Writing in "Chinese" — meaning the Lord of the Mysteries style — really tires my brain. It's fun to write, I admit. I get to use words, phrasing, and descriptions I normally wouldn't, whether in Devas's POV, someone else's, or even in standard third-person narration.
But maintaining consistency in a writing style that isn't truly "mine" is exhausting. There might be a few typos here and there — let me know if you spot any.
That said, if anyone wants to read 3/7/13 chapters ahead or just support me, you can do so on my (P)(A)(T). If not, I still sincerely thank you from the bottom of my heart for reading my story—thank you so much!
(P)(A)(T)/CalleumArtori.
Anyway, here's the chapter. I'm quite proud of this one.
Good night, everyone, and enjoy the read!
[...]---[...]
Silence reigned over the space above the gray fog for long, drawn-out seconds.
Leaning casually against the high-backed chair, The Fool Klein maintained an unshakable posture, holding the gaze of the terrifying existence before him.
But behind the mask of absolute composure, his mind was racing at a feverish pace.
Wait… the stream! The thought hit him like a steam locomotive. Devas's stream is still live. That means at least fifteen or sixteen thousand people from multiple universes are watching this right now!
A cold, ghostly sweat threatened to bead at the nape of his neck.
He was already acting. There was no turning back. If he suddenly broke character, started stammering, and admitted he was just a freshly awakened Sequence Nine trembling in his boots, the humiliation would be so monumental he'd rather be consumed by madness and die on the spot.
He would die of embarrassment before any monster could kill him!
I have to see this through. No matter what happens, I am the mysterious Mr. Fool. A sudden realization crossed his mind, slightly soothing his panic. Acting… I'm a Seer. Sitting here, embodying an unfathomable deity before a genuine monster and thousands of spectators… isn't this the purest form of "acting"? Could this help me digest the potion faster?
I can say a few cryptic things here and there and play at making predictions too. It's not exactly what a Seer does, but it's close enough…
It was an insane risk, but the possibility of gaining something from this terror was a welcome comfort.
They interacted in a tense, evaluative silence for some time. The unstable, heavy aura of The Human rippled outward, subtly testing the limits of the gray fog that protected The Fool Klein, like waves crashing against a cliff.
An unfathomable sea filled with unimaginable horrors, where each crashing wave briefly revealed what lurked beneath the waters in the form of thousands of mad, delirious eyes.
The cliff, as ancient as—if not older than—the sea itself, stood monumentally still and inert, seemingly indifferent to the ocean's probing, long accustomed to the waves that had battered it since its existence began.
The only one truly affected seemed to be the small figure atop the cliff, looking down at the sea below as his legs trembled.
The Fool Klein was not having an easy time. As much as he himself had compared The Human to an angel, the "Fear Not" part could very well be ignored.
He had been afraid for quite a while now.
Then the environment reacted to the scrutiny of the delirious aura seeping from The Human, like a stone breaking loose from a cliff after being struck by a wave just a little too strong.
Near The Human, one of the floating crimson stars—normally representing dormant connections—began to tremble violently. The weight of The Human's presence—his contained madness and absolute humanity—seemed to distort the very nature of that space.
The star pulsed, collapsing inward before rapidly swelling.
Its crimson color was swallowed by a chaotic glow.
It transformed into a vibrant orange sphere, with a spiral pattern within that made it grotesquely resemble a wide-open eye, identical to The Human's right eye.
The Human tilted his head slightly, his sharp white smile unwavering, though now tinged with curiosity.
He pointed at the anomaly. "What is that?"
The Fool Klein did not so much as blink, though his spiritual heart was pounding frantically.
I don't know! You know perfectly well I'm just a squishy human! Why the hell are you asking me what your bizarre presence just did to my ceiling?!
I don't even know what this place is or how it works!
Maintaining his indifferent, serene tone, Klein answered calmly, using his infallible tactic of telling a lie in a way that sounded like a profound truth. "Even for me, the place in which we find ourselves is, at times, a mystery. There are things that remain mysterious even when one understands their essence. This… is one of them."
He made a calculated pause, gesturing lightly with his hand. "Normally, the crimson stars are what I use to communicate with humans. Perhaps this one wishes to tell you something."
The Human let out a low hum, a sound that echoed through the invisible pillars in a way that was almost insane, scraping against Klein's hearing like rusted metal.
Slowly, the figure of shadows and red tattoos extended his right hand and touched the orange sphere with the tip of his index finger.
The sphere twisted and spun frantically. The image within distorted before focusing on a disturbing scene.
On the wooden floor of a modest bedroom, a young woman writhed in agony. Her brown hair clung to her face with sweat, and she wept as tears of water and blood mingled across her contorted features, screaming while her body convulsed violently.
She wore a simple nightgown of pale blue-white cotton, now wrinkled and stained with sweat and blood, revealing the silhouette of bulges that seemed intent on tearing through her skin from within, moving beneath the fabric like starving parasites.
Beside her, a visibly shorter girl wearing striped flannel pajamas slightly too large for her frame, with disheveled blonde hair and a childlike face twisted by despair and worry, tried desperately to hold her and calm her down, without success.
Her small hands clutched uselessly at the rough fabric of her friend's pajamas as scarlet moonlight bathed them both, transforming the domestic scene into a tableau of visceral horror.
The Fool Klein narrowed his eyes. The room's illumination came from the window, where rays of purely scarlet moonlight poured inside.
A Blood Moon… Klein immediately recognized it, sifting through the fragmented memories of the original Klein.
The moon of his current world was naturally red, but this was different.
What appeared in the vision was a true "Blood Moon"—a spiritual exacerbation event. But something seemed wrong. From the original Klein's memories, a Blood Moon should not occur so soon.
The last one had not been that long ago, and even if it was an irregular phenomenon, the cycle should take much longer...
Before The Human could question the strangeness of the scene, Klein took the initiative.
"The moon of this world is naturally red," Klein explained, his voice echoing calmly. "However, in a random and inconsistent manner, what is known as a Blood Moon occurs. Something I imagine you are familiar with."
The Human let out a low, coarse grunt, agreeing without words. Just two weeks earlier, in Terraria, he had dealt with the violent frenzy of a Blood Moon.
His heterochromatic eyes remained fixed on the image of the agonized woman. The smile had vanished from his face. "What does it cause here? And why is it inconsistent?"
Why are you asking me things you know I don't know?! Klein complained inwardly, mocking his own helplessness.
Even so, he shaped the perfect answer. "It intensifies spirituality and may induce madness and loss of control in some individuals." Klein folded his hands over the bronze table. He wasn't entirely certain of those words, but what little he knew made his spirituality inform him he wasn't far off.
"As for its inconsistency… the Moon is tied to the domain of a certain Goddess."
Klein did not dare speak any of Evernight's titles aloud at that moment.
Finally, he concluded, "And I, with all that I know, would not presume to claim I understand the mind of a woman. Would you?"
The Human let out a rough sound that seemed a mix of amusement and subtle agreement.
The lines of his mouth twisted briefly. "You can't help her?"
"No," Klein replied, cold and direct, forcibly controlling his emotions. "She is losing control. The potion in her body is consuming her humanity. Perhaps, if I brought her here, to our side, I could suppress the process using the isolation of this space. But this orange star… does not respond to my will."
If I could help, I already would have! Klein shouted in his own mind. I can't connect to this orange star! Or do you think I enjoy sitting here watching a woman suffer until she turns into an aberrant monster?!
Klein's heart ached.
He did not consider himself a hero, nor did he wish to be one, but seeing someone suffer so viscerally without being able to help deeply unsettled him.
The Human fell completely silent. Through the orange sphere, the woman's screams echoed, tearing through the silence of the gray fog.
"No… I don't want to…" she sobbed, her nails scraping against the wooden floor until they bled. Veins beneath her skin writhed like worms. "I don't want to be a monster… I want to stay human… let me stay human…"
The insane red iris in The Human's left eye glowed dangerously. That plea struck him far deeper than it should have—deeper than he had expected.
His right eye, with its orange iris, pulsed almost like a heart.
The Human raised his right hand once more. Across his skin of shadows, the symbols, marks, and red veins boiled and rapidly rearranged, forming a clear, pulsating phrase that coiled from his wrist to the tips of his fingers:
I am human, nothing human is foreign to me.
Without hesitation, he thrust his hand directly into the orange star, ignoring the barriers of space and time, reaching across an impossible distance toward the suffering woman who was desperately trying to survive.
[…]
Somewhere in Backlund, in the cramped apartment that smelled of cheap herbs and printer's ink, the air was frigid.
Fors Wall writhed on the floor.
The pale blue-white nightgown that had once been spotless was now wrinkled and damp, clinging to her body as darkened veins bulged beneath her pallid skin, visible through the thin fabric.
Delirious murmurs slipped from her bloodied lips—the same murmurs that echoed madly in her ears, making her mind collapse further with each passing second, shattering every thought into shards of glass.
At her side, Xio Derecha desperately tried to hold her friend's shoulders, tears streaming down her youthful face.
She wore simple, functional striped flannel pajamas, the sleeves rolled up as she used all her physical strength to try to anchor Fors to reality.
"Hang on, Fors! Please, don't give in!" Xio shouted, her voice thick with helplessness in the face of a horror she couldn't fight.
If only it were something she could punch, she would have helped!
The room was steeped in deep shadows, broken only by the uncurtained window.
In the night sky, a colossal full moon—one that had no right to be there on this date—hung like an omen of death.
There wasn't supposed to be a full moon tonight. Just minutes ago, it hadn't been that large.
But the most terrifying thing wasn't the moon itself.
It was the crimson rays that slithered everywhere.
The red light seemed to have gained life and consciousness.
The moonbeams twisted in bizarre, unnatural ways, crawling across walls, buildings, streets, the few people outside, and everything around them like grotesque limbs or lunar tentacles in a maddened frenzy, as though they were ceaselessly searching for something.
At the center of that room, Fors's body reached its limit.
Her darkened veins writhed so violently they nearly tore through her skin and lacerated her flesh.
The phalanges of her fingers cracked, lengthening at unnatural angles as the skin of her arms began to lose its opacity, taking on a translucent, gelatinous texture that revealed flesh and blood writhing grotesquely beneath.
Her once-vivid light blue eyes were now completely unfocused, rolling back into a sea of white streaked with burst blood vessels and tiny red specks—mirrors of the great moon above.
Convulsions wracked her body as her biological structure twisted and reshaped into something abominable, her control slipping away.
Inside her mind, chaos reigned supreme.
Delusions echoed like needles driven into her brain, accompanied by incessant murmurs filled with pain, despair, and forbidden knowledge dragging her toward the abyss. Every rational thought was ground to dust, mixed with the delirium now spilling from her own bloodied lips, forming a mad symphony.
Then, in the span of a single second, the madness ceased.
It was not pushed away or destroyed. Even on the brink of becoming a monster, Fors could perceive that as her thoughts trembled back toward clarity.
Instead, the madness was redirected.
The crushing weight afflicting her, the mutations and the corruption of her soul, were suddenly pulled away from her being—as if someone else had stepped in and taken that entire ocean of horrors upon themselves, bearing the colossal burden on their own shoulders so she would not have to.
For a moment, Fors felt embraced and protected from everything.
Amid the murmurs and delusions that had once torn her apart—and now felt more like the distant chatter of a crowd, an ignorable white noise similar to when she and Xio went to the market on a busy morning—one single voice stood out.
Fors did not know where the voice came from, nor did she recognize it, but it carried a strange tenderness, a protective warmth even amid that lingering trace of madness.
It was a male voice—deep, hoarse, tinged with an ancient, predatory authority that made her subconscious scream in warning that it was dangerous, yet somehow sounded incredibly comforting in that critical moment.
The voice said:
["Do you want to live? To remain human?"]
It was as though the voice could do nothing—could not truly act—without Fors's permission and answer.
A choice cast into the void.
Fors had no strength to respond aloud. Her throat was ruined and torn. She could not even move her neck to nod.
But she screamed her answer mentally, pouring every fiber of her will toward that voice.
I do! Please, I do!
She did not care whether the voice belonged to an Evil God, an abyssal demon lord, or some ancient, mysterious, horrific existence.
In that moment, beneath the dominion of that maddening moon and the delirious whispers that had haunted her ever since she drank the Apprentice potion, she desperately wanted to be saved.
["Then repeat it—speak the words—and I will be able to save you."]
In the next instant, Fors realized that the knowledge of an exact phrase had appeared in her mind, engraved there as though it had always belonged to her.
With titanic effort, she forced her unfocused eyes shut and clasped her trembling fingers over her chest, still lying on the cold wooden floor, curling into an instinctive posture of prayer.
The original phrase in her mind dictated: "I am human, nothing human is foreign to me." Yet a mystical intuition—a desperate survival instinct of her spirituality—warned her.
She was not the subject of that majestic declaration. She needed to address the one who was taking her pain upon himself. She needed to invoke him, to anchor him to herself.
She needed to call out to him.
With a broken, hoarse voice drenched in desperation and blossoming with brilliant hope, Fors whispered, altering the words and instinctively adding two lines drawn from her own mystical perception—a fleeting insight that extended her awareness several sequences beyond her current level of power, something she had never possessed before and would never possess again.
It was connected to and driven directly by the purest Truth (Aletheia) of the being who spoke to her—about the one who was saving her.
Fors then spoke the words with fragile hope:
"The Human to whom nothing human is foreign;"
"The Sin born of sin, crowned in blood;"
"The One who remains when the gods fall."
As soon as she uttered the final syllable, absolute clarity struck her mind. The paralyzing pain evaporated, the mutations receded, and she suddenly felt weightless.
Outside, the crimson rays of moonlight twisted violently, as if they had sensed something, searching everywhere like boneless appendages.
In the end, they found nothing—and continued their hunt…
Breathing hard, Fors didn't know whether she wanted to open her eyes. She was afraid of what she might find, whether it was something good or not.
At last, she decided to face whatever fate awaited her.
Her body still trembling faintly, she counted to ten in her mind and slowly opened her eyes, almost hesitantly, hoping—wishing—to see the worn ceiling of her apartment in Backlund, to wake up in the morning and discover that everything had been nothing more than a cruel, horrible nightmare.
The beige ceiling with its peeling, slightly dirty paint was not there.
Instead, blinking repeatedly, Fors realized she was suspended in midair in an unfamiliar place.
She was being held firmly by the back of the collar of her pale blue-white silk nightshirt—now completely clean of sweat and blood—dangling exactly like a fragile kitten carried by its mother.
The thin fabric, trimmed with subtle lace at the collar, stretched under her body weight, while the loose pajama pants of the same color swayed lightly in the air.
Her legs were still curled instinctively toward her body, and her hands remained clasped near her chest, trembling faintly.
Fors looked exactly like a frightened little cat.
Shock replaced her earlier despair and tangled with her current relief as she slowly looked around in complete confusion.
The environment was surreal.
An infinite expanse shrouded in deep, ancient, silent gray fog stretched in every direction. Above, there was no ceiling, no lunar sky—only endless darkness dotted with strange crimson "stars."
A few meters away stood a colossal, ancient bronze table.
At its head, seated upon a high-backed chair, was a mysterious figure enveloped in thick gray fog, observing her in absolute silence—like an untouchable, enigmatic deity seated at the summit of the world.
And the one holding her by the collar…
Fors slowly turned her head to the left and looked up, feeling the cold, solid touch of the fingers gripping her in an oddly careful manner, as if holding something exceedingly fragile.
Her light blue eyes, still damp with tears of agony, met a pair of heterochromatic irises that seemed to contain two distinct universes.
The right eye was a deep orange, warm and sunlike, radiating protective gentleness; the left was a red abyss, vibrating with delirious madness that seemed to whisper promises of insanity.
Above her, the face staring down bore masculine contours and an inhuman presence.
The skin was made of dense shadows, covered in symbols, marks, and blood-red veins.
The figure was smiling—a line of impossibly white teeth, each etched with tiny, straight golden lines.
It was a warm smile. Extremely gentle. Relieved.
What a beautiful smile…
Wait—what?! Where am I?! The thought echoed hollowly through her dazed and confused mind. Who are these… beings?
Fors shrank in on herself even more, drawing her limbs closer, her eyes darting between the one holding her and the figure seated at the bronze table.
What is this place? Was I… was I rescued or abducted by Evil Gods?!
No—I was saved!
…But now what? What happens to me?…
Curled in her suspended catlike posture, her body still trembling from the remnants of aborted mutation, Fors did not dare make a single sound, fearing that any noise might shatter whatever spell was keeping her whole.
The Human tilted his neck with a dry crack, turning his heterochromatic gaze toward the figure on the bronze throne, while Fors continued dangling from his fingers, small and fragile.
The sharp-toothed smile on The Human's face softened into something more refined. "Thank you for allowing me to bring her into your domain, Mr. Fool."
Leaning back in his high-backed chair, The Fool Klein merely inclined his head slowly, inscrutably. "It was nothing."
I did nothing! Absolutely nothing! Klein screamed inwardly, feeling his cheeks tingle beneath the disguise of gray fog.
You just reached into the orange star, grabbed that woman from wherever she was, and pulled her here by yourself! That's not how bringing people above the gray fog works! I'm the owner of this place, and even I don't do things in such an absurd way!
Of course, if The Human had asked permission beforehand, Klein would never have refused, given that the goal was clearly to save the poor girl's life. But the absolute disregard for the laws of mysticism that Klein was only beginning to learn—and for his vague understanding of the gray fog—left him stunned.
But I have to admit… Klein sighed mentally, maintaining the posture of an indifferent deity. You're truly built to be a streamer. What's it been? One, two minutes since you were summoned and all this madness has already happened? If I weren't directly involved and fearing for my own life, I'd admit this would be first-class entertainment to watch.
Seizing the brief moment of calm, Klein raised his left hand and, with extreme subtlety, tapped his glabella twice.
Earlier, he had not dared use his Spirit Vision on The Human, with the very real and justified fear that his eyes might melt or his soul be corrupted simply by seeing something he was not meant to see in an existence of such a high level.
He knew that, as someone from "outside," The Human moved according to laws different from mysticism—but still… It was better not to stare into the abyss, whether that abyss was in your backyard or your neighbor's.
But the new guest was another matter.
Klein's Spirit Vision activated, revealing Fors's aura.
What he saw was a chaotic painting: the colors in her astral body were still murky and fluctuating, marked by deep purple and dark blue that denoted absolute terror and near-lethal exhaustion.
However, the red and black of corruption and searing pain that had threatened to consume her before were rapidly dissipating, replaced by a faint green that indicated safety and recovery.
She's terrified, on the verge of a stress-induced breakdown, but the mutation has completely stopped. It's a miracle she didn't go fully insane, Klein noted inwardly, feeling a pang of empathy for the poor soul who had just been—technically—kidnapped.
While The Fool Klein grumbled silently within his own thoughts, The Human shifted his attention back to the woman he still held aloft.
The sun-orange eye and the abyssal red eye focused on her.
The aura of madness receded even further, becoming more contained and controlled, allowing The Human to ask in a hoarse, deep voice that was nonetheless incredibly gentle and careful:
"Are you alright, Fors?"
Still with her knees tucked to her chest and her hands clasped like little paws, Fors blinked. Instinctively—almost hypnotized by the duality of those eyes—she slowly nodded.
Then the jammed gear in her mind finally turned.
He knows my name?…
It was in that exact millisecond that the numbing shock finally wore off.
The reality of the situation fell upon Fors Wall like a lead anvil. Her heart pounded—not just because of the bizarre environment, but because of the perfectly clear memory of how absurdly close she had been to losing control.
She had felt her own skin beginning to melt, her bones cracking. She had been a hair's breadth away from turning into an irrational, grotesque monster beneath the light of that maddened Blood Moon.
And she had only been saved by a miracle… because she had spoken words.
Fors's light blue eyes widened. She finally realized what she had said. The three lines she had uttered in desperation were not merely beautiful phrases or empty prayers.
They were a Honorific Name.
Three precise lines, pointing to a single existence.
In the mystical world she knew only superficially, Honorific Names structured like that belonged exclusively to true deities—such as the Seven Orthodox Gods worshiped by the Churches, like the Goddess of Evernight, the Lord of the Storms, or the God of Steam and Machinery.
She had, instinctively, formulated and recited the Honorific Name of the existence currently holding her by the back of her nightshirt.
The realization of what each of those lines implied struck her head-on.
The first spoke of absolute humanity. The second, of being crowned in blood and born of sin.
But it was the meaning of the final line that made Fors's blood run completely cold and every hair on her body stand on end.
The one who remains when the gods fall...
If the being now gazing at her with that gentle and terrifying smile was The One who would still stand even after the death of all orthodox gods…
Fors did not dare continue that train of thought.
Seeing that Fors was physically stable and the mutation had been suppressed, The Human moved in an erratic, almost hallucinatory manner. He pulled out the chair to the right—the one farthest from the head of the table where The Fool Klein sat—and set her down carefully.
Fors sat instinctively, curling up and pulling her knees against her silk shirt, still trying to process everything that had just happened.
Out of the corner of her eye, her frightened gaze shifted from the shadowed, tattooed figure to the entity wrapped in gray fog at the head of the bronze table.
Their interaction moments ago… had been respectful. They had spoken as equals.
Fors's mind spiraled in panic.
If 'He' is an existence of that level, and he treats the owner of this place with such deference… I've fallen into the middle of a secret meeting between two mysterious gods!
The Human walked to the opposite end of the long bronze table and sat directly across from The Fool Klein. Resting his arms on the tabletop, he looked at Fors to his right.
"What happened for you to lose control like that?" he asked, his deep voice echoing through the silent hall.
Before she could stammer out an answer, he paused briefly and adjusted his posture. "My apologies. I'm new to this world—and to matters of the… what did you call them again?"
The Fool Klein, recognizing the perfect opportunity to reinforce his unfathomable image—at least in Fors's eyes—and to explain how this world worked to The Human, interjected in a calm, monotone voice devoid of fluctuation.
"Beyonders," Klein said, leaning back in his high-backed chair.
"They are humans who consume potions made from extraordinary characteristics to gain powers, divided into pathways and Sequences. The price of that power is the constant threat of madness and loss of control."
He was merely repeating what he had learned in one week and four days of transmigration, yet his tone made it sound like he was reciting a universal law he himself had authored.
Fors swallowed hard as she listened.
'He' admitted he isn't a Beyonder?
Her thoughts churned chaotically.
That's impossible. An ordinary human could never break through space, suppress the corruption of a loss of control, and ignore the madness of a Blood Moon! If 'He' isn't a Beyonder and doesn't use potion-based power… then 'He' is… I have no idea!
Fors realized she lacked even the necessary knowledge to complete that line of reasoning.
When The Fool Klein finished his brief explanation, the table sank into heavy silence.
Gathering every last drop of courage in her trembling body, Fors uncrossed her legs and adopted the most respectful posture she could manage while seated.
"M-my name is Fors Wall," she said, her voice still slightly hoarse, lowering her head in a submissive gesture. "I… I am deeply grateful that you saved my life. And I thank Your Excellency for permitting my presence here."
She hesitated for a second, survival instinct battling curiosity.
"If… if a mere human may ask… how should I address Your Graces?"
The Human rested his chin on one hand, the sharp white smile returning softly, tinged with faint exasperation for some reason. "Devas. Just Devas. No titles."
As Fors processed the terrifying simplicity of that answer—and the fact that she now knew the true name of a "god"—The Fool Klein's attention shifted slightly.
His eyes, hidden behind the gray fog, were not focused on Fors's face but on the chair she had just occupied.
He noticed that on the back of the high-backed chair, the mysterious symbols and patterns formed by the bright red stars were changing rapidly.
In just a second or two, the back of the chair became covered in layers upon layers of doors. Countless illusory doors overlapped one another, creating a sense of spatial distortion.
Doors… Klein filed the critical information away in his mind. Then he returned his gaze to the terrified young woman.
"I am The Fool," Klein replied, his tone serene and distant as the vacuum of space itself. "You may call me Mr. Fool."
Fors nodded quickly, not daring to question the names. "Mr. Fool. Lord Devas." She took a deep breath and answered the earlier question.
"I… I suffer from a chronic condition. Every month, during the full moon, I hear murmurs, screams, and delusions in my head. They try to drive me insane. When a Blood Moon occurs, the effect is infinitely worse—almost unbearable and far longer-lasting."
She clenched the pale blue fabric of her shirt.
"But what happened today… it wasn't supposed to happen. The moon outside, exactly five minutes ago, was just a normal crescent. I wasn't prepared. The sky changed in an instant. The moon became full and blood-red in a matter of seconds. I was completely caught off guard and… without mental preparation, my body gave in."
As Fors finished her explanation, Klein, under the protection of the gray fog, slowly turned his face toward The Human.
It wasn't a full moon five minutes ago? As in the exact moment I summoned Devas into this world?…
Klein's face remained expressionless, but his mind was shouting logical accusations.
A Blood Moon occurring out of nowhere might be dismissed as an unfortunate mystical coincidence. But the entire lunar phase changing from crescent to full moon within a minute? Exactly when a terrifying existence radiating insanity is summoned into this world?
I may not have watched the stream for that long, but even I know you have some kind of lethal issue with the moon, Devas. Not to mention your absolute disdain for deities!
Klein folded his fingers atop the bronze table.
There is no possible way this lunar anomaly isn't caused by your presence… and by extension, mine as well, since I'm the one who summoned you into this world—and because of that, she almost died…
A pang of guilt pierced Klein as that realization settled in.
"I'm sorry."
"My apologies."
Two male voices sounded at once, like a coordinated performance. Both The Fool Klein and Devas turned toward Fors and offered their apologies.
Fors had absolutely no idea how to react.
[...]---[...]
It's honestly impressive how grotesquely well Devas synergizes with Lord of the Mysteries. Of course, that applies in both good and bad ways — especially in the more insane and messed-up sense.
That said, Fors has entered the game much earlier than she should have! And a few Abrahams probably died or got pregnant before going mad...
Well, coincidences are what they are. It's not Devas's fault that 95% of all universes have something seriously fucked about them. In this case, it's a bit more literal. Anyone who's read LOTM probably knows what happens — even if they might not know why.
It's not a loophole in Devas's title; that part is working as intended. It's a consequence of the way Devas pulled himself into that world.
Klein is one of the characters I have the most fun writing. The guy is just that good — seriously.
I'll take into account the changes that having the Stream will bring to the LOTM canon, so don't worry. The presence of Miss Magician and Mr... well, saying Devas's nickname would be a spoiler for the next chapter.
I won't drag this out any longer. Good night, everyone, and enjoy the read!
PS: It's kind of funny how I still keep getting low ratings because of the first chapters of the story. I know they were pretty rough—I literally started writing on impulse, and it's my first story—but were they really that bad?