."
"Oh, okay." Muen stepped forward, looking at her father. "For example, Dad, say at noon you ate a steak and were full. You finished eating at 12:30. Then, in your full state, if you used the reverse spell to go back to noon and ate the steak again, you'd be overstuffed."
"That's the principle."
Leon's eyes cleared. "Now I understand."
"One last point, Dad." Aurora stood directly before him. Noah and Muen flanked her. The three sisters looked at their father, their expressions grave.
"You are the only one who can return via the reverse spell."
"This world is a chessboard. And you are the only piece that jumped off it."
"You are the variable, Dad. You are the key to saving everything."
"In these six months, Little Light will complete the reverse spell."
"And you, Dad, you must become as strong as you were before."
"Only you have the power to turn the tide. Only you can reverse this future."
Muen stepped forward, half-crouching before Leon, and wrapped her arms around him in a tight hug.
"Mom and we… we'll be waiting for you in the real future, Dad."
Leon sat in the chair for a long time, his palm never leaving the cold crystal. He looked at the serene face of the woman inside, then at the determined faces of his three daughters standing beside him.
Finally, he slowly stood up. His previously hollow eyes now burned with a familiar, unwavering fire.
"Alright." His voice was low, but firm as steel. "Tell me what I need to do."
The once-shattered General was piecing himself back together. The fight was far from over.