Wizard: Start with Biological Transformation to Grind Experience

Chapter 831: Chapter 9: Reunion

Lynch gazed at the lonely figure curled at the edge of time, and even the heart of the Rules was inevitably stirred with emotion.

What he felt was not ordinary pity or impulse, but a weight transcending dimensions of time and space. The smiles and tears that flashed through countless time silhouettes now settled as the weight of the Rules, pressing on the timeline of his Perception.

As the embodiment of the Time Rule, he saw not only Avery curled up at this moment, but all the time loops she had experienced in this chaos—

Each replay of memories was an erosion of the soul, each accumulation of solitude slowly corroding the essence of existence. She was like a leaf trapped in the gears of time, gradually losing color in the eternal cycle.

He realized that his departure back then, in this observed time stream, indeed became the singularity that changed her fate. Those unfulfilled promises, those abruptly interrupted companionships, had etched deep scars in her life trajectory.

The perspective of the Rules allowed him to clearly perceive the "time wounds" covering Avery’s soul, special traumas caused by prolonged exposure to abnormal time flows, which ordinary healing methods could not touch.

However, at the same time,

a part of him deep down, covered by the Rule Power, belonging to "Lynch" and not the "Time Dominator," was awakening. It was the young boy two hundred years ago holding hands under the starlight, the apprentice who promised to explore the world together, the mortal who betrayed an earnest affection.

The silent flow of the rule’s power around him brought not only omniscient and omnipotent transcendence but also the responsibility that must be borne. He understood that the one standing here at this moment was both the Divine who ruled time and the old friend coming to fulfill a promise.

This dual realization caused subtle disturbances in his existence, the surrounding time flows rippled like a stone thrown into the water, creating ripples that only the Rules could perceive. He stepped forward, and at the moment his foot fell, a myriad of timelines converged here.

It was time to end this two hundred-year farewell.

Lynch passed through the stagnant chaos, quickly approaching the curled figure. He knelt on one knee, his voice carrying a weight and urgency traversing time and space:

"Avery! Avery!"

The woman curled on the ground was lifeless, her eyes as hollow as glass marbles devoid of souls, reflecting the dim streaming light around her without a trace of ’Avery’s’ essence. She seemed merely an empty shell forgotten by Time.

However, when Lynch’s voice, that voice deeply buried in her memory and almost extinguished with countless chaotic echoes, resounded clearly again—

Her previously frozen body visibly trembled slightly.

The vibration was extremely subtle yet akin to a stone cast into a dead silent pool, breaking the ancient ice.

With some stiffness, she slowly raised her head, following the direction from which the voice came, "looking" toward Lynch’s location.

Between them lay a visible barrier of boiling, rippling time distortion. In her unfocused eyes, Lynch’s figure was blurred, deformed, elongated into multiple shadows, like peering through cracked, misty frosted glass.

Yet,

she seemed to pierce through these layers of distortion and obstruction, discerning from the blurry, flickering kaleidoscope some outline engraved deep in her soul, some unique... presence.

Her previously hollow and scattered pupils slowly, painstakingly, began to gather a faint yet tenacious Life Force.

The scattered light contracted bit by bit, ultimately fixing firmly on that blurred shadow.

Her dry lips quivered slightly, and with great uncertainty and faint hope, almost in a whisper, a voice escaped her throat with difficulty:

"Lynch... is it you?"

Lynch gazed into Avery’s nearly shattered eyes, his Rule level perception allowing him to "hear" clearly the unbearable lament from her mental fortress.

The years worn away by time loops had pushed her to the brink of collapse. A guilt hitherto concealed by reason and greater plans surged like an undercurrent in his heart.

In an instant, he felt as if struck by a silent lightning on his spirit, suddenly realizing he might indeed have made some mistakes.

Considering the balance of power and long-term strategies suddenly seemed so pale in the face of this soul nearly hollowed out by Time.

He should have come earlier. Even if the chessboard of the Ancient Ruins was not yet set, even if the threat of the Freemasonry Church still loomed, he should have stepped in first and taken her away from this eternal prison.

This was not about strategy, but about the responsibility he should fulfill as "Lynch," not as the "Lord of Emerald" or the "Rule Wizard." This was his miscalculation.

With this belated, heavy sense of guilt, he hesitated no longer and stepped forward.

Only a small step across.

His figure seemed to penetrate countless overlapping mirrors, the surrounding distorted, agitated light curtains smoothing like water waves under an invisible force, silently parting and retreating before him.

This step crossed not only the barrier of Space but also seemed to traverse the long and heavy two hundred years.

In the next moment,

he was already at the heart of that stagnation, standing before her, real and unobstructed.

He bent down, his movements gentle as if afraid to disturb a fragile dream, aligning his gaze with her hollow stare.

All the majestic rule of order and the vast sense of space-time gathered, leaving only an old friend who traveled through time to fulfill a promise. He looked at her and spoke softly, the voice deep and clear, an undeniable affirmation, creating gentle ripples in the dead chaos:

"It’s me."

Avery’s gaze, like a ship lost in a storm finally seeing a lighthouse, focused little by little, entirely on Lynch’s face, finally clearly seeing who stood before her.

That face engraved in the depths of her soul, compared to the faded image in memory, had gained the fortitude refined by time and the authority of command, yet the concern and apology deep in those gray eyes remained unchanged, perhaps even deeper.

That confirming glance seemed to instantly shatter all the emotional defenses she had held for two hundred years.

This woman, taught from an early age to be dignified and composed, who bore great responsibilities after her family’s downfall, and always appeared strong, now saw all those pretenses crumble, revealing a weak, scarred interior.

Tears no longer fell silently but like a breached flood, instantly filling her eyes and uncontrollably, continuously rolling down her pale cheeks, soaking her eyelashes and collar.

She did not speak, only looked deeply at him with eyes washed clear by tears, as if verifying this was not another fragile illusion.

Then,

she suddenly lunged into Lynch’s embrace, as if using all her strength, gripping his robes tightly at the back, her knuckles whitening from the exertion. All the grievances, fear, loneliness, and waiting accumulated for so long found an outlet in that moment, transforming into uncontrollable, trembling sobs.

Her face buried in his neck, her sobs transitioning from initially suppressed whimpers to clear, mournful cries, each sound echoed across the silent ruins of time and struck Lynch’s heart.

"Where have you been..." her voice was heavy with cries, blurred as the murmur of a lost child, filled with helplessness and confusion.

Soon after, she repeated, with a more forceful, cry-laden voice, as if pouring out the unanswered questions of two hundred years all at once:

"Where have you been!"