It's said that the Path of The Hunt can influence causality. A bullet piercing an enemy now might, upon tracing back, be found to have been fired in an era before civilization even arose.
Because it first anchors the effect—the enemy being killed—then traces back to the cause—the bullet leaving the chamber.
Twilight had only heard about this concept before. After all, the Xianzhou, as the premier harbor under The Hunt's domain, hadn't really demonstrated such incredible power. Mere Borisin, Phantylia, Disciples of Sanctus Medicus, and the Express crew had thrown them into chaos; they seemed rather lacking.
Conversely, those unaffiliated Galaxy Rangers felt more likely to perform such causality-reversing hunts. Rangers, after all, were known for being headstrong, not needing to consider consequences; just get it done.
But the Galaxy Rangers were ultimately scattered individuals, weaker compared to a unified official force like the Xianzhou. So Twilight never really took their supposed causal attacks seriously.
And now, she had been personally schooled by Lan, experiencing firsthand what damned causality-locking meant.
Instantly killing Phantylia, directly reviving Twilight from the original timeline or not reviving her at all, annihilating the entire Luofu to ensure no one summoned Lan, instantly teleporting extremely far from the Xianzhou, pointing at the sky and cursing Lan for bullying the weak, immediately kneeling in surrender... Twilight tried almost every method imaginable, yet the result was always the same brutal outcome.
As long as the fated moment of death arrived, the light arrow, like a haunting ghost, would appear behind her, demonstrating to Twilight that no one in this world could escape The Hunt's vengeance.
The ending of death was predetermined for Twilight. She absolutely could not see the future beyond that instant.
This certainly sounded terrifying, but during these repeated deaths, Twilight discovered something subtle.
Indeed, her death was fixed at that moment... meaning, before being killed, she was definitely alive. And Twilight could freely rewind time from the moment she was killed by Lan's arrow. This created a wondrous bug—she couldn't truly die.
As long as the fated moment didn't arrive, no matter how much she messed around, she couldn't die. And after being killed by Lan's fated arrow, the power of the Seed of Terminus allowed her to rewind time from that beginning. The combination of these two created the current situation where even if she wanted to commit suicide, she couldn't.
However, those unlucky souls on the Luofu caught in the crossfire of the Hunt's arrow were much worse off. Time would catch up, and they would die, but they lacked the power to rewind—and this included the members of the Express crew.
Except for one person: Caelus.
Likely, the protection Twilight left him before dying successfully allowed him to survive the aftermath of The Hunt's strike. His death wasn't predetermined. In the timeline where Twilight tried to directly blow up the Luofu, everyone else managed to escape for various reasons, yet Caelus alone died in the chaos.
But thankfully, Twilight could try again.
The current situation gradually made Twilight understand things she couldn't figure out before, and she fully grasped what she needed to do next.
Twilight sat by the roadside, watching the people of the Xianzhou come and go, her gaze fixed in the direction of the Express crew—though buildings blocked her view, she couldn't see anything.
Now, whether she died or not was a minor issue. The priority was finding a way to let everyone on the Express live. After all, the path of Trailblazing couldn't end midway. But this reason wasn't important to her. For the pitiful Little Twilight, she simply didn't want her family to die.
Ever since she first opened her eyes, she had been with the Express crew. To her, their lives were far more important than her own safety. And for that, the only thing she could do now was try.
Traversing through the past, she had infinite time to slowly attempt every possibility of saving the Express crew from this destined death... Though this might be a journey only she could understand.
This time has finally come...
Twilight looked up at the sky, sighing softly.
A one-year-old is hard to mature, even harder to be independent. Facing such an existence, even if cute and mature-looking, most people, while perhaps calling her "waifu," would still see her primarily as a child in their hearts.
An immature child. To farm favorability and harvest energy, the best method was like how they treated Himeko—treating everyone as elders, trying to evoke their maternal instincts and concern... But this trick, viewed through a screen, suffered immense efficiency decay.
Twilight never forgot her true goal: the vast number of players on Earth!
The child persona was simple, easily gaining goodwill, but struggled to earn the players' deepest affection. People always favored complex, mysterious, charming characters.
The original Twilight couldn't become such a character because her lifespan was too short, offering no chance for growth. But now, she had ample time to grow, and without companions beside her.
The original Twilight, while protecting everyone on the Express with her power, was mentally cared for by them constantly; she was effectively a flower that had never left the greenhouse.
Only after Lan's arrow destroyed everything, leaving no one beside her, did the person named Twilight truly begin to mature and head towards her ending.
Yes... Now, it was time for her own growth.
Without further words, Twilight silently took out her communicator from her pocket. This device, not belonging to this time, now only coldly displayed 'No Signal'. But Twilight paid it no mind, just carefully typed out a line of text, sent it to the Express crew members, and then put it away as if ignoring the 'Send Failed' exclamation mark.
[Everyone, I'm starting my first solo Trailblaze]
In the few hours before this incident, doing anything else couldn't protect the Express crew anymore; this was the result she derived from personal experience. So, all she could do was push time further back, then continue trying all possibilities.
Using the brute-force method, trying every single possibility to save everyone!
This would take an extremely long time—but fortunately, time was the one thing she now had in abundance.
Twilight had infinite time for trial and error, then arrive at the final answer she desired.
Actually, considering everything that happened before, Twilight already knew the result. It was just that, for character development reasons, she had to go through this journey. After all, she didn't usually read books; there was much knowledge she shouldn't know.
And the result was simple—if causality was already fixed, then just destroy the foundation upon which causality was born.
Since Twilight was destined to attract the arrow of The Hunt, then just ensure Twilight never existed in the first place.