As Zycrist finished speaking, Aurelius stepped forward, frustration burning in his voice.
"You can't be serious," he snapped. "He's human. A human can't handle that kind of power! You're asking him to rewrite what even we don't understand!"
Zycrist crossed her arms, unimpressed. "And yet, you've failed to fix it yourself."
"I'm not meant to fix time!" Aurelius shot back. "I'm a guardian — not a vessel for your experiments! And this boy, this kid, he's the one who killed the hero and refuses to take responsibility for the consequences!"
Their argument echoed through the endless white hall. The tension between them grew sharper with every word, but Leo didn't move. He just stood there, staring at the ground, lost in his own thoughts.
'Why is it always me man…?'
Ever since he was reincarnated, he had never known peace — not once. He thought this world would give him a second chance, something better than the loneliness of his past life. But no. Every path he took led to another mess, another burden.
'I just wanted a normal life…'
He clenched his fists, then looked up. "Alright," he said quietly. "I'm ready."
Aurelius turned sharply. "Oh, shut up! You're not doing anything!"
Leo looked straight at him, his tone steady. "I'm not taking any responsibility — you heard me. I didn't ask for this, and I don't want it. I don't even know why everything keeps connecting to me."
He stepped forward, slowly closing the distance between them. "But if it is connected to me, then it's my problem to handle. I'll deal with it my way."
Aurelius froze for a second as Leo walked past him toward Zycrist. Just before reaching her, Leo turned back with a faint smirk. "Don't look at me like that. Even if I don't want to, I'm not letting this place fall apart."
Zycrist watched him, her golden eyes narrowing — not in anger, but approval.
"That's my boy, let's begin this then," she said.
Zycrist raised her clawed hand. Golden light rippled through the white space around them — slow, like liquid sunlight. The endless emptiness began to tremble, cracks forming across the air itself.
"Before we begin," she said, "you need to understand what you're about to see."
The floor beneath them shifted. The light dimmed, turning to deep blue. And in an instant, the empty white world turned into something else — a shattered reflection of reality.
Leo looked around. Fragments of lands floated in the air — broken pieces of cities, forests, and faces. Time itself seemed to bleed between them. In one shard, he saw Lia crying alone in the castle; in another, Lyra slowly fading away into light.
"What… is this place?" he whispered.
"This," Zycrist said, "is the fracture between timelines — the space where the temporal disruptions take form. Everything that ever was or could be exists here, trapped, looping endlessly. If left alone, it will consume every version of your world."
Leo swallowed, unable to look away.
"And we can fix it?"
Zycrist nodded once. "We can — but only through balance. You hold something that can erase distortions completely. That's why I sealed your Void Reclaim. If left unchecked, it can consume everything — including fate itself."
She turned toward him, her massive form casting a golden reflection across his eyes.
"But now, you'll need it."
Zycrist's tail curled through the air, drawing a glowing circle behind her. The energy surged, and a seal of black and gold appeared beneath Leo's feet.
"Wait—what's happening!?" Leo shouted.
"Unsealing protocol," Zycrist said. "I am restoring what was yours. The Void listens only to you."
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The seal pulsed, and Leo's body began to glow faintly. Darkness leaked from his shadow — a strange, living smoke that wrapped around him like armor. The world's sound faded. He could hear only a heartbeat — his own.
[Void Reclaim — Reactivation Complete]
[Void Reclaim — Evolved Into Absolute Reclaim]
The voice wasn't his or Zycrist's. It came from the world itself.
Leo gasped as the energy rushed into his body. His vision flashed — for a moment, he saw through space, through timelines, through versions of himself.
Then silence.
He dropped to one knee, catching his breath. "What… was that?"
"Your link to the timelines," Zycrist calmly said that.
Leo raised his head slowly. The glow in his eyes faded to black.
"So how do I use it to fix time?"
Zycrist gestured to the shards around them — the broken timelines flickering like dying stars.
"You will use Void Reclaim to erase the distortions, not the timelines themselves. In short there would be some timelines that are creating these distortion due to overlapping each other. If you consume those overlapped timelines, balance will return."
Aurelius was also hearing her words carefully.
Leo stood up, his breath steady again. "So I just need to… eat the parts that are overlapping with each other?"
Zycrist nodded and replied "Exactly."
He took a deep breath, then looked toward the shattered fragments again. Somewhere in them, he could still hear faint echoes — the voices of Lia and Lyra, calling out, mixed with countless others.
"Brother, no! Brother, plea—! Brother! Brother!" Lia’s voice kept echoing in his mind.
"Leo, mer—! Leo, he—! Leo, st—p! Leo, n—! Leo... Leo help." The sound of Lyra’s final plea for help made Leo want to scream, to break down and cry, but he knew he couldn't let go. Not yet.
Leo keeps trying to ignore all the voice that were echoing in his head.
"Alright," he said quietly. "Tell me where to start."
Zycrist looked down at him — the faintest smile crossing her face.
"Now."
The moment Leo heard her voice. The ground rippled again, and light surrounded Leo. When it faded, he was gone — sent to the origin point of the disruptions.
The ground beneath Leo's feet vanished. He was falling from above but the problem is that he was keep falling from above. Without wasting any point Leo activated his skill, his Order.[Absolute Reclaim Activated]For a heartbeat, everything went dark — no sound, no air, no realm.
'I... I activated the skill. I hope this works.' The moment he thought this everything around him start twisting and forming into something and before he realize. He was already standing in a burned village. Smoke. Blood. Screams.
People were begging for help… and among them, he saw himself.
Leo blinked, breath caught in his throat.
The other him was laughing — sword dripping red. He was killing his own friends.
"Huh…" Leo whispered. "Who the hell—"
Before he could realize who that kid was. The kid, the killer turned around.
Same face. Same eyes. Same smile.
Leo stepped back, heart pounding.
Then it changed.
He saw himself torturing someone — Lyra, crying, begging for mercy.
Another him stealing. Another… doing things he couldn't even look at.
Each scene slammed into him like knives. Every version of him — twisted, broken, cruel — doing things he couldn't stop watching. And those other and different versions keep coming again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again.
Leo fell to his knees. "What the hell am I doing?"
But it didn't stop.
He saw more. And more. Every echo replaying horror after horror.
Then he was just kept seeing his other versions doing disgusting things with those he saved… over, and over, and over again—again—again—again—again!
Seeing his other versions committing such atrocities against the very people he spent his life trying to save hurt him more than anything else. Then, out of nowhere, all those versions, those timelines, and the collective hatred, lust, rage, and happiness—the desires, greed, envy, and wrath of every being in those worlds—erupted at once.
The pain of every life—the guilt and the hatred—began to manifest into something resembling a thick fog, yet it wasn't fog at all. It swirled around Leo, thicker and faster, until he vanished completely within the grey mist. Then, with a sudden rush, the fog surged into Leo’s head and heart due to absolute reclaim. It brought with it a crushing weight of immense pain, happiness, lust, guilt, hatred, rage, and sadness.
Leo grabbed his head, trembling violently.
"Someone please—stop them! Kill me—just kill me!"
He screamed into the void.
But only a faint whisper answered. A voice, far away — soft, almost breaking.
"It's alright, Leo… control yourself…"
Zycrist's voice. Barely reaching him.
Leo looked around wildly. "Zycrist! Aurelius! Help me!"
But no one came. Only the echoes of himself kept repeating. Each one killing, breaking, falling — every sin reflected back at him.
The world around him started to spin, the line between reality and illusion tearing apart.
'I don't want to be a hero. I ne... never asked for this. I do—I don't want to be a protector, and this is exactly the reason why. Can't I just have a peaceful life?'
And in that chaos, Leo began to understand — this wasn't punishment.
It was truth.
Every possible version of him — all born from his choices, his pain, his fear.
And he was trapped inside them or more like they were going to manifest into his due to Absolute Reclaim.

