Life didn't get easier, even in another world.

That was when he saw a figure that wasn’t there until a few seconds ago. He saw his last remaining general staring at the corpse of the others. His gaze switched between them repeatedly while lingering on Matilda’s for a longer time than the others.

The holy saint was moving towards him. He attacked him with that mysterious power of his and burned Stefan’s body. He thought he’d die, but he didn’t. His consciousness was wavering and he was sure that he wouldn’t last the second attack. Thinking about the things they had done that night, thinking about the destroyed machine, made his mind ease a little bit. He knew that the holy saint’s plans wouldn’t proceed any further for a while. Stefan didn’t know why he trusted the unknown voice he was hearing that much, but at that moment, he believed that voice more than anything in his life.

‘I wonder if sister listened to my warnings... She had to run away with her son... I hope they will live well even after my death...’

He then saw Alan grabbing the ring on his finger. The ring shone, the time twisted, and things slowly started to move back.

‘Huh...’

Blood moved back to the corpses, body parts went back to their respective locations, and the livelihood came back to the corpses little by little. As a blinding brilliant light shone from the ring on Alan’s hand, the corpses came to life. No, they didn’t come back to life, but rather they jumped back to the time when they were still alive.

‘What in the world...’

Stefan couldn’t understand what was going on around him. Still, in a daze, he looked down at himself. His body was intact. He didn’t have any wounds or burnt marks on him. Without him knowing, the place where he was standing had also changed. He was now once again back to the entrance of the temple and to his sides were... to his sides were his generals, alive and healthy.

.....

“...Huh...”

He realized that Alan had turned back the time, but he couldn’t understand how he managed to keep his memories from before the time skipped. Was it because of the power that the crown was giving him?

There was actually no time to think about that. Stefan’s heart was beating so fast he was scared it would jump out of his chest at any moment. His feelings seemed to have run out of control as soon as he looked at his alive generals. He was frozen stiff in his place for more than half a minute.

“I see... Really interesting...”

Stefan jolted up and snapped his head towards the holy saint. He could see a smirk on the man’s face as he walked toward them in steady steps.

“Such a great ability... Too bad it’ll be wasted on a corpse.”

“...”

It seemed like Stefan was not the only one who had his memories from before the time skipped. Still, knowing about a few minutes into the future didn’t make him change his plan. He once again raised his sword and screamed, “Attack!” There were no other plans anyway.

. . . .

The same thing happened again. This time when Alan arrived, he couldn’t even distinguish the corpses. All of the were chopped into pieces. The device was broken, and Stefan was being strangled by the holy saint.

Not thinking about anything anymore, he repeated the same thing again and turned back the time.

. . . .

The third time, before he could even go all the way to the temple, he saw something moving toward him. It was the holy saint. He aimed to attack Alan before anyone else.

Without even waiting for him to arrive, Alan turned back the time.

. . . .

He turned back the time another time. One more time. Again and again and again.

He no longer knew how many times he had tried it. Nothing changed in the end. The generals would die, Matilda would smile at him before closing her eyes, and Stefan would be the last one on the battlefield.

Still, Alan repeated the same thing again and again. It felt as if he was possessed, or maybe that he was addicted to moving back the time. He ignored the increasing number of cracks on his ring, ignored his strange physical condition and the changes to his body, ignored Stefan’s pleas asking him to stop turning back the time and allow him to die, and also ignored everything that the holy saint was doing. He neither understood nor wanted to understand the situation. He neither accepted, nor wanted to accept the things that happened. He didn’t want to believe how helpless he was. He didn’t want to remember how he didn’t manage to change anything no matter how many times he turned back the time. He didn’t want to let his beloved die forever like that. He didn’t want to.

Shatter

However, he couldn’t keep repeating the same action anymore. After an unknown number of attempts, the ancient artifact, the ring he was wearing, suddenly made a sound and then shattered to pieces. Before the astonished eyes of the golden-haired man, the ring broke into pieces and fell to the ground.

“Ah...”

He only managed to let out a gasp after staring at the shattered ring for a few minutes and then looking up at the scene before his eyes. The holy saint, the finally dead Stefan, and a scene of the disaster.

As he was standing still on his spot and waiting for his death, the Temple of Dawn suddenly started to turn transparent, and in the next second, neither the holy saint was there nor the temple.

And nor the corpses of his friends.

Only he was left and the silence of the night.

. . . .

Upon hearing the sound of a door opening, Stefan closed the book he was reading and looked up. There, he could see two youths entering his room.

“This is the last time I’m warning you!”

“Yeah yeah, sir!”

“Are you making fun of me?”

“Nah! Why would I make fun of you, sir?”

“Tsk!”

The two were causally chattering as they entered the room and greeted Stefan before sitting on the sofas. After a few seconds of silence, the older one finally started to talk.

“You’d asked us to come so that you could talk about... how you died...”

Stefan nodded his head with a smile and cast his gaze on the new member of the Void.

The new temporary member.

Previously, he had asked Reynold countless times about those artifacts as well as the voice that spoke to them, but the redhead never gave a definite answer. He never accepted that the voice belonged to him, nor did he deny it. As a result, Stefan believed that it was Reynold’s voice they were hearing back in that battle.

But in the past few days, his mind has changed significantly.

It was because he had heard that voice again, this time, not in his mind but through his ears.