Eisen slowly shook his head, shattering Ling's hopeful fantasy.
"The connection has already been established. Avoiding Hollows only starting now… will probably have a negligible effect."
"Uh… then, can you beat the Primordial Lord, Boss?"
"It'll be difficult. Its rank isn't low, and the rules of this world don't suit me—I can't fully exert my strength here. If I force too much power before I can defeat It, I might end up bringing disaster to this world first."
"Then—then I'll go to another group member's world!"
Ling grabbed onto a new line of thought, words spilling out at high speed.
"As long as my world doesn't have any other group members inside it, time in my world will stop, right? I'll go to another world and train like crazy! Then I'll come back and defeat the Primordial Lord! That works, doesn't it?!"
Eisen shook his head again. The answer was still bleak.
"I'm afraid not."
"Ether is unique to your world. Other worlds' power systems, once brought into a world built on Ether, will definitely be suppressed. Going to other worlds might help you temporarily evade the Primordial Lord's attention, but it won't solve your underlying problem in any meaningful way. It's treating the symptoms, not the cause."
"Ugh…"
With her last hope crushed, Ling let out a miserable whine, clutching her head and shaking it in frustrated despair.
"Then what am I supposed to do?! Just sit here and wait to die—wait for the Primordial Lord to come knocking, or wait until I fail in the future and reboot again?!"
"It's simple," Eisen said.
He met Ling's confused, pleading gaze and answered calmly:
"Just use a time machine to go back to the past."
He hooked a thumb toward his own chest.
"Don't forget—I can go back to the past too. Same as you."
A tidal wave of joy hit Ling… but only for an instant. A new question immediately surfaced.
She recalled what he'd said earlier and asked hesitantly:
"But… Boss, the reason you can return to the past is because time in your world has completely shattered, right? Like how I might be able to rewind because I can manipulate Ether—something unique to our world."
She pointed at herself, then gestured at the room around them.
"So how can you still go back to the past in my world? The laws of time and space here aren't the same as yours."
A flash of approval crossed Eisen's eyes. Clearly, he was pleased she'd latched onto the key issue so quickly.
"Good question."
He nodded and began to explain.
"I failed to save my world… but I inherited its final legacy."
"My world was born from fire. When that fire goes out, the world moves toward its end."
"And I kept the last ember. I burn it eternally—using myself as fuel. Consider it a final memorial."
Then his expression turned solemn.
"The way I rewind time is by using that First Flame to ignite the world—using the future as fuel—burning away the present until only the past remains. That's how the world is forced to roll back."
"Gah—"
Ling's mouth fell open. She was completely speechless.
The group members watching the live text relay couldn't help but chime in.
[Giant Daifuku (Tsunade)]: Is that even reliable?! You're burning the world! What if you lose control and burn too far?! (terrified.jpg)
[Purple Sweet Potato Taro (Kafka)]: Even across the entire galaxy, that qualifies as an exceptionally explosive and insane course of action. (wiping sweat.jpg)
[Grilled Eggplant (Mash)]: I swear I'm getting a familiar sense of déjà vu… (facepalm.jpg)
Seeing the reactions, Eisen explained with utter seriousness:
"Completely reliable. I've done it so many times I don't even need to think anymore. Pure muscle memory—down to the millisecond."
Watching him, Ling's wildly pounding heart calmed a little.
The group leader was a veteran who'd rebooted worlds countless times. The chat group itself was connected and powered by him. The method sounded terrifying, but… he was a professional.
Probably.
"Then… do we rewind the world right now?" Ling asked cautiously.
Better to run early—what if the Primordial Lord showed up in the next second?
Eisen shook his head again.
"No rush. Looks like you've basically accepted my advice. Good. Next, I'll explain the limits of this method in detail—so you don't do something reckless later."
He motioned for her to calm down and listen.
"First."
Eisen raised one finger.
"Using the First Flame to rewind the world has a cooldown. You can't just do it whenever you want and hop back and forth endlessly."
"The root cause is fuel," he explained.
"In theory, the First Flame can burn every timeline in an entire world to ash. But to ignite it in the first place—and make it expand instantly to a scale that can cover the whole world—requires an enormous amount of fuel. For the first rewind, we can use the future as fuel."
"But," Eisen's tone shifted.
"Even after I complete the rollback and forcibly extinguish the First Flame, it isn't truly over. In the wreckage of the future, some sparks will inevitably remain. They keep scorching the future. I have to stay in your world for a period of time to recover those sparks—only then can a new future extend without limit, and only then can we perform the next rollback."
Ling's face tightened. She nodded hard to show she fully understood.
"Got it. Just because we can rewind the world doesn't mean we can mess around whenever we feel like it!"
Eisen looked satisfied.
"Exactly. Be steady. That's good."
He raised a second finger.
"Second: you can prepare some things in advance to take back to the past."
"Huh?" Ling blinked, not following.
"For example: take out a huge loan right now, buy some equipment, then use the chat group to stash it in another group member's world. After the time rewind, you retrieve it."
Ling's eyes lit up.
"That's genius! We can bug-abuse like that?!"
In her excitement, a bolder idea flashed through her mind. She asked eagerly:
"Then can I bring other people's memories back to the past too? That way we can plan ahead and set traps—huge advantage!"
If she could drag in three Void-Hunter-level combatants—Ya, her teacher, and Senior Sister—into a shared "rebirth," it would be perfect.
"That… probably won't work," Eisen said, regret in his voice.
"At the end of the day, the First Flame is an extremely dangerous thing. To keep the rollback safe, I operate from outside the world."
"If I want to burn down a single person, that's easy—I can personally step in and do it. But when I'm burning the whole world, trying to precisely designate certain people to not be affected is extremely difficult. That would require embedding the First Flame into the underlying operating rules of this world. I don't think that's a good idea."
"Then…" Ling refused to give up. She pointed at herself.
"How can you guarantee I'll keep my memories? By your logic, you can't 'exclude' specific people from being reset—so I should get reset too, shouldn't I?"
Join here to read ahead.
In Star Rail, Ultra-Beast Armored — Have I Caught "Equilibrium"? l (Chapter 80)
Uma Musume, But I Only Have Five Years Left to Live (Chapter 80)
Zenless Zone Zero: I'm a Doctor, Not a Bangboo (Chapter 80)
Ben Tennyson Wants to Join the Justice League (Chapter 80)
TYPE-MOON: Redemption Beginning with the Holy Grail War (Chapter50)
Yu-Gi-Oh! — Transmigrated into the White Dragon Girl (Chapter50)
"Is this chat group even serious?" (Chapter50)
I, Lord Ravager, Utterly Loyal! (Chapter50)
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