Chills ran over Neo’s spine.
Right now, time was turned back. He returned to the moment where he was explaining to Sphinx that his parents were reincarnating, and that he wanted Sphinx to check Akashic Records how why this was happening.
This timeline had no clash of facts.
But the previous one had a clash.
Why?
The answer was simple.
‘Paradox.’
‘Eternals erased Tartarus existence and it turned back time. But since I couldn’t be erased, the timeline had ‘errors’ that couldn’t be properly solved.’
‘Right now, I’m meeting Sphinx.’
‘There needed to be a reason for me meeting Sphinx. It can’t be Tartarus, since Tartarus doesn’t exist.’
‘The reason in this timeline is that I wanted to know if Sphinx knew about my parents’ reincarnation, which it obviously didn’t.’
Neo’s mind churned.
He kept piecing together clues.
‘Since only one timeline exists, this timeline and the previous one are the same.’
‘They just overlap.’
‘Normally, overlap is a complete incident, and no one will know overlap has occurred, but when Paradoxes appear, then ‘bugs’ appear in timeline that make it clear that overlapping of timeline did not happen properly.’
Back in Tartarus, Tyr remembered his time with Neo and others in his own subconscious nightmare world even though he shouldn’t.
That was one of the ‘bugs’ that appeared due to Paradoxes – events that shouldn’t happen in the timeline.
‘My meeting with Sphinx is a Paradox too.’
‘Last time, it called me, but then due to the overlap – which would happen later – not being perfect, the timeline bugged, events from the post-altered timeline appeared in previous timelines, which was why Sphinx suddenly did not know about my parents’ reincarnation.’
The entire Paradox appeared because Neo was a Heavenbreaker and he couldn’t be affected by Eternals’ powers.
But last time Neo did not notice this.
He noticed it only now after awakening his true Heavenbreaker powers.
And it made him shudder.
‘How many times have these Eternals done this to the universe?’
‘I noticed it now because I am now a Heavenbreaker. But how many times these paradoxes appeared and I was never able to notice them?’
Eternals were not just strong. They were beyond things like strength.
They controlled the board – their universe.
Neo clenched his fist.
‘Fuck, I’m not letting this happen again.’
It finally hit him that Eternals could change everything, and no one would realize it.
Everyone was but a toy to them.
‘If I die because I went against them, then fuck it, I’ll just die.’
‘I’m not going to lower my head and have my life and the life of people I know let be tampered because I was too weak to fight back.’
Neo stood up.
“Thanks for the help. I will be taking my leave.”
Before Sphinx could say anything, Neo disappeared.
He appeared on the road outside the academy.
“For now, I need to understand why Eternals targeted Tartarus.
“There has to be something that was the cause of their appearance.”
Neo looked through his memories.
He quickly noticed several weird things about Tartarus.
“Tartarus’ Intent is exactly the same as Typhaon. Coincidentally, both Tartarus and Typhaon are 81st ranked Grim Reaper.
“Moreover, Typhaon’s body was turning into a ‘statue’.
“I’ve only encountered statues two times. One was in Age of Gods, where I had to fight the Look-at-me-not Anomaly. That thing was a statue, and it defied all logical things.
“The second time was when I was learning Gap, and I fell into ‘Forbidden Lands’. I nearly died back then, because there I encountered countless statues.”
Unfortunately for Neo, both were dead leads.
Tartarus was now erased.
The Grim Reapers would not remember him being a Grim Reaper.
Neo had no idea of where to find Look-at-me-not Anomaly.
Entering Forbidden Land was tough. It depended a lot on luck, since you needed to move through several dimensions and fall in one of the few openings of Forbidden Land.
One had to be extremely unlucky to fall there, which Neo was and that was why he fell there last time.
But now?
He doubted it would happen. If he wanted to enter it deliberately, his shitty luck would definitely not help let him fall there.
“How should I….”
Neo turned his head. He focused on his senses to make sure he hadn’t sensed it wrong.
“The people of Senator Nicolas’ house are in chaos because Sir Nicolas died? How is that possible that they know he died?
“He should’ve been erased just like Olivia since he was involved with Tartarus.”
The situation did not make sense to Neo.
But as he kept thinking, he realised one thing.
“I wasn’t affected by whatever Eternals did. There must be more people like that, right, even if they are not Heavenbreakers?”
Neo had already looked into his Cosmos.
While he retained all powers, the people of Cosmos had forgotten about being caught by Tartarus.
Similarly, his Firmaments had been affected too.
Only Neo’s Consciousness remained unaffected.
No, Neo’s Consciousness wasn’t unaffected either.
He remembered the memories of people he had devoured, those whom he knew before entering Tartarus, and those who were created by him.
But he could not remember anyone else.
“Sir Nicolas was killed by the spirit of his sword, but he wasn’t erased by Eternals.
“It’s same as saying the spirit of the sword had higher authority than the powers of Eternals, which is why when both abilities clashed Sir Nicolas was killed by the spirit of the sword instead of Eternals.
“The stronger authority won.”
Neo’s brows creased.
“That sword, what was it?”
He remembered hearing it was a demon.
But what exactly was a demon? In fact, didn’t Kane wield Severant, a Demon, too?
“Sphinx,” Neo called out as he returned to Sphinx’s home that was in a subdimension.
“Hey! Do you know something about a thing called a door?! Knock at least!” the sphinx shouted, too irritated to manifest a physical form.
“Do you know about Kane?” Neo asked, ignoring Sphinx’s irritation.
If Kane wasn’t erased like others, it would mean the Demons were special, and the Demons were able to ignore Eternals’ erasure just like him.