Chains Must Be Broken

"Unobservable?"

"Yes."

A trace of emotion finally appeared on Aponia's iceberg-like face.

"I looked up and gazed, thinking I could follow the threads of fate to see her ultimate ending. But the truth is, after my vision rose to a certain height, the thread suddenly broke."

"Broke?"

"Yes, without a doubt, 'someone' is manipulating the fate of everyone in the world through these myriad invisible threads, but at some point in the future, those threads, at least the threads of fate symbolizing me and Mobius, and many people here, just broke there—sorry, in fact, I had already obtained this ability before the surgery, and I also presumptuously spied into your fates without your consent."

"But then again, the part of the thread further up really didn't leave even a trace, as if a pair of scissors rudely cut off all fate. So I can't see the final ending either."

[Is it because of Ellie?]

Taking advantage of the opportunity for Aponia to organize her words, Mikael pondered in his heart.

Suddenly, a flash of inspiration struck Mikael's mind. He suddenly asked, "Then… Aponia, have you seen Sakura's fate?"

"Is that the lady with long ears? I've seen it. The thread was still cut off at the end of my vision."

Mikael gasped for breath twice.

Although it was just a short sentence, in an open-book test situation, Mikael could also analyze many conclusions from it. If the thread being cut off was indeed due to Ellie's influence, then it meant one good news and one bad news.

Good news: Sakura survived, at least until the Finality.

Bad news: Elysia died.

Mikael's face gradually dimmed. He asked with the last trace of hope, "Then… Aponia, what about my fate?"

Mikael had seen many people's bad reading habits. They always eagerly flipped to the last chapter, the last page when they had only read a small part of a book, trying to see the ending of the story first.

He had ridiculed such behavior countless times—if you know the ending from the beginning, then what's the point of reading the story in between?

But now he also had this thought, and couldn't suppress it at all—he desperately wanted to know the final ending, to know whether all the efforts along the way were really just drawing water with a bamboo basket, all in vain.

But Aponia smiled. That smile gave him inexplicable hope—if it were a bad ending, how could she possibly smile?

However, Mikael only got an irrelevant response: "Mr. Mikael, you don't seem to understand fate very well… or rather, the meaning of fatalism."

"Wh…what do you mean?"

"So-called fate is something irreversible and unchangeable. If we are in a fatalistic world, it's not that the ending is already destined, but that every move we make, every word we say, is already arranged by fate.

"Just like what I saw, everyone has several threads hanging on their body, leading directly to the clouds, and some indescribable existence is using these threads to control us to make the movements They want. In other words, the world is just a huge stage, and we are just puppets on the stage."

"Then, Mr. Mikael, since you have seen a certain future, then [please] answer me—did our current conversation happen in the future you saw?"

"No."

Aponia's smile became even brighter.

"Mr. Mikael, do you know why humans constructed such a desperate 'philosophy' as fatalism?"

"I don't know."

Didn't know, Mikael had never known, neither in his previous life nor in this life, why anyone would propose such a worldview—was it because they felt that the knives of life weren't cruel enough?

"Because of order. The first essential of fatalism isn't despair, but order. If everyone believes that their actions are due to the meticulous arrangements of a great deity, they will naturally lose some of their enterprising spirit, but they will also become law-abiding as a result. Ancient emperors tried to rule their subjects in this way, because they were certain that their own fate was no longer in the list of arrangements—although we know that this was just wishful thinking.

"Correspondingly, fatalism is built on an absolute order. The reason why it doesn't make any mistakes, and why it's irreversible and unchangeable, is because the gods have arranged all fates seamlessly, and all paths are orderly and converge to the final destination. As long as no one can violate this rule, then fate will never be changed."

She raised her eyes to look at Mikael. Her originally listless gaze suddenly became radiant, even with a hint of fanaticism.

"I have tried countless times to change the fate of one person, a group of people, and all ended in failure. I once doubted myself, once doubted the world, and once fell into helpless despair. And when I prayed to the gods I didn't understand out of this despair—I wanted a light. So that afternoon, Mr. Mikael appeared before me. When I saw you for the first time, I knew I had found the light I was craving—

"Mr. Mikael, you don't have those threads on your body."

Mikael belatedly lowered his head to look at his hands.

He finally understood what Aponia had painstakingly guided him to understand.

He was the one who could ignore traffic rules and mess up everyone's roads.

He was a puppet without strings. All his movements were based on his own will, bumping into others on the stage and knocking them over, even causing the threads of fate that bound them to deviate from their original track.

This also explained everything Mikael had encountered. He had indeed changed the fate of countless people—the original First Herrscher's, Carol's, the orphanage children's, and everyone in Anti-Entropy's.

So what if the world line would self-correct and self-converge?

At least… at least in this world heading towards a desperate ending, he had the possibility to change everything.

Because he was an "outsider."

Outsider, since he didn't belong to this world, he naturally wouldn't be bound by the shackles of fate bestowed by the world.

"But then again."

Aponia's voice sounded again.

"Mr. Mikael, do you know why I guessed that you knew some kind of fate?"

"Why?"

Perhaps because he really "knew," Mikael had not paid attention to this point. It wasn't until Aponia actively mentioned it that he finally felt puzzled.

"That's still because of your gaze when you first saw you, Kalpas, and Seele. The gaze you lingered on Seele."

"Ah, I see."

Mikael chuckled lightly.

"It seems I don't need to say more. Mikael, you seem to have found a way to change Seele's fate."

"Indeed, I have some ideas."

Mikael nodded.

"Beep beep! Beep beep! Beep beep!"

Mikael's phone suddenly beeped three times urgently.

"Excuse me."

He first apologized to Aponia. From the moment she heard the ringtone, Aponia's eyes had become empty and devoid of anything again, as if she was really wandering in the sea of stars, trying to glimpse a corner of the future…

When she came back to her senses again, where was Mikael's figure?

Only the fluctuations brought about by jumping into the space-time rift, rippled slowly like water waves.

[What a coincidence. Just as Mr. Mikael finished dissecting fate, he is really going to manipulate the "fate" of many people…]

Although the person in question had disappeared, Aponia still clasped her hands together in front of her chest, making a gesture of prayer.

[On that day, He fell from the sky. The people on the ground looked up and saw the starry sky.]

The departing man failed to hear this song-like prayer.

But in the future foreseen by Aponia, this ballad, this ballad of only one line of lyrics, would echo back and forth in his dreams for countless days and nights to come.