Chapter 4: And it will also end with a dead man's wish
"Why?" Kayn asked in doubt.
"Because if it wasn't for you, our situation right now would have been impossible to achieve," Natas answered.
"What do you mean?" Kayn now understood the reason why Natas reincarnated him to the past, it was so that he could grant them their wish. But he is confused about how exactly this was only possible because of him.
"We Gods have long already thought of returning to the past. But the only problem was this plan requires a tremendous amount of sacrifices on our part. In addition to that, we need to have a candidate who is not only trustworthy but is also powerful enough to be able to reach the top floor of the 'Tower'. Sounds familiar, right?" Natas looked at Kayn meaningfully.
"Me," Kayn instantly realized who Natas was describing.
"Yes, you fit both of those criteria," Natas nodded his head, before quickly adding, "Not only that, because you were betrayed by your very friends and allies, there's no doubt that your hatred for them would ignite you to do every means possible to get your revenge, and the only way to achieve that goal is for you to climb higher in the 'Tower' and become strong enough to defeat all of them. Once you are done with that, we believe that you will then try to reach the top of the 'Tower' to end everything for good,"
"But how can you be so sure that I will do everything that you expected me to do?" Kayn peered at Natas strangely. The latter should already be aware that it wasn't only his friends and allies who betrayed him, but also all of the people who he was risking his life to protect. In other words, the majority of people on Earth weren't innocent of the crime of betraying him. As such, why would he continue trying to save them, right?
To tell the truth, inside his mind at this moment, he is thinking that now that he is given another chance to start all over again, after taking his revenge on those previous friends and allies who betrayed him, he will then live a peaceful life and will not care about anyone else other than those Villains… No! Those new companions, who chose to accompany him to their deaths, and probably also the people who will help him with his revenge in the future.
If ever everyone on Earth dies one day, which he is sure will eventually happen if they can't successfully clear the 'Tower', then he will simply follow where the 'Tower' would go next through some kind of method that he should be able to discover at that time and continue living a peaceful life until his death.
"Because otherwise, history will just repeat itself," Natas turned solemn. With Kayn suddenly changing his tone of voice, he quickly decided to treat this matter a lot more seriously than he initially did, in fear that their only chance would fail and disappear. By then, he won't have any choice but to helplessly accept Kayn's decision.
Of course, Natas had already expected something like this to happen. To begin with, this plan is not foolproof and it also has no guarantee of success, after all. Instead, it's more like a gamble with a high chance of them failing. For instance, if the person who passed all the criteria became blinded by revenge, then it would no doubt spell failure for them.
With a sneer, Kayn replied, "What history? The history I experienced previously or the fact that the 'Tower' will just simply go to another planet once it's done with this world? Whatever it is, I couldn't care any less. The only thing that matters to me right now is having my revenge,"
"I understand where you are getting at. But, do you seriously think the 'Tower' is not aware that we have returned back to the past? After all, we have disappeared inside the 'Tower'. Even if it doesn't realize now, it's only going to be a matter of time before that happens," Natas warned with a threatening tone in his voice.
Hearing Natas' words, Kayn instantly turned serious as well. While feeling apprehensive, he asked, "What will happen then once the 'Tower' realized what we have done?"
"It will send its only incarnation to fix the problem,"
"And who exactly is that incarnation?" This is the first time that Kayn had heard about the 'Tower' having an incarnation. As far as he knows, it's only the Gods that can choose incarnations so that they will have Heroes that they can control to help them entertain themselves in all sorts of different ways, just like what Natas had said a while ago.
"The President of the World Leader Alliance, Nicholas," Natas replied before looking at the sky and muttering, "The 'Tower' is one of the most deceitful Entities that you will ever encounter in your entire life. Even for us Gods who have lived for a very long time, and some even living at the same time as it, still haven't found anyone else that can outmatch or mislead the 'Tower',"
"How…" Kayn was rendered speechless after hearing Natas' revelation. What he is feeling right now is even more than the feeling of shock when he suddenly stabbed Natas' heart and discovers afterward that he had returned back to the past combined together.
"To tell you the truth, the life you have been living up until now wasn't your first life. As a matter of fact, every single planet that the 'Tower' had destroyed in the past was also not living its first life, but rather its second life. That's because, in the first life, the 'Tower' would always choose to sacrifice everyone else, excluding us Gods obviously, just to allow a certain someone to go into reincarnation. In Earth's case, it was the President of the World Leader Alliance, Nicholas,"
"To simply put, everything you are seeing and experiencing right now, even at this very moment of us returning back to the past, is nothing more than just a repeat of what had previously happened in the first life. The only difference is, in this timeline, Nicholas will not choose to join your guild, but instead he will build his own force that will help the 'Tower' in case something like this ever happens. Just to be clear, I am not saying that the 'Tower' expects us Gods to also choose someone to go into reincarnation, I am only saying that the 'Tower' has long already made preparation for a countermeasure in case anything or someone will try to stop it from achieving its purpose,"
Kayn felt surprised and had a slight headache after hearing such a shocking revelation, so he quickly decided to ask, "So, you're telling me that the President of the World Leader Alliance, Nicholas, was once a part of my guild?"
"To be exact, he was the original guild leader of your guild. But because he didn't choose to create the guild in the second life, the second most capable person in the guild instead became the guild leader and replaced his place instead," Natas clarified.
"If everyone on Earth was the price for the President of the World Leader Alliance to return back to the past, then what did you Gods pay to achieve the same?"
It is no doubt shocking to find out that the 'Tower' could actually let someone go into reincarnation. But what he is more shocked about is instead the fact that to do so, every living being both on Earth and also inside the 'Tower', except the Gods, joint together would have to be sacrificed. In that case, where exactly did Natas and the rest of the Gods get such a huge offering to let him and the latter go into reincarnation?
Were they hiding such a huge number of living beings? However, that's totally impossible since something like that can't be easily hidden from the 'Tower'.
"It was my brothers and sisters that you have killed, including me as well. All of us were the price for turning back time," Natas replied, slightly sorrowful as he remembered some unforgettable memories he made not so long ago. He silently muttered, "Every time you kill one of them and leave, I would come as quickly as I could and retrieve their bodies with a heavy heart and put them in a place that was supposed to be a cemetery, but in truth, it was actually a sacrificial altar, which was also located at the place where we fought against each other,"
"Well, I won't apologize for what I did since you Gods were still partly blamed for what happened to me based on what you have explained previously," Kayn didn't feel the slightest bit of remorse for his actions. To begin with, he wouldn't have killed them if it wasn't them who destroyed his plans. In other words, they reap what they sow.
Immediately, Kayn added, "Anyways, let's say that I believe everything you are saying about how and why we returned back to the past and that the reason why you chose me to give this chance to go into reincarnation, was because I passed all the criteria and possesses even more reasons that had made you believed I can successfully execute all of your expectations,"
Kayn obviously won't just easily believe what Natas' was saying to him. After all, they were enemies just a few minutes ago. In addition to that, now that Natas has mentioned the word 'Deceitful', he instantly felt suspicious of the latter after remembering plenty of records of the Gods deceiving and misleading the Heroes.
"And because I possessed all of those traits, I succeeded in freeing everyone, including all of you Gods, from the imprisonment of the 'Tower'. But what then?"
Natas instantly disregard his emotions and asked, "What do you mean 'What then?'"
"Obviously, you won't just be doing nothing after you are free from the 'Tower', right? So, after you are free, what will you be doing next?" Kayn clarified.
"Ah, so that's what you mean. Quite simple, honestly… we will just disappear,"
"Don't joke with me! With that much power in your possession, not to mention you are also immortal beings, I don't believe that you will just simply disappear after becoming free from the 'Tower'," Kayn said with a ridiculing tone in his voice. In his mind, he exclaimed, "Is Natas taking me for a child or something?!"
"We have no other choice," Natas smiled helplessly.
"You have no other choice?" Kayn narrowed his eyes.
"From the moment we became Gods inside the 'Tower', our entire being had also become tied with it. So, the moment the 'Tower' disappears, we will also disappear along with it. In other words, everyone is not only going to be free from the 'Tower', but also from the influence of the Gods as well,"
"This…" Kayn was left agape.
"No need to worry about me or the other Gods since we have already lived for far longer than what we have initially wished for. Furthermore, there's practically nothing left for us to do nor to experience in life as we have done everything that anyone could possibly do throughout the many millennia of us being alive inside the 'Tower'. Rather, what you should be worrying about is what you will be doing next now that you have a second… I mean, third chance in life,"
"But why are you doing all of this? There shouldn't be any reason for any of you to sacrifice this much for us, right? Especially if you consider the fact that all of you have fought really hard to become Gods. In my opinion, it's only right for everyone to reap this much of benefits and there's also nothing wrong with desiring to live forever," He seriously can't understand why Natas and the rest of the Gods chose to do something like this. Maybe it's because he has not experienced the same thing as the Gods that's why he can't relate to them.
"Honestly, we were not so desperate in freeing ourselves from the 'Tower', because even though we were changing extremely quickly, there was still enough time for us to enjoy our current life before everything becomes too late. In our original plan, we thought of living for one last millennium before finally choosing to do everything to be free from the 'Tower'," Natas paused to look at Kayn's face as if remembering someone that looked almost exactly like the latter, except he was much older. "But due to an unexpected encounter during our first life on this planet, we met a man that made us change our opinions,"
"Remember what I said just now that because Nicholas did not choose to create your guild, the second most powerful member instead became the leader?"
"Yes, and I am assuming that the second most capable person in the guild is none other than me, that's why I became the guild leader,"
"You're completely mistaken for assuming that the person I am talking about is you," Natas shook his head.
"I am just following your logic. If you say that I am wrong, then how do you explain the fact that I became the guild leader?"
"I really didn't expect that there would be a time wherein I will witness your foolishness, hahaha!" Natas chuckled. "How could the most powerful Hero on Earth, even beating a person who was given a chance to reincarnate, become the second most powerful person in a guild?"
"Well, now that you mentioned that…" Even Kayn was unable to answer Natas. Indeed, just how can he become the second most powerful person in a guild when in fact even someone who had undergone a reincarnation can't hope to defeat him without relying on tricks and schemes? If that were the case, then wouldn't he be a much better candidate for the 'Tower' to choose instead of the President of the World Leader Alliance, Nicholas?
"The second most powerful person that I mentioned was none other than your father,"
"My father… But how…? Didn't you just explain that the second life is just a repetition of the first life, except for the fact that one person will do something else that is contrary to what he did before causing an unknown variable to be created in the timeline? Even though what that person is going to do would most likely change a few things that happened in the first life, however, it shouldn't be to the extent of changing who lives and dies in my family, right?"
"Yes, Nicholas indeed can't change who lives and dies in your family, even if he possesses prior information as to what will happen in the future as he was still inside the 'Tower' when that event happened," Natas nodded his head. "But he has nothing to do with the fact that the two people who died in your family during the first life were you and your mother, and in the second life it became your mother and father,"
"Then how is that possible?!" Kayn was shocked by this unexpected revelation.
"Because your father had decided to wish for you to live instead in the second life, not to the 'Tower', but to me, as he was my incarnation. And at that moment, I realized that if things had started from a dead man's wish, then shouldn't it be right for everything to also end with a dead man's wish as well?"