It was a world overflowing with darkness—boundless, endless darkness.
In that place, there was a terrible history, horrifying tragedy, blood flowing like seas, corpses piled like mountains, countless heart-wrenching cries, endless desperate calls for help, and also infinite silence.
This was a world cursed, with no way out, and no hope.
But a light burst forth.
The color white arrived.
From the infinite darkness, a creature with the shape of a centipede... no, more like a primordial entity manifested. It didn't resemble a true living being; it was more like the darkness itself. And it began to emit a language no mortal could understand.
"So what exactly do you intend to do?! Destroy me, change everything? But have you ever considered that no matter what you do, how you do it, human nature will remain the same. Everything will return to the starting point. Even without me, without you, there will still be another Paradis, another Marley."
Countless images appeared: war, violence, conflict, collapse, deceit, filth, depravity. Even without Titans, they existed, they still happened, and they will happen.
This was not something created just to deceive oneself; it was simply stating a truth.
"So what?"
The color white was calm. Before the radiance of the white, all calculations, pollution, and impurities were cleanly swept away.
"Then let it be so."
"Better than continuing to be puppets, becoming garbage, manipulated by you until the end of time."
"You will still only bring them hell."
"No, I return them to the human world."
That was the final word.
On a more visual level, Asahi's will clashed with the infinite darkness. Although he was extremely strong and had consumed many, many supplementary items before entering here, he still pushed himself to the point where his whole being felt like it was about to shatter, his spirit body riddled with cracks.
Victory was just one step away!
The darkness shattered, and Asahi appeared in a white world, transforming into the white world—boundless, endless white.
In his hand, he held a primordial arthropod creature. It struggled to resist in every possible way, but all was futile against Asahi's lightly clenched hand.
This primordial creature was the Founder.
Eren stepped forward, looking worriedly at Asahi's current predicament, but he couldn't say anything. Because there was no turning back.
"Let's proceed."
"Agreed."
What were they planning to do?
At this point, stopping the world-destroying Rumbling was very easy, and destroying all Titans would only require a single thought. But those actions fundamentally wouldn't solve the problem. The problem wasn't just the Titans; the problem was this whole world.
The "previous" Eren Yeager also thought extensively and ultimately discovered in despair that the best result was still a catastrophe. But Asahi, someone from another world, had different ideas and could do much more.
His intention was to restructure all of history by modifying memory, meaning erasing all memories of the Titans from the people in the current world. Only then could the hatred truly fade away.
This might sound unfair, but all the old generations directly involved in the blood debt were no longer alive. All that remained in the present were generations haunted and tormented by the vicious cycle of the past's guilt.
The Founding Titan could indeed erase memories, but only among the Eldians? This isn't entirely wrong when linked to its controller; human will is too weak. Even with the power of the Founder, one could only achieve this through the faint connection of bloodline, and even then, it required considerable effort. But with a true will, bloodline, clan, etc., are not barriers.
And then, his will began to burn.
Asahi connected with the Founder, to connect and bear the pressure of modifying the memories of billions of people simultaneously. Meanwhile, Eren would act as a processor, compensating for missing parts so that everyone's memories could be preserved, avoiding unnecessary gaps.
An invisible light traveled from one end of the world to the other. High heaven, low hell—nothing could stop it.
On the battlefield, there were no more Titans.
Zeke watched Grisha fall into his arms. The doctor had already exhausted his life force, and throwing himself into this path once again was nothing short of seeking death. But Grisha succeeded; he saved Zeke.
"Stupid father..."
Zeke burst into tears, embracing his father's corpse. For the first time and the last, he realized how much his parents loved him. It was just... fate playing tricks, or perhaps a decision from the deep.
"But now, we are finally free, aren't we?"
Both were enveloped in the light.
Gipsy Danger was buried under a mountain of Titans jammed into a chaotic mass of earth and rock. But just before they were crushed, all the Titans suddenly vanished like air, along with an approaching light.
"Did we finally succeed... Asahi."
Erwin looked through the gap, smiling.
The darkness had passed, the dawn had come, and it was time for a new era.
But all this heroism, all this sacrifice, along with the very existence of the white light—all silently vanished from everyone's memory.
Losing its source, the Paths slowly collapsed.
Eren sank onto the sand like a child. He even lay back comfortably, allowing the flying sand to bury him.
At least, Mikasa would have Eren by her side, even if that Mikasa wouldn't be the Mikasa in his memory, and that Eren wouldn't be him. At least, the people he loved wouldn't have to live a miserable life, nor would they be eternally damned in this hell.
"Goodbye, everyone."
Eren closed his eyes, recalling the image of the one he loved one last time. His entire body gradually dissolved with the Paths.
In the white space, Asahi met a person.
Ymir.
Throughout his time here, he had remembered the origin of all this. It was because of that "journey to the past."
"I'm sorry, for not being able to save you then."
Asahi smiled regretfully. If he truly could have done that, perhaps none of this would have happened.
Ymir shook her head. She didn't blame him, nor anyone else. She just walked over and gave him a hug, doing the one thing the little girl had waited 2000 years for.
"Thank you."
Finally, everything shattered, disintegrated. Asahi's consciousness, being torn apart billions of times, sank into silence.
He closed his eyes.
And that is how things unfolded.
The Titans were erased, and the entire world was restructured in terms of memory. But the echoes of those memories, the traces of what humans had done with those memories, still remained, though no one remembered their true meaning.
The Eldians in Marley were still oppressed by Marley afterward, but without the burden of inherited guilt, many things changed.
No matter how strange the world was, humans were still human—those who always learned to adapt to life and master it.
The Eldians in Marley eventually merged with Marley, unaware that they had other brethren on Paradis Island, as an inevitable cycle of history.
The people of Paradis continued to live normally in their world, without Titans, without Walls.
The progression of history still occurred—still blood, still war, and then peace. Fortunately, due to its isolation, Paradis Island was spared from the world war that redefined history and later joined the international community as a witness.
Human history is always written in blood and tears, but the destination is always peace, and that is what Asahi wanted to protect, not to let history become the Founder's puppet, repeating an endless loop of suffering.
Many years later.
Frieda—now aging, her face lined with wrinkles, her hair streaked with silver. Only her eyes remained deep with sadness.
In front of her was a tree, a tree that had grown, no one knew since when, because it had been too long ago.
In front of the tree was an anonymous gravestone, nameless and ageless.
Because her memory had been erased, Frieda had no idea that this gravestone was the spot where Asahi had used her to enter the coordinate and defeat the Founder. His body vanished then, along with the shattering of his will.
Nevertheless, Frieda always felt an invisible connection to this place, even though she couldn't remember anything.
"It's been 40 years, hasn't it..."
Frieda murmured. It was 40 years ago, when she unconsciously woke up here, that Frieda had placed a stone here as a gravestone, though she didn't know why she did it.
Every time she approached the tree and stayed by the gravestone, Frieda always felt strangely protected.
And so, she sat down, closed her eyes, and leaned her back against the tree.