Saviour decided to try multiple routes and perhaps he could somehow win against the monsters while protecting everyone.
In this life he decided to get everyone to fight the monster first rather than the beast tide scouts. After once again showing Arm the evidence and convincing Arm he finally got permission.
As Saviour went to the barracks with Arm he asked for an the soldiers with the powers they previously used to defeat the tortoise beast, obviously not saying this to Arm.
That was when Saviour was told something that caused him to be confused,
"Huh, who do you mean, we don't anyone that can embiggen things? Or someone who can create spikes on the floor? Who do you mean?"
Saviour became light headed and his vision paused for a second until it morphed. Everything was similar but now there were everyone from the previous life in front of him...
Suddenly it felt like a migraine, memories started to flood Saviour's mind.
'Sacrarium. Parasite in my chest... A cave, MASTER!'
All the memories from reality flooded Hou's mind. He had remembered. He's in a dream, this isn't real, but it is. To be more exact this was something that happened in reality but the outcome was different.
In reality, almost everyone was killed by the disciple, it was his first encounter with one. Unlike this dream it appeared with the beast tide scouts and after murdering the front lines, it almost got Hou. But Runna had sacrificed herself and Hou escaped like a childish coward. Only him, Arm and a small portion of civilians survived.
He had remembered it vividly, if not for this experience he wouldn't be the man he was today.
But what does he need to do now!
'Master didn't give me any hints, he said I would need to figure it out myself...'
"SAVIOUR! Ahh you're back so we have everyone, should we go down now?" Arm shook Hou back to what was happening in front of him.
Hou calmed himself and said,
"No you all should practice fighting together I'll be...busy... BYE!" Hou couldn't think of anything excuse and quickly opened a gateway and went away.
He needed space to think, what are the rules of this dream and what is his purpose?
'hmmm, this isn't reality it's different. But clearly it'd based on my memories but everything is slightly off. Now that I'm aware, the thirteen year old me wasn't so authoritative. I wouldn't be so steadfast in protecting everyone. And Arm wasn't so strategic, at least not yet. It seems this 'me' is a mixture of my current mindset and the old memories. And just then! What happened, what made my memories return?'
Hou set up the blood formation he learnt in reality and sat in the wilderness to think.
'this dream realm does follow some sort of rules, when I realised the people changed from my previous life I found an anomaly. It seems the world 'reset' and everything switched to as it should be. However, it seems when the world was shifted, it gave my consciousness the chance to return. Now I just need to figure out what I need to do. I can't just experience it as it seems when I die I return. So perhaps I need to accomplish some sort of goal?... Maybe I need to do what I regretted, yet did not have the power to do?'
Hou stepped out the formation and used a gateway. Hou created a path to the underground burrows,
'In reality these burrows didn't exist so everything in this dream realm has to make sense... It created burrows to explain the monsters arrival since I never saw the monster arrived in reality? When this really happened I was slacking not helping with the fight so I never saw the monster arrived.'
Hou stepped through the burrows and started thinking, perhaps with his powers and current fighting attainment he could defeat the monster If he somehow tricked it to use it's nullification power on someone else...'
As Hou was thinking of a plan his vision faded.
Hou woke up at the start of the scenario again. With his more experienced memories, he had thought of a couple of options and with the realisation of this reality not being real he did not care for his or others lives with emotions.
Hou didn't care for Arm's worry and he opened a gateway to a far away place. Hou stepped through and his surrounding became a dark forest with tall black trees.
The first plan was to survive, he would teleport away from the action and hide. Hou cut his palm and created the formation again, he was totally obscure from any interruptions.
Hou took the next two days to think about the other option if this failed.
Two days later and Hou's vision faded, he was back at the start.
'Okay, plan two. This time I'll do as the 'me' in the dream thought. I'll kill the monster then evacuate, but that's easier said than done. The monster was much much stronger than all of us combined, if I had to save everyone at the same time it's going to be hard. I'm going to go through it without thinking to much and just continue going through the loops until I find a route that will work'
Hou went through the loop and persuaded Arm and his soldiers to fight. First, they got rid of all the civilians and put them in the barracks. This way all of them could be protected easily. Then it's time to lure the disciple out.
Hou opened a gateway in town and pretended to start the evacuation. Nothing happened.
'It seems the disciple does have some intelligence it senses the enemies and won't attack, then I should get rid off soldiers until it is lured out.'
Hou ordered some soldiers to go through the gateway, then at that moment, it closed!
The disciple jumped out of the ground and it's eyes pierced straight to Hou.
'WHAT!? This didn't happen before, the previous gateway closed? Or did it... Before I only noticed the gateway above that floods the town with sunlight started open... Maybe this ability doesn't do what I thought. I assumed it simply stopped me activating the ability, but now... It can't effect the gateway of sunlight qi, does it refine the qi at a super fast speed. It checks out, now that I have the knowledge I have now, my gateways are sustained by sunlight surrounding them, the reason I never felt like I needed to stop the gateway above the city is that it was powering itself. So my ability does still occur but the power source is instantly snuffed, how can I get around this, if I can use gateways the battle can be as simple as breathing?