Chapter 716

“Talent.” Su Lin closed his eyes and opened them again, confirming he had not mistaken it, then sighed.

Not for any other reason, but because the Celestial Golden List had deeply shaken him—it depicted the tragic life of a Heavenly Emperor.

“This parting may be final—will we ever meet again in this world?”

At the final moment, Illya turned back, gazing at them, at each familiar face—reluctance, emotion, helplessness.

How could she wish to leave? Yet she could not turn back—she had to forge ahead resolutely.

Saizuki Rin wiped away her tears; she felt the woman’s fate mirrored her own, yet was even harder.

Born into a happy family, she was drawn into a magical world, becoming a magical girl, forced to separate from her brother, Emiya Shirou, a sword cultivator; her forbidden love was buried. Fortunately, along the way, she had a companion named Satsuki Miyu, and their bond grew subtly complex.

Yet heaven was unjust—her fate was fraught with hardship; she was born with the ancient Holy Grail body, capable of granting any wish, and it was this power that drew her into Darius’s conspiracy.

During this time, to rescue her, her brother resorted to a forbidden technique, sacrificing his chance at reincarnation to borrow the power of his past self.

“Sword! Come!”

With the cry of “Sword!”, all treasures within Unlimited Blade Works unsheathed and surged en masse toward the Einzbern of another realm.

That day, swordlight shattered the void, broke open the dark prison, and Sword God Emiya re-entered the Land Immortal realm.

Yet thick black sludge obliterated countless worldlines; all living beings had been transformed into dark beings.

Facing this, she turned back to look at them, then resolutely stepped into the River of Time, heading toward the origin of the black sludge.

“The Heavenly Emperor Illya alone severed eternity, turning her back on all beings, striking down enemies across past, present, and future, suppressing dark beings until no trace of her peerless form remained in all space and time.”

“I’ve finally seen it—you were born in this age, harder and more suffering than anyone else, forced to sever eternity alone.” Su Lin spoke with sorrow.

“Didn’t you arrange these sufferings?” Kaguya asked.

“Don’t speak like that,” Su Lin said sternly. “Worlds and beings each have their own fate—I cannot interfere arbitrarily.”

“How noble~” Kaguya laughed softly, covering her face. “But wasn’t Emiya Shirou in that worldline the harem king of a yuri anime? When did he become a sword cultivator?”

“Earlier, to enter the Root, I fused Emiya Shirou’s soul with Harem Shirou.”

Su Lin said: “The related influences and history were erased. To ensure the world ran normally, some adjustments were necessary.”

So he merely made minor tweaks and fine-tunings within reasonable bounds, ensuring that worldline could still be preserved and function.

At most, add a little extra—

—as personal preference.

Underestimated the Celestial Golden List—I never thought it could find even my bottom-drawer, time-killing, custom worldline.

That’s right—

The contents listed here are not historical records.

“I was just thinking I’d try making a real Supreme Bone someday,” Su Lin said regretfully.

“I don’t understand what you’re talking about,” Saizuki Rin involuntarily swallowed. “But if all this is true, in the earlier listings, was there someone who looked like you?”

“Don’t dwell on those details—would Gengyue Fangyuan ever harm you?”

Su Lin opened the car door and said: “I’m going down. Stay in the car. Don’t move.”

“Neet, quiet down and eat your snacks and play your games. Even if you want to kill yourself, don’t smear blood and brain matter on the car—it’s a pain to clean.”

“Relax, I’ve changed my mind for now,” Kaguya lay on Saizuki Rin’s knees, drinking cola and playing a game. “Safe travels~”

Thud—

The car door shut. Saizuki Rin watched Su Lin’s figure recede in the rearview mirror, then glanced at Kaguya, who used her thighs as a pillow, wrapped in the Fire Rat Fur like a blanket.

“Kaguya.”

“Hm? What is it, Akarin? You’re not going to ask me for gossip, are you?”

Kaguya smiled, her fingers rapidly tapping the handheld console’s buttons.

“Just call me Akin.”

Saizuki Rin felt exhausted; the name “Akarin” carried a strong omen of misfortune—something like vanishing without anyone noticing.

“Can you lower your voice a bit?”

【Yamete kudasai! Even if you have my body, you’ll never have my heart!】

“This is trash. Ahh~ I’ve lost interest in playing anymore.”

Kaguya stood up, closed the game, tossed the console aside, and sneered: “True NTR means seizing both body and soul.”

“.”

Even less understandable now.

Saizuki Rin felt drained—just understanding their conversations had already exhausted her. The Kaguya in her memory never played lewd games in public.

They say it’s an endless cycle—but now, what has the Fantasy World become? What have everyone turned into?

“The old-fashioned phrasing that Kaguya used earlier—it sounded like a wife welcoming her husband home.”

“.”

Kaguya tugged at her lips, straightened her back, emitted an ambiguous sound, then turned her gaze away to the outside world.

“You weren’t silenced because you knew too much, were you?”

Saizuki Rin felt her composure crack, as if petrified.

“Actually, logically, given the current situation, if you analyze it slightly, you can understand why your past self acted that way,” Kaguya waved her hand.

At first, returning to the endless, day-after-day monotony, like the eternal August in Haruhi Suzumiya’s Melancholy.

Back then, you should have been more sensitive—your senses and ways of thinking hadn’t yet been worn away.

If viewed from that perspective, “the Elixir of Eternity, the Five Treasures of Fleeting Moments, and the New Puzzle’s Treasure”—

It was as if the examiner had secretly slipped the test-taker the cheat answers for personal reasons.

It was as if the examiner had secretly slipped the examinee the cheat answers for personal gain.

A strange sense of irritation.

It was just a casual remark, but once she realized Su Lin had met the condition, and imagined it further, an odd irritation began to grow.

The trouble is, she can’t calm down by reviving a few times.

Think carefully—

Kaguya rolled down the car window. A cool breeze passed through the trees, leaves rustling, dappled light falling, making her eyes ache.

Yet this familiar light seemed to carry her thoughts far back, to someone whispering beside her—

—“When eternity begins to flow, fleeting moments become the new eternity.”

——“When eternity begins to flow, a moment shall become the new eternity.”

The Moon King’s face vanished into darkness; his divine eyes, glowing with radiance, regarded her with complexity: “You are not the sun that brings light.”

The “Sun God” slain by Yui—the Moon King, yearning for his sister.

After building the Moon Capital, he used the lingering light of Amaterasu to forge a humanoid form identical to his sister.

But the end of light is darkness; when this phenomenon began to flow, the departed god vanished entirely, along with the authority within the vessel.

Born in the Moon Capital, the princess who governs “Eternity” and “Fleeting Moments,” the Moon King’s third “daughter.”

Born in the Moon Capital, the princess who governs “Eternity” and “Moment,” the third “daughter” of the Moon King.

That’s why, at first, she found it somewhat interesting.

A deity who shared similar authority, yet truly symbolized light.

“How long has it been? Aren’t you leaving yet?”

A false star chart, a towering white-gray hall.

Several herons stood motionless beneath the molten gold of sunset, but at the creator’s thought, a silver ribbon of waterfall cascaded from all directions—each droplet frozen in place.

Warm golden light bathed the earth; a melodious tune, transmitted beyond material mediums, played slowly.

But even the most beautiful scenery, seen long enough, fades from wonder to mundanity—let alone this PPT-like imagery.

In this entire world, besides the unceasing clatter of keystrokes, only the sounds from the game remained.

“Another Kira gave me many games. I plan to—

—clear them all, and watch every anime I haven’t seen.”

Clear all of these, and finish watching every anime you haven’t seen yet.

“He said it’s his entire collection from a million-year life.”

“I beg you—just go the hell away already.”

Like an imprint, the three-dimensional object known as the Eternal Core, engraved with weathered time and faded blue, spun ceaselessly without pause.

Power from the Great Will served as its energy source, driving its constant pulsation.

Yet now, the apprentice creator floating midair couldn’t even move a finger; her voice was born of will alone.

“Don’t you get bored? Why not return to the Fantasy World and start a few incidents? Or go back to the moon—don’t you know the legend of Chang’e flying to the moon?”

“Wherever I go, it’s the same. Be quiet. This level is hard.”

She spoke truthfully—whether in the Fantasy World or the Moon Capital, it was fundamentally the same endless repetition.

In the Moon Capital, it was slightly better—she could watch Earth’s climate change from the palace; Eirin would explain to her the creatures she’d seen before her birth, like dinosaurs.

But those things were all extinct; all she could watch now was the gradual fading of the Ice Age.

Until later, it became slightly more interesting.

Some gods and immortals began reactivating on the polluted ground; back then, the pollution wasn’t severe, and many things happened.

“So you’re basically a super old lady now?”

“I’m here specially to keep you company—isn’t it rude to speak like this?”

She raised her gaze to the chaotic haze above the clouds, where dozens of fragments, large and small, like meteors trailing long tails, slowly yet determinedly fell toward this tranquil time-space.

He raised his gaze to the chaotic mists above the clouds, where dozens of fragments, large and small, fell like meteors, trailing long tails, descending slowly yet determinedly toward this tranquil spacetime.

The soul fragments of those great wills are the symbols of time’s passage.

If counted by quantity,

“It’s been less than ten years.”

“You’ve died of porn overload two hundred times right beside me.”

"So if you could move, would you be consumed by lust and attack me? Hmm, after all, you're a young man full of blood and vigor—after staring at me this long, do you want me to give you some perks?"

She slightly slid down the collar at her right shoulder, revealing snow-white, delicate skin of neck and shoulder, her face wearing a faintly seductive smile.

“I’m not interested in older women.”

It meant nothing—unlike the patients who had come to Eternity Pavilion, this one’s eyes held not a trace of desire, yet still radiated rich humanity.

Still, if this continues, slowly worn down by time,

Eventually, you’ll become just like me.

No, he’s still fundamentally human—he might go mad, and that would be a pity. Better to guide him slightly.

“You really won’t leave?”

“It’s all the same.”

After all, staying here is no different from being in Gensokyo.

Kaguya snapped back to awareness—just then, the Celestial Golden List above had begun displaying new content:

【“I pray to the Holy Grail.”】

【“May, after countless ages, we bloom a flower similar to this one.”】

Countless swords fell like starry rain, piercing every corner of the world.

A girl with white hair and red eyes, her wide sleeves drifting, stared at the red-haired youth with hollow, emotionless, dim eyes.

It seems the Emiya siblings have achieved a two-peat on the list.

[I’m going to steal your man, you know?]

[Really? Then good luck with that.]

Irene replied.

Honestly, though she’d mostly been teasing, Kaguya felt something was off—not just with herself now, but with Irene’s reaction too.

Rather than that,

Even if it was a whim, hadn’t she always been the dominant one before?

Like during the time of the Imaginary Tree—when she said such things, whether sarcastic or nervous, that kind of reaction was normal.

In the blink of an eye for an immortal, how could everything have changed so suddenly?

“Oh no.”

She felt even more irritated.

Thud! Thud! Thud!

“Stop banging your head!” Saizuki Lin grabbed Kaguya: “Blood! You’re bleeding! You don’t really want to quit the competition?!”

“Quit?”

Kaguya turned her head slowly, blood trickling down her forehead. She smiled at Saizuki Lin’s terrified face: “Oh no, I’ve decided I want to enter the competition.”

“What on earth have you been through these past years?!”

Haven’t the others in Gensokyo changed like this too?

Emiya Shirou: “What exactly is the connection between the Celestial Golden List’s summaries and the Ten Great Anomalies of Gensokyo?”

Xiao Yan: “+1”

Ge Xiaolun: “Is the first chapter about the magical girl the same as the last chapter, ‘Solely Cutting Off Eternity’? @Emiya Shirou, is your wife really that powerful?!”

Shi Hao: “Solely Cutting Off Eternity, suppressing dark lifeforms—have you and Lord Yi survived unscathed in the other realm?”

Meng Qi: “Reducing to achieve emptiness, finally attaining the Dao Fruit—Lord Yi might enter my Jade Void.”

Ye Fan: “@Meng Qi, poaching from my Concealing Heaven Merchants?”

Meng Qi: “Their staff and family never signed a contract with you.”

Emiya Shirou: “Guys… the content doesn’t match at all. In another timeline, Illya’s still a little girl—she’d never say something like that.”

Su Lin: “It matches—because that’s the inner worldline I hid within the multiverse’s main trunk,

and the lines were my own design: the Heavenly Insight.”

Meng Qi: “?”

Shi Hao: “?”

Emiya Shirou: “?”

So it was you?!?!

Every time he nearly forgot Su Lin was the creator-god of his universe, he always reminded him in the most unexpected ways.

Emiya Shirou’s eyelid twitched; he set aside the chat group interface.

He looked at Illya, now dressed in a white gown, feet hovering in midair, a faint smile on her lips, summoning 129,600 fragments with the Core of the Great Wish—each reflecting a different world’s scenery.

“Yes, this is my and Shirou’s past life.”

Illya’s voice was ethereal; one hand resting on her chest, she said to Rin Tohsaka and the others: “After that, we journeyed through the myriad worlds, experiencing reincarnation.”

Emiya Shirou glanced at the movie scenes being reviewed, and his vision went black.

Whatever. Let her be happy.