Shut Up, Malevolent Dragon! I Don’t Want to Have Any More Children With You

Vol 9. Chapter 2: Shut Up! That’s Not How You Use the Power of Time!

To be fair, you can’t really blame Kaiser.

The kid’s never been good at socializing—half a day and you’ll get three sentences at most. These past two years he’s been holed up in the Palace of Time with his big sister, with zero contact with anyone else, so the fact that his language system still boots and he can say a full sentence like “that already counts as a miracle” is... impressive.

After a few jabs at his expense, everyone suddenly heard Hefei cry out behind them: “Father! Father, you’re awake!”

Orion followed, voice tight with tears and disbelief:

“Mr. Constantine... Mr. Constantine, you’re all right?”

Leon and the others turned.

The heartfire that had gone out had somehow rekindled—Constantine had breath and a heartbeat again. With Orion’s support, Old Con slowly pushed himself upright. From the easy, unforced look on his face, he didn’t seem to know what had happened to him, either.

“Father!”

Little Hefei dove into her father’s arms, and then the tears really wouldn’t stop. Constantine froze a beat, then held her tighter and murmured:

“It’s all right, Hefei. It’s all right.”

Orion could no longer control her own feelings either, but her position still bound her hands—she couldn’t let herself cling to Constantine too closely. Even though, facing that last strike from two hundred peril-forms, she had bit lightly at the corner of his mouth.

But that was because she thought they were all dead anyway!

Who knew... who knew the man would still be alive and well!

Constantine saw the hesitation and scruple in her face and held out his other hand.

“I made you worry, Orion. I’m sorry.”

Orion glanced at that broad palm, pressed her lips together, and felt her pulse go faster all on its own.

In the end, she beat down that strange sense of shame, took Constantine’s hand, leaned in, and folded into the embrace with father and daughter.

Wuconstantine dragged his battered body forward, but didn’t join the hug—he only stood nearby, smiling as he watched.

Leon and Rosvisser looked on in quiet, the corners of their mouths tipping up despite themselves. He slipped an arm around Rosvisser’s waist and said softly:

“Told you back then—those two were definitely going to happen.”

Rosvisser huffed a laugh.

“We’ll call it one lucky guess.”

“Hey now—who’s guessing? It’s all thanks to my meticulous observation and god-tier brain, okay?”

Rosvisser rolled her eyes, then snorted a laugh and paid the great man with a light elbow to the ribs.

“So—did you just use time-reversion magic on Constantine, Teacher Safina?” Aurora asked. “Like when you resurrected those Silver Dragon soldiers Atos— killed?”

Back then, the moment Safina first grasped time’s power, she’d used that overwhelming force to pull the fallen Silver Dragon officers back from death—and even reset Leon alone to peak condition.

But this time, Safina shook her head.

“No. If I reverted his time, the power of the God of Light that Constantine just gained would vanish with it and return to the Golden Helm.”

Isha blinked.

“It would... do that...”

Hearing her, Safina turned and asked, “What is it, Miss Isha? If that wasn’t clear, I can explain in detail.”

Isha waved it off.

“No, I understood. I’m just... surprised.”

Safina arched a fine brow and smiled.

“Surprised at what?”

“You said... Constantine has already obtained the power of the God of Light?”

Safina nodded without hesitation.

“Yes. He earned the Golden Helm’s recognition and inherited the divine power of Apollo, the God of Light.”

Isha drew a sharp breath.

“That’s... formidable.”

Big sister, confirmed: her little sister bagging that brother-in-law back then was an unbeatably correct decision.

In barely over a decade, thanks to the pairing of her sister and brother-in-law, they had directly or indirectly added at least two or three “god-tier” combatants to the dragons—and to the entire continent of Samael. Hard to imagine what chaos this world would be in if, on that day more than ten years ago, that mole Victor hadn’t stabbed the brother-in-law in the back.

Mhm... the vice-captain is MVP; Leon-and-Rosvisser, pure win!

“Then if it wasn’t time reversion...”

Leon’s voice cut off Isha’s wandering thoughts. She lifted her head toward her brother-in-law as Safina continued:

“What did you do?”

Safina walked straight to Constantine and the others, set her hands lightly on Orion’s and Wuconstantine’s shoulders—then a wash of golden light flowed out. The wounds on both their bodies began knitting at once.

“Strictly speaking, I wound them back to the point before they were injured.”

With the two of them mended, Safina brushed off her hands and stood, explaining, “I turned one possibility from the Time-Web into reality.”

Leon blinked.

“Turn a possibility into reality?...”

“Mhm.”

Safina said:

“Out of thousands of possibilities, I found one where Constantine lit the sun and did not have to pay with a life—and I forcibly converted that branch into the reality we stand in.”

It’s not hard to explain—doesn’t even take many words.

But as everyone knows, when a technique’s principle is simple while its effect is absurdly strong, such a power often runs beyond most people’s comprehension.

Even Aurora—who herself commands a measure of time’s power—was a little taken aback. “I always thought the Time-Web was for seeing. I didn’t expect you could forcibly convert one of its possibilities into reality...”

Aurora: [Worldview_Compiling.jpg]

Safina smiled like a little fox, eyes half-moon.

“Heh~ I only discovered it after I came to master more of time’s power.”

“If you can force possibilities into reality...” Rosvisser seemed to spot a blind spot. “Doesn’t that mean none of us will ever have to die again?”

“Mm... it’s a nice thought, but—” Safina promptly bopped that dream on the head. “In fact, no.”

She looked back to Constantine as she went on. “First, finding a possibility in the Time-Web that perfectly matches your current needs is not easy.

“Take this time: because the one in crisis was Constantine, all I had to search for was a branch where he was still alive and successfully inherited the power of light. Not too hard. But... what if others had run into disaster at the same time?”

She drew her gaze back and swept everyone with her eyes.

“Say, Noa. Or Muse. Or Leon, Rosvisser. If you were gravely wounded—or fell in battle? Then I’d have to add ‘you did not suffer misfortune’ to the preconditions of the branch I’m hunting. And now I can tell you, quite responsibly...”

With a flick of her hand, countless strands of the Time-Web unfurled behind her. Faced with the dazzling array of scenes, Leon and the rest couldn’t help a soft chorus of awe.

“Out of tens of millions of possibilities, I found only five where ‘Constantine lives and successfully inherits the power of light.’”

At a tap of her finger, the countless webs narrowed to five. She went on, “On that basis, if I add a few more preconditions—well, think it through. How many possibilities do you suppose remain? ...Right. It’s...”

Her fist closed. The last five Time-Webs winked out.

“Zero.”

Leon was struck dumb.

“In short, the more preconditions you pile on, the fewer viable possibilities the Time-Web contains.”

“Exactly.” Safina nodded.

“Second, it touches the temporal rules Chronos set down. What I’m doing, at the lowest level, is modifying reality—and modifying reality entails time. You’ve all heard of the butterfly effect?”

Moon shot up a hand.

“I know—I know! A small, insignificant butterfly flaps its wings somewhere, and seconds later a gale rises in another corner of the world. That’s how the tens of millions of possibilities in the Time-Web come about!”

Safina smiled, pleased, and made a heart to the little Moon before continuing:

“Right. Forcing a possibility into reality creates a similar effect. And the more important the target you modify, the greater the impact on reality—also... The longer before I can use the move again.”

“Ohh—I get it,” Leon said.

In short, though this ‘force reality’ move is broken, it has heavy limits:

The more preconditions you set, the fewer branches in the Time-Web will satisfy them—so even if this power overturns the table, you can’t fling it around heedless of casualties.

The more important the target is to the real world, the larger the ripple your modification creates. Those ripples can’t be foreseen—and could lead to consequences that are harder to control.

Cooldown: the more important the target, the longer the wait before this can be used again. At Constantine’s level—now that he bears the power of light—I might need seven or eight years, even a dozen, before I can invoke it again.

Safina scratched at her hair, a little vexed, then lifted her eyes to Leon.

“So—don’t look at me, the time-goddess who can rewrite reality, and start getting sloppy. Leon—every battle from here on, you still fight with everything you have. Understood?”

Leon nodded, serious.

“Understood.”

“Um... I have a question.” This time it was Orion.

Since she hadn’t known Safina before now the way Leon and the others had, she asked carefully, cautiously. However breezy this purple-haired girl seemed, she was still the goddess of time—same tier as Orion’s own forebear Apollo. There was no way Orion wouldn’t be nervous.

Safina was much more easygoing. She tipped up her chin. “Ask.”

“You said you forcibly pulled Mr. Constantine from another possibility into our reality. So the Constantine we have now... is he still the one we know?”

Safina shrugged.

“Of course. It was only a possibility that had never occurred in this real world, not some parallel-world nonsense.”

She cocked her head, then smiled slyly.

“Relax, beauty—the fire-breather is still the fire-breather. You two can keep on...”

She raised both hands and hooked her index fingers together—meaning, you two can keep dating.

Orion understood the gesture at once; a blush bloomed across her face.

“I... that’s not what I meant...”

“Really? Do you know, out of thirteen million possibilities, how many end with you and Constantine getting mar—mmph mmph!!”

Leon clamped a hand over the cheeky time-goddess’s mouth. “Is time-power for peeking at gossip? Can you leave people a little surprise and mystery?”

Safina:

”...”