The Eternal Family

Harry\'s gaze swept across the desolate landscape, a grim witness to the aftermath of a harrowing battle. The mortal battlefield lay strewn with lifeless bodies, remnants of the fierce clash that had unfolded mere hours ago.

On one side, the fallen green-clothed soldiers, their uniforms now tattered and stained with the blood of war. On the other side, their blue-clothed counterparts, just as motionless and devoid of life. There was no distinction in death, no allegiance to be discerned among the lifeless forms that now littered the scene.

In the heart of this macabre tableau stood a man, an embodiment of violence and carnage. His body drenched in crimson, every inch a testament to the brutality he had wrought. And within his deep black eyes burned an ominous light, a chilling reflection of the darkness that consumed him.

"Is this just a memory?" Harry wondered. He was in a phantom form, like a ghost, as he observed the scene from a distance. Yet, he couldn\'t deny the deep familiarity he had with the only person standing before him, alive. Who else could it possibly be but himself?

He strained his eyes to examine the person\'s face as closely as possible. It was undeniably him; there was no room for doubt. However, the crimson-drenched visage obscured his features, preventing a clear view.

"No need to wonder, Harry," said the blood-soaked version of himself, his voice a captivating blend of unwavering serenity and formidable power.

Harry gulped, the action serving as a symbolic gesture in his spectral form. He gathered his courage and inquired, "Can you perceive me and engage in conversation?"

A wistful smile graced the blood-soaked Harry\'s face. "No, I cannot. I am but a fragment of time etched into reality—a mere remnant of history."

Harry\'s natural instinct to inquire drove him to ask, "So how is it that you--"

However, the bloodied hand of the battle-worn Harry rose, cutting him off. "I know myself well enough to predict the questions I would ask... but today, I\'m not here to answer my own queries. Rather, Harry, oh my own past and future... Do you understand what it means for you to be here, witnessing this memory?"

The environment had at some point in time undergone a complete transformation, devoid of any previous features. It now stretched as an expanse of pure white, resembling a blank canvas. Within this ethereal realm, corpses lay strewn about, accompanied by the presence of a man and a concealed specter. The world appeared as though it were a vast artistic creation, waiting to be painted with new stories.

\'What does it mean?\' Harry pondered silently, the question echoing within his thoughts. Yet, he refrained from voicing it aloud, realizing it was unnecessary.

"You didn\'t ask this time, huh?" remarked the blood-soaked version of himself, a hint of amusement lacing his words.

Feeling a growing sense of impatience, Harry couldn\'t contain his curiosity any longer. Disinterested in the charade, he straightforwardly voiced his questions, "What is the significance of me being here?"

"Of course, it\'s significant!" the blood-soaked Harry exclaimed, his voice filled with fervor.

"It means you have been successfully reborn, for the fourth or maybe even fifth time! It means that you have defied the restraints of fate and destiny... again! It means that even omnipresence couldn\'t kill me... AGAIN! And finally, it means that... the time for us to rise has arrived..." He paused, his words still echoing in the lands as he looked directly at where the specter Harry

was and said, "Oh myself, don\'t you yet understand that this... is the beginning?"

Harry looked at Harry, his blood pumping even though he had no blood. His eyes blazed with interest, but he did not care much for this charade, though he had the system, the best gift there could ever possibly be. If he didn\'t rise, who would?

So he looked at the blood-soaked version of himself, a bit creeped out by how meaningless his own words could be.

"Harry, now that we have succeeded, here\'s what I have prepared. I know that Phoenix and the others might offer their assistance, but I prefer to be self-sufficient," he said, shaking off the blood. "The woman Evis is my preparation for this timeline. Take her Born-Dragon abilities and use them to merge compatible abilities together. It\'s mentioned that only two abilities can be fused, but that\'s simply absurd. You can fuse two at a time endlessly."

\'Oh well...that was new knowledge,\' he thought and then asked to himself, "Don\'t you care about Evis?"

But for the first time, the man who seemed to guessed everything failed to guess it. "Yeah, the fact that she told you she met me 200 years ago, it\'s simple. I had sent this clone, a clone that has no relationship to the omnipresence, back in time as far as I can, and it time-traveled using its own body and reached 200 hundred something years back... It was supposed to be my trump card, but the river of time killing myself meant it killed the clone too..."

The other Harry pondered, bereft of much compassion for a clone. \'So Evis had fallen in love with a clone of myself?\'

Well, he didn\'t particularly like that since he felt like he himself was being cheated on by his own woman, and he swore to himself, \'I won\'t ever allow my woman to sleep with another man, ever. Even if the other party was me myself!\'

The clone looked around at the world and melancholically said, "The memories are ending, but keep in mind, our goal is for now to awaken. If you do that, every timeline should converge, all mysteries should be unraveled... Fate shall be in our grasp."

Harry nodded, and the world crumbled. He returned back to the royal bedroom, Evis in his embrace and a shattered memory crystal still in his hands.

Blinking, he looked at Evis and said, "Hey girl, that\'s dangerous, you know? I still don\'t have control of my body completely. What if I hurt you while I\'m unconscious?"

"No, I know my Harry will never hurt me," she said, comfortable within his embrace.

Harry smiled. "Yes, never."

The previous him—clone—seemed to have only seen her as a pawn, making her fall in love and leaving her here, rotting in wait for him.

Even though he agreed that he himself would have done that... he could never do that to someone this straightforward in expressing love to him.

And he never wished to be like that either.

From now on, Evis was his.

A part of the family.

And with that single \'useless\' memory crystal, his whole mindset towards the future him had also changed. \'My own future self wasn\'t omniscient and omnipotent; he was just the same me, a bit stronger, that\'s it.

The guy couldn\'t even explain the three tribulations and warn him of such important matters.

He had believed the future him to be the one to have walked on the right path instead of himself until now, but now as he pondered, even though lust was consuming a major part of his thought-process, one thing made it clear, \'How can I, or rather he, even die if he was that perfect?\'

So what the future him walked on wasn\'t the right path; it was the wrong one, the one he shouldn\'t take.

\'Was this what my own self wanted me to understand? Was this deliberate?\' Yet, this fleeting thought still remained inside himself.

But more exciting was another thought.

\'Was I being molded to be perfect by myself, using the river of time as a hammer and forge?\'

The mere thought made him have goosebumps.

And his lust started to rise, his dragon poking directly on Evis\'s abdomen.