Holy Night: My Husband is Definitely a Paladin - Chapter 197
The fragments, once two but now one, began to emit light.
The faint glow grew brighter and brighter until it engulfed everything, including Michael himself.
When he opened his eyes again, he saw the fortress.
It was exactly as it had been the first time he laid eyes on it.
The era of the Alliance of Kingdoms, when they held dominion over all dungeons and assembled purifiers and knights to subjugate themāthat time had returned.
It was the time he had most desperately wished to return to.
āA-Ahā¦ā
Michael staggered and fell to his knees.
For a long moment, he couldnāt collect himself. Then, slowly, he took a step forward.
One step. Then another.
Soon, his unsteady legs broke into a frantic run toward the fortress.
He had made the impossible possible.
In this time, she was alive.
Irene.
At last, he would see her again.
The moment he entered the fortress, however, he came face to faceānot with Irene, but with Princess Cecilia, who happened to be passing by.
The sight of her made Michael instinctively draw his sword.
This woman.
This cursed being.
Long ago, in a memory buried deep in his mind, he had spoken a lie with fire in his heart and steel in his throat.
He had told the princess that Irene meant nothing to him.
Cecilia had laughed cruelly and admitted that she had, in fact, orchestrated Ireneās demise.
Seeing her now, that memory and the emotions it carried surged vividly back to him.
She was a being whose very existence was a harm to Irene.
It was better to end her here and now.
Resolving to erase his past mistake, Michael swung his sword without hesitation.
Cecilia greeted him with a look of joy at first, oblivious to his intent. Even as he raised his blade, she didnāt grasp what was happening.
It wasnāt until the blade sank into her neck that her expression shifted to one of realization.
But by then, it was too late.
Ceciliaās head rolled to the ground, and Michael smiled, recalling the elation he had felt so long ago.
It was done. Now, Irene wouldā¦
At that moment, the world trembled.
Everything around him began to collapseāthe fortress, the buildings, and even the people.
Amid the crumbling world, Michael frantically searched for Irene.
But when everything was gone, leaving only dungeons and monsters in its place, he understood the truth.
In this world, Irene did not exist.
As despair overwhelmed him, the space before him split open, and a fragment of metal appeared.
The fragment that had once been whole was now split in half.
The piece that Irene had once held was gone, leaving only the part he had discovered in a dungeon.
There was no sound, but Michael felt as if the fragment was mocking him, asking:
āWant to try again?ā
Clutching the fragment tightly, Michael began to slaughter monsters once more.
If he could kill them all again, if he could turn back time once moreā¦
āI will.ā
And so, he began another endless cycle.
***
āHaahā¦ā
Michael sighed and ran a hand down his face.
In a moment of foolish anger, he had killed Cecilia again. And the world had collapsed once more.
When he turned back time again, he left Cecilia alone.
But in that world, Ireneās presence was still absent.
Through this, he learned something new:
The humans he had killedāif he killed them before the moment he first killed them in the original timeline, the world would collapse.
Moreover, the worlds he faced after turning back time were never perfect.
In some, the High Priest he remembered existed. In others, a stranger bore the title.
The one constant was the beings he had killed.
They remained exactly as they were, while the rest of the worldās inhabitants seemed to exist or vanish at random.
Horrifyingly, no matter how many times he turned back time, Irene was never there.
But there was nothing else he could do.
Until he found the world where Irene existed, he had no choice but to keep turning back time.
