Helena lingered for a moment before she continued.
She looked at Northern for a second with her bright brown eyes before she finally started:
“Hm, first I’ll start with rifts. This should be easy since you have been in a rift before, right?”
Northern nodded.
“Many might have made the proposition that rifts are different dimensional worlds that have been infected by the same disease. It does seem like that, doesn’t it?”
Northern nodded in agreement this time, after all, even he had thought like that.
Interestingly, Helena continued:
“Yes, but it’s not really like that. The thing is, it’s not many worlds. The rift is one world.”
Northern looked at her intently, some words on the tip of his tongue.
Helena studied him for a while before continuing.
“I know you’re probably thinking that can’t be true, what about the distinct cultures and diversity in each rift… yes indeed. That makes it quite hard to believe that the rifts were just one dimension…but let me continue my explanation.”
Northern listened.
“The rift is proposed by more intelligent scholars and experienced explorers like myself to be a convoluted world, but it’s different. It’s different from the thought that they are an infection, that maybe after they overtake a certain dimension, that dimension becomes a rift too. No, no, I don’t think it works that way…
“When you study the ancient murals, if you’ve come across them in different rifts, you find the common link between the history of the world in relation to certain beings, beings that are known to be the originators of the world… The origins of the first world.”
A spark of understanding ignited in Northern’s eyes. Somehow, all that Koll was trying to say was making its way back into his head.
When the Maelstrom was referring to origins, did he really mean a deity of some sort?
Abandoning his thoughts, Northern brought his focus back to Helena.
“You see, the rift is believed to be the first world to ever exist. It is a world that combines all worlds that have ever existed… but we… I believe that something must have really happened to it…”
She folded her hands and stood confidently as she continued to explain to Northern.
“Epochs are basically eras in the world of the rift… do you know that no active way to enter rifts or make them appear has been created, or at least none that I know of? And I firmly believe that it is currently impossible to do so because when rifts appear, they just don’t appear.
“It’s like their time and space is tearing into our time and space, so what I’m trying to say is that there are several epochs in a rift, and each epoch had a predominant event, a culture, an origin, and more things like that. When rifts appear, contrary to what we think – that they share the same timeline as what is happening in our own world – it’s not really like that…”
She paused to ask Northern a question.
“Flower boy, have you ever seen a human in a rift? A human, one like yourself?”
Northern thought for a while and shook his head.
“No.”
“Exactly. But it’s possible for humans to be in rifts. How, you ask me? Because the first world also consisted of the first set of beings… can you tell me what you have proposed to be the history of the rift you were in?”
Northern thought for a moment and opened his mouth.
“Well, there was the Red Mine, which I believe was always a kingdom, but the king sold his people for power and became a monster. Instead of becoming the guardian of the rift itself, the king became the core, and the power, having overtaken the king’s place, became the guardian of some sort.”
Helena’s eyes squinted as she listened to Northern. She shook her head when he was done.
“No, no, it doesn’t quite work that way. I bet there was some sort of anomaly in the rift you were in, which cannot be out of place considering it’s one of the rifts that appeared suddenly.”
Northern narrowed his eyes.
“What do you propose then?”
“I don’t know for sure, but monsters are a core part of rifts. They are a civilization too. That is just how vast and complex the first world was. It’s as big as a convoluted combination of the other worlds, which is why the ancient tomes call it a convoluted world.
“Now, when they appear in our own space, they appear with their epoch. Imagine it more like a portal opens up in space, and you’re going to yesterday, or another portal opens up, and you are going to the day after tomorrow.”
Northern raised a brow. It was a complicated proposition; he was prompted to challenge it.
He spoke:
“But doesn’t that mean there wouldn’t be a true existence of the monsters? If they are from the past, doesn’t that mean they have already existed?”
“No, no, it doesn’t quite work like that, flower boy. You see… when trying to understand the concept of the rift, you are not allowed to judge it based on the concept of our world. These monsters are still real, whether they exist from the past or the future. They’re real enough to kill you, at least.”
Northern got the point she was trying to make.
What mattered was that if you don’t act quickly, thinking they are unreal… well, you know the stakes.
Another reason why it would be inconsistent to call them unreal was because of Mr. Fluffy.
Mr. Fluffy, which he found in that rift, had continued to exist just as a normal, real beast-rank monster.
Helena continued:
“And so, there are several epochs… wait, I think we have a good understanding of this?”
Northern lingered for a second, then responded:
“I do have a lot of questions, though.”
“Of course, even I do, too. These are things I learned from studying murals and ancient tomes… I have so many questions, which is why I can’t stop exploring. For example, I’m still very curious about how vast the first world is. I’m also curious as to whether rifts are a phenomenon caused by a defect of the first world due to a mishap between origins and tyrants, or if rifts are an actual phenomenon on their own that is bound to infect other worlds, just like it has infected the first world.”
Northern gulped.
Surely, Helena’s level of knowledge was far superior to his.
But maybe this journey would allow him to learn some things. He’d finally be able to know about these origins Koll was talking about and whether the Chaos Prince was an origin too.
“I just wanted to know… what are Origins? Are they deities?”