Chapter 576: The closed loop
"...This is my family," Brandon said quietly. "The ones I left behind in the future."
"Elize, Charlotte, Florence, Ravene, Eira, Yverine, Dhayun, Naevora, Jiyeon, Seonhwa."
Rheanne’s gaze lingered on each woman curiously, her expression softening with a complex mix of emotions.
"They all look so beautiful..." she murmured, almost to herself.
Her eyes stopped on one particular figure. Florence. She frowned slightly and leaned closer to the illusion, looking at her features carefully.
"...She looks like Amelia," Rheanne whispered.
Brandon nodded slowly, his hand still gently stroking her bare back "That must be Amelia’s descendant... Florence Bleaufort."
Rheanne’s head snapped toward him, "Eh? A Bleaufort?"
She stared at him in disbelief for a moment, processing the information.
"Wait... what... how does that work? So you are the ancestor of that Bleaufort woman?"
Brandon gave a small nod and Rheanne looked back at the illusion of Florence, then at him again, clearly trying to wrap her mind around it.
"But... if you came back from the future to the past and disturb it, then this future will disappear, right?" she asked, confusion and worry flickering across her face.
"Everything you just showed me... the family, all of it... won’t it be erased?"
Brandon shook his head gently and pulled her closer "No. This is a Bootstrap paradox."
Rheanne blinked, clearly lost. "Boota... what?"
Brandon smiled faintly and brushed a strand of her white hair behind her ear.
"It’s a closed time loop," he explained patiently.
"There is no original timeline that gets changed. Everything that happened in the future already includes me going back to the past. My actions in the past are what created the future I came from."
"It’s a circle with no beginning and no end. What I did back then, pushing you to become a Goddess, building the Holy Land, everything was always meant to happen. Because it already did happen in my original timeline."
He gently caressed her cheek, "So nothing disappears. The future I showed you still exists. It’s the same future that sent me back here... to you."
Rheanne stared at him in silence for a long moment as her mind raced to understand.
Seeing her expression, Brandon smiled dryly "Let me use an easy example for you to understand, dear."
She nodded her head and he began to explain "Imagine, you are in 2010, but you time travel to 1950 and give a young, struggling writer an old notebook that contains the complete text of a famous novel."
"The writer copies the text and publishes it under their own name. It becomes a massive, timeless classic that everyone in the world reads and loves."
"Years later, you as a fan of that very book discover the writer’s original notes. You use your time machine to go back to 1950 and give the notebook to them... the same notebook you received from the future."
"The paradox here is the writer didn’t write it... they just copied it from the notebook. You didn’t write it; you just found it in the future and brought it back."
"The book exists purely because the time loop exists, making it an object with no original creator or starting point."
Rheanne was amused to hear this.
Then, slowly, her expression shifted from confusion to quiet wonder.
"So... everything we’ve built and everything we’ve fought for... was always going to happen," she whispered.
"Because you were always going to come back in time to make it happen."
Brandon nodded "That’s right. I was always meant to be here."
She let out a long, shaky breath "...I see."
"So, you have been hiding such a thing from me all these years... bearing it all alone."
"I’m glad you told me," she whispered.
She stayed quiet for a few seconds, processing everything, then asked with genuine curiosity "So... has the future me met your past self?"
Brandon nodded slowly, "Yeah. I met you in the Holy Land... I even became your Herald."
Rheanne’s eyes widened slightly.
"Also," he continued with a small, wry smile, "I was the only male awakener at that time."
Rheanne had a thoughtful look on her face as the pieces slowly fell into place.
"That makes sense... why you can use ether so naturally," she murmured. "But how did you time travel?"
Brandon smiled gently "Do you remember the tower we first met in?" he asked.
"The Dead Clock Spire. When I was in 2051, I got caught up in one of its time storms. When I finally got out.. I was in 1502. In your time."
Rheanne remained silent for a long moment, her fingers idly tracing patterns on his chest as she thought about it.
The illusions of his future family still glowed softly around them, casting a gentle light over their intertwined bodies.
"No matter how complicated the loop is," she whispered against his lips, "I’m grateful for it. Because it brought you to me."
She then turned her head to look atthe images of the women "So.. tell me more about the women and the world at that time."
"First of all... are all these women your wives?"
With a dry smile, he nodded "You can... say that."
Rheanne was surprised to hear this "I thought you were amazing to handle five wives, but you had a bigger harem in the future, heh."
She turned her head again to look at the glowing figures, "They all look so different... yet each one has a kind of strength," she murmured.
"Florence looks so much like Amelia. And Charlotte... she has such sharp, powerful eyes. Elize looks wise and calm..."
She looked back at Brandon, "And they all accepted each other? No jealousy? No fighting over you?"
Brandon smiled faintly and shook his head "There was some playful rivalry at times."
"Especially in the beginning. But they all loved each other too. They became sisters in their own way."
She moved closer and spoke "So tell me about them, how did you meet them? what is your story?"
Brandon smiled faintly in his heart and began to tell her what happened.
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