Chapter Text
Adam woke up.
In any other situation this would have been quite ordinary, if one ignored that Adam did not need sleep in the first place. Now though, the problem was that 'He' was supposed to be completely and irreversibly dead, with no chance of resurrection. 'He' had turned into dust and completely disappeared, and 'His' spirit should have done so as well. 'He' absolutely should not have waken up like this. Yet here 'He' was, almost certainly not dead.
The first thought that came to his mind was that Mysteries had, for some reason, decided to spare 'Him', completely disregarding the risks. It was a ridiculous thought, and almost immediately shut down as 'He' came back to his senses. No, Mysteries would not have risked the whole earth for someone. Not for Adam, at the very least. Perhaps if it was for the god's dear Tarot club. If all of them had perished, it might have caused some similar developments, but even then it was a little uncertain. Even for a Visionary. But no, it wouldn't make sense for mysteries to have kept 'Him' alive. There was nothing more than an alliance between them. If anything, they had been, enemies before, if only for a short period of time, and the alliance was born strictly from necessity. The other had made it very clear 'He' hated —despised, even— the way Adam operated, after all. Mysteries would have not done something so irrational, no matter how much 'He' valued 'His' humanity, it wouldn't have been a reason to spare Adam against all sense.
Yet here 'He' was, alive, in spite of all the ways it made no sense. If 'He' didn't so vividly remember a sword piercing his chest, 'He' might have thought that this was a dream made by Amanises. Even so, something felt wrong. Adam quickly realized what is was. 'He' had gone back to sequence 1, Author.
In a way, it was a good thing. 'He' no longer had to constantly fight for the right to be in control of his own mind, not with the True Creator, and most definitely not with the Primordial God Almighty. On the other hand, 'He' would need strength, no matter the situation 'He' was in now. Even more so, as 'He' was missing information. 'He' quickly placated himself and moved on to try and see where 'He' was, something 'He' should have done immediately after waking up as an angel of the spectator pathway, instead of letting his confusion get in the way.
'He' was in the middle of a forest, likely in the southern part of the northern continent if the type of plants was anything to go by. The forest itself looked very normal. Something they hadn't been for a while, ever since the apocalypse started. No strange corrupted animals in sight, only a couple of ordinary rabbits. Some more points for the likelihood of the time travel, then. At the same time, the location itself didn't really have anything that strictly opposed the dream theory either. Only his memories, and those could be altered. Even if it would be extremely hard to do so to 'Him', it shouldn't be dismissed as a possibility. In theory, 'His' memories for the whole of the apocalypse, and even everything after his own apotheosis ritual, could be fake. Going down in sequences was rare even in the lower sequences. For Great Old Ones, —something 'He' had been, if only briefly— it was almost impossible. So, in theory, it would be more plausible that 'He' never advanced to Visionary in the first place. However, 'He' still judged that would be less likely than the other theories.
'He' shouldn't waste time on pondering on questions 'He' would not find answers to. Adam decided to head towards the closest city in order to pinpoint his location.
Loen Kingdom, around year 1349, late June to early July. That was what his observations pointed to. Still nothing that would clear up his situation at all. At this point, it would likely be safe to say 'He' would not suddenly figure out everything, and so it would be wise to move on. What should 'He' do now?
If 'He' was in a dream, nothing would have any kind of effect on anything. There wasn't really anything 'He' wanted to do, especially since 'He' was no longer merged with the True Creator. 'He' didn't have any spontaneous desires for revenge or the like that came with having humanity. If it truly was a dream, there would be no reason to try and change anything as nothing would be affected in reality.
In the case that 'He' truly was somehow transferred to the past, 'He' didn't know how much 'He' even would want to change. Most things had gone at least well enough in the end. Mysteries was born, Amanises had become a Great Old One, and such. They had plenty of powerful allies, but it still wasn't quite enough when the apocalypse began. Adam did think the others did still manage to protect the Earth in the end, and while it would have been more optimal with less sacrifices, 'He' supposed, as long as the Earth was safe it was fine. Sure, it might have gone better if Mysteries had had less issues during 'His' apotheosis ritual, and as such 'He' should probably talk with Amon. Amon wasn't too suited to become the Lord of the Mysteries, anyway, because of the high risk of Celestial Worthy's resurrection. The True Creator was also rather problematic at this point of time. 'He' had many strong followers, but before 'They' had fused in the Forsaken Land of Gods, those people mostly just dwindled the amount of strong future defenders of Earth. On the other hand, it wasn't like Adam could attempt the fusing before 'He' became a sequence 0 himself. Or well, 'He' certainly could do so, but that meant the True Creator would have the upper hand, and might doom everything, which wasn't a risk 'He' was ready to take.
Why meddle more than strictly necessary, if the end result would be fine without? By not touching the main events, 'He' could be decently sure of the developments at all times. There wasn't anything that required him to do a single thing yet. 'He' could simply observe the events as a spectator before starting to slowly guide them towards his preferred direction.
He activated psychological invisibility and walked around in the city, simply observing his surroundings. It was almost strange how peaceful and calm the life in the city was. Far were the low-sequence beyonder fights that were more than common in the future, and only became more and more frequent as the apocalypse approached. Becoming a wild beyonder was still quite rare at this point of time, as potions were still significantly safer to consume, meaning that by far most beyonders who weren't in the lowest sequences belonged to some kind of organization, official or not. Most of the organizations didn't cause much trouble in public, either because they existed to protect, or because they didn't want to be hunted down by the Orthodox churches. Except the Aurora Order, that was.
Mysteries' Tarot Club would be formed around this time, now that 'He' thought of it. 'He' had to admit, they were likely one of the greatest help below the level of true gods during the apocalypse. Well, 'He' supposed such was to be expected, as they were likely the only group that was personally close to a Great Old One like Mysteries.
Adam had nothing better to do, so 'He' thought 'He' might as well go to a larger city. Backlund was the closest one, so that was where 'He' headed.
Backlund was the same as ever. Part of the city was clean, luxurious, and spacious. It was where all the nobles lived. Another part was cramped and dirty, and had some kind of small accident once in a while. There had been efforts — for the most part by the Church of Evernight— to improve the living conditions of the poorer areas. However, they were very limited as it was difficult to try and fix such things in a short time. A large part of the inhabitants there weren't even believers of the church, making it harder to justify spending so much money on them. Instead of monetary help, they had built schools to try and improve the level of education of the children. That would make it possible for them to find higher paying jobs and raise their own station by their own merit.
In Backlund, like all other major cities in the Loen Kingdom, were located cathedrals of all the major religions of the kingdom. Leodero's, Amanises' and Stiano's faiths each were visible in the everyday life of the citizens. However, unlike most cities, Backlund also had a cathedral of Lilith's faith. There were only a few people who could be identified as 'Her' believers, unlike all the other churches, as the Earth Mother's church wasn't a mainstream religion in Loen. In fact, they didn't even have an official beyonder organization like the other faiths had.
Adam supposed that 'He' could have felt anger, walking the streets and seeing Leodero's influence everywhere, but there was nothing. Not even an urge to absorb the charasteristics of the other. It felt strange, adjusting back to life as only Adam, the way 'He' had been before merging with the True Creator. 'He' had become used to the occasional strong feelings of the other, although 'He' had still ignored them for the most part. Such strong emotions, whether they were genuinely 'His' or not, would sooner or later get in the way of a plan or another. Something that was completely unacceptable, as a single failure could lead to the doom of the Earth as a whole.
It was inconvenient to once again have to go through the adjustment period once 'He' eventually merged with the True Creator again, but some things couldn't be changed completely, not even with the powers of Visionary. The effects could be delayed, but pushing them back would create more backlash in the future. Cues weren't a long term solution, as they could be broken free from in an extremely bad moment. Advancing much sooner in the timeline wouldn't do either, as it wasn't sure if the ritual conditions would apply for things 'He' simply knew would happen, rather than having orchestrated them 'Himself'.
While having these thoughts, a carriage of the Machinery Hivemind passed by. All of a sudden Adam got the feeling that someone was calling 'His' name from inside it. Repeatedly, and very loudly. It was a sealed artifact of some kind, 'He' found out after focusing for a second. The feeling continued on, starting to feel rather like someone was violently ringing a bell at a high frequency inside his head. It was starting to become annoying, and persisted on, despite Adam's best efforts to ignore it. Finally, 'He' relented, turning 'His' attention to the item in question. The feeling was extremely familiar, though 'He' couldn't quite place 'His' finger on the reason right away.
This situation was something new, 'He' realized. There was no way 'He' would have forgotten someone essentially sending a ton of spam messages that 'He' couldn't ignore. Was it triggered by 'His' arrival to Backlund, being close enough to the carriage carrying the item, or was it related to 'His' inexplicable appearance into this place? With psychological invisibility turned to the fullest, 'He' followed the carriage, searching for answers.
Once the carriage stopped and the official beyonders stepped out of it, Adam used mass hypnotism to make every one of them completely zone out and forget the next five minutes.
'He' stepped closer to the person, presumably the captain or person in charge of the unit, who was holding the item, that was still figuratively screaming 'His' name. It was a mirror. The mirror of Mysteries, in fact. 'He' really should have recognized it from the call. Words appeared on the glass as the artifact changed hands into Adam's.
"Arrodes, the great magic mirror, in your service."