After Nimrod finished speaking, the figure of the Celestial Worthy before him fell noticeably silent for a while. A moment later, he spoke.
"You seem to have some misunderstandings about me, as well as some prejudices."
"My friend, your imitation of a human is remarkably convincing. How did you manage it?"
The Celestial Worthy's voice drifted around Nimrod's ears. His shadow seemed to come alive, stretching out behind him into an enormous, bizarre silhouette.
The silhouette resembled an enlarged Deep Robe. Countless tentacles writhed out from beneath it, each covered in sinister patterns and a slick sheen.
The thought of the Unseeable God had barely surfaced in Nimrod's mind before he relaxed again:
If I really were just an "ordinary person," I would have gone mad from looking directly at a Great Old One, even above Sefirah Castle!
At that thought, a little more certainty entered his voice. He addressed the Celestial Worthy in a relatively calm tone:
"You can think of me as an ordinary human who woke up one day and found himself here."
As he listened to Nimrod, the shadow behind the Celestial Worthy gradually contracted. He stared at Nimrod for a moment with eyes formed from starlight, then a friendly smile split his white face:
"In that case, perhaps you don't remember how you came here, my dear friend."
"While God Almighty and I were fighting over authorities, we discovered that you had unfortunately become stranded in this world. God Almighty wanted to use you to defeat me, but I rescued you from the clutches of the evil God Almighty. Unfortunately, he and I ended up destroying each other..."
Aside from "the evil God Almighty," is there a single word of truth in any of that?
Nimrod could not help inwardly scoffing. Seeing that the Celestial Worthy was about to continue his endless spiel, he merely replied calmly:
"I know your name. Has it occurred to you that I might actually know about your relationship with God Almighty?"
The Celestial Worthy abruptly stopped talking, and a smile returned to his face:
"You should have said so earlier, my friend. You made me waste all those words-what should I call you?"
As he spoke, the Celestial Worthy extended his right hand.
Nimrod mulled things over for a moment. Judging by the Celestial Worthy's verbal and physical probes just now, he had been testing whether Nimrod was truly a frail ordinary human, as well as gauging his attitude.
"Your imitation of a human"... From the looks of it, this "Celestial Worthy" in the Gray Fog Space isn't as weak as he was in the original story. He isn't asleep in the Fool's dream...
He seems unable to read my mind, but who knows whether that's just an act? After all, the Lord of the Mysteries has always been a god who enjoys watching Marionette farces...
Surely he doesn't think I'm a god from beyond this world, like those veteran, bona fide transmigrators who became gods the moment they crossed over?
At that thought, Nimrod also smiled and reached out to shake the Celestial Worthy's hand:
"Just call me Nimrod."
"...Nimrod, is it?"
After saying this, the Celestial Worthy released his hand and took two steps back. He snapped his fingers lightly, and the chaotic gray fog around him quickly dispersed, forming two simple, ancient-looking stone chairs.
He leaned back in the stone chair he had just created and spoke slowly to Nimrod:
"That sounds like the name of an offspring begotten by the Primordial (God Almighty). Are you connected to God Almighty?"
"Who knows?" Nimrod narrowed his eyes and sat in the chair the Celestial Worthy had created. The instant he sat down, the Celestial Worthy crooked a finger, and the solid stone chair began to collapse into an illusion.
Yet Nimrod remained seated firmly in the chair, causing the Celestial Worthy's gaze to freeze slightly. He had been planning another test, with a prank thrown in.
"Celestial Worthy," Nimrod said softly. "I don't know much about this world, much less why I came here-but I know you. If you could seize my will, I wouldn't be the one standing here now."
Since the Celestial Worthy had not been relentlessly eroding his will as he had Klein's in the original story, Nimrod was willing to gamble on one possibility: in the Celestial Worthy's eyes, Nimrod held the same status as they did, making him impossible to corrupt and difficult to suppress.
That being the case, Nimrod did not dare show weakness before this ancient god. He could only go along with it and pretend to be an existence of equal status.
"...I don't understand what you're trying to say, but perhaps I can tell you about our encounter," the Celestial Worthy said, his tone immediately returning to normal. "It's simple. I discovered you while fighting God Almighty over Sefirah, yet there was no will within you whatsoever-do you know how rare that is?"
"My fellow, all things possess divinity, but you do not. That means you are not a creation of the Oldest One, that Creator. You are a visitor from beyond this world, the greatest 'Error' this world has ever seen."
"I originally intended to use you as my final contingency for resurrection, because your body is both special and dangerous..." Clearly unwilling to elaborate on his reasons, the Celestial Worthy simply produced a fan from somewhere and covered the lower half of his face:
"So I hid you deep within Sefirah Castle, intending to awaken you only after all my other resurrection contingencies had failed. Unfortunately..."
At this point, the Celestial Worthy sighed. "Look around you. This successor I found is truly a wastrel. It wasn't easy to find so many souls similar to mine all at once..."
Naturally, the Celestial Worthy was referring to the Remnants of the Great Old One that had once hung around them above Sefirah Castle.
In other words, after Klein released all the souls above Sefirah Castle, Sefirah Castle automatically woke "me" up?
Nimrod regarded the Celestial Worthy suspiciously, unable to shake the feeling that he was leaving something out.
This account could not explain why he had transmigrated, nor why he had been "deployed" to Tingen City long before this point in time, almost exactly when Klein had transmigrated.
"In that case, why was I deployed to a point before Klein Moretti freed the souls in Sefirah Castle?"
Nimrod narrowed his eyes:
"If I remember correctly, when I woke up... only three souls had been released from Sefirah Castle."
"You seem to have been lying all along, Celestial Worthy."
"That is precisely why I said you are a born 'Error.'" The Celestial Worthy waved his fan lightly:
"The countdown on the back of your hand is not my handiwork. After you woke up, I woke up as well, only to discover that you had already spent seven days at another point in time-you plundered Sefirah Castle's power, bringing the King of Space-Time's authority into play in an unprecedented way."
After hearing him out, Nimrod asked, partly out of curiosity and partly to provoke him, "So you mean that, as the King of Space-Time, your control over time really is inferior to the Monarch of Decay's, and your control over space is inferior to the High-Dimensional Overseer's?"
The Celestial Worthy abruptly fell silent.
Only after a long while did he continue in a leisurely tone:
"The authorities we wield merely have different focuses."
"But I must remind you that, although your status is equal to mine and you will not be corrupted by the mental influence or power of a Great Old One, your body remains fragile-physical injury is enough to kill you, my fellow."
"I would rather you not die too horribly. After all, aside from Zhou Mingrui, you are also one of my hopes for resurrection."
As the Celestial Worthy finished speaking, the surrounding gray fog slowly rose like a curtain, blurring his figure. It seemed he had no intention of answering Nimrod's question.
From behind the gray curtain, the Celestial Worthy's voice grew faint and elusive:
"Of course, I did not lie. Whether you believe me or not... is up to you."
Before you continue