Association Headquarters, Turkey, Shadow World
After the battle between Neo and the Awakener Association, which resulted in a crushing defeat for the Association, time passed like a blur.
Neo’s actions caused a lot of changes.
Awakeners all over the world were in an uproar.
The news spread that an awakener had singlehandedly defeated the Awakener Association and put Typhon in a deep slumber.
It pissed off Emma when Jack wasn’t given any credit.
As for Jack himself, he couldn’t care less about the news.
His focus was on searching for Neo.
Neo had disappeared from the face of the world.
If not for a new vision of Apollo, which showed Neo fighting Typhaon, Jack would’ve thought Neo had left the Shadow World.
Since the vision confirmed Neo was still somewhere around, Jack decided to stay.
He joined the Awakener Association temporarily.
In the next few weeks, the Awakener Association demanded a reason from the Titans for supporting Neo during the previous battle.
Kronos revealed his reason at the Council meeting.
“I helped Neo Hargraves because my intuition told me to trust him.”
It was a simple yet highly irresponsible reason.
Unfortunately, the Awakener Association couldn’t hold him accountable as Neo was right in the end, and Kronos was the leader of Titans.
Kronos was an existence they couldn’t judge easily.
He was one of the only two SSS-rank awakeners.
During the same council meeting, it was decided that the fact Jack and Neo were from the future would be hidden for obvious reasons.
The council also demanded Jack to explain why he had stayed behind in the past after everything ended.
“The world is going to end because we couldn’t save the Child of Mana on time,” Jack said. “Neo and I’ve stayed behind because of it.”
A lot of awakeners were skeptical of Jack’s claim.
To point out an obvious reason, if the future was destroyed, how were Jack and Neo still alive?
They should’ve been dead because the future where they were born was destroyed.
Jack, being someone who rarely paid attention in classes, didn’t know how to explain the situation.
His confusion was visible as he rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly.
At that moment, Kronos helped Jack.
His friendly tone cut through the skepticism.
“They are alive because of paradoxes,” Kronos began.
“Think about it,” Kronos continued. “If someone goes into the past and kills their grandfather, what would happen?”
“The grandfather dies.”
“If the grandfather dies, their grandchild is never born.”
“If the grandchild is never born, he can’t go back into the past and kill his grandfather.”
“If the grandfather isn’t killed, then the grandchild is born again, and he goes back into the past to kill his grandfather again .”
“This is a paradox,”
Kronos explained, pacing slowly around the hall as his gaze met the eyes of each council member.
“It is a constantly changing past. Such changes cause deformities in the timeline.”
Kronos paused.
He let the weight of his words sink in before continuing.
“Paradoxes can cause the timeline to break. That’s why Time deals with paradoxes itself. How do you suppose this happens?”
“Time orders its servants to—”
“Shut up, Atlas. Don’t disturb me when I’m doing something important,” Kronos said, giving a sharp glare to Atlas, who had been about to interject.
Atlas chuckled awkwardly, and looked away, avoiding Kronos’ glare.
“There are multiple ways Time can deal with a paradox,” Kronos continued. “I’ll explain it using the grandfather-grandson example I used earlier.”
“First option is, Time destroys whatever device was allowing the grandson to go back to the past,”
Kronos began, his voice calm yet authoritative.
“Secondly, Time can punish the grandson by forcing him to go through ‘Unremembrance’ or ‘Time Slipping.’ Due to these, the grandson won’t be able to return to the past and kill his grandfather.”
“Third option is, the grandson is killed before he kills the grandfather. Let’s say a truck kills him while he’s going to the grandfather’s house. This death is more of a death caused by Fate rather than by Time.”
“Fourth option is, it turns out the grandson was adopted, or his mother had cheated, so killing the grandfather doesn’t stop the grandson from being born and a paradox is not created.”
Kronos paused, scanning the room.
The faint sound of shuffling feet echoed in the vast chamber as the awakeners absorbed his words.
“This is what happens with small-scale paradoxes,” he added
Then, his tone deepened.
“But what happens if it was a large-scale paradox?”
The air seemed to grow tenser as Kronos continued.
“Let’s say the grandfather had developed a cure for cancer. His death will affect a lot of other people, and it will become the cause of a major paradox. How does Time solve it?”
He allowed a moment of silence to draw attention before speaking again.
“It will try to use the previous options I’ve mentioned. But what if those options won’t work?”
Kronos’s eyes narrowed.
“Then…”
The council chamber seemed to hold its collective breath as he continued.
“Time will use forceful changes.
“The grandfather will be alive even if he has been killed by the grandson.
‘Time will achieve this by merging the constantly changing pasts where the grandfather is killed and where he is still alive because the grandson was never born.”
Kronos observed the expressions around him.
He noted the confusion that painted most faces.
“Sigh, I’ll explain it in simpler terms,” he said.
“Time will bring the grandfather from the timeline where he was alive and put him in the timeline where the grandfather is dead.”
The explanation he gave was both wrong and right at the same time.
Only one timeline could exist at once.
In other words, two different timelines could not coexist.
The appearances of paradoxes created deformities in a timeline—resulting in the branching of the timeline and causing multiple timelines to be born.
However, since Time didn’t want multiple timelines to exist, it merged the timelines into one.
This ‘merging’ would cause the grandfather to exist even after he was killed.
Because the grandfather was brought from the timeline where he was never killed and put into the timeline where he was killed.
“This type of solution is the last resort when Time has no other way to solve the paradox.”