Muen was the kind of person who could never hide her thoughts or emotions—she had always been this way since childhood.

The moment she saw Leon, she didn’t suppress her emotions as her younger sister Aurora had—calmly proving her identity—

nor did she throw a punch at their father like their eldest sister had.

Her way of expressing feelings had always been simple and sincere.

Muen threw herself into the man’s embrace with all her strength, tears flooding down uncontrollably.

Emotions erupted like an explosion, with Muen as the spark that ignited it.

As the father and daughter, reunited after twenty years, wept in each other’s arms, Aurora lowered her head, removed her glasses, and discreetly wiped away the tears in her eyes;

Noa stuffed her hands into her jacket pockets, bit her lip, her pupils glimmering, before finally turning her head away altogether.

Leon gently stroked Muen’s hair, just as he had done when she was a child.

Her cowlick was still there, and her facial features were as delicate as Noa’s now. Though the two sisters shared identical appearances, Noa exuded an air of mature allure and charisma, while Muen leaned more toward the sweet, girl-next-door vibe.

Unlike Noa, Muen had not cut her hair short.

Her long hair flowed like Roswitha’s, radiant and galaxy-like.

After sobbing in her father’s arms, Muen pulled back, sniffling, her cowlick bobbing with each sniff.

Leon smiled and patted Muen’s shoulder. “You’ve grown more beautiful, Muen.”

“Dad, you, on the other hand… haven’t changed much at all. You still look the same as twenty years ago.”

Aurora, the pink-haired mischief-maker, recovered her composure, put on her glasses, and interjected, “Hey, Dad, why did you only compliment our second sister on her beauty? Don’t my older sister and I deserve it too?”

“Ah, um...” Leon realized she was provoking him intentionally.

“Well, Muen and I are twins. Complimenting her is like complimenting me,” Noa said as she leaned coolly against the stone wall, “So, the only person you didn’t compliment is Aurora.”

Aurora froze. The eldest sister had a point.

The pink-haired menace was the first to explode. “Fine, you old bastard! Guess one punch wasn’t enough to knock some love for your youngest into you!”

Leon scratched his head, chuckled, and patched up his earlier words. “You're all beautiful. Isn’t that why I fainted the moment I saw you two? I didn’t even have time to say it then!”

Muen blinked her pretty eyes and asked Leon, “Dad, why did you faint?”

“...”

Sweetheart, you’re still just as curious as ever.

“Nothing much, just tired, so I passed out.”

Leon casually made up a reason.

Being knocked unconscious by two daughters...? Yeah, that wasn’t something he wanted anyone knowing.

Still, Leon felt relieved that Muen hadn’t greeted him with a punch like her sisters had.

See that? This was what having a true "little cotton-padded jacket" felt like—soft and warm.

As for those two? Pure thorn-covered armor.

“Alright, Dad. Next, it’s time to meet her.”

Leon’s smile faded, and his face grew serious.

He knew exactly who Aurora meant.

Leon nodded. “Okay.”

“Mom’s in the room at the very back. Let’s go.”

The three sisters led the way, with Leon following behind them.

From the entrance to the deepest room wasn’t far—it was just a small underground space, with enough area for one or two people to live their daily lives.

But with each single step that Leon took, his heart grew heavier.

Even though he was already so close to Roswitha, his feelings of unease only intensified.

Suddenly, he recalled what Muen had said through the door when he and the sisters had first entered the underground space:

“Mom is still the same. I always make sure to chat with her.”

What did "still the same" mean?

And why such an odd phrasing like "make sure to chat with her"?

That foolish dragon... What had truly happened to her?

Questions flooded his mind, a mountain of doubt pressing down on him.

Leon struggled to steady his breathing, trying to keep himself calm.

“We’re here.”

The three sisters stopped at a stone door.

This time, the door wasn’t conjured out of illusion magic. Aurora raised her hand, pulled a hidden lever on the wall, and the stone door slowly slid open to either side.

Behind the door was a small room, with torches lit on its side walls.

In the center of the room stood a chair.

Directly in front of the chair lay a roughly two-meter-long... crystal?

The lighting at the doorway was dim, preventing Leon from seeing more specific details.

But as the daughters led him into the room and he took a closer look at the crystal, he froze on the spot, as if struck by lightning.

Inside the crystal, a silver-haired beauty rested, her eyes gently shut and her hands folded over her abdomen, with a photograph pressed beneath her palms.

She seemed peaceful, as if merely asleep.

But who in their right mind would just fall asleep inside some inexplicably sealed crystal?!

The uneasiness in his heart roared to life, sweeping through Leon’s entire body in an instant.

He felt icy cold all over, his spine seeming ready to buckle under his own weight, threatening collapse at any moment.

His eyes widened as he stared at his wife encased in crystal. He opened his mouth, but the avalanche of words trapped in his throat felt like stones—

unable to be swallowed, impossible to be spoken.

Nearly suffocating.

Leon reached out, his hand trembling uncontrollably.

Even placing his palm against the crystal surface demanded all the strength he had left.

The crystal was cold, as cold as Leon’s heart, chilling with despair.

“Roswitha... Roswitha...”

Even his voice trembled.

Noa stepped forward, looked at their “sleeping” mother, and slowly spoke:

“You disappeared into the spatial rift trying to stop that catastrophe, leaving no trace. No one knew if you were even alive.”

“After that, Mom became utterly despondent, sinking into depression, numbing herself with alcohol every single day.”

“Seeing Mom like that reminded me of the time after she first gave birth to Muen and me—she was just as lost back then, spending all her time staring blankly at your comatose form.”

“But this time... it was different.”

“She no longer had anyone to stare at blankly, nor did she know whether this long wait would ever truly end.”

“No one could understand the pain and sorrow Mom felt from losing you. Anna said that without you, she became the loneliest queen sitting upon her throne.”

Noa spoke calmly, revealing the truth step by step. For this exact moment, during every single day of the past twenty years, she had silently rehearsed these words in her heart.

All so she could deliver them to Leon, word-for-word, when he finally appeared.

“Later, Mom stopped drinking and returned to her work.”

“We thought she had moved past her grief, but that wasn’t the case.”

“She worked tirelessly, sleeping no more than six hours a week, refusing to wear makeup, reject diplomacy, shutting herself off from Isa Auntie’s soothing words. She refused all external influences entirely.”

“That’s when we realized—she hadn’t healed herself at all. Instead, she plunged deeper into the abyss. Alcohol no longer sufficed for her; the only way to distract herself was through relentless work.”

At this point in her narrative, Noa paused. She turned to look at Leon.

The man's face was already etched with regret and guilt.

He was on the verge of breaking down. Noa quickly slowed her pacing, shifting the focus away for a moment.

“You know why I tried so hard to become strong when I was little?”

Leon looked at her and shook his head.

“It was for all of you.”

Noa said, “I thought if I became strong enough, I could prevent you from leaving us, and I could stop Mom from ever showing that saddened expression again. But in the end... neither wish came true.”

“You vanished into the spatial rift; and Mom cried day after day.”

“From childhood to now, my greatest fear has always been that this family might fall apart—even if it had once been a facade.”

“But just as you said: while the appearance of family might be a lie, the love between family members is utterly real.”

She closed her eyes, inhaled deeply, then slowly exhaled, as though adjusting her emotions.

“In the sixth month after your disappearance, the Silver Dragon Clan was attacked again.”

“Two Dragon Kings, plus a man named Nacho Salamander, launched constant assaults on us day after night.”

“Isa Auntie’s side faced blockades as well and couldn’t provide support.”

“Ultimately, Mom killed one of the Dragon Kings, but being pushed to her limits by then, she stood no chance against the other King.”

“But miraculously, at the last second, she tapped into a staggering burst of power, annihilating the careless Dragon King in one blow.”

“However, that move wasn’t an energy self-destruction from the Heart-Guarding Dragon Scale. Mom didn’t sacrifice herself, but she ended up too weak to even get out of bed.”

“She realized this wouldn’t be the Empire and Dragon Clan’s final attempt to eradicate the Silver Dragons. But as Dragon King, she was already incapable of fighting, and our clan lacked successors to the throne.”

“So, Mom disbanded the tribe and sent everyone scattering for survival. Only Anna and Sherry stayed, saying they would stay by her side till the very end.”

“In those bedridden days, Mom told us sisters stories about you and her—about how you met, came to know each other, and eventually... fell in love.”

“Mom said she didn’t quite understand what romantic love was between a man and a woman. But she thought—she must have loved you.”

“She said she would wait for you, until you came back to this family, until you told her yourself, face to face, that you loved her.”

"She wanted your confession, not passionate words during life-or-death situations, but a proper, heartfelt confession — directly from you."

“But alas...”

Noa reached out, gently touching the crystal’s surface.

“She didn’t wait for you to come back. Through her window, the sun and moon switched places day after day, but the one she hoped for—you—never returned.

“That final move that killed the Dragon King didn’t come from Heart-Guarding Dragon Scale; it was merely the miracle of a mother at the brink of death.”

“And the price of that miracle—was a coma so deep it could trap her indefinitely.”

“Mom’s final message to us was this: no matter what happens, we must live on until our father comes home.”

"Because she believes that as long as you're here, everything can change."

"Later on, great-grandmother returned. She created this crystal for Mom. The crystal can sustain Mom's body functions. Once Mom wakes up and uses just a little bit of power, the crystal can be shattered from the inside."

"Of course, using a specific magical command from the outside is also possible."

"Great-grandmother said that although Mom is in a deep sleep, she should still be able to hear our voices."

"So, Muen has been talking to Mom all this time. She doesn't want Mom to be trapped alone in a dream of longing for you."

"For the past twenty years, great-grandmother and Aunt Isa have been tirelessly searching for a way to restore Mom; as for us, we've been waiting for you, hoping to change everything through another method."

Muen moved the only chair in the room behind Leon, then tugged at his sleeve, signaling him to sit down.

He slumped into the chair like a puppet whose strings had been cut, completely lost.

Noa sniffled, waited quietly for a moment, then asked, "Have you collected yourself? If so, Aurora will explain the method we have in mind. We're short on time and can't give you more time to grieve."

Leon blinked hard and clenched the webbing between his thumb and index finger. The sharp pain grounded him somewhat.

"Alright, I'm listening."

Aurora walked to Leon's side and began to speak slowly.

"First, let's correct a misconception, Dad. You didn't 'sleep' in a spatial rift for twenty years before waking up."

"No spatial magic can last that long."

"During that battle, Ravi used his Heart-Guarding Dragon Scale to forcibly alter the properties of the spatial magic, causing it to become uncontrollable."

"It was this change that 'transported' you to 20 years into the future... here."

Leon listened intently. "'Transported' me... here?"

Aurora nodded. "Mm. 'Here' is just a simpler way to describe it. You could also think of it as a 'time point,' 'spacetime,' or most aptly—"

"A 20-years-later world where Leon Cosmode doesn't exist."

"For you, it genuinely only felt like a few hours had passed. But for those of us in this world where 'Leon doesn't exist,' twenty years really did go by."

"Let me give you a simpler example:"

"The world is like a smoothly running assembly line, and each person plays the role of a component."

"But one day, you—the component—were plucked out of the assembly line."

"While this doesn't fatally disrupt the line's operation, everything connected to you has already changed."

"For instance, me, Big Sis, and Second Sis—without your presence in our lives, we turned out the way we are now. But if you were here, I believe we would have grown up differently."

After a brief pause, Aurora tried to lighten the somber mood and glanced at Noa.

"At the very least, Big Sis might have become a long-haired beauty."

Leon quickly absorbed Aurora's explanation.

He understood the concept and also caught the underlying meaning of her joke.

The shift from a short-haired cool woman to a long-haired beauty was just a metaphor. The absence of a father in a child's upbringing brings far more profound changes than something as superficial as hair length.

The agreement he and Roswitha had from the start was to ensure their children grew up in a home with a balanced presence of both fatherly and motherly love.

A childhood without a father's love is inherently incomplete.

Aurora was absolutely correct. If Leon had been present, the children would certainly have been quite different from who they were today.

While they had indeed grown stronger now, having Leon guide them through their childhood and adolescence would have undoubtedly made them even better.

That was a certainty.

It also explained why Leon had felt such a persistent sense of "displacement" ever since regaining consciousness.

He always felt like he didn’t belong “here.”

Didn’t belong... to this twenty-years-later world where “Leon Cosmode doesn’t exist.”

"Now then, after clearing up that misconception, let's get to the key point," Aurora said. "Over the past ten-plus years, I've been studying a reversal magic to undo Ravi's spatial magic."

"Reversal magic?"

Leon furrowed his brows slightly. "You mean... traveling back in time? Returning to the past?"

"No, no, Dad. Time doesn't work that way," Aurora quickly corrected.

"Under a confluence of specific circumstances, the spatial rift sent you twenty years forward. Let’s call this 'moving forward.'"

"But in terms of the rules of time, you cannot 'move backward.'"

"Events can only flow forward with the passage of time. This is an unbreakable rule, even with the uncontrollable spatial magic altered by Ravi's Heart-Guarding Dragon Scale. At most, it can send you into the future, never the past."

Hearing this, Leon furrowed his brow deeper. "Doesn't that mean there's no way to fix any of this?"

"Don't jump to conclusions, Dad. While time's rules are immutable, I managed to find a loophole in them," Aurora said, flashing the confident smile of a researcher.

"It's the reversal magic I just mentioned."

"Though we cannot return to a past point in time, that doesn't mean we can't reverse an existing spell."

"Over the past decade, I've been meticulously studying the spatial magic Ravi used back then, and I’ve successfully created a prototype for reversal magic."

"As long as I complete the research, you'll be able to go back, fix everything, and change it all."

Leon dropped his gaze in thought, his brain working rapidly.

After a moment, he asked, "I think I understand. But if I recall correctly, you mentioned something about... only six months left? What does that mean?"

"The battle that put Mom into her slumber took place six months after you entered the spatial rift," Noa explained.

"But that shouldn’t have anything to do with Aurora’s research progress, right? Once reversal magic is perfected, shouldn't it send me back to the exact moment I disappeared?"

"No, Dad," Aurora said.

"For instance, from the time you woke up to now, about 18 hours have passed."

"This means time has passed for you by 18 hours. If I were to complete reversal magic at this very moment, I could only send you back to 18 hours after you entered the rift."

"Time flows in a straight line. It applies to the universe as a whole, and also to you specifically."

"If you were to return to a world '18 hours earlier' in an '18-hours-later' state, no one knows what might happen. Your body might even be torn apart."

"Do you understand, Dad?"

Leon shook his head in confusion. "No. Not really."

Aurora anticipated this and turned to Muen. "Second Sis, can you explain it to Dad in simpler terms?"

"Oh, sure." Muen stepped forward and looked at her father.

"For example, Dad, imagine you ate a big steak at 12 noon and stuffed yourself full until 12:30."

"Then, using reversal magic, you went back to 12 o’clock in your full state to eat that same steak. Wouldn't you overstuff yourself and possibly rupture your stomach?"

"That's essentially the principle."

Leon: "That makes sense now."

"One last thing, Dad," Aurora said as she stood directly in front of Leon.

Noa and Muen flanked her, one on each side.

The three sisters stared at their father with solemn expressions.

"You are the only one who can go back through reversal magic."

"The world is like a chessboard, and you are the one piece capable of stepping off it."

"You are the anomaly, Dad—the key to saving everything."

"In the next six months, Aurora needs to perfect reversal magic."

"And you, Dad, you need to regain the strength you once had."

"Only the strong, unstoppable version of you can possess the might to rewrite everything and reverse the future."

Muen stepped forward, crouched down in front of Leon, and extended her arms to hug her father.

"Mom and all of us... will be waiting for you in the real future, Dad."