"Ouch!"
"My head is killing me!"
"So painful!"
"It's so pain-wait...it's not..." Instantly, 'He' had felt that someone had stuck a metal pole inside of his head causing an immense pain...but it had stopped just as suddenly.
"What was that..." Zhou Mingrui, no, Klein Moretti had thought with a dazzled face as he stopped himself from writhing on the bed. He held his right hand onto the still hot bullet wound and realized that it had instantly healed itself.
In fact, the pain that he felt from before wasn't even there! It was just his brain had tricked him into believing there was pain due to the presence of the wound for a short millisecond.
"I feel so sluggish...did I wake up from a particularly bad nap?" Dazed, Klein got up from the lower bunk bed as he felt as if countless murmurs and indescribable sensations pierced through his head. His mind felt like a boundless, infinite grey fog.
Klein's vision was also impacted from this feeling that was akin to brain fog. Like if he was underwater, he could've barely made out his surroundings using his sight.
Notwithstanding this, as Klein got up, he began to approach the table that appeared as if it had a few items on it.
In an instant, a bullet covered in transparent maggots had been ejected from the right side of Klein's head onto the wooden table. The maggots squirmed about violently before quickly floating to be absorbed into Klein's body.
During this, he had noticed that his vision was staring to clear up. At the same time, Klein instinctively looked around to examine his surroundings.
A wooden table...
An open book and a revolver on the table...
A wooden floor, with a modest, somewhat messy bunk bed...
An atmosphere that gives off a somewhat poor lifestyle...
He even looked at himself.
Brown, somewhat dusty jacket...
A white, buttoned shirt...
He even sensed a brown top hat on top of his head.
He seemed to give off a scholarly air.
"This..." Klein was flabbergasted as his spiritual intuition gave him the confirmation.
"I'm in my room when I first 'transmigrated'!"
The instant Klein finished that thought, he had felt as if the countless murmurs amidst the gray fog was rapidly disappearing!
Suddenly, the gray fog itself had began to shatter as memories began to flush back inside of his head!
The past 3 years of his 'transmigration', and his dreams in the battle with Celestial Worthy of Heaven and Earth had flown past his head in an instant!
And, the memory of his that stood out the most was him finally ridding his mental psyche of the corruption of Celestial Worthy.
Klein rubbed his forehead and creased his eyebrows.
"If I've truly defeated 'Him' and this isn't a dream, why am I back here..." Naturally, Klein had thought that this was another shameless trick pulled by 'Him'.
After all, he had experienced this thousands of times in his dreams, to say the least.
Though, what was strange that his spiritual intuition kept informing him that he had defeated Celestial Worthy.
Pa!
In an instant, Klein wished upon a gold coin and it manifested into his hand. He flicked it to perform a divination.
Before it even landed, he knew the results of the divination.
This was truly reality, and not a dream!
Klein didn't experience any emotion, including happiness or ecstasy, from this result.
Immediately, Klein wanted to perform another divination above the gray fog to confirm this result.
Though, he realized doing so would be meaningless.
If he truly had defeated Celestial Worthy, then he would be a pillar, a true Lord of The Mysteries. There was no way that this divination would've been wrong.
If he hadn't and this was still a dream, going above the gray fog wouldn't have changed a thing. Perhaps it could've even been a trap.
He quickly came to one conclusion.
He had gone back in time!
Specifically, to the time where he first got transported into this world.
Klein still felt this conclusion strange, though.
Still rubbing his forehead, he allowed himself to enter the gray fog, Sefirah Castle. He did this without walking four steps counterclockwise.
He stood up, enshrouded in gray fog. It was boundless, and stretched on forever, like an infinite ocean of clouds.
"It looks exactly the same as how it was when I first entered here..." Klein remarked. Sighing, he instantly created the majestic palace that he's used to. He didn't use his powers of Concealment to create a divine kingdom. All he did was stir the powers of Sefirah Castle.
Sitting on The Fool's seat, he made a wish to create another gold coin. This time, he divined if his conclusion of him going back in time was correct.
He flipped a coin, but strangely he didn't know the result before it landed.
This only meant one thing.
The divination had failed!
"What..." Klein blurted out a sound of confusion. "How could the divination fail? Inside Sefirah Castle no less..."
Immediately, his mind raced.
"Why would the divination fail? Am I not powerful enough?"
"No, that doesn't sound right. At the very least, I should be on the level of a King of King of Angels. I should be able to divine anything that at least isn't on the level of a Pillar or Great Old One..."
"So who could've done an anti-divination at this level?"
"Could it be that Celestial Worthy was truly never defeated, and in order to save 'Himself' he rewinded time to when I first transmigrated? Certainly, it sounds like something this fellow would do..."
"Or could it be that another Great Old One that has powers of time is targeting me?"
Klein let out a big exhale. He had no leads, and there was no way for him to know the truth at this moment.
"Even when I became strong enough, I still have to fight against these mad beings..."
Klein stood silent for a second. Afterwards, he didn't sulk any further.
His next line of action was to confirm if he was truly The Fool, or if he was merely an Attendant of Mysteries. He ruled out himself being Lord of The Mysteries due to his divination failing.
Instantly, before he could've stirred up any powers, his spiritual intuition had told him that he was Sequence 0 The Fool.
Klein chuckled.
"Heh, it seems like at the very least I wouldn't have to deal with Zaratul or Antigonous...I have 'Their' Sequence 1 characteristic. Though, if things have truly rewinded, is it possible that they're still Sequence 1 despite me having three of the available characteristics?"
Klein didn't hesitate to confirm his theory. He made another divination, and he found out that Zaratul and Antigonous were still Sequence 1.
"How strange. This makes this rewind situation a lot more complicated."
"Well, I needn't worry about those two fellows. If push comes to shove, I can easily deal with them."
His mind flashed to two other people. Immediately, he divined to see if Amon and Adam were gods.
His divination was successful, revealing that they were still Sequence 1 Worm of Time and Sequence 1 Author respectively.
Klein breathed a sigh of relief.
"That's good...this confirms that Bethel is still trapped. Though, it's weird. Why am I only The Fool instead of Lord of The Mysteries? Clearly this rewind doesn't mind me having all of the Sequence 1 characteristics needed despite there still being Sequence 1 Zaratul and Antigonous, but it draws the line regarding me being Lord of The Mysteries?"
"I doubt it's because the level of this rewind isn't powerful enough. Clearly it's above a Sequence 0 given that my divination failed..."
"Perhaps the Outer God that did this rewind did this to prevent me from becoming Lord of The Mysteries? Meaning if I try to become Lord of The Mysteries, it'll rewind once more..."
Klein suddenly felt closer to the idea that Celestial Worthy did this as a last ditch attempt to prevent Klein from taking his position.
"The genie was right. That guy really is shameless..." Klein lampooned. After confirming the necessary things, he left Sefirah Castle and re entered the real world.
A part of him wanted to go to the Spirit World and track Amon for 'His' uniqueness, but he didn't know the repercussions of such a thing. He also didn't know whether or not he has to abide by the timeline as it was originally done like in certain novels. He also didn't know if the other Outer Gods were affected, or if this rewind didn't apply to the entire universe.
So for now, he decided that he'd let the timeline play out like how it was originally while testing the consequences of certain deviations.
Of course, this was only a general rule. He wouldn't mind making small/medium deviations and then later on fooling history or time into believing that it never happened.
"So...how do I go about letting the 'timeline' play like how it should while also performing some experiments?"
After whispering those words, he instantly made a marionette from a rat that was outside and turned it into another Klein Moretti. He placed a Worms of Spirit inside of the marionette, then used his powers of Fooling to make the marionette seem as if it was an actual person.
This would effectively make the marionette another Klein Moretti that would play out the events like they should.
"The only thing I have to do manually is anything Beyonder related. Soon enough, Captain would try to investigate me." Klein's voice lowered as the words "Captain" left his mouth.
He watched attentively as he saw his marionette act out the actions that Klein Moretti of old should. Strangely, he felt like he was watching a play, one which he could not have affected.
He felt powerless, despite being a God.
He felt unable to appreciate anything, knowing that he wasn't able to at least talk to his loved ones properly at least one more time. He would have to abandon them for their own sake again—if only for a short while.
Restricting his desire to stay in the house and wait until Melissa wakes up, he pulled out an outfit from the Historical Void and manifested it onto himself. He now wore a black top hat with a black trench-coat, making him look like an elegant magician.
Also, despite going back in time, Klein knew that the original timeline still existed. This was why he was able to pull this outfit from the Fog of History.
Soon enough, he vanished from the house and 'teleported' to the Forsaken Land of The Gods.
As expected, it was teeming with darkness with lightning flashing occasionally to illuminate the barren green wasteland filled with ruins.
On one hand, Klein pulled out a black cane that was loaded with gems. It looked elegant—like it was owned by a lead magician of a play.
This was the Staff of Stars from the Historical Void.
On the other hand, Klein pulled out another object. It was an ancient, silver-looking mirror that looked as if it belonged in a majestic palace.
This was Arrodes, the Magic Mirror.
Klein looked expressionlessly as the mirror shook slightly for some time in his hand. After a while, it calmed down.
On it, illusory, blue colored words of light began to be emitted from its surface.
"Great Master! Where were you? I was so worried!"