Chapter 25: Change of Plan

Chapter 25: Change of Plan

On the faces of the Amons of different “appearances,” the monocles existing in different forms simultaneously emitted pure light.

This was the “Eternal Day” effect They had stolen from the depths of the ruins of the divine battle, originating from the ancient Sun God. It could purify filth and evil things, and awaken slumbering beings.

They “bestowed” this gift upon Klein.

Combined with the authority related to the Apprentice domain, which granted the ability to manipulate the strength of seals, it was enough to break the state of eternal slumber.

In an instant, the mental imprint of Antigonus and the will of the Celestial Worthy of Heaven and Earth for Blessings inside Klein all awakened. Madness, vastness, cruelty, bloodlust, and cold indifference surged through Klein’s mind like invisible storms.

Almost at the same time, within The Fool Uniqueness covering his face—yet not fully accommodated—the powerful will of the Celestial Worthy of Heaven and Earth for Blessings was like a terrifying monster that had slept in darkness for more than a thousand years, abruptly opening its “eyes.”

At this moment, the earlier chaos and loss of control swept over him once again. But Klein did not panic. Following one of his backup plans, he calmly used Grafting to guide Antigonus’s mental imprint toward the Celestial Worthy’s will within The Fool Uniqueness, causing the two things that had been entangled for one or two thousand years to collide once more.

On the other side, relying on his self-awareness and the anchors from the believers of The Fool and the believers of the Sea God, Klein actively balanced the portion of the Celestial Worthy’s will contained within the Beyonder characteristics inside him, just as he had done when separating the Attendant of Mysteries marionette.

If nothing unexpected happened, and matters continued to develop like this, Klein had a certain probability of achieving balance on both sides, completely accommodating The Fool Uniqueness and entering the final stage of the ritual. However, while surrounded by Amons, how could there be no accidents?

While some Amons strengthened the seal on the Trunsoest Brass Book and the Wishing Lamp to resist the former’s rule restrictions, and while some Amons bestowed “Eternal Day” upon Klein, a small portion locked onto him and performed Theft.

What They intended to steal was the clarity of his thoughts.

One Amon after another failed, but in the end, several Amons still succeeded. They stole away the clarity of Klein’s self-awareness for the next two seconds.

Klein’s thoughts instantly blurred. Without his guidance, Antigonus’s mental imprint, the two portions of the Celestial Worthy of Heaven and Earth for Blessings’ will, and the anchors from his believers immediately lost balance, madly corroding, influencing, and contaminating one another.

Everything became exceedingly chaotic. Losing control seemed irreversible.

Klein’s body collapsed inch by inch, turning into clusters of transparent, twisted worms and extending even more slippery, evil tentacles.

At that moment, the rules on the Trunsoest Brass Book were erased, and new words began to be written:

“Speech is forbidden here!”

“Mutual attacks are forbidden here!”

Immediately afterward, before these two rules, a familiar clause surfaced once more:

“The following rules are invalid.”

After the seal had been strengthened, the Trunsoest Brass Book seemed to enter a new cycle, while the influence the Lamp Genie could exert became rather limited.

Klein’s consciousness soon recovered its clarity, but the situation inside his body had already descended into total chaos and slipped beyond control.

This left him completely unable to sort out the different influences or find a new balance.

In other words, he would continue sprinting down the path of losing control until he transformed into a monster.

With almost no time to think, Klein relied on instinct and experience to make the decision to activate his final backup plan.

He instantly gave up trying to salvage the state inside his body and stopped dividing his attention over this matter.

Not only that, Klein also made the Attendant of Mysteries marionette actively transform into a vortex of worms. Carrying Zaratul’s mental imprint with it, it threw itself into his main body and fused in.

He wanted to add chaos upon chaos!

However, Amon’s avatars would not allow him to attempt anything. Apart from the Amons countering the Wishing Lamp and the Trunsoest Brass Book, all the others once again began to steal, intending to plunge Klein’s thoughts into chaos again and again until losing control descended completely.

The Amon wearing a postman’s uniform succeeded. But what He stole was not Klein’s clarity, but a drop of living blood.

The blood instantly seeped into the postman Amon’s palm.

Immediately afterward, the postman Amon’s eyes were dyed with a layer of crimson, and His belly swelled at an unimaginable speed, wriggling visibly.

He seemed to have conceived a child!

What He had stolen just now was a drop of blood blessed by the Primordial Moon—that is, the Mother Goddess of Depravity!

After Klein stopped focusing the vast majority of his consciousness on balancing Antigonus’s mental imprint, the awakening will of the Celestial Worthy of Heaven and Earth for Blessings, and his anchors, he no longer had to passively endure everything as he had moments ago. He could barely respond to Amon’s Theft to a certain degree.

Using Grafting, he tampered with the target of that Amon’s theft, shifting it into Sefirah Castle, into the pile of miscellaneous objects, and onto the drop of blood blessed by the Primordial Moon.

—It had come from the Shaman King, Klarman.

There was no doubt that a certain connection existed between Amon’s avatars, and that Their levels could not possibly reach Sequence 0. Therefore, when the postman Amon was contaminated by that drop of blood, the other Amons all fell into varying degrees of disorder. Some had bellies swell with Him. Some had Their eyes dyed crimson. Some held invisible infants in Their arms and spun in place…

This caused the remaining Thefts to inevitably fail.

Klein seized this opportunity. Relying on clarity that could not be maintained for long, he mobilized the power of Sefirah Castle, causing the entire ancient palace to be covered in a shadow-like curtain.

This place was concealed once again.

Then, ignoring Antigonus’s mental imprint, Zaratul’s mental imprint, and the two portions of the Celestial Worthy of Heaven and Earth for Blessings’ will that were beginning to fuse inside him, he had the avatar standing nearby—whose face remained blank and which had not yet shown signs of collapse—extend its hand toward his main body.

Its five fingers rapidly closed, and its wrist twisted quickly.

Because Klein’s self-awareness did not resist, and had even taken the initiative to cooperate, the avatar, with the help of Sefirah Castle, succeeded after only a few failures in stealing away his self-awareness, fate, anchors, and most of his identities from his main body.

The only identity he left within his main body was the one related to The Fool.

At the same time, he also stole away the identity, fate, and mental imprint of the ancestor of the Antigonus family. This, too, succeeded after only a few attempts because of the cooperation of his self-awareness.

As the glittering river with countless tributaries appeared, the face of Klein’s avatar twisted and wriggled, changing into Klein Moretti merged with the traits of Gehrman Sparrow.

He became the main body—a main body without Beyonder characteristics!

Of course, his self-awareness and anchors were still resisting the mental imprint of the ancestor of the Antigonus family. But compared to the situation earlier, this was undoubtedly far easier to handle.

Having already adapted to Antigonus’s identity, he swiftly found a new balance, allowing the fate of losing control to be delayed, stretched out.

Although it remained unavoidable, it left a certain amount of time for the operations that followed.

On the other side, inside Klein’s original “main body,” what remained were The Fool Uniqueness, all the Beyonder characteristics from the Curtain, the Beyonder characteristics originating from Zaratul, a small amount of other Beyonder characteristics Klein had once consumed and digested, the awakened will of the Celestial Worthy of Heaven and Earth for Blessings, Zaratul’s residual mental imprint, and the identity of The Fool.

Without the pull of Klein’s self-awareness, Antigonus’s mental imprint, and a large number of anchors, Zaratul’s residual mental imprint was quickly crushed and corroded by the two-in-one awakening will of the Celestial Worthy of Heaven and Earth for Blessings.

The next second, Klein’s “main body” suddenly fell silent.

The collapse of his body stopped. He lowered his head and no longer extended slippery, evil tentacles outward. He became so quiet that it seemed as if he had lost his soul.

In such a scene, quiet was far more frightening than madness.

That motionless body seemed to be gestating an exceedingly terrifying monster!

Klein paid no attention to that side. He merely swiftly “grafted” part of his connection to the “main body” onto the gray fog.

Then he changed targets, locking onto Antigonus on the giant stone chair.

This former half-Fool had not received Amon’s help and had not broken free from the state of eternal slumber.

Once again, Klein stretched out his right hand and began stealing one set each of the other party’s Sequence 9 to Sequence 1 Beyonder characteristics.

Although he currently bore Antigonus’s identity and fate, such a Theft remained difficult. Failure repeated again and again, inevitably.

At this moment, outside the Realm of Mysteries created by Sefirah Castle, the Amons recovered Their consciousness from the initial chaos.

Some raised Their hands to adjust Their monocles, causing the crimson in Their eyes to vanish. Others lowered Their heads, looked at Their bellies, and reached out to stroke them.

One second later, those swollen bellies split open, and one infant after another faintly tinged with crimson crawled out.

The infants did not cry, nor did they show any mutation. Each of them very smoothly took a monocle ground from crystal from the void and placed it over their right eye.

The number of Amons increased.

He had turned all the newborn infants into His avatars, preventing Them, contaminated to a certain degree by the Primordial Moon, from interfering with Himself.

At that moment, the Earth Mother and the God of Steam and Machinery both gained a slight, limited advantage in their respective battlefields. At last, They could free a hand to interfere with the situation inside the palace.

All at once, some Amons transformed into plants, blooming and bearing fruit before returning to the earth. Others became knowledge, information, and words, printed into illusory books.

However, some Amons still successfully avoided the influence imposed by the two true gods—some through Flash, some by relying on loopholes, and some by deceiving the rules. While continuing to strengthen the seal on the Wishing Lamp and the Trunsoest Brass Book, They opened “doors” in Klein’s Realm of Mysteries.

At the same time, the angels also noticed the changes in the astral world. But Their gazes could not penetrate the natural barrier of the Earth Mother and the civilizational scrolls of the God of Steam and Machinery. They could not see the scene within at all.

This also meant that even if They wished to exert influence, They were powerless to do so.

Within the Realm of Mysteries created by Sefirah Castle, after failing again and again, Klein finally succeeded in stealing from Antigonus one set of Sequence 9 to Sequence 1 Beyonder characteristics—Beyonder characteristics that had already been digested!

—Because of the law of Beyonder characteristic convergence, the latter had attracted many Beyonders of the same pathway over the long stretch of history. While turning them into marionettes, He had also absorbed their Beyonder characteristics. Therefore, at this moment, Antigonus still had many Seer pathway Beyonder characteristics inside Him, including one Miracle Invoker characteristic.

Those dark specks of light swiftly entered Klein’s body and directly fused with him.

Because he was now Antigonus, and because those Beyonder characteristics had already been digested by Antigonus, his fate of losing control did not accelerate, remaining at its previous pace.

In this way, Klein once again became a Sequence 1 Attendant of Mysteries—an Attendant of Mysteries whose potion had already been digested, yet whose fate pointed toward the ending of losing control.

At that moment, his original “main body” raised its head. Its eyes were entirely deep black.

Merely being glanced at by it caused the current Klein’s thoughts to instantly slow, his body to turn cold, and almost no thought of resisting to arise.

That powerful will, one he was extremely familiar with, began rising little by little, attempting to influence Sefirah Castle.

That Lord of the Mysteries had preliminarily revived within Klein’s “main body.”

The Fool had become a reviving great existence in the truest sense, matching the guesses of the Tarot Club members while contradicting true history.

Before his thoughts slowed any further, Klein took the initiative to cooperate with Amon, undoing the Realm of Mysteries and allowing the situation inside to connect with the outside world.

He had unquestionably “fooled” history, just as he had originally imagined. As for how to conclude matters next, he had never had a good idea.

The final backup plan he had activated at the critical moment, based on how the situation had changed, was this:

Leaving himself no retreat, he would change from accommodating The Fool Uniqueness to advancing as the true Fool!

In any case, it would not be worse than the situation moments ago.