Chapter 45: The Second Cycle Begins. Liu Ming: You never knew…

Complaints aside, the truth still required deduction. The Exile now understood why Y009 had been so adamant about handing the bullet chat—that source of information—to Liu Ming during the seventh cycle.

With Liu Ming around, they could actually discover many details that were normally impossible for them to notice.

“At this point in time… I must have been pinned to the ground by the Plot Strings as well-“

The Exile stopped mid-sentence because Liu Ming had extended a silver-blue thread into his black mist.

A strange luster flashed across the encircling thread, which moved like a tiny snake. Liu Ming snapped his fingers, simultaneously using the Misunderstanding Points he had accumulated from Y009 to sever the Plot Strings bound to the Exile.

Silver-blue mental energy flashed and shattered into points of light. The Exile’s entire mass of black mist froze in shock. “What was that just now…?”

“I removed your Plot Strings.” Liu Ming realized the Exile’s reaction was a bit strange. “Wait, don’t tell me you never knew… that you had Plot Strings on you?”

The Exile’s reaction confirmed it. “How could I have Plot Strings… Aren’t those things used by Hela to control people who don’t follow her will? No… if I have them…”

Liu Ming gave him a sympathetic look. “From my perspective… if you have them, then every Anomaly King should have them.”

The Exile muttered, “I thought… as long as I stopped… as long as I stopped Hela from resurrecting the Anomaly Kings… I could stop the Black Dragon from waking. But if that’s the case… then there’s no way out at all, is there? Everything Y009 and I did was just a clown’s performance permitted by Y003… It couldn’t possibly be without other backup plans…”

Liu Ming sighed. “At least now you aren’t restricted by it.”

As he spoke, the thread on his wrist tugged again. Liu Ming reached out, wanting to pull the Exile along, but this time the thread seemed extremely dissatisfied. It dragged him directly into a suddenly appearing entrance to a shattered space.

“Hey, hey! Wait for me!”

The Exile hurriedly rushed forward, barely managing to dive in before the spatial entrance vanished.

【This is the second time.】

The world was destroyed once more. That familiar scene occupied Liu Ming’s vision like the ending credits of a cartoon: the towering Black Dragon looking down from its throne. By the time he regained consciousness, he was already standing in the desert of the Fifth District.

Meanwhile, the Land of a Thousand Lakes in the Second District lay behind the distant sand dunes, quietly waiting for someone’s arrival.

Countless diamond-shaped bodies of water, cut like chess pieces, resembled a beautiful shawl draped over the flat plains beyond the undulating, twisted landscape of the Fifth District.

The Exile’s black mist was still following behind him, giving Liu Ming a small sense of comfort.

They were currently positioned atop a high sand dune in the Fifth District, offering an easy view of the abundance in the nearby Land of a Thousand Lakes. Beyond that prosperity lay the boundless desert and the rocky Gobi.

The scene before them carried an inherent sense of desolation and sorrow. These were marks carved by the passage of ancient time, something even a future Dragon Attendant could not imagine.

“The thousand lakes in the Second District haven’t been fully converted into paddies yet. This time period is even earlier than I thought. It should be several hundred years ago… roughly the era when Umizukimi-no-Mikoto was active… which means the period when the Anomalies first arrived.”

Liu Ming made a rough deduction of the current time and reached a conclusion. The Exile following behind was reliable this time, offering his thoughts at the right moment. “I haven’t arrived yet. During the second cycle, I did use spatial travel to return to the past, but when I arrived, Yun Zhou… my past self, was already attending Tree Tower Academy. It definitely wasn’t this era. This is too ancient.”

The Exile’s tone became airy. Without the influence of the Plot Strings, watching his past experiences alongside Liu Ming felt… wrong, no matter how he looked at it.

“Spatial means? Space is space. If your authority is only over space, why can you travel between different time cycles?”

Liu Ming frowned, pointing out a fact the Exile had deliberately ignored with piercing accuracy. “You shouldn’t be able to do something like that at all.”

The Exile froze. “…You’re right. How did every restart begin? Why did I take it for granted that I could walk through spatial tunnels to different cycles?”

If he weren’t just a mass of black mist, unable to bring Yun Zhou’s body along, he would have definitely smacked his own head right now.

What was his past self thinking! Why hadn’t he noticed such a glaringly suspicious point?

Liu Ming expressionlessly stopped the Exile’s movements. He gazed at the sand mist permeating the desert behind them and spoke calmly. “Your situation is exactly the same as Izayoi Ame’s. He never realized the Second Elder was Hela because his perception was blurred by the Plot Strings.”

The Exile shuddered. “If my perception could be blurred, then Hela and the others could be too… Is the reason Hela is so extreme, wanting to help Y003 collect the resurrected Anomaly Kings, also because her perception is blurred by Plot Strings? Then what does Y003 want…”

“It probably wants to watch you fight amongst yourselves. The existence of an Anomaly King must hide a massive secret. This secret has far-reaching consequences and a great impact on the Black Dragon. That’s why Y003 would rather go through the trouble of planting Plot Strings on all of you Anomaly Kings to keep you in the dark… and make you fight each other.”

Liu Ming deduced smoothly, as if these words were merely natural thoughts. “I just don’t know what secret Y003 is hiding. Perhaps it can become a weapon for us to stop the Black Dragon’s cocoon from hatching.”

The Exile was dumbfounded. It took over ten seconds after Liu Ming finished speaking before he found his voice. “I suspect you’ve been banned, Young Master Liu.”

Liu Ming was confused. “What?”

“Because you’re too smart.”

The Exile spoke with a playful, cheerful tone. “If I could use Yun Zhou’s body right now, I’d really want to give you a big hug! God knows how long I’ve been stuck on the step of stopping Hela. Without you, I’d still only be thinking about stopping her, believing that as long as I stopped Hela, everyone would live!”

He spoke with genuine sincerity. Even without a face, Liu Ming could imagine the guy’s expression through that mass of black mist.

It must be the same silly, stupid expression Yun Zhou wore. After seven whole cycles of reincarnation, he still hadn’t made much progress.

Liu Ming gave a light chuckle. “Of course. After all, look at who you are, and look at who I am.”

With that, he began walking forward along the path in the desert indicated by the thread. He didn’t look back at the Exile, leaving the mass of mist to shout from behind, “Hey, wait for me! Wait! You’re bad-mouthing my brain again!”

Liu Ming and the Exile walked for a very, very long time.

So long that time itself almost lost its meaning, so long that the surrounding yellow sand nearly became an inseparable part of their bodies. At the end of the desert, amidst the endless sand mist, they finally saw the figure indicated by the thread.

“Are you tired too, Y005?”

It was a familiar female voice—hoarse, weary, and lost.

The woman’s figure became clearer and clearer in the hazy sand mist. She had fiery red hair that extended all the way to her calves, and at the ends of that long hair were translucent, blood-colored shadow-like arms dragging across the sand.

It was Hela.

Liu Ming’s brow furrowed tightly. “…Exile, you never mentioned that Anomaly Kings are permanent after birth. This Hela is clearly the one Jenny transformed into during the first cycle.”

The Exile was already speechless at himself. “I always thought Hela was just like this, elusive like a shadow. It fits her title as the ‘Glimmering Shadow of the Earth.’ Believe me, it’s all the fault of the Plot Strings. The normal me isn’t this stupid, really!”

The Exile used his black mist to condense a hand and raised it in a solemn vow.

Liu Ming: …Forget it. The kid has fought for seven cycles of time, successfully reversing time before the world’s destruction every single time. That’s already impressive enough.

Hela was in a strange, semi-transparent state, but she held a very beautiful spherical object in her arms, like a miniature snow globe.

Both Liu Ming and the Exile recognized it. That was the Anomaly Core of Y005, Skadi.

Y005’s Anomaly Core flickered twice, serving as a response.

“It can’t be helped. None of us possess the authority over time, so our method of reaching the next cycle… is simply to walk there. Perhaps Y004 can slack off a bit since he relies on space.”

The mentioned Exile was indignant. “Hey! I didn’t slack off!”

Unfortunately, because of the thread, Hela was completely unable to see him.

“It’s a good thing that after Y003 killed you prematurely in the last cycle, I managed to take your shadow and memories in time. Once I reached the second cycle and found the version of you belonging to this timeline, I could return all those memories to you. When that time comes, there will be so much more we can accomplish…”

The boundless desert seemed to impose a sense of isolation on all life, and even the mad Queen of Anomalies was no exception. Hela continued to mutter incessantly to the sphere in her arms.

“How many years have you stayed by my side? In the first cycle, after I became the Queen of Anomalies, you were the only one with me… But why did it turn out like this? Whether we are humans or the Queen of Anomalies… all we ever really wanted was… to live.”

“For that sake, in the midst of chaotic time and a chaotic era, we stubbornly try to walk toward the correct timeline, even if we go mad in the process. We would pay any price.”

Hela clutched the Anomaly Core tightly to her chest, as if it were the final spark of life belonging to someone she cherished.

Liu Ming suddenly recalled a secret his elder sister had shared with him when they were young. At the time, both had been struck with a ruler by their grandfather for neglecting their studies and sent to kneel in the ancestral hall. In that eerie, terrifying old hall, his sister, who was several years older than him, had been smiling quite happily.

“Liu Ming, I’ll tell you a secret. I recently made a friend, and I’ve learned many things from her.”

“Sooner or later, I’m going to have a falling out with the old man. But don’t be afraid, because even if I leave the Liu Family, I’ll still be your sister.”

Liu Luo had finished those two sentences while stroking his hair with a deep, meaningful look. Then she stood up and climbed out of the ancestral hall window, heedless of the consequences.

“Sister! Wait, Grandfather will be furious-“

Back then, Liu Ming hadn’t understood why his sister was so bold. But if the friend Liu Luo had met back then was the newly transformed Queen of Anomalies, Jenny, then it all made sense.

That was why his sister had broken ties with their grandfather. It was so that her subsequent actions-helping the Fifth District save Mute and violating the arrangements of the Plot Strings-would not bring ruin to the Liu Family.

However, he noticed a contradictory, eerie detail.

If the Queens of Anomalies were independent entities unaffected by the cycles, then the sister in his memory who had just met Jenny… should have only existed in the first cycle.

Yet he was the Liu Ming of the seventh cycle.

“Boom!”

A thunderous roar erupted from the direction of the distant Seventh District. A dazzling beam of black light swept across the sky, followed by the appearance of countless black spatial rifts.

Y004 had descended upon the Seventh District.

“This cycle is completely over… a new sibling has been born.”

Hela looked up, her expression a complex mask that sat somewhere between a sob and a smile. “…The second reincarnation has begun.”