Unfortunately, that sort of dimensionality-reduction attack did not even last a few seconds. Adam quickly returned to normal and looked at Edward, saying calmly, "You…advanced to Sequence 1?"
Yes.
With the enhancement of [Fantasy], Edward reversed the ability of [Regression], allowing himself to "advance" to Sequence 1, temporarily gaining the power of a Constructor.
However, the duration of this power was extremely limited. He had to end the battle as quickly as possible and completely break free from Adam in order to complete his resurrection!
Snap!
Edward lightly snapped his fingers. The entire memory space twisted and changed rapidly— the earth stretched into desolation, while the sky turned into something resembling an oil painting, dotted with bizarre suns and flickering with distorted lightning.
In that instant, he completed the construction of an astral-related domain, and immediately activated [Replicate]. Three overwhelmingly powerful figures descended into the "constructed" astral world: Leodero the Tyrant, Aucuses the Eternal Blazing Sun, and Herabergen, the God of Wisdom and Knowledge.
After a brief moment of stiffness, the three gods' figures became agile and reactive again. Leodero's first reaction was actually to level his trident directly at Edward—
You brat, you've really gotten bold, haven't you?
Calling me whenever you want and dismissing me when you're done?
Do you take me for a fake god?
Today I'll show you why they call me the "Tyrant"!
But before he could actually make a move, he noticed the other presence at the scene—Adam.
And then he stopped.
The three backstabbers did not exchange a single word, yet instantly reached a consensus:
Beat up Adam first!
Back then, the reason they carved up the Ancient Sun God might have been influenced by the Law of Extraordinary Characteristics Convergence, causing them to perform the betrayal involuntarily.
But regardless, they did it.
Now, faced with Adam— the "Son of God" obsessed with resurrecting the Ancient Sun God— he naturally had to be eliminated as soon as possible. Thus, the projections of the three gods immediately launched their assault on Adam.
Edward seized the opportunity to rapidly distance himself from Adam's memories, turning once again into a stream of information and fleeing far away. The moment he reached Lilith's River of Memories, he dove straight into it.
But at that very moment, the sequence of memory images before his eyes suddenly shifted at incredible speed. One after another, scenes filled entirely with Adam surged up in their place.
"!!!"
Edward quickly halted and turned to look around—everything within sight had been replaced by Adam's memories!
When it came to manipulating memories, the Spectator pathway was the true master.
Even though this memory space was not the Sea of Collective Subconscious, it still could not escape the control of a Spectator holding half of a Pillar's authority.
For the moment, Edward could no longer tell whether what he was seeing was real or fake— whether Adam had truly overwritten all memories, or merely made them appear to belong to him.
But Edward did not dare to gamble.
Boom!
The next second, the countless rivers of memory seemed to come alive. Before Edward could approach, they surged into towering waves and crashed toward him. Edward did not dare let even a single drop of "memory" (water) touch him. With several rapid sweeps of his hand, he slapped down each river of memory, flattening them into two dimensions.
This action resolved the crisis—but it also meant he could no longer locate the memory needed for his resurrection.
Dazed, he looked around. The Sequence 1 power he obtained by using [Fantasy] to reverse [Regression] had reached its limit and was rapidly collapsing.
In the distance, the constructed astral domain began to crumble, and the projections of the three gods gradually dissipated.
Just before Edward fell back to Sequence 2, he slapped Adam— who had just broken free from the three gods' pursuit— flattening him into a picture. Then, his thoughts spun rapidly, and he made a decision: he quickly walked backwards four steps and recited the incantation:
"The Immortal Lord of Heaven and Earth for Blessings.
The Sky Lord of Heaven and Earth for Blessings.
The Exalted Thearch of Heaven and Earth for Blessings.
The Celestial Worthy of Heaven and Earth for Blessings."
Boundless gray-white mist surged forth, wrapping around Edward, attempting to bring him back to the Sefirah Castle.
But at this moment, he existed only as a segment of memory, "code" suspended between reality and illusion. He could not return to the Source Castle at all.
Of course, Edward had already anticipated this when he recited the four-line chant. Summoning the Source Castle was never meant for returning. What he wanted was to borrow the weight of the Source Castle—more accurately, the authority of the Lord of Mysteries—to smash directly into Adam.
"Sefirah Castle, beat the crap out of him for me!"
Amid a thunderous humming, the projection of a colossal, indistinct object—its outline obscured by swirling grey-white fog—descended. In the blink of an eye, the rivers of memories belonging to Adam shattered upon contact with the Sefirah Castle's arrival.
The slumbering God Almighty's consciousness hidden within Adam, and the Celestial Worthy's consciousness resting inside the Sefirah Castle, once again confronted each other—after tens of millions of years—yet in another form.
These ancient enemies both wished nothing more than to shove the other's coffin lid down for good.
But this "long-distance battle" was destined never to produce a victor. After all, only the faintest traces of their residual consciousnesses were present, still far from truly awakening.
Even so, it bought Edward more than enough time. Once he confirmed that Adam's memories had been scattered, he wasted no time diving into the nearest memory.
To avoid any accidents, Edward forcibly maintained a clear consciousness, pushing himself to complete the resurrection as quickly as possible—he had no idea what other cards Adam might still be holding. He had to enter the Sefirah Castle and fall into slumber before anything else happened. Only then would everything finally settle.
Moments later, the Sefirah Castle's projection dispersed into grey-white mist.
Then Adam recovered from his two-dimensional state. He frowned slightly as he looked toward the place where Edward had vanished. After a long silence, he murmured, "This…is fine as well."
The reason he acted against Edward was indeed because he wanted to turn him into one of his personas; it was also true that he intended to use him to seize the "thing" hidden deep within the Chaos Sea; and it was equally true that he wished to uncover Edward's relationship with "that person" from back then.
But there was one more crucial reason: he wanted to use Edward to lure out "that person" for a face-to-face confrontation.
Unfortunately, that person never appeared—perhaps they were unable to come, or perhaps they simply did not care about Edward.
Either way—
Edward's escape meant Adam's original plan had definitively failed. It also pushed him to finally make a decision he had postponed for a long time:
It was time to talk to Grisha.
———
Feynapotter City
Arlde had been terribly, terribly frustrated recently.
The power Mr. Sparrow had once bestowed upon him—the ability to freely switch forms—had suddenly vanished some time ago. This caused Arlde to plummet from the peak straight into the abyss, plunging him into deep dejection.
He wanted to go to Trier again to seek Mr. Sparrow's help, but neither his father nor his grandfather would allow it. His sister, Akasha, had tried sneaking out last week and was promptly caught by their father—
Who then broke her legs.
Not a figure of speech. He literally broke them.
Of course, such an injury was nothing serious for a vampire, but the pain was very real—Akasha had been wailing nonstop for an entire week, yet her pitiful cries earned her not even a shred of sympathy.
"AAAHHHHHH!!"
Akasha rolled around on her bed, screaming, "I already said I won't go looking for that Sparrow! Why won't they let me out?! If I stay locked up here any longer, I'm going to go insane!!"
"Give it a rest, Akasha." Arlde looked at his sister and shook his head. "Grandfather stopping you has nothing to do with Mr. Sparrow. It's because you said you received an oracle from Ancestor Lilith."
"I really did—"
Arlde shrugged. "But Grandfather is convinced it's just the bewitchment of an evil god."
"…"
Akasha ground her teeth. "Those brainless old fossils! When the Ancestor returns in the future, I'd like to see how they plan to apologise!"
Then she suddenly glared at Arlde. "You don't believe me either?"
Arlde sighed. "I really want to believe you, but…the oracle you mentioned said we must offer all the sealed items we've collected for thousands of years as sacrifice…"
"Don't you think that's strange?"
Akasha frowned. "What's strange about offering sacrifices to a deity?"
"If it were any other Church, maybe it wouldn't be. But we Sanguines…" He waved his hand. "Forget it. There are some things you're better off not knowing—or you'll spread it everywhere again."
"Hmph!"
Akasha sneered. "You're the one who spilt everything to Sparrow the moment he said a few pretty words!"
"…"
Arlde's face flushed red. Humiliated, he snapped, "I—I only told him things that were publicly known among Sanguines! No one ever told me I couldn't say those! Anything I'm specifically told not to reveal—I would never speak even if I died!"
"Really?"
"Of course I—"
Arlde answered reflexively, but then he realised the voice asking him wasn't his sister's. It was a familiar yet unfamiliar male voice.
His heart lurched. He turned sharply toward the sound.
"Who—?"
"Mr. Sparrow?!"
Akasha's face lit up instantly. "Ah! You came to rescue me? I won't be able to repay you properly, so I'll just warm your bed for you from now on."
Feeling the intense weakness in his body and the rapidly draining life force, Edward lightly rubbed his forehead as fragmented memories gradually returned.
So the memory he revived from earlier belonged to Arlde, whom he had not seen for several months. And his appearance within Arlde's memories was not too different from his real self—just with a few extra "old fox" labels attached.
Perhaps because this resurrection took an extremely short time, or perhaps because Arlde's memories of him were not particularly deep, this resurrection was far weaker than the previous ones. He had, at most, one day before he would once again head toward death.
With that priest from the Corpse Cathedral watching over his corpse, this might very well be his last resurrection.
Edward's heart grew heavier.
"I don't have much time left."
"Mr. Sparrow?"
Only then did Arlde snap out of his daze. He felt confused—he had just been talking about Mr. Sparrow with his sister, yet when the man suddenly stood in front of him, he failed to recognise him for a moment. It felt as if their last meeting hadn't been months ago, but decades or even centuries, making the memory blurry.
Edward caught this anomaly immediately. He understood: this was the memory fading caused by his resurrection. Arlde was nothing like Bernadette or Lilith.
His memory of Edward barely reached the threshold required for a resurrection. So even a single resurrection had already caused the memory to fade.
If he resurrected through Arlde again…Arlde might forget him entirely.
———
[Note]: Don't forget to VOTE. It keeps me motivated.