"???" — that was Vincent.
"!!!" — that was Xio.
Vincent blinked, confirmed from the man's expression that the "Mr. A" he was addressing was him and not the Blood-Drinking Bracer on his wrist, and felt a familiar sensation of the world pulling slightly out of alignment.
When did I become Mr. A?
Or — was it that Aurora Order members were wired to see whoever carried a mystical item made from Mr. A's Beyonder characteristic as being, in some meaningful sense, Mr. A?
He ran the logic quickly. The most likely explanation was the cross — or more precisely, the True Creator.
"Please come in," Vincent said, gesturing toward the door.
The gesture rendered Xio completely speechless. I... must not have slept properly last night.
I brought this man here specifically so Madam Natasha could help me — but Madam Natasha has turned into Mr. A? How?
Inside, Vincent spread his hands apologetically. "A group of uninvited visitors came through and turned everything upside down this morning. Forgive the state of things."
He gestured toward the sofa, and once the man sat, gave Xio a meaningful look. She practically flew over to stand behind Vincent, her eyes a mixture of confusion and barely-contained panic.
Madam, your connections are extraordinarily complicated! You're entangled with two different evil gods simultaneously?! Isn't that a bit much?
Wait.
Am I... also in the same boat now?
A chill ran down Xio's spine. I feel like I've been walking further and further down the wrong road without noticing.
"The subordinate Mr. A chose," the man said, glancing at Xio. "Is she a simpleton?"
Xio: "..."
Vincent gave a diplomatic cough. "Is it... the Lord who sent you to find me?"
"Indeed!"
The man pressed a hand to his chest, his expression turning deeply reverent. "The Lord sent down a divine revelation — that the Mr. A responsible for Backlund has been replaced by one of His chosen. He sent me to ask your direction."
"It seems the True Creator has truly taken you as a fellow traveller," Bernadette said quietly inside his mind, "a kindred spirit."
"Short-term, that's not necessarily a bad thing, is it?"
"You weren't nearly this calm earlier when you were worried about the Evernight Goddess noticing your spirit communication."
"That's different," Vincent said. "Being noticed by the True Creator is already a fact. Hey — I was actually thinking of asking the True Creator about your father through this connection. But if you're going to be like that, I won't bother."
Bernadette: "..."
He looked back at the man. "What is it the Lord wants to ask my direction on?"
"The descent plan for Tingen."
Memories surged. "You are... Mr. Z?"
In the original story, the Tingen descent event had a deep connection to an Aurora Order member known as Mr. Z — he was the one who had indirectly engineered the whole thing.
"So the Lord revealed this to you as well."
Mr. Z maintained his look of absolute devotion. "Then, Mr. A — regarding this plan, what is your instruction...?"
"..."
Vincent took a moment. He couldn't quite fathom what the True Creator was actually trying to accomplish with this, and even less what the True Creator's present state was. From their brief previous contact, the True Creator had seemed to be in a state of active madness. So why was He now issuing a clear divine revelation and sending Mr. Z to seek instruction?
He ran through what he knew of the Tingen incident.
The original chain of events had been engineered by the hack writer Ince Zangwill, who used the descent plot to obtain Saint Selena's Ashes from behind Tingen's Chanis Gate, enabling his own advancement to demigod. To do it, he'd leveraged the Aurora Order's descent ritual — while in the deeper background, it was all part of the Evernight Goddess and Ince's own scheming, and simultaneously part of the arrangement shaping Klein's fate.
The True Creator's descent itself, at the deepest level, had functioned as a tool — manipulated by multiple parties from the beginning.
So then — if the True Creator suddenly opted out of this "game," how would the Tingen incident unfold?
"Walk me through your current plan first."
"Of course."
Mr. Z's plan was, in its essence, quite simple: use Lanevus — an exceptionally rare vessel capable of hosting a descent — to receive the True Creator into this world, helping the Lord escape the Forsaken Land of the Gods and let His light fall again upon the land.
The complication was that Lanevus had somehow learned the truth of what was planned for him, and had used some means to transfer the deity's "seed" into his fiancée Megose, impregnating her with what would effectively be a god-child.
This didn't change the fact of Lanevus being a designated vessel — but it pushed back the descent's timeline considerably.
"So your plan has already slipped out of your control?"
Mr. Z's face blazed with fervour. "It matters very little. The god-child's arrival will serve as the Lord's proclamation to the world, heralding what is to come!"
"..."
Vincent considered carefully. "What if I told you to halt the plan entirely?"
The fervour on Mr. Z's face flickered. Confusion replaced it. "Why?"
"Because your plan cannot genuinely bring the Lord back. It will only put the Seven Gods on alert, giving them advance warning to prepare."
"..."
After a silence, Mr. Z shook his head. "Lanevus allowing his fiancée to carry the god-child was already an unforeseen variable. As time passes, the god-child's arrival is inevitable. I cannot stop it."
"Not even with the Lord's intervention?"
"That is..."
Vincent said inwardly, "Bernadette — your Sequence 2 advancement ritual requires averting a disaster involving high-level powers. Would the god-child of the True Creator count as a high-level power disaster?"
"Of course."
Bernadette thought it through. "This directly involves a deity. And once a god-child descends — setting aside the inherent destructive potential — the corruption it carries from its divine parent alone would make it a terrifying source of contamination. Left unchecked, it could easily level a city the size of Tingen."
"Then if we successfully prevent this disaster, would your ritual be complete?"
Bernadette sounded genuinely surprised. "You're... intending to handle this? I should point out — the descent of a god's offspring, particularly one from an outer deity like the True Creator, is not something to treat lightly. Even I can't guarantee I'd be able to stop it with absolute certainty."
Also true.
And there was still Ince Zangwill lurking in the background with his quill, pulling strings. Vincent had no intention of going head-to-head with any of them directly — that was a basic principle he held. He wasn't about to dive headlong into Tingen's affairs.
"But what if we snuff out the problem before it fully ignites? Would the ritual still count?"
Before Bernadette could answer, he turned back to Mr. Z. "Have the god-child — the mother, I mean — moved out of Tingen first. The rest, I'll petition the Lord about."
Mr. Z fell immediately into uncertainty. In his mind, his plan was a masterwork of flawless design. Talk of "alarming the Seven Gods" barely even registered as a concern — in short, his mind simply did not work very well. This was a shared trait among most "Secrets Suppliants" of the Aurora Order — and the root cause was the god they worshipped: the True Creator, whose own mind was equally broken.
Suddenly, a shadow fell across the room. A bone-deep chill followed it. The cross on Vincent's wrist had opened its eye again, unprompted — the brass pupil rolling rapidly in its socket before fixing, hard and unblinking, on Mr. Z.
The next second, Mr. Z collapsed to his knees and began coughing in violent spasms, retching up chunks of bright red flesh. He pressed his forehead to the floor and began chanting rapidly.
Xio, watching this, was shaking so hard she could barely keep herself upright. The only thing she could do was squeeze her eyes shut and remind herself over and over: I saw nothing. I know nothing. Yes — I'm a simpleton.
After a long moment, the eye on the cross slid closed. The shadow and the cold retreated with it.
Mr. Z, still prostrate on the floor, alternated between praising the True Creator and eating the flesh he'd coughed up. Then he climbed to his feet and stood respectfully to one side. "Mr. A. I will have the god-child moved out of Tingen as swiftly as possible."
"..."
His sudden compliance left Vincent genuinely shaken. The True Creator really does treat me like family that much? Because we sang half a chorus of "Katyusha" together, He's decided we're comrades?
This... is absolutely wonderful.
To be continued…
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