“Huh…” Brown sighed heavily. He felt tired and unwilling to move.

Just like his eyes, which could only distinguish the wooden floor, his brain could not penetrate the doubts that enveloped him. The memories that he sealed himself brought too many conflicting emotions, filling him with heaviness.

However, it was those memories that screamed that this was his childhood room.

The darkness that surrounded him, the loose board that made noise when stepping on it, and the door that squeaked when opening, were the same elements that he found when, as a child, he got up at night to go to the bathroom.

The problem was that all this no longer existed!

20 years ago, a few months after his father’s fleet stopped sending distress signals, the house was attacked by stealthy characters. The furious fire that burned over the charred rubble, closed the cycle of his peaceful life and marked the beginning of his hardships.

*Plop*

A drop of blood slid from his lips to the floor, making a small echo in the silence and catching his attention.

“Huh…” He sighed again, nothing made sense. The cold around him seemed so comfortable that he could fall asleep at any time. Then, the pain that he had been ignoring, product of his fall, emerged with annoying palpitations and woke him up completely.

He moved his head from side to side, feeling the metallic taste of blood with his tongue. Then, he filled his lungs with air, leaned on his trembling hands, and slowly got up from the floor.

“It’s not time to rest,” he said weakly after wiping his lips, “at least, not until I know what the hell is going on.”

He was certain that he was alive. Senses like touch or taste, could only be processed through an active neural connection. but, he seemed to have arrived at a rather strange paradox.

Returning to such a critical place in his past, could only be the product of a mental intrusion by a Warbeast, an illusion. However, the orb inside him would never allow that to happen for too long.

Brown counted the minutes since he woke up in the soft bed and shook his head. He brought his hand to his chest, closed his eyes, and felt his own heartbeat. The fragment remained inactive, just like when he felt it shortly before.

«Has half an hour passed and the little greedy thing still not moving? Impossible!», he thought.

As long as there was energy, the absorption speed of the orb would increase exponentially every few seconds, making any attempt to conceal its fluctuations useless.

«Even a nuclear power plant was destroyed in less than two hours,» he swallowed hard at the memory. Brown would never believe that a Warbeast could produce such a massive energy output.

Smoke seemed to emerge from his ears as he tried to decipher this contradictory cycle.

Suddenly, he remembered the lesson of a savage warrior about state alterations, which made him look at his own body.

The darkness was penetrating, but he could distinguish the abnormality.

His hands were small and thin, without the calluses, burns or scars of his past hardships. Only a small tear made by claws on his left wrist remained.

«This wound was made by a Warbeast when I turned 14…», he calculated mentally and his eyes became serious. It was difficult for someone to replicate so many details without a clear goal.

Even with all this, he failed to understand. If he was in an illusion, why recreate his childhood and leave his adult conscience free to know the difference?

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Did they want the little greedy thing? That possibility was already discarded. It was enough to take it from his corpse.

Maybe they were looking for his knowledge of the Earth? No, it was not valuable in this world, besides, anyone who managed to get so deep into his psyche must have already obtained it completely.

He never offended anyone with such a terrifying ability, so it was not for revenge either.

“Huh......” He sighed for the third time. He only had one option left.

Although the idea was a bit absurd, in this world of multiple miracles, nothing was impossible. Yet, Brown was afraid to harbor hopes.

He had managed to survive this period by betraying many people, both friends and enemies, and seeing them again would cause him a lot of pain. Besides, repeating the story did not mean that he could avoid the tragedies. Only after using all the knowledge he had about the plots of the Earth, he barely managed to find a way out.

Even with all this, the echoes of: What would have happened if…? tormented his mind over the years.

Forcing his body to move, the layout of the bathroom came to his mind and he managed to turn on the light switch.

The brightness blinded him for a few seconds. Until the objects were tinted with different colors, returning to how they should be.

Brown approached the familiar mirror that was still above the sink and fixed his attention. Then the image of a youthful face, with brown hair and whose melancholic gray pupils looked like those of an old man, stared back at him.

His lips were swollen with teeth marks and traces of blood, which, along with the redness of the blow, were the only thing that gave life to his pale complexion.

This was normal, he was never handsome and he would not be either.

Unaffected by his appearance, he extended a hand forward with a solemn expression. He connected his will with the rock in his heart, and ordered in a low voice:

“Pull!”

Immediately, a small purple glow came out of his irises, elevating his weak ghostly disguise to a more terrifying one. At the same time, a phosphorescent green rod appeared out of nowhere between his fingers.

It was one of the hands of the clock he had just observed!

Brown knew that his mental state was dangerous, and before emotion flooded his eyebrows, he controlled his agitation and reproached himself harshly:

“Calm down, it’s not over yet.”

The internal conflict between expectation and fear was suppressed again.

Soon he repeated his actions and a second pointer was teleported to his hand. The fragment in his heart stirred with signs of wear and then calmed down. This time he perceived it clearly, the spatial fluctuations charged with a deep mystery, and the insatiable hunger that emanated afterwards.

“It turns out that I am not in an illusion,” he said surprised.

Almost any aspect could be simulated but not its power; or rather, not the laws of space that were released when using it.

“This… Did I go back in time?” He whispered hypnotized.

“Damn, yes! I went back in time!” He jumped for joy.

Although he ignored many things about this world, he knew something that no one else could know. There was an object that had dragged his soul millions of light years from Earth to here. After reincarnating him in the body of a baby, it lost all the energy it contained and lodged in his heart.

That was the greedy treasure he used to teleport the clock hands, [The anchor of space]. The legends spoke of its existence, but few recorded anything more than its name. Even the last time it appeared was tens of thousands of years ago.

Likewise, there was its pair, an object of similar power called: [The gift of time]. Which would have the ability to take him to the past.

The history of this world was always full of strange beasts and mysterious objects.

Brown felt like having won the lottery twice in a row, both with the jackpot.

His brain worked very fast and soon, with an expression of not knowing whether to laugh or cry, he joined some previous events.

“Is that so? Did that simple box contain such a valuable element?” He questioned himself with irony and raised his eyes to the ceiling. Inside, he had already cursed the one who had the brilliant idea of disguising important things among common elements, hoping that that person had died under a thousand cuts.

Without wasting any more time, he forgot everything and sat on the cold floor. He closed his eyes and concentrating all his perception on finding the new guest, he fell into a deep meditation.

His suspicions were completely confirmed when he found a second orb next to the [Anchor of space]. This fragment felt more lazy and calm, as if it had exhausted all its power. If he didn’t know how to look he would never have found it.

“Ha ha…” A deranged laugh escaped between his teeth. He no longer harbored doubts, he returned 20 years in time. Along the way, he had let another greedy thing into his body.

But, if he were given a choice, he would gladly accept it.

What did it matter to feed an additional glutton? Another opportunity to rewrite his history was enough for him to be willing to pay any price

His laughter never stopped and the dark sky seemed to respond. Small thunder shook and resonated through the village, overshadowing the sound of his mouth, as if they roared in resonance.

At the same time, in the reflection of the mirror, the eyes of the almost crazed young man shone faintly between purple and blue, and drops of tears ran from them. Then the rain began to fall and hit the wooden roof, causing small bumps, as if to remind him that he was not crying alone.

The outburst of emotions was a mixture of feelings of happiness and sadness between a human and the sky.