Lord Of The Mysteries: A Slug of Time

(Thanks Chaotic writer for the fight scene...3am...)

"Shall we, Klein?"

Klein's avatar, a Miracle Invoker, didn't respond. However, his replicated virtual persona within Amanises's island of consciousness did. "Let's."

This was Klein, making use of the replicate authority of a Planeswalker, to replicate Hvin Rambis's Manipulator capabilities.

As for why Klein's avatar wasn't at a higher level—the avatars of those of the Error pathway could be as powerful as the original body, but this caused instability and an increase in the likelihood of rebellion; a flaw which could be very easily exploited by various pathways. Due to this, and his main body as well as Sefirah Castle needing to handle crucial matters elsewhere, Klein's avatar was equivalent to a Miracle Invoker. 

Of course, Klein being Klein made sure to come fully prepared and thus, his main body stole from Sefirah Castle, the relevant abilities of a Trojan Horse of destiny and those of a Planeswalker, and then gifted it to this key avatar.

With the replicated abilities of a Manipulator, Klein's virtual persona silently moved along the dark, searching through Antigonus's many marionettes, in order to decipher and locate this subsidiary God's true body hidden in the Fog of history. However, he found nothing.

Darkness. The moment Klein's avatar mused this, Melantha recovered and caused the all encompassing Darkness in the demonic wolf's settlement, as well as beyond to appear before Klein and Amanises in order to drown them in their horrifying depths. 

But then, a bright, incandescent light suddenly appeared, completely melting away the darkness, affecting every demonic wolf including the two subsidiary gods, causing their unstable minds to further melt away.

This was Daylight! Daylight from the Sea of Ruins!

 Klein had pulled a scene from his memory and made it descend into the real world. 

This attack stopped Antigonus's projection sneaky attempts at targeting his opponent's spirit body threads. It also temporarily removed all Darkness in the settlement, giving room for Klein's virtual persona as he could now see the dead island of consciousness of Antigonus's marionette, with a line representing the spirit body threads leading to a specific region in the historical void.

Found you. Klein immediately deciphered the exact coordinates and directly descended in a specific region in the second epoch's fog of history. However, he didn't meet Antigonus within it.

Grafting? Klein incredulously deduced as the entire region in the void melted into a horrifying darkness, consuming him. 

That was a projection… Antigonus, with slightly crazed eyes left "His" marionette to stay in the historical void in "His" place and assume "His" form, while "His" true body who had "His" position exposed due to the sudden "daylight", move about through flame jump and marionette switching. This powerful light even affected the settlement's edges, pushing at the fog covering it; a fog that was set by "His" father. 

Due to this, "He" resisted the burning sensation, the "sunlight" gave "Him", as "He" as well as all "His" marionettes pulled at the historical void, trying to summon Salinger's projection. A Death Consul would be able to "kill" this apparition with "His" mere gaze.

However, without exception, all 7000 or so attempts failed at pulling Salinger from the Historical Void. 

It was a very unfortunate situation.

Misfortune , the God of Puppets realised that the moment the Goddess of Misfortune put most of the settlement to sleep, she also blanketed the area with misfortune. Misfortune which will plague all those who tried to harm her.

While "He" could manipulate probability to help "His" odds at summoning "His" fellow Subsidiary God, "He" knew this would take time, and time was a very scarce commodity in this battle. 

In an instant, the sunlight vanished, as if it had suddenly reached an "Unfortunate end." This was of course, because it did. 

Melantha, using "Her" gifted abilities as a Knight of Misfortune ended this disadvantage, and both "She" and Antigonus moved around into the Darkness that reappeared, escaping Amanises who seeked to subtly pull "Her" brother into a dream.

While this occurred, a bacteria with a spot on its surface, spectated on the extremely dark battlefield, silently analyzing its intricacies at a high speed.

Flegrea seems to have "gifted" "His" children with some interesting blessings. The bacteria was naturally a parasite of Klein. As the high level Beyonders of the Fool pathway could turn even these insignificant creatures into marionettes, it was reasonable to assume no foreign microbes or insects and other small beasts existed this close to Flegrea's divine chapel.

To remedy this, Klein's avatar upon being summoned by Amanises, brought with him large swaths of microbes among other small living things, all already parasitized.

This blessing should be like my dream blessing the Evenight Goddess gave me, though much stronger. To test this further, he made one of his many blinking selves, to subtly parasitise one of Antigonus's marionette. The instant that occurred, the corresponding spirit body threads were retracted, but it still gave Klein a momentarily clue of where Antigonus's true body was. Thus, he made a rodent, about five kilometers away from this subsidiary god, to steal all of Antigonus's true body's powers.

However, all it got was a dead worm of spirit.

Grafting… The moment the rodent had this thought, it witnessed Klein's avatars, blinking forms, and marionettes either assisted Amanises, or tried to steal or "gift" something to the Demonic wolf siblings. Unfortunately, all these thefts and gift attempts either failed or were met with an unfortunate end, lost their target due to concealment, grafted to something else entirely.

A much stronger blessing indeed. Could it be, at the sequence 0 level, or even below that, mythical creatures can "share" certain aspects of themselves, different from how charms are made? This was something a grasshopper, casually jumping around the coarse ground thought, and it immediately got a positive response from the main body's key avatar.

Indeed. It's sharing your own essence with another, which should have serious corresponding risks, or else, many in the Evernight Church would have somewhat similar blessings as I did. He, of course, didn't carry these blessings with him back to the past.

At this moment, the entire settlement grew quiet as everything was pulled into a wide scale dream.

With "His" father's blessings, Antigonus shook off the dream fast, and immediately had a random marionette proclaim: "My wish is for all godhood to temporarily vanish!"

Suddenly, in an incredulous turn of event, the marionette felt its own godhood dissipate. 

It was as if its own words and ambiguity had been used against it, causing its wish to only target itself. 

This was the Evil Word of a Profane Presbyter. 

As an experienced Miracle Invoker, and one who knew how potent this wish was, how could Klein not be weary of this?

With his key avatar hidden in the historical void, the sleep inducement didn't affect Klein as he made a wide scale theft, targeting this effect, and freeing one of his many avatars who replicated the ability used by the Angel of the Word, Steph.

In the sky, one of Klein's blinking versions announced: "Stand-ins are prohibited here!"

In an instant, all blinking figures, including the one who made the verdict vanished, while all marionettes in the settlement felt a tight restriction on them. At the same time, some projections vanished, and substitutes became ineffective. 

The replicated verdict ability with a slightly lower potency compared to a Hand of Order's caused the marionette switch ability to become ineffective, giving an opportunity for Klein to decrypt and "wander" right beside Antigonus.

The underground cave "He" was in was immediately turned into a complex maze, with the exit seemingly existing in another pocket dimension. At the same time, an old, and giant mottled clock appeared beside Antigonus, ringing as "His" movement were suddenly halted. From the mouse avatar which had appeared before the God of Puppets, space was torn and seemingly swallowed into a void, spreading to the recovering Antigonus.

However, this space destruction came to an unfortunate end, as from the void, Melantha walked out, and "Her" hollow and terrifying eyes gazed at the mouse, instantly instilling a chilling fear into it. Suddenly, snakes appeared from the darkness ensnaring it.

In fact, the entire avatar Hivemind was affected as mountains of snakes formed from the darkness, drowning even the Miracle Invoker Klein, hidden in the historical void. 

This was his greatest fear. The fear of snakes!

With the abilities of a Horror Bishop, amplified to that of a Knight of Misfortune, Klein was immediately frozen in fear. Fortunately, that fear couldn't completely overcome his senses as a soothing and beautiful voice sounded in his ears.

"The shadow of doubt may linger,

"But courage will always conquer.

"Rise above, let your spirit soar."

His fear receded due to the soothing poem and the shared mental connection he and Amanises possessed, using a Manipulator's ability. 

Instantly, Klein stole the Beyonder ability, maintaining the conjured snakes, making them vanish, as all his avatars recovered as well. 

Strangely, both Antigonus and Melantha seemed to have disappeared, like they never even existed in the first place.

As expected, this fight is a somewhat equal one. Klein wasn't surprised by the ongoing fight, having made a vague divination in Sefirah Castle, right before the operation. 

He only lamented over the fact that he couldn't borrow Sefirah Castle itself, and suppress the Subsidiary God siblings, especially Antignous who seemed to have received some abilities of an Attendant of Mysteries. 

Well, the main body is camping somewhere here , and needs Sefirah Castle more than I do. He mused, while examining the historical fog. Naturally, apart from confronting the siblings, Amanises and he had another goal. 

The Knight of Misfortune ritual!

Annihilating the Demonic wolves were the dessert required for this ritual. 

A scene suddenly flashed in his mind, causing him to smirk as he pulled his top hat down and walked out of the fog of history, appearing before Amanises who peered at the calm Darkness permeating the settlement.

"Is it time?" She asked without turning her gaze to which Klein nodded. Right after that, a dissociative frenzy spread throughout the entire settlement, affecting every single being associated with the Fool and Darkness pathways. 

Flegrea had walked out of the mirror world.

…

Within the segment of the Fog of History belonging to the First Epoch, a figure shrouded in darkness lingered, a giant demonic wolf with thin translucent maggots cluttered at "His" body, an illusory featureless mask drilling deeply at "His" head yet seemingly wanting to split apart from "Him".

The Annihilation Demonic Wolf was on the verge of dissociation, with the Darkness and Fool Uniquenesses wanting to converge yet split apart. A similar phenomenon occurred with "His" three Knight of Misfortune and single Attendant of Mysteries characteristics.

Flegrea, barely managing to hold "His" status, was only left with a bare silver cent of rationality as the Will within the characteristics reached a point of near convergence, with only the contradicting will of the Eternal Darkness and Flegrea's own last bit of resistance providing a last barrier.

"His" body shook violently, as the Fog of History itself stirred, fluctuating between various scenes of the First Epoch; these scenes displayed the life of a Demonic Wolf, wandering around the dark and desolate plains aimlessly, letting fate and instincts guide "His" way.

He consumed, converged, suffered, fought, and ran away at times. He bore the burden of loneliness, yet killed anyone that got close to him. He grew strong, and stronger, rising in the harsh food chain of this world, yet continued to lead a life devoid of any goals, any aspirations, oblivious to how his existence came to be, and why?

Then, one day, "He" came across an opportunity, an illusory mask, shrouded in an invisible corporal fog, with resplendent tiny specks resembling the stars in the sky, decorating it. It was mesmerising, mesmerising to a point, the demonic wolf without displaying any resistance, and hesitancy, put on the mask which accepted "Him".

Thus, the Fool and Darkness was born.

These familiar, yet unfamiliar scenes flashed past Flegrea's unfocused vision, as "His" body continued to shake, while "His" mind was caught in a whirlwind of Chaos. It was then suddenly, Flegrea felt a shift occurring within the Fog of History, uncontrollable and unforeseeable.

Instinctually, "He" tried to resist, using "His" own authority over the Fog of History, yet it proved futile as the King of Demonic Wolves now stood within a large room, devoid of much furniture. There was only a small table, a giant soft bed, and a chair, on which was seated, a humanoid man wearing formal attire, holding a porcelain tea cup in his hands.

The man had black eyes, black hair, and ordinary, but soft features. Flegrea suddenly felt "His" rationality spike up, as the figure of the man reflected in his deep dark eyes–No, it was the greyish white illusory fog that surrounded the figure of the man, radiating an aura Flegrea could not have misinterpreted even on the verge of dissociation.

The Aura of Sefirah Castle!

The man took a sip from his cup, before resting it on the table, his eyes wandered about, eventually locking with that of the Evernight Demonic Wolf. His lips slowly curled up, as he stood from his chair, lifted his hat from his head and presented a gentlemanly bow.

"Good day today, isn't it?"