He was like a puppet that had been hollowed out, slumping into the chair, completely dejected.
Noah sniffled, quietly waited for a while, then asked, "Have you calmed down? If you've calmed down, Little Light will explain the method we've come up with. We're on a tight schedule, we don't have time to give you more time to grieve."
Leon blinked hard, pinched the web between his left thumb and index finger, the pain sobering him up a little.
"Okay, I'm listening."
Aurora walked to Leon's side and slowly opened her mouth,
"First, let's correct a misunderstanding, Dad, you didn't 'sleep' for twenty years in the space rift and then wake up."
"No space magic can last twenty years."
"In that battle, Ravi forcibly altered the nature of the space magic with his heart-protecting dragon scale, which caused uncontrollable changes."
"It was precisely this change that 'teleported' you to twenty years later… here."
Leon listened carefully, "Teleported to… here?"
Aurora nodded, "Mm. 'Here' is just a simpler way of saying it, you could also understand it as a 'point in time', 'space-time', or most accurately—"
"A world twenty years later where Leon Casmodeous doesn't exist."
"To you, it really has only been a few hours;"
"But for us, in this world where 'Leon doesn't exist', twenty solid years have passed."
"Let me give you a simple example:"
"The world is a smoothly operating assembly line, and everyone is a component on it."
"But one day, you, this component, jumped off the assembly line."
"Although this won't fatally impact the line's operation, everything related to you has already changed."
"For example, me, Big Sis, and Second Sis, without your companionship, we became the way we are now;"
"But if you had been there, I believe we definitely wouldn't have turned out like this."
She paused. Aurora wanted to lighten the rather heavy atmosphere, so she looked toward Noah,
"At the very least, Big Sis would've been a long-haired beauty."
Leon quickly absorbed and understood what Aurora meant.
He understood this principle and also understood the meaning behind her joke.
Turning from a short-haired cool girl into a long-haired beauty was just a metaphor; the absence of a father during a child's upbringing causes effects far beyond hair length.
The agreement he and Rosevisa had in the beginning was to ensure their children grew up healthy under both motherly and fatherly love.
A childhood lacking a father's love is certainly incomplete.
Aurora was completely right. If Leon had been there, they definitely wouldn't have ended up the way they are now.
Though they've become strong, there's no doubt that having Leon's guidance through childhood and adolescence would have made them even better.
That's a certainty.
And this also explains the sense of "displacement" Leon has felt since regaining consciousness.
He's always felt he doesn't belong "here."
Doesn't belong in… this world where "Leon Casmodeous doesn't exist."
"So, after correcting this understanding, here comes the key part."
Aurora said, "During these ten-plus years, I've been researching a reverse magic based on Ravi's space magic."
"Reverse magic?"
Leon's thoughts stirred slightly, "You mean… time travel? Going back to the past?"
"No, no, no, Dad, time doesn't work like that."
Aurora immediately corrected him, "Through a combination of coincidences, you traveled twenty years into the future via the space rift. We see that as 'moving forward';"
"But according to the rules of 'time', you can't 'go backward'."
"All events can only flow forward as time passes. No matter how powerful the magic is, it can't violate this. Even adding Ravi's heart-protecting dragon scale to unstable space magic could only send you to the future, not back to the past."
Hearing this, Leon frowned slightly, "Then doesn't that mean there's no way to change any of this?"
"Don't rush, Dad. Even though the rules of time are set in stone, I've still found a loophole in them."
Aurora revealed a confident smile unique to researchers,
"It's what I just mentioned—reverse magic."
"Even though we can't go back to the past in time, that doesn't mean we can't reverse known magic."
"These ten-plus years, I've been studying Ravi's original space magic and successfully created a prototype of reverse magic."
"As long as the final research succeeds, you can return to the past, correct all of this, and change everything."
Leon furrowed his brow, mind racing.
A moment later, he asked, "I think I get it, but I remember you mentioned something before… there's only six months left? What does that mean?"
"The battle that caused Mom to fall into a coma happened six months after you entered the rift," Noah said.
"But that shouldn't affect Little Light's research progress, right? As long as reverse magic succeeds, I can return to the point in time I left, no?"
"No, Dad."
Aurora said, "For example, it's been about eighteen hours since you woke up."
"That means time has already flowed eighteen hours on you, so even if I complete reverse magic now, I can only send you back to the eighteenth hour after entering the rift."
"Time moves in a straight line. It acts on the world and also acts on you."
"If you returned to the world 'eighteen hours ago' in your 'eighteen-hours-later' state, no one knows what might happen. Maybe your body would be torn apart."
"Do you understand now, Dad?"
Leon shook his head blankly, "I don't get it."
Aurora expected this. She turned back to look at Luna, "Second Sis, use your method to explain it simply to Dad."
"Oh, okay," Luna stepped forward, looked at their father, "For example, Dad, you ate a steak lunch at twelve noon and got super full, finishing at twelve-thirty."
"Then, if you used reverse magic in your full state to go back to twelve o'clock and ate that same steak again, your stomach would definitely burst."
"That's basically how it works."
Leon: "Got it now."
"One last thing, Dad."
Aurora stood in front of Leon.
Noah and Luna stood to her left and right.
The three sisters looked at their father, expressions solemn.
"The only one who can return to the past through reverse magic is you."
"This world is a chessboard, and you are the only piece that can jump off the board."
"You are the variable, Dad. You're also the key to saving everything."
"In these six months, Little Light will complete reverse magic."
"And you, Dad, you must become as strong as you once were."
"Only that version of you will have the power to change fate and reverse the future," Luna walked forward, squatted in front of Leon, and stretched out her arms to hug her father, "Mom and all of us are waiting for you in the real future, Dad."
Leon was trying hard to digest what his daughters had said.
Although there were still some parts he didn't quite understand, in short, since there was a chance to change all this, Leon would definitely do everything at all costs to strive for it.
A whole twenty years of time, he hadn't been by his daughters' sides. This was undoubtedly the deepest wound of guilt for a man with a strong sense of responsibility.
And the lack of fatherly love would definitely change a person's life.
And such changes were often negative.
What's more, Leon, as a father, was quite excellent. This was something even little Noah, back when her relationship with him hadn't yet thawed, had to admit.
And besides the daughters... Leon looked up, his gaze falling on that piece of crystal.
The silver-haired beauty inside the crystal was quietly lying there, her brows relaxed, each eyelash distinct, her delicate facial features soft and gentle, looking peaceful and beautiful.
But she shouldn't be like this.
She was the queen of the silver dragons, the mother of his daughters.
Also, his wife.
This black-bellied and proud tsundere dumb dragon deserved a better future.
Sensing Dad's gaze, Aurora raised an eyebrow.
Tch, when she was little, hiding in Mom and Dad's arms watching the two of them look at each other already felt cheesy enough.
How come now, just Dad's one-sided gaze, his eyes looking at Mom were practically oozing strings of cheese?
So, how much repressed love for Mom was this tsundere old bastard actually hiding in his heart?
No way.
Aurora realized, if they stayed any longer, she and her sisters would be crushed by the invisible wave of PDA.
She lightly nudged Big Sis with her elbow.
Noah glanced sideways at her.
Aurora gave Big Sis a look.
Noah was stunned at first, then glanced at Leon and immediately got it.
"Um... time is tight and tasks are heavy, I'll continue researching the reverse magic now. You guys chat, you guys chat."
With that, Aurora executed a lightspeed retreat.
"Then I'll stay and chat with Daddy! I have so much to talk to Daddy about~", Luna was excited.
In the past, she used to follow behind Leon all day calling "Daddy Daddy Daddy," a chatterbox little tail. Now she had been holding back for twenty years, of course she had countless things she wanted to say to Dad.
However.
Noah grabbed her little sister by the back of the collar and dragged her toward the door, "Come cook with me. We'll talk during dinner."
"Nooo nooo! I want to be with Daddy! Waaah~"
"He's only one year older than you now. If you keep calling him Daddy, someone might die of secondhand embarrassment."
Luna's two feet and one tail left three shallow drag marks on the ground.
Little Luna, with noodle eyes, was mercilessly dragged out of the dark room by Big Sis.
After the three sisters had all left, Leon shook his head and smiled.
He could tell that his daughters, having finished discussing the serious matters, had intentionally left the time for him and Rossweise.
As for what Noah just said, "He's only one year older than you"... it really did sting a father's heart a little.
Leon was twenty-three when he entered the spatial rift. Noah and Luna were only two years old back then.
But at this current point twenty years later, the eldest and second daughters were already twenty-two years old.
One couldn't help but sigh, "Twenty-two is truly the prime of life."
[T/N: Now, I can translate happily]
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