As William entered the world of memoirs, he was greeted with the sight of a humongous, luxurious golden castle.
The whole world was covered in gold, including the land and the sky.
William still couldn't get used to Zephyr and his weird obsession with the colour golden.
The world of the memoirs took whatever shape Zephyr wanted it to take, despite having come here numerous times in the past.
The whole golden landscape looked weird to William.
Over the past 2 years, William had come to memoirs multiple times, and he no longer felt unease around Zephyr.
William still didn't fully trust him, but he at least didn't feel uncomfortable around him anymore.
Zephyr also taught him a bunch of techniques, in this sense they kinda had a sort of master-disciple relationship.
Ever since his loss two years ago, William didn't bother challenging Zephyr, as he didn't possess a way to counter that attack from last time.
However, that wasn't the case anymore; it was probably Zephyr's ultimate move, and now that he has a counter to it, surely he should be able to win, right?
With that question in his mind, William finally reached Zephyr's room, where he was sitting atop a luxurious throne wearing a lavish white suit with deep golden embroidery and a small golden star on the left side of his chest.
He had a carefree expression while holding a golden book, as if he wasn't even paying attention to the book in his hand.
Zephyr had the same golden book in his hand every time he came to the memoirs, and for some reason it was written in a language William couldn't understand. Every time he tried to inquire about the book, Zephyr only replied in an ambiguous manner.
Eventually, William just decided to ignore the book altogether, as there was no point worrying about it.
"Hey, what are you thinking about?" William asked casually, just trying to strike up a conversation.
"Just thinking about how brutal a death your aspect will cook up due to you ignoring my advice," Zephyr retorted with an annoyed expression as he eyed the carefree boy in front of him.
Zephyr had been desperately trying to make William go to the neutral continent for the past two years.
But for some reason, this idiot in front of him just refused to go, always making excuses. In the end, he could do nothing but give up.
However, not anymore Zephyr could sense it; the other god's were making their move, and unless he intervened, William would either die to his flaw or go down the villainous path he saw in his prophecy.
The book in his hand was a divine artifact made by him called the book of prophecy, which, like the name suggests, was capable of telling the future.
In all the future's he saw William's end was never pretty, and if he survived, he became the worst villain in the history of the universe and set his eyes on destroying existence itself.
Zephyr's vision of William's future was extremely unreliable, as it skipped a lot of years of Williams life, and the knowledge came from a third-person perspective.
So he had to look through the future of every single living being in the whole universe just to piece together a rough idea of what Williams future looks like.
This was the first time Zephyr had ever been pushed to such lengths; he still wasn't sure why he couldn't look through Williams future directly like he could for other people.
One might wonder why Zephyr was even trying so hard for a nobody who could destroy all of existence in the worst-case scenario,instead of just killing him?
The answer to this question is because Zephyr was investing in Williams future.
Out of all the futures he saw, none of them were capable of stopping the grim future that awaits this world, and the most worrying part was that the seal that he placed on that thing was weakening.
Even at the peak of his power, he wasn't strong enough to stop it, so all he could do back then was place a barrier around his universe to prolong its destruction in the hopes someone in the future would be able to do what he failed to do.
Sadly, there had yet to be any individual capable of that over the past 6,000 years.
That is, until now, with the little glimpses into his future as well as him being unable to see his future.
William was the best bet this universe had for survival. As long as he could just change his fate, maybe they'd have a chance. Zephyr hoped that, with Williams past life memories paired with his guidance, even changing his fate would be possible as long as he played his cards, right?
Zephyr was aware of his own selfishness; after all, he was risking the whole of existence just for the possibility of saving his own universe.
But it doesn't matter; he had always been selfish, even before he ascended, and now that he's already become a god, what can anyone even do about it?
Yet unaware of his internal turmoil, William continued to treat everything as a joke, chasing his childish pursuit of magic while hiding in his parents mansion.
Honestly, from an outsider perspective, William was set for life; after all, he was the son of the sword saint and the ivory queen and also had a divine aspect.
William's current thinking also followed this line of logic; he currently only wanted to learn new spells and practice swordsmanship to eventually be able to surpass his father and inherit his position as a count.
Zephyr was aware of just how awful William's past life was and why he wanted to live comfortably this time around. Sadly, he was also aware that, according to the future, he saw that his second life was going to be far worse than his first life if nothing changed.
Honestly, Zephyr wanted to tell William about his future as well as the danger the whole universe was in.
But William would just straight up die if he learned the things Zephyr knows due to his own weakness.
In this world, there are certain things known as forbidden knowledge that, if learned by a mortal, would lead to their death.
This was also the reason why sayings like 'One must never gaze directly at a God's' or 'One must never learn a God's true name' gained popularity because mortals would just die if they possessed this knowledge.
"We've already talk-." William attempted to reply to Zephyr, but he was interrupted by Zephy.
"William Verhein, I challenge you to a duel," Zephyr said with anger evident in his eyes.