Reincarnation Of The Strongest Spirit Master-Chapter 1496: The Biggest Dilemma Ever!

"No, she is his sole and only daughter," Bernard replied, his brow furrowing as he processed the sheer oddity of William’s inquiry. "He has no sons, either. Why on earth are you asking such a specific question with that tone and expression?"

"Ah, it must be a mere similarity then," William said, his voice regaining its composure even as his pulse thundered in his ears. He realised instantly that he had stepped onto thin ice with that outburst.

He needed to pivot, and quickly. "It’s just... I met someone back in my world who looked remarkably like her. For a moment, I thought perhaps they were sisters or close relatives."

"It can’t be," Bernard firmly said, inwardly heaving a sigh of relief as the tension in the air dissipated. "Our leader has no other family members. Every single one of them was slaughtered by the hands of that damn Fox years ago.

As for our Anna, she has never ventured away from her father’s side. You can imagine how he felt after losing everyone else; he kept her closer to him than his own shadow. She is the last of his blood."

"It’s understandable," William murmured, his eyes lingering on the girl. He completely discarded the notion of a sister or a relative. The truth was far more profound and staggering.

He turned his full attention to examining her, not as an ally, but as a living ghost of a future that hadn’t happened yet. "I’m William," he said, extending a hand of greeting. "And this, as promised, is the gate to my world."

"I’m Anna!" the girl chirped, greeting him with an enthusiasm and a bright, radiant smile that William had never, not even once, seen on his master’s face in his previous life.

"My father informed me of your deeds—quite remarkable, actually! Is this the terrifying monster gate that used to gush Scarlet Bears into the world? How could you possibly tame it like this? It looks so... Peaceful." 𝑓𝘳𝘦𝑒𝑤𝑒𝘣𝘯ℴ𝘷𝘦𝓁.𝑐𝑜𝑚

She spoke far more than she listened, her words tumbling out in a stream of high-spirited curiosity. She was easygoing, refreshing, and full of a lighthearted energy that felt completely alien to William, who had been trained by the "God of War."

She laughed several times in front of him—short, melodic bursts of joy—and every time she did, William felt a strange, unexplained warmth and relief.

To see the woman who had carried the weight of the entire humanity’s futile resistance against the Fox on her shoulders, laughing like a carefree child, was a sight he hadn’t known he needed to see.

Then, the realisation hit him like a blow to the chest.

’Damn! It must have happened this way in the past,’ his mind raced, connecting the dots of a history he was now actively rewriting. He envisioned the scenario as it must have played out in the original timeline—the one where he wasn’t there to plant the needles or sabotage the core.

’They must have fallen into this trap, just as they did now. The Purgators must have fought until their stones were dry and their walls crumbled. At the very last moments, when all hope was lost, the leader must have shoved her through a gate to my world to save her life.’

The pieces of the puzzle clicked together with a terrifying sense. ’That explains how she found me when the apocalypse hit my world. It explains why she was always so gloomy, so obsessed with taking the Fox down, and how she knew secrets like the Medium World...

She saw her father, her friends, and her entire legendary force slaughtered by the Scarlet Bears right here. She escaped alone, a princess of a fallen force, burdened with vengeance. That trauma must have been what changed her, shifting her from this curious, happy girl into the grim, cold master I knew...’

He finally understood the reasoning of her past sorrowful life. If not for his intervention, the Blue Purgators might have sustained themselves for a few brutal months before being overwhelmed. The only discrepancy was the timing—the apocalypse in his past life had occurred a few years later.

This suggested that his own rising star and the emergence of the mutated monsters in his world had accelerated the enemy’s timeline, forcing the Mystic Arts monsters to act years ahead of schedule.

Everything made perfect sense. But in the middle of this epiphany, a single question from Anna forced his spiralling thoughts to freeze.

"So, can I pass through this gate and arrive at your world safely?" she asked, tilting her head as she looked at the swirling vortex. "Shall I go now?"

Hearing her words, William stopped and turned toward her, his expression unreadable. A profound dilemma rose up next in his mind, one that outweighed the concerns of the war.

He remembered his master’s suffering—how she hadn’t lived a normal life, how she hadn’t enjoyed a single normal day. In his memories, she was a person who had forgotten how to smile, a spirit forged in the fires of a genocide she couldn’t prevent.

’Should I let her go?’ he thought, his heart heavy. ’Should I let her walk down the same path she previously tread in my past life? To meet the version of me that needs her guidance, to become the leader the world requires?

Or is the burden she carried in that life enough for one lifetime? Shall I use my power now to push her away from that path, to keep her here, safe and happy, and let her live as Anna instead of the Master?’

"What do you think?" Bernard asked, his voice carrying a hint of a nudge. He had noticed how bizarrely William had started to behave the moment Anna arrived.

He was totally mistaking the facts, his mind drifting toward the typical tropes of youth; he thought he was witnessing the accidental sowing of love’s seeds between two young people.

"Shall she go through now? Do you want to go with her, or do you have more urgent things to do here?"