Lady Agnes's Chambers.
Since the cataclysmic epoch of the ancient war between the Divine Kings, the celestial trajectories leading to the apex of divinity had been largely obliterated or inextricably lost to the dusty annals of history. Lady Agnes, as the Mistress of the Merry Andro Temple, possessed an encyclopedic knowledge of the spiritual spectrum; she was intimately acquainted with the auratic signatures of every known Path to Heaven within the mortal realm. Yet, as she scrutinized the man calling himself Adam Becker, she found herself standing before a terrifying void of understanding. His aura was not merely distinct; it was alien. It did not oscillate with the frequencies of this era, nor did it align with the orthodox cultivation methods of the Lindao Republic. It was a chaotic, archaic density that felt older than the temple foundations themselves.
"The nomenclature is inconsequential, given that you remain a stranger to me," Lady Agnes stated, her voice cool and detached. She was weighing his soul on invisible scales, calculating with ruthless pragmatism whether this anomaly was an asset worthy of preservation or a calamity waiting to detonate. "However, the reality of your survival remains absolute. Since I preserved your existence, you owe me a debt."
Xan Li Fang—now fully inhabiting the persona of Adam Becker—remained impassive. The Magic of Memory had excised vast swathes of his personal history, leaving behind only the jagged scars of his past tribulations. He remembered the existential exhaustion of living as a "Hero" who had salvaged worlds only to be betrayed by those he protected. He had no desire to expose himself as a Transmigrator; the burden of such a title was too heavy, and the implications too dangerous. Instead, his mind quickly formulated a new narrative. He possessed the accumulated memories of six lifetimes and a profound, encyclopedic knowledge of this world's history. To him, the logic was sound: I am not a visitor from space, but a wanderer of time. A Time Traveler.
"Oh, yes, the logic is sound," Adam replied, his lips curving into a smile that did not reach his eyes. He leaned forward, the shadows of his hat obscuring his gaze, plunging his face into darkness. "So, what is the cost that you desire me to remit for the salvation of my life?"
His voice dropped an octave. It became a reverberating baritone, so deep and resonant that it seemed to vibrate the very skeletal structure of the listener. For the first time in her life, Lady Agnes felt a cold, primal tremor slide down her spine. It was fear. Yet, she was a Sovereign of her domain; she forced her heart to steady, maintaining her icy composure through sheer willpower. "Who are you exactly?" Agnes demanded, her eyes narrowing into slits. "Articulate the truth, and subsequently, I shall reveal my request."
The atmosphere in the room thickened to the consistency of mercury. Xan Li Fang turned his head slowly, averting his eyes from her piercing gaze. He extended his hand toward her, palm open, in a gesture that commanded a pause. Silence stretched for several agonizing seconds. He calculated his next move with the precision of a chess master. If he claimed to be a Time Traveler now, a woman of her intellect might connect the dots to the vanishing of the Ancient Ruins. A solution that revealed too much was worse than silence. He chose the path of the enigma.
"I cannot utter a syllable," Adam said finally, his tone devoid of deception but heavy with absolute finality. He lowered his hand, his posture shifting to one of imminent departure. "I offer my apologies, Lady, but our convergence must conclude here, for I am forced to depart..." He chose not to lie, but he refused to offer the truth. In the face of a sharp intellect and a dangerous world, obscurity was the only shield he had left.
The Hallway.
The stranger's obstinate refusal to articulate his origins did not dissipate the fog of mystery; rather, it thickened the enigma, rendering him a cryptogram to which Lady Agnes possessed no key, and his silence served as the final, immutable latch upon the puzzle box of his identity. "Very well, I accept your reticence as your bond," Agnes conceded, exhaling a sigh of frustrated frustration as she smoothed the fabric of her gown. "I cannot compel you to dissect your history given your evident eagerness to depart; however, before you excise yourself from my presence, there remains a singular obligation you must fulfill." She fixed him with a gaze of intense, unyielding scrutiny, indicating that she desired a remuneration that was spiritual in nature rather than material. Xan Li Fang stood in stoic silence, offering a minimal inclination of his head to signal his readiness to hear her terms. "My requisition is this: Offer supplication to Saint Andro. Execute this rite, and our ledger shall be balanced."
It was an unorthodox demand; the majority of saviors would have solicited gold, artifacts, or a binding vow of servitude, yet to request a simple act of prayer seemed almost trivial in comparison. However, for Xan Li Fang, this stipulation was anything but simple. Throughout the cumulative expanse of his current existence and the six antecedent lifetimes he had assimilated from the necropolis, never once had he prostrated himself before a deity or offered obeisance to a celestial architect. He was a being of absolute self-reliance, an existence that stood apart from and often in opposition to the theological hierarchy; to kneel before an idol was an act antithetical to the very core of his nature. Yet, the pragmatic weight of a life debt pressed upon his conscience; she had plucked him from the mandibles of the Crimson Ants, and without her intervention, his narrative would have concluded abruptly within that nest. A promise was a shackle of honor that remained fastened until fulfilled. He offered no verbal affirmation, merely nodding once more with an impassive visage to signal his acquiescence. "Then follow me."
Lady Agnes guided him out of her private chambers, and together they descended through the labyrinthine corridors of the Merry Andro Temple, spiraling downward toward the ground floor where the spiritual heart of the edifice resided. They arrived at the Main Prayer Hall, a cavernous, circular nave dominated by the monolithic effigy of Saint Andro, where the atmosphere was saturated with the olfactory weight of ancient incense and a suffocating silence. "Remain here," Agnes commanded. She vanished into an adjacent vestry, reemerging minutes later having undergone a profound transformation. She had divested herself of her colorful noble attire and was now draped in a set of Ceremonial White Robes, pristine and flowing; the fabric seemed to possess a faint, bioluminescent quality in the dim light, bestowing upon her the ethereal appearance of a high priestess or a descending seraph, increasing the solemnity of her aura tenfold.
She ascended the dais to the altar, positioning herself directly in front of the statue, and turned to Xan with an expression of absolute gravity. "When I begin the liturgy, you shall repeat the incantations after me." Xan Li Fang adjusted the brim of his pitch-black hat, regarding the stone deity with a gaze of boredom indifference; his objective was solely to liquidate his debt and exit. "Agreed," he drew, his deep baritone cutting through the sacred silence with the blunt force of a transaction. "Expedite the procedure."