Astral Realm—
Within the Harvest Divine Kingdom of the Earth Mother.
The moment Edward stepped onto that fertile golden land, his knees buckled and he stumbled forward, collapsing face-first into the sea of ripened wheat and rice. He let out a low groan, then simply rolled onto his back, lying there among the soft stalks, staring blankly at the golden sky above.
Before long, the Earth Mother appeared within his field of vision. Her face was serene, lips curved in a gentle smile.
"I knew Amon wouldn't take you down that easily."
Edward forced himself to sit up, every muscle trembling with fatigue.
"Unfortunately," he said hoarsely, "Amon did succeed. I'm no longer the Lord of the Sefirah Castle—and honestly, I might die at any moment."
The Earth Mother inclined her head slightly, her gaze sweeping over him.
"Your condition does look…rather dire."
Edward managed a weak grin.
"Your Grace, I'm no longer the master of the Sefirah Castle, nor am I the so-called 'future Lord of Mysteries.' Would you still be willing to lend me a hand?"
Her soft chuckle carried a note of amusement.
"Of course."
Edward immediately reached into his coat and pulled out a pitch-black, writhing object—a vortex-like cluster of darkness that seemed to squirm on its own.
"Could you help me shatter this Beyonder Characteristic of the Attendant of Mysteries?"
"That's simple enough."
The Earth Mother accepted it delicately between her fingers. With the faintest motion—a soft crack—a distorted light shimmered, and the dark vortex instantly broke apart into a dozen fragments, scattering across the ground like shards of glass.
To an ordinary Beyonder, destroying an Beyonder Characteristic was unthinkable. But to a Sequence 0 god, it was as effortless as crushing a piece of tofu.
Edward exhaled with relief, gathering the scattered fragments one by one before picking up the remaining core of the Attendant of Mysteries' Beyonder Characteristic.
He extended it toward her with both hands.
"Your Grace, I don't have much to offer as thanks, so…please accept this."
The Earth Mother's calm voice carried no fluctuation.
"It's of no use to me."
Edward smiled faintly.
"Then consider it an investment—for the future Lord of Mysteries."
For a brief moment, silence lingered between them. The Earth Mother's tranquil gaze rested upon him, unreadable.
Finally, she said quietly, "I have no need to invest in the future Lord of Mysteries. The difficulties I face cannot be solved merely by his appearance."
Edward gave a dry laugh.
"Fair enough. Still…thank you. If I manage to survive long enough to find Lilith, I'll bring her to visit you."
Her lips curved into a gentle, motherly smile.
"You'll both be welcome—any time."
Edward nodded faintly.
"Then…I'll be going."
He didn't dare linger. With a flicker of motion, he vanished—using Wandering to slip back into the real world.
He reappeared on a desolate island deep within the Fog Sea.
The instant his feet touched the black sand, he drew a deep, stabilising breath. Then he took out a cauldron and a series of items—
The Worm of Spirit, Worm of Star, and Worm of Time.
The Beyonder Characteristic of the Planeswalker.
And the recently obtained Beyonder Characteristic of the Miracle Invoker.
Everything was ready.
He was just about to drop the Planeswalker Characteristic into the cauldron when a thought struck him. He reached into his spatial pocket and pulled out a folded paper crane and a pen.
On it, he scrawled a single line:
"A little extra luck, please."
After folding the paper and tucking it into his coat, he picked up the Beyonder Characteristic that gleamed like a burning crystal ember—the Miracle Invoker's—and tossed it into the cauldron.
Then, one by one, he added the three worms from the Coward family.
The moment they came into contact, the materials began to melt rapidly, blending together into a swirl of grayish-white vapours that spiralled upward before condensing into a deep blue, starlit liquid—semi-transparent and quietly glowing.
Edward stared at it for a moment—and at once, he felt himself being drawn in.
It was as if he had stepped into the vast cosmos he'd glimpsed during every past advancement. Stars flickered across the infinite void, scattered like jewels upon black velvet. An overwhelming sense of smallness, confusion, and despair welled up within him—an illusion that the universe itself would swallow him whole in the next breath.
Then—pain.
A sharp, stabbing pain in his spirituality jolted him awake. Not because it consciously warned him, but as a symptom of his weakening life force. The loss of vitality had reached his spirituality—it was starting to hurt.
Edward bit his tongue hard, the metallic taste of blood grounding him back to awareness.
By now, the liquid in the cauldron had stopped bubbling. It was condensing slowly, its colour deepening, its starlight growing even brighter—like countless constellations compressed into a single vessel.
Edward flipped a gold coin for a brief divination—then nodded to himself. The timing was right.
He took out the translucent, heart-shaped Beyonder Characteristic of the Miracle Invoker and dropped it into the cauldron.
The moment it touched the dark liquid, it melted seamlessly into it. The mixture thickened and darkened, becoming an unfathomable abyss.
From within, countless eyes seemed to flicker open—each one lit by starlight, all staring silently from the depths. Then, the liquid went still.
Edward blinked, his mind briefly slipping into an odd daze.
Children often say that stars "blink."
He chuckled weakly to himself.
Well…now I've truly seen what "blinking stars" look like.
With a wave of his hand, Edward lifted the shimmering liquid from the cauldron, letting it float before him in midair. His eyes flickered for a few seconds—then steadied.
He drew in a deep breath and inhaled the potion.
The moment the liquid slid down his throat, it split apart into countless cold, wriggling "worms." They spread rapidly through his body, infiltrating every nerve, every vein, every cell.
Then—boom!
Edward's mind shattered into a thousand fragments—No, not just his mind.
His body too, disintegrated in an instant, breaking apart into innumerable motes of starlight.
Each glimmering particle was immediately drawn upward by the vault of the heavens above, yearning desperately to leave the earth and soar into the starry sea.
But before they could escape, threads of gray-black smoke began seeping from each fragment. These filaments connected the scattered Worms of Stars like strings of a web, intertwining and merging until they formed a shimmering humanoid silhouette, pulsing faintly with starlight.
Within every Worms of Star, scenes and fragments surfaced—pieces of deconstruction:
—The unravelling of Intis's true nature.
—The unravelling of the mystery behind Lilith's resurrection.
—The unravelling of the decayed wooden door forged by Mr. Door and the Mother Goddess of Depravity.
—And the unravelling of "that person" spoken of by the True Creator.
Each revelation collided and merged, building upon one another, assembling piece by piece until they formed a single, complete truth.
And at that very moment, Edward suddenly realised—his previous understanding of the Deconstruction Scholar had been wrong.
He had always thought that "Deconstruction" meant uncovering the truth behind events.
But in truth, a Deconstruction Scholar did not analyse truths—they analysed the essence of things.
Just as a human being is not merely composed of water and carbon, but of cells, molecules, and atoms—those are the true essence.
"Then…" Edward thought, eyes widening in revelation, "why was I still able to fully digest the potion despite misunderstanding its core?"
The thought turned over in his mind—then, a bold hypothesis emerged.
Perhaps…it all traced back to the Oldest One.
In modern science, the essence of matter lies in molecules, atoms, protons, neutrons, electrons—but in the mystical world, the essence of all things was the Oldest One itself.
Everything was born from the fragmentation of the Oldest One.
And everything was converging once more—for the revival of the Oldest One.
Intis's conspiracy tied directly to Cheek's ambition to become the Oldest One.
Lilith's entry into the Mirror World was likely linked to the same force.
The True Creator's "that person" carried a piece of the awakened Oldest One within him—and everything they did was part of resisting its resurgence.
"So I…accidentally struck the right chord," Edward murmured in realisation.
"That's why the potion worked perfectly—pure coincidence."
But another thought followed, chilling and grim.
"If, during this time, the things I deconstructed hadn't been tied to the Oldest One…would I have lost control entirely?"
The starlit silhouette before him gradually condensed, reforming into Edward's original shape. His mind and spirit snapped back into alignment with his body—but the instant he returned to himself, he sensed something terribly wrong.
Two conflicting forces surged through him:
The first—came from the newly obtained power of Sequence 2. It filled him with vitality, an overwhelming surge of divinity and transcendence. But along with it came a dangerous detachment—arrogance, apathy, coldness, cruelty, and the creeping madness of godhood—all flooding into his spirit, trying to assimilate him, reshape him into something no longer human.
The second—was the continual loss of life force brought by Madman to the Right. His body and soul were withering, frail and pained, tugging him violently back down into human weakness. It whispered mockingly: You're dying—what's the point of pretending to be above it all?
And so, to compensate for the dying weakness of his body, the divine power of Sequence 2 instinctively poured strength back into him—life and spirituality intertwining, trying to maintain equilibrium.
That tension, paradoxically, stabilised him. His fading humanity rekindled. His mind cleared.
"..."
Edward finally recalled a crucial truth—
If Sequences 4 and 3 demigods were still within the realm of human, then Sequence 2 had already left humanity behind entirely. In the modern age, it was called Angel—but in the ancient times, "Angel" meant a Subsidiary God.
Thus, ascending to Sequence 2 required a firm anchor—something to hold one's humanity in place.
Without an anchor, an Angel would lose their sense of self—at best becoming emotionless, at worst descending into irreversible madness.
In the original history, Klein relied on the members of the Tarot Club, on the prayers of the Sea God's believers in the Rorsted Islands, to anchor his humanity swiftly.
But Edward…had no one.
He had walked his path almost entirely alone.
Who could he rely on now to help him stay human?
Even if he chose to kill himself again and revive through Bernadette's memories, that would only delay the inevitable. Without an anchor, time itself would erode his humanity away.
"Heh…I suppose the backlash from Madman to the Right turned out to be a blessing in disguise."
Edward laughed softly—a wry, self-deprecating sound.
And indeed, it was self-mockery. His life force was still draining, though at a slower pace. He had merely bought himself a bit more time before the inevitable.
"So now I'm…neither dead nor alive?" he muttered bitterly.
Just as his state began to stabilise, a sudden burning pain seared across the back of his hand.
He glanced down—
There, glowing faintly against his skin, was a square sigil outlined like a Door, its lines pulsing with dim light.
He couldn't discern its meaning.
He ran his fingers lightly over the mark—feeling nothing but warmth.
But one thing was certain:
He had officially ascended to Sequence 2.
He was now—
An Angel.
Yet unlike his past advancements, his consciousness did not soar into the starry void, nor did he need to open that symbolic Door.
Instead, when he lifted his gaze, his sight pierced the heavens themselves—seeing the boundless cosmos, brilliant and cold.
And in the next instant, radiant starlight flickered across his vision—
An endless flood of information poured into his mind:
[Sequence 2: Fantasist]
What the heart conceives—becomes real.
———
[Note]: Don't forget to VOTE. It keeps me motivated.