Chapter 2084: Chapter 49: It Is Love That Moves the Sun and Other Stars

He just felt something familiar. Something a little regretful.

Something... hard to let go.

How similar it is. So similar to the moment Teacher Hiliad passed away.

If he starts Reincarnation, then "this world’s Hiliard" will be forgotten, won’t he.

Yes. Ian believed that the next life’s "Ian" would be just like himself now, even love the teacher more, because all the "Ians" in Infinite Space-Time are Ian.

Ian’s love can stack; Ian’s hatred will fade; Ian’s dreams will grow ever firmer, ever more perfect, ever stronger.

He is "Ian." He is all the "Ians." This point has never changed from beginning to end.

But they are not. Yisen Gard, Adalbert, Anfa and Sio, Elan and Elder Pude, all those friends and subordinates of his...

Those who are not Ian, those friends of Ian, they have only one lifetime.

Ian remembered many people, those whom he had killed in some very, very distant previous lives.

He remembered Adalbert, infinitely disappointed, his heart turned to ash, who even in death only sighed.

He remembered Yisen Gard, who gladly spread his arms, even drove the sword into his own heart with his own hands; he had never once doubted any of his choices, and even death felt to him a price worth paying.

He remembered Anfa, utterly confused, still guessing at his true intentions to the very end, wanting to find excuses for him, to convince herself—she was always unwilling to believe that her friend would, for a mere "hypothesis" and "experiment," do something so inconceivable.

He thought of Sio, weeping, roaring, igniting the entire Domain of Void, bearing the Inheritance of the five Ancestral True Dragons, and fighting a final duel against himself, who possessed the Underworld Perpetual Motion Machine... They slaughtered, battled, from Terra to the Twin Moons, from Mercury Star to Deus Star; they broke through the frozen cores of dead satellites, shattered the Abyss of demons; they raised vast red spots upon gaseous giant stars, drew out long trails of stardust across the cosmos, and in the end still returned to Terra.

He won, and the blood of the "Last True Dragon" stained the oceans of Terra red.

Who could have known that Sio, as the first generation Flesh and Blood True Dragon, actually possessed the potential to attain a Star God’s Body with mere Flesh and Blood? 𝚏𝐫𝚎𝗲𝕨𝐞𝐛𝕟𝚘𝐯𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝗺

The Star Gods, that bunch of good-natured fools—clearly, in theory, they were a "degeneration" into flesh, yet they in turn laid down boundless potential for the True Dragons.

And her blood, at that time, was actually red as well.

He remembered. Ian silently recalled, savored, chewed over these "pasts of his own."

He felt guilt crawl up his spine.

...

"I’ve grown weak—is it because of my friends?"

After a long, long time, until the tsunami calmed, until the thunder died out, Ian sat back somewhat tiredly on the cliff. The seagulls once again came to his side, watching with him the end of the sea, that endless horizon line.

"Why is it?" he murmured to himself. "Obviously it’s a good thing for them, and for me as well... They can gain a friend more perfect, with less blood and fewer mistakes on his hands, and I can also obtain a better self, a better opening, a more beautiful, perfect, regretless future..."

"However I think about it, it’s a good thing; I was clearly already prepared to take that step forward."

"Why... can’t I move on?"

Ian could not answer his own question; he could only fall silent.

To the point of interrogating his own heart.

—What, in the end, truly exists as eternal and indestructible, that can Transcend Time and Space?

Is it Aether? Is it the soul? Is it Immortality? Is it a stubborn conviction?

Perhaps... perhaps... perhaps it is something simpler.

The Star Gods set the method of Awakening Spiritual Power as intense emotions and desire, and both the Heart Light Body and Immortality are firm beliefs and wishes... Perhaps, in this Aether Universe, what can truly be called eternal and indestructible, what can truly be said to Transcend Time and Space, is not any kind of entity.

But rather emotion and memory.

For Ian, for an Ian who has Reincarnated countless times, apart from his own feelings, even the entire universe is utterly meaningless.

He can leave at any time, can choose Reincarnation, can go to "another universe."

Just like saving, loading, and starting a new file in a game—everything is such that as long as you restart, next time it all begins from the beginning; all destinies, relationships, powers, factions, even the course of the future and the ending of the world will start over, or even vanish completely.

More illusory than a game, more hazy and dreamlike than a dream.

Compared to the "Ian who Transcends Time and Space," even an infinitely vast Great Universe is a meaningless "Nihilistic Dream"—if it’s gone, it’s gone; at worst he just changes to another one.

Only the emotions and memories in the heart of the "Ian who Transcends Time and Space," only his convictions and dreams, are real.

Then why would the "Ian who Transcends Time and Space" choose to delete so many of his own memories, to let himself start over and re-Exploration every lifetime?

Obviously he could have left behind some more crucial information, rather than those faint hints, starting over each time, couldn’t he?

Ian had originally not quite understood why the "previous self" did this, but now, he vaguely understood a little.

It was for the sake of reality.

It was so that the "Ian who Transcends Time and Space and is eternally indestructible" would regard this universe as real, and regard his life, his beliefs and his dreams as real.

If even Ian does not acknowledge the universe’s reality, then the universe will become utterly meaningless, to be casually discarded by him, casually toyed with, where he casually enacts evil, and just as casually enacts good.