From a plot perspective, this point in time wasn't too late, but looking at the broader history of Lord of Mysteries, it was already the endgame. Most Beyonders of the Error, Fool, and Door pathway had already been thoroughly dealt with.
Alaric carefully recalled the original story. At this stage, the Door pathway had little left... aside from a traitor who abandoned the Abraham family for the Aurora Order, the only high-sequence figure was likely Mr. Door, trapped in some alternate dimension. For the Seer pathway, Zaratul and Antigonus were imprisoned together in Foggy Town, and no other high-sequence Seers were known to exist. The Marauder pathway had been ravaged by Amon, leaving only a few stragglers, including Pallez, still hanging on.
"Am I really going to have to swindle an old man's feelings?" Alaric mused, rubbing his chin for a few seconds before adding, "It doesn't sound like a bad idea, actually."
"Pay me 50, and tomorrow I'll make you the Lord of Mysteries... well, the Lord part's a joke, but if that old man invests a Worm of Time in me, once I reach a higher sequence, I'll definitely take him to beat Amon." Alaric mulled it over in his mind, feeling the plan had some merit.
Even if he couldn't trick Pallez into giving him a Worm of Time, building high favorability would still let him summon Pallez's Shadow of Time.
"Items related to the Sefirah Castle should also count as high-sequence materials for the Error, Fool, and Door pathway. I wonder if Klein's paper angel would work, but even if it does, waiting for that to come online would take too long…" Alaric pondered, then froze, turning his head to the side.
A figure had appeared out of nowhere... a man with black hair, black eyes, dressed in a postman's uniform, sporting a crystal monocle on his face.
The moment Alaric saw him, he knew exactly who it was... Amon.
"..."
Was this some kind of nightmare opening? Couldn't he get just a little time to grow stronger?
While inwardly cursing, Alaric sensed something trying to latch onto his soul, meddling with his thoughts.
He blinked, not even having time to panic, when he felt the invading Worm of Time go silent almost instantly. It was dragged into a soul prison crafted by Yog-Sothoth for Nyarlathotep's power, consumed entirely before Alaric could even blink.
For a moment, Alaric almost felt a pang of regret... a perfectly good Worm of Time, gone just like that.
At the same time, he finally dug up a relevant memory from the fragments of his current identity, understanding why Amon was here.
His current identity, Alaric Zoroast was a direct descendant of the Zoroast family, specifically a distant great-grandson of Pallez Zoroast. Due to Amon's persecution, Alaric Zoroast had lost his parents young and was raised by a butler. To avoid Amon, he lived under an alias, moving every few years.
Though aware of Beyonders, Alaric Zoroast had never resolved to become one. After his butler passed away, he decided to live as an ordinary person... only to unfortunately cross paths with Amon.
The original Alaric didn't have many memories of being "Amon'd." His clearest recollection stopped abruptly the previous morning after seeing a crow with white eye rims. What followed were only vague, painful fragments filled with fear and resentment toward death. This was why Alaric hadn't immediately realized his predecessor had been targeted by Amon.
Though he'd read about such things in the novel, connecting written descriptions to real-world events wasn't so straightforward. When Alaric first reviewed his memories, he missed this detail, even wondering if his predecessor had died suddenly from overwork.
Now it clicked. His predecessor had likely been devoured by Amon, body and soul, transformed entirely into Amon's likeness. Alaric hadn't transmigrated into "Alaric Zoroast" but into one of Amon's avatars, replacing it entirely.
This Amon avatar had probably sensed something wrong with its counterpart and came to investigate.
"..."
No wonder there was a monocle on his face. He'd thought it was just his predecessor's quirky habit... damn it!
Amon, too, noticed that the Worm of Time he'd sent into this young man's soul had lost contact the moment it entered.
Raising an eyebrow, Amon looked at Alaric with keen interest. As their eyes met, the man adjusted his monocle with a smile. "Hello, buddy. Care to tell me how you did it? This is the first time I've seen someone turned into me regain their own consciousness."
"You shouldn't even have a spirit left." Amon added, his expression carrying genuine curiosity and confusion.
"Sorry, my dad told me not to talk to strangers." Alaric shot back faster than his brain could process. In the next second, he reached out, pulling a figure from thin air.
While the Worm of Time was being consumed, Alaric hadn't been idle... he'd been using Amon as a medium to summon a related Shadow of Time.
Amon watched the scene with amusement, but when the figure fully materialized, even he was momentarily stunned.
It was an all-too-familiar figure: black hair, golden eyes, a silver cross hanging at the chest... the Ancient Sun God, Amon's father, as Amon remembered him.
How could this be? Even if this kid was a Scholar of Yore, how could anyone in this world summon a historical projection of his father?
Amon, for once, questioned his own knowledge of historical projections. But what happened next was even more shocking. The Ancient Sun God's projection opened its eyes, looking at the two with a hint of confusion. Its gaze settled on Amon, uncertain. "Amon?"
Unlike typical historical projections, which lacked sentience, this Ancient Sun God clearly had a consciousness of its own.
"…Fascinating." Amon said, adjusting his monocle to mask the storm of shock in his eyes. He'd come to check on a curious change in a Zoroast descendant he'd consumed, expecting nothing major, only to stumble upon an extraordinary surprise.
But while Amon was reeling, Alaric seized the moment, speaking at lightning speed:
"Here's the deal, Mr. Sun God. I'll keep it short. My name's Alaric, and this is thousands of years in the future. Right now, your son Amon is hunting me down. I need your help, or we're all going down with this world. You can tell I'm capable of making that happen."