"Enough with that," Roan intervened. "Xyrath, we ca here to set you free. However, from the looks of it, you aren’t imprisoned at all. What is happening here?"
Xyrath went silent, and ultimately it was Laiana who talked.
-Xyrath, why are you here? I was truly worried. I thought everyone was sealed, just like . Yet, here you are. Why?-
Xyrath could feel the concern and deep doubts in Laiana’s words, sighing in the end. "I’m not free. I am imprisoned. I can’t leave this place."
That at least confird the system wasn’t wrong. Xyrath was imprisoned. They just didn’t know what kind of confinent he was being kept in.
Seeing everyone looking at him, Xyrath finally began to explain. "It’s a Self-Consistent Ti Lock."
Turns out Xyrath is not restrained physically or energetically. Instead, he is trapped inside a ’closed causal loop’ enforced by the Werdlem Empire.
He can see infinite futures in his Ti Plates, but every future in which he leaves leads to a contradiction, so ti itself collapses those branches before they can manifest.
As ntioned in the past, Xyrath is capable of using the various possible futures to keep himself safe. Fatal injury? Bring out a Fake Possible Future where the injury didn’t exist. Captured? Bring out a Fake Possible Future in which the capture failed. As always, as long as it only involves himself, he can force those nonexistent branches of ti to beco real.
In the end, any possible future where he gets himself free never materializes. If they can’t materialize in his own branch of ti, he can’t escape with his Chronoblade Serpent’s Innate Ability. He can still see countless futures, but they all only get concrete inside the Future Realm, nowhere else.
Laiana heard that, finding it hard to believe. -But... how? How could they make a prison with such characteristics? How can they influence your own possible futures?-
But then, Laiana thought of sothing, sothing she had considered together with the twins’ group. -Wait! You let them, didn’t you?-
Xyrath felt bitter when he heard that. "I did indeed."
-Why?!- Laiana couldn’t see a reason.
Xyrath didn’t answer, though. "Doesn’t matter. The point is that I can’t leave. All possible futures where I can get free will never fully take form, so I can’t get out with my innate ability."
Roan narrowed his eyes. "Does it have sothing to do with the fact that all your Ti Plates are drifting aimlessly? They should all be together, creating your Chronoblade Serpent’s form, but they aren’t. Their state at the mont is the very reason the Future Realm exists."
Xyrath looked at Roan in surprise. Even though they were only talking to his soul, it also had the form of a serpent with proper expressions. "So you noticed... Yes, their state is what causes any possible future where I escape to never materialize. I won’t explain how, since you would need to be a Chronoblade Serpent to be able to make any sense of it."
Roan snorted. "Hmph! What bullshit sense? It is just a fuking do that intervenes with ti and space. What is the big secret behind it? The Ti Plates can’t get back together, and the Future Realm’s Storm Wall is the Ti and Space intervention made by the Werdlem Empire. Stop pretending it is so big shit."
"When both are put together, any possible futures leading outside don’t materialize strongly enough for you to bring them out of the Ti Plates and get yourself free. The Plates are kept separated on purpose to make sure no single, self-consistent future exists that you can materialize."
If Xyrath was surprised before, now he had his mind blown. "Are you from so kind of Ti Race?"
"I’m not," Roan answered. "I’m just a human."
Kentucky whispered to Rean. ’He really considers himself a human...’
Rean nodded. ’He is having an identity crisis, don’t ntion it aloud.’
Roan’s mouth twitched. As if Whispers would be enough for him to not hear them. "Can you fucking pay attention?"
Kentucky and Rean straightened up. "Yes, sir!"
-Does that an all he needs is to have all the Ti Plates brought back together?-
Before Xyrath could answer, Kentucky took his place. "That’s not that simple. Xyrath is already connected to all his Ti Plates through his soul. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have answered our call the first ti Rean spoke about the entangled tentacles."
"He is right," Xyrath confird. "Seems like the black haired boy isn’t the only one smart here. Putting the Ti Plates together won’t change anything. I just can’t connect them back together."
"Oh, I see!" Foliana jumped in. "The possible futures where the Ti Plates get back together can’t materialize. Is that the issue? That would be one of the ways Xyrath can escape his imprisonnt, so it can’t happen."
Roan narrowed his eyes. "You are incorrect, Foliana. That doesn’t make any sense. We are only talking about fake possible futures. Xyrath’s power is capable of making those fake possible futures co into our world to help himself, and they can only affect him. That being said, if you just reassemble the Ti Plates without relying on the illusions of possible futures, shouldn’t that interference of the Werld Empire’s Storm Wall be aningless?"
"Yet, Xyrath is here, and he is not capable of putting the plates back together. He could have simply put them together without relying on the possible futures displayed inside them, but he didn’t. There is sothing else in play."
Xyrath confird Roan’s words. "The black-haired boy is right. It is not the Storm Wall that makes my reassembly impossible. They only affect any of those possible futures where I could use my innate ability to make them real. Simply put, I can’t use my innate ability to escape this place."
"Now, you are definitely wondering: then what the hell prevents my Ti Plates from being put back together without relying on the fake futures shown in my Ti Plate? The answer is the possible futures! All the possible futures you have seen inside each of the Ti Plates you passed by, and the ones you captured. They are the problem."
"Uh?!" Foliana and the others got lost. "That’s what we were talking about. Let’s just put your Ti Plates back together without relying on the possible futures that they display."
"That’s the impossible part," Xyrath would sigh if he had a body. "My Ti Plates are manifestations of Possible Futures, different possibilities in space that start from the sa mont in ti, materialized into the world. You could even say they are windows that let see and even interact with those possible futures. Unfortunately, that’s exactly the problem, the ti when they start to exist."
Everyone still felt confused, but then, Tanxan noticed the issue. "The fake possible futures that they exhibit are not compatible. They are all starting from different tis in the future, and you need them to start from the sa point."
"Bingo!" Xyrath gave Tanxan a ntal thumbs-up. "Unless the tis inside the plates align, they can’t be put back together. Trying to do so in their current state would be the sa as asking to exist at different points in ti simultaneously. In a certain way, I would need to exist in the past, present, and future."
"And the past can’t be changed," Roan added, understanding the issue. "You can slow down ti as much as you want, to the point that it almost stops. However, you can’t go backwards. If a Ti Plate shows a starting point a million years from now, and another Ti Plate shows a starting point just a minute away, Xyrath would need to exist in the past and the future once they are reassembled. The Plate that shows just a minute away is obviously the past of the Plate showing a Million Years in the future."
"Yes," Xyrath confird. "My existence interacts with all those possible futures, even if they are just illusions, fake monts and ti branches that don’t really exist. It’s exactly because I can make them my real reality that they must all start from the sa point in ti, even if they show different possible futures."
Now, everything made sense for the twins’ group. If they wanted to reassemble Xyrath, all the Ti Plates’ possible futures in the Future Realm needed to have their starting tis aligned, regardless of the potential futures they displayed.
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