CHAPTER 135: EX 135. GAMBLE

Leon stood there, arms loosely at his sides, eyes narrowed with thoughts swirling behind them like a slow-building storm. The Governor’s offer still echoed in his head, succession. The title of Supreme Warden. It didn’t make sense. The Governor had children. He had a daughter with power that made seasoned Black Vanguards twitch. Why him?

His brows furrowed as his gaze dropped to the floor. ’Why would he want to hand over everything to me? What about his own bloodline? What about Nikko?’

Then he scoffed at himself under his breath.

"What am I doing?" he muttered. "I’m standing here trying to answer my own damn question when the one man who actually knows is standing right in front of me."

Leon looked up. The Governor was still watching him, those eyes like glacier-cut glass were calm, unreadable, and waiting.

Leon took a slow step forward and asked, "Why do you want me to be the next Governor?"

Akira Yakomoto blinked.

There was a beat of silence, just long enough to show he hadn’t expected that question to come so soon, maybe not at all. He cleared his throat, a rare sound that broke the stillness like a snapped thread. Then, for the first time in a long while, the Supreme Warden looked... sheepish. He rubbed the back of his neck and gave Leon an awkward smile that didn’t quite fit his face.

"I suppose I got ahead of myself," Akira said, letting out a short laugh before his posture shifted again.

"It’s because of my Supreme Talent," the Governor said. "Lost Time."

Leon didn’t flinch. He’d figured it was something like that.

The Governor continued.

"Lost Time allows me to reverse or pause time... in a limited area. I can’t speed it up. I can’t leap forward. But because I can slow the world to a crawl or rewind it up to five minutes, I’ve had centuries’ worth of moments to study something... deeper."

His voice lowered.

"Cracks in time. Places where it leaks. Paths where it bends. And because of that, even if I can’t fast-forward time..."

He looked at Leon now with something more than curiosity. It was reverence.

"I can peer into what’s coming."

Leon’s eyes widened.

"You mean..?"

"Yes," Akira said, finishing the thought. "I can see the future."

Leon didn’t speak.

He couldn’t.

****

Leon stood frozen, his breath caught somewhere between disbelief and defiance. He can see the future. The words echoed in his head like a thunderclap in a canyon. Governor Akira’s broken ability wasn’t just powerful, it was godlike. No wonder he was the strongest man in the Federation. No wonder everyone bowed when he passed.

Leon swallowed, but his mouth was dry. As his thoughts spiraled.

But the governor wasn’t done yet. He continued, "And because of this ability, I was able to see that we humans will fail the tribulation."

’We failed the tribulation...?’

That one sentence hit harder than any demon’s punch.

’No. That couldn’t be right.’

’We’re winning,’ Leon thought, his heart pounding. ’We have S-ranks, SS-ranks, the entire Federation. There’s no way we would loose.’

His head spun, filled with racing denials and logic that bent under the weight of the Governor’s calm certainty. His body tensed, his mind on fire.

Then it became calm.

He exhaled slowly. Controlled and Measured.

’Why am I panicking?’ he thought, eyes narrowing.

’This world’s been unfair since the moment I landed in it. From the very start, it’s tried to break me.’

But he wasn’t broken. Not then. Not now.

He clenched his fist.

’If the universe wants me down, I’ll climb higher. If fate dares to write my ending, I’ll rewrite the damn story.’

His eyes lifted, blazing.

"That is who I am," he said, his voice low but solid. "That is me. Leon Kael."

Governor Akira blinked. For a second, he questioned if the boy standing before him was right in the head. But that feeling passed. And what replaced it was something far more invigorating.

Hope.

A dangerous kind of hope.

And maybe... he wasn’t wrong to believe in this boy after all.

"There’s a reason," the Governor said slowly, voice weighted with something deeper now, something unshakable. "A reason I believe you can change the outcome."

Leon’s stare sharpened.

He was listening.

This might be his only shot to rewrite the end of the world.

"I’ve been watching you ever since you rescued Nikko," Akira suddenly spoke.

Leon didn’t react. Honestly, he’d suspected that much.

"And I’ve been impressed by your growth so far," the Governor continued, voice low and level. "To rise as you have, so quickly... It was like watching a brilliant light flicker in a tunnel of darkness."

Leon listened attentively. He still wasn’t sure where this was going.

"But despite everything," the Governor went on, "despite your rise, your accomplishments, your overwhelming potential... the future I saw never changed. Not once."

Leon’s chest tightened slightly.

"I thought, maybe," the Governor said, turning to face him fully, "someone like you, someone who surpassed even the potential I had at your age, might shift the course. Might break the path fate seemed so determined to follow. But... nothing changed. We still lost."

Leon frowned.

"And so I believed it was inevitable," the Governor said, almost to himself. "That the destruction was baked into the bones of this world. That no matter what I did, what any of us did, it would pass to the next cycle."

Then his expression shifted.

"But then... in the cave."

His voice dropped into something quieter.

"When I reversed time... and you remembered."

"At first, I thought it was an error. A side effect. But as I calmed and truly began to reason it through, I realized what it meant."

The Governor paused. His gaze locked with Leon’s, unblinking. Serious.

"You, Leon Kael... are immune to the effects of Lost Time."

Leon’s brain flatlined.

"Huh?"

The Governor let the silence sit for a moment, heavy as iron. Then he stepped closer, his boots echoing softly against the polished floor. His expression had shifted again, less formal now, and more... honest. Like he was peeling away a layer no one else ever saw.

"You being able to remember what happened," he said, voice steady, "even though I reversed time... proves it."

Leon said nothing. He didn’t need to. The Governor wasn’t finished.

"It proves you’re immune to my Talent."

He said it plainly. No flair. No dramatics. Just truth laid bare.

"The power I use, Lost Time, it rewinds everything. People. Events. Even fate. But not you." He narrowed his eyes slightly, studying Leon as if seeing him for the first time. "You stood outside of it. Like a shadow the light couldn’t erase."

Leon felt his chest tighten again, deeper this time.

The Governor turned slightly, as if speaking not just to Leon but to the world itself. "So I started thinking. Replaying every vision I’ve ever had. Every outcome I’ve ever tried to change. Every loop. Every loss. And I realized something..."

His gaze flicked back to Leon, sharp now.

"You were never in them."

Leon’s brow furrowed. "What?"

"You never appeared. Not once," the Governor said. "No version of you. No presence. Not even a whisper. It was like the future rejected the very idea of you."

He let the words sink in before continuing.

"So I asked myself: what if the reason we always failed, the reason doom kept winning, was because every vision, every calculation... was incomplete?" His tone lowered, almost bitter. "Because the one person who could change everything was someone the power of Lost Time could never predict?"

Leon stood frozen, the weight of that hitting harder than any blade.

"And now," the Governor said, "I believe it. Not as a guess. Not as some desperate hope. But as a conclusion built from every failed future."

He exhaled slowly.

"You exist outside the script we’ve been following. You are the anomaly that doesn’t belong in the tragedy we’ve been doomed to repeat."

He stopped in front of Leon. His voice softened, not weak, but sincere.

"This might be a gamble," he said. "Maybe the biggest one I’ve ever taken. But for the first time in centuries... it’s one worth taking."