The sheer size of the eye looking at me made me feel uneasy. It was several hundred times my own size, and if that thing was an eye, then the mountain range itself…

  I looked at the mountain range, tracing its ridges and peaks with my eyes. Then, the eye, which was small compared to the whole thing, moved, and with it, a part of the mountain shifted. I recognized what it was the moment I saw it moving. It wasn’t a mountain at all; it was a gigantic head, a gigantic draconic head.

  It moved slowly, but still fast enough to cause massive winds that hit a barrier right on the edge of the platform I was on. I hadn’t noticed it until it sprang into action.

  I felt space compress and twist, and the whole mountain range started shrinking before my eyes. It took several minutes, but when it was over, the whole thing had vanished, and in its place was a majestic-looking dragon.

  It had several pairs of wings. Horns that started on the top of his head, curved outwards, and then forward. A long, spiky tail that had some kind of fur at its end. His whole body was covered in iridescent scales that gave him a multicolored pattern that seemed to shift randomly.

  He was the same size as me, but as he approached me, I had to shut off my [Spatial Manipulation] skill because of how much space was compressed around him; it was giving me a headache just barely feeling it.

  He stopped two meters away from me. There was an aura around him that was both familiar and foreign. Not even the Gods themselves, when I met them personally, had such a divine aura around them like the dragon in front of me had.

  “You are here,” he said, the same way Lilith spoke, like he was dubbed instead of us speaking the same language. His voice was familiar, but I couldn’t quite place it. I didn’t think I had ever heard his voice after reincarnating in this world, but I wasn’t sure. “Zwriniz told me you would come, but I wanted to see you with my own eyes.”

  He was… smiling softly? I didn’t understand. What did he mean Zwriniz told him I would come? I was missing something, but I didn’t know why. The constant buzzing of time around me didn’t help me concentrate.

  “You must have lots of questions,” he said. “I’ll be happy to answer some of them.”

  I resisted starting to ask, remembering what Lilith had said that I would be smited if I disrespected the guy in front of me. He must have sensed my hesitation and connected the dots, because he then laughed softly and spoke again.

  “Don’t mind Lilith, she is very strict about proper etiquette.” He smiled, “She must have said something about if you didn’t follow proper rules, your body would be spread throughout the territory.”

  “I’d be smitten down,” I said. He just laughed at that.

  “That's Lilith. But don’t worry about it. I won’t smite you or anything of the sort,” He said. “Now, I am sure you have questions.”

  I thought for a moment and decided to ask.

  “You said the God of Time told you I was coming?” There were more things I wanted to ask, but I decided to start with this one.

  “Why yes. About three to four months ago,” he said. That timeframe… It was when I arrived in this world. Why would the God of Time tell him that?

  Sensing my confusion, he continued. “He informed me to better prepare to avoid a paradox. I am sure you feel it.”

  I stared at him. The constant buzzing, how raw time felt, like it would explode at a moment's notice. So, this feeling was a paradox? But why? Why was it a paradox?

  “Why?” I asked.

  “So that temporal energy doesn’t flood into the world,” he said, but I shook my head.

  “No, not that. Why would me coming here be a paradox?” That’s what I didn’t understand. I knew I was technically in the past from when the ritual was performed, but never did I feel time being so weird, not even during the time loops.

  “Ah, I see.” He nodded his head in understanding. “Tell me. Besides time, do you feel anything strange?”

  “Strange?” I stopped and thought a bit. Besides the temporal energy around me, there were two things. A pull in two different directions.

  I looked at the tree and then at the egg. I stared at the egg for a couple of seconds, and then it hit me.

  I looked at myself, then at the egg, then at the dragon in front of me with wide eyes.

  “It seems you understand,” he said, moving towards the egg and passing through the barrier like it wasn’t even there. “This here is the egg of my child. In fifteen years, it will be used as a catalyst in a prohibited ritual to breach into the Void.

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  “As a result of the immense spatial, temporal, and magical forces involved, it will be forced to hatch. Soul and body are attuned to each other in a process called resonance. Something that can disrupt delicate rituals, such as a ritual designed to collect souls from other worlds.”

  My eyes were wide as I stared at the dragon, gently picking up the egg and caressing it.

  “As such, when this type of ritual is disrupted, it can eject everything inside it into different places and or times. For example, a forest fifteen years before the ritual even happened.”

  I kept staring at the dragon. If my jaw could be any lower, it would be on the floor.

  “So yes, you coming here would be paradoxical as two versions of the same being create a disturbance in the timeline. And yes, Denaru, you are and will be my son.”

  “I-I don’t even know what to say…” I eventually said. It was a lot to process.

  I was reincarnated as a dragon, so I obviously would need dragon parents. I did wonder why I was left at a random forest with no other dragons in sight, but I thought I was just abandoned there. Never would I think that the body I reincarnated in was the child of the dragon king.

  As I was left speechless, the sound of something falling and hitting the ground startled me and made me jump. Looking at the source of the sound, I saw that one of the branches of the tree had fallen. The ghostly squirrels were moving towards it, breaking it and spreading the remains around the tree.

  “You asked me if I felt something strange here,” I said. I could feel the connection I had with the egg, but there was another one. “I understand now why I feel a connection with the egg. It’s my body in there. But what about that tree? I also feel a connection to it.”

  The dragon king, my father… It still felt surreal to think of such a creature as my father, who I remember wasn’t as majestic and…

  “This tree,” he said, somewhat interrupting my thoughts, but I created a parallel train of thoughts to follow something I was remembering. “Is called Yggranima. Tree of souls, in a language you can understand.

  “It’s a spiritual tree, usually found inside the spiritual realm. It is capable of creating entirely new souls and seeding them into the world. Unlike the cycle of reincarnation, where old souls are cleansed of their excess and turned into semi-blank slates, this species of tree is responsible for the flow of new souls.”

  I looked at the tree, then I closed my eyes and relied on my senses. I could feel a connection to it, but focusing more on it, the connection wasn’t with the tree itself, but with something inside the tree. Something that wasn’t finished. Something new.

  “It passes through several cycles of death and rebirth as itself,” he continued explaining. “Before passing through the cycle of reincarnation, carrying the new soul with it. Finally giving birth to a new soul.

  “This tree is approaching the end of this final cycle, where it will be born as a new life form to give birth to you. Just like I am your father, this tree is your mother.”

  This revelation came together with the moment I remembered where I had heard his voice before. It was my dad’s, my real dad, the one I had back on Earth.

  I had finally understood. My dad’s weird surname, why it was weird on my status screen, and how the God of Time knew about it.

  “What is your surname?” I asked. I think I already knew, but I wanted confirmation.

  “I do not have one,” he said. I was confused for a moment before he continued. “But if I had to have one, then the name of this world would be the most fitting, Nahala.”

  “Ahaaa,” I let out a breath. My legs were weak and trembling. I didn’t know what to do with this information.

  “So, y-you’re my dad? Like, my actual dad? From before I came here?” I asked, with a trembling voice. I really didn’t know what to do.

  “Yes and no,” he said. “Yes, I am your father, but not the one you know. At least not yet.

  “When this tree finally passes through the next cycle,” he said while approaching me. “I will follow her to the next world, and then, I will meet you and be the same dad you know.”

  He finished the last part with a pat on my head, the same one my dad always used to make.

  “S-so, when I last saw you, when you said that you’d be waiting for me…”

  “Because I knew you would be here,” he said, his voice filled with warmth and a bit of sadness. “I also want to apologize. I can’t warn you when the time comes for the ritual to take effect, or I would be risking you never existing.”

  I looked at him. I honestly didn’t know what to feel. My emotions were surging in chaotic waves.

  He knew what was going to happen to me, yet he didn’t do anything. But at the same time, if he did, then I wouldn’t have been born.

  He was my dad, but at the same time wasn’t. How could I acknowledge that my dad, whom I remember as a goofy person, was always happy, always ate too much without gaining weight, and always knew what to say, was this dragon in front of me with enough power to probably pulverize the entirety of Earth’s armies together?

  Without even knowing, tears started streaming down my face. After all this time, thinking I would never see my parents again, or wondering if they would still love me as I was now that I wasn’t human anymore, only to discover that my dad wasn’t human to begin with?

  “Your mother and I love you. No matter what happens, we will be waiting for you.” The memory of the last time I saw my dad back on Earth resurged in my mind, with it, the memory of the loops in Brostin, where I started to doubt if he knew what was going to happen.

  At the time, I had dismissed that thought, but now I knew he really did know what was going to happen to me.

  Sadness and anger from being lied to my whole life, and happiness from encountering my dad, mixed in a blend of emotions I couldn’t describe.

  My dad placed his wings over me in what I assumed was the dragon equivalent of a hug and pressed his face against mine.

  There were doubts about what he was saying, if he was really my dad or not, but deep down I knew. I didn’t know how or why, but I knew what he said was the truth.

  I cried so much for so long that I lost track of time. I had cut [Mathematical Cortex] off a long time ago. When I was finally starting to recover, my dad started speaking.

  “I know I shouldn’t ask about it, but why don’t you tell me about some of your favorite memories?”

  I took a deep breath, trying to recompose myself, and then started telling him about everything I could remember.