Loki felt his vision blinded by the crimson fog for a second before he found himself appearing in front of the transportation door he was so familiar with.
The door opened and beckoned him to enter, creating a strong suction force that gave him no other choice but to walk in.
Loki tried to peer beyond the open door but something kept blocking his sight, not by stealing it but by flooding it with crimson light. As if he wasn't supposed to know of the location before he entered it.
So Loki did the only sensible thing for now, he stepped forwards and allowed himself to be absorbed by the doorway.
The world blurred in a swirl of colours as Loki felt the world twist around himself.
'Am I travelling through the spirit world?' Loki wondered since he occasionally saw various non humanoid figures rush by him at high speeds.
'Did the faker get a traveller Beyonder Characteristic or something? For Hermione to advance to for the next sequence?'
Loki calmed down and examined the phenomenon as he began to lay the plan for his rebellion.
'He hasn't protected himself while transporting me…'
The travel lasted precisely four seconds and Loki found himself in front of an open door once again. This time however he didn't have the choice to stay back and examine. A hand pressed against his back and immediately pushed him out.
Loki felt a strange barrier pass over his body before it closed behind him as if someone had deceived it momentarily after which Loki found himself in an entirely new space where he donned on an illusion to hide his appearance by turning it into Gehrman Sparrow.
Crowds of non-human beings all gathered in the area but Loki's gaze swept over them without concern.
'They're all pretty weak… the strongest of them is Sequence 5 with the only Sequence 4 being Daphne. However, she has her characteristics extracted for some reason.'
Loki's eyes instead locked on someone more interesting.
"Hello Mr… Merlin." Loki said softly as he decrypted the name of the rat that was staring at him blindfolded with confusion and surprise.
The process was rather simple.
There was corruption within the rat from an outer god that Loki recognised. And there was only one other corruption filled being related to Dumbledore whose Virtual Persona Dumbledore could be linked to, ergo Merlin.
Even still, Loki was quite confused by his appearance as a rat man.
'They did say Merlin was not human and a being born out of a devil, a part devil…'
'Perhaps this was also why the founders never trusted Merlin… because they knew his real identity of someone from Earth but of someone from the larger Cosmos, an outsider.'
"You called me?" Loki asked softly while looking at the rat down his nose in annoyance.
Hermione on the side finally heaved a sigh of relief she hadn't known she was holding as she made up a reason in her mind for such an occurrence.
'Of course, Mr. Error wouldn't speak with such a great being inside my mind, what if I got corrupted!?'
'Wait a second! 'He' said that the rat-man was Merlin!!!!???? And that 'He' called 'Him'? Is the one who arrived here Mr. Error then!?'
'But…'
Hermione didn't know what to think anymore so her brain shut itself down.
Instead she simply stared at the chibi representation of Mr. Error that was visible through her glasses confirming her that the being in front of her would corrupt her simply by her laying eyes on 'Him'.
And so she persisted, keeping her head lowered in respect even if she could still directly look at him.
The rat spoke from beside her without regard for respect however, "Your mind… it's a steel trap… a good one unlike the girl's… you've got something to hide don't you?"
Hermione tensed at that but Loki responded calmly, "No. It's just to prevent what's inside from getting out."
"...getting out?" The rat made a puzzled expression but Loki said nothing else to further the conversation in that direction, instead he asked simply, "Where's the Original Creator being kept, I can't find him with my spirit vision. Is he being hidden inside someone?"
"You're… right. Though that's not surprising. 'He' is being hidden inside a Sequence 2 Angel of the Mother Pathway, but the woman doesn't know about the unfortunate herself, I guess you already noticed what's going on?"
Loki paused and looked around, or rather in a specific direction at a wall, using his spirit vision to look beyond it at the gathering of the angels in the Primordial Chaos's hold.
"'She' is coming, isn't she? To reclaim the Primordial Chaos and stuff it back into her womb?"
The rat looked at Loki curiously with intrigue even though his eyes remained blocked.
"...you mentioned 'Her', but you didn't get corrupted… it seems you truly are 'Him'."
"Hmm?" Loki questioned momentarily before moving on as if the matter was inconsequential. "What do you want in return?" Loki asked the rat.
"I'll help only if you can remove my corruption first."
"First? What if you run away? You've never risked your life before for me."
"Then you can hold the trigger to infect me again, I only want the guarantee that I can be free from this place."
"Hmm…" Loki frowned momentarily before asking the rat directly, "I'll do you one better, I'll get rid of your corruption right now, but infect you with a brand of my own?"
Loki didn't trust the rat.
At all.
And so he devised a simple scheme.
The rat was currently corrupted by Mother Tree of Desire, and he had been suppressing it for all this time but with no other option to get it removed, he had come here to wait for Mother Goddess of Depravity.
After all, if his previous decryption about the past where another Mr. Error defeated Mother Goddess of Depravity was true, it wouldn't be far fetched to think that she would take time to recover from having the Primordial Chaos within her damaged.
After that, if she would want to act as normal in her day to day life, she would have to separate the Primordial Chaos from her in some way and then recover immediately using New Life before letting the Primordial chaos recover on its own by feeding on her nutrients.
And when it fully recovered, she would come around to collect it, hence giving Merlin the opportunity to make a deal to give new life to the corruption and get rid of it by killing it after it came alive.
So Loki would do what he did best.
He would steal such a puny corruption directly.
But to keep control over the rat so that he wouldn't betray him, Loki would simply imply a corruption within the man that would steal all his thoughts of betrayal.
But this was just a cover.
Stealing the thoughts of a Sequence 1 Author was not something Loki was confident about. However there was something else that gave Loki absolute confidence in the fact that he could control the rat man.
Dumbledore was already parasitised.
If he wished he could simply corrupt Dumbledore and then spread that corruption to all connected to that Virtual Persona since it couldn't be dismissed as it was parasitised, giving it a new identity and a new source of life.
Especially when Loki would use the corruption he was going to apply onto Rat man to strengthen that link by allowing Mr. Error to use his Sequence 3 Mentor of Deceit Characteristics to exploit the connection.
And so if Loki got corrupted by the Original Creator at any point in their mission, the corruption could be spread to the rat through his first layer of corruption first, and if that was dealt with in some way, it could be spread through the strengthened connection between the rat and Dumbledore.
A perfect balanced situation for Loki where his safety was in his hands while the rat's safety was also in his hands.
…
"Hallucinating figures that don't exist is often a sign of corruption." McGonagall spoke, explaining to Ginny Weasley and Luna Lovegood who were sitting by Harry, Ron and Astoria's bedside.
"Is that why they keep mumbling something about the Original Creator and someone called Mr. Error?" Ginny asked softly, her eyes in pain seeing her family and the person she loved the most in such pain.
McGonagall said nothing for a few seconds before explaining, "Promise me you won't look into the matter again. Not even in books available in the library. You won't be able to figure out when you begin hallucinating, such is the nature of evil gods that corrupt people."
Ginny Weasley nodded before looking at Luna who also nodded softly although her eyes held a hint of surprise.
She had called McGonagall here for something else, not just to lecture Ginny. However it seemed that McGonagall had failed in detecting the anomaly.
'Should I call the Headmaster?' Luna wondered softly.
There was a soft silence for a while before Ginny spoke again, "Have you already informed mother professor?"
"Yes." McGonagall said sternly, "I hope you won't encourage any of them to search more about the corruption either. Madam Pomfrey is already working hard enough as it is, and I'm sure she will figure out a solution one way or another, so all you need to do is give her time."
"...and do we have time professor?" Ginny mumbled out softly with red eyes, looking at the older witch with slight annoyance, "I can feel their intense desire to tear themselves apart from the bedding and follow the orders of the voices speaking to them Professor. They're barely clinging on to sanity with the help of the sleeping Draught potion fighting deeply in their slumber that was supposed to be dreamless."
"Of course they are Miss Weasley. But the right solutions take time to find out. Anything else, any shortcuts you might find, will only trouble them later when things become much riskier and much much worse. So you are not to study these things on your own, not even to help Harry and Ron. Do you understand Miss Weasley?"
Ginny looked back at Harry and Ron and sighed softly in acceptance before nodding.
"Yes Professor."
McGonagall sent a last glance Ginny and Luna's way after that before turning around and walking back out of hospital wing.
Luna looked at Ginny and saw her crying so she decided to remove her cork necklace and place it around the girl's neck. She did so in a smooth motion before quietly walking towards the potions area of the Hospital Wing to help Madam Pomfrey brew more sleeping draughts.
KnockKnock
"Yes?" Madam Pomfrey's voice rang out from inside the brewing area in the hospital.
Luna walked in casually after the permission was granted and spotted a potion about to overflow out of its cauldron only for Madam Pomfrey to tap it with her wand and direct it back inside.
"Is that the cure Madam?" Luna asked bluntly in her airy tone.
Madam Pomfrey looked at the little girl before smiling through her sleeping bags as she explained, "It is not. But it is something that will help them calm down a bit more. It is a potion infused with the essence of the Sun Pathway's purification powers."
Luna, ever the curious type, moved in closer to look at the potion brewing station.
"My mother used to make potions blessed by the sun goddess for me to help me get over colds."
Madam Pomfrey smiled before brushing Luna's hair and warning her, "Don't touch anything in the cauldrons alright, if you want to help me, then help me cut the ingredients."
Luna nodded and quickly got to work as Madam Pomfrey spoke softly, "There was another student who used to help me like this before…"
"Another student? Only one?"
"Yes. He was the only student that ever stayed in the Hospital Wing even when he wasn't injured. In all my time working there hasn't been another, the allure of Magic is too strong for others to spend their time with an old lady like me."
"Luna doesn't think you're old. I think you are as bright as the sun herself."
"Oh Ho ho ho Flattering me so much, what do you want?"
"...you caught me." Luna said unexpectedly.
Madam Pomfrey stood slightly bewildered at the honesty before Luna spoke, "I would like for you to give up the act, Madam."
Pomfrey's face fell.
"I can see it even if Professor McGonagall could not. I can see your corruption, Professor. You were corrupted long ago, were you not? You hide it right inside the light so that no one would suspect a rapidly healing soul that was burning brightly, brighter than most stars, but I can smell it professor, the corruption burning within you, constantly."
Pomfrey fell silent, her hands trembling as the ladle she was using to stir the cauldron stopped spinning while the rest of the knives cutting ingredients stopped in place, hovering mid air.
"That potion and the sleeping draughts you've been giving to the students…"
The silence stretched thin as Luna pulled out her wand and pointed it at the Mataron.
"...it's to poison them to death so that they don't die in pain, is it not?"
The Mataron's mask fell after that but there was no rage, nor sorrow, only a clear indifference that held the burden of the revelation.
"They won't survive either way, no matter what happens after being corrupted by such a high level being, there is no other solution than to die. And all I can do is make sure they die a painless death and be embraced by the Sun so they know some relief."
"Are you sure there is no way to rid them of the corruption Madam Pomfrey?" Luna asked again, holding her beautiful bone wand tighter. "Are you sure you're not just hiding the truth from us all to hoard it to yourself?"
The mataron frowned before explaining herself.
"No. I am doing no such thing. What even makes you think so?"
"..." Luna stayed quiet for a few seconds before revealing the truth, "Because you've been sipping the potion to taste it Madam. Why do you wish to taste poison while it is being made? If you were truly working to give everyone a peaceful death, wouldn't you have taken the poison last?"
Madam Pomfrey's brows twitched ever so slightly.
But Luna caught it, so without further ado, Luna cast the first spell she had learnt from Mr. Error's gospel in the Room of Requirements.
She flicked her wand and wordlessly cast a spell.
Madam Pomfrey reacted almost instantly, waving her hands to defend herself, only, for a moment there she forgot what she wanted to do.
"You are already corrupted Madam, and not partially like Harry, Ron or Astoria outside, but fully, are you not?"
Madam Pomfrey stood in a daze for a few seconds because Luna hadn't just stolen a single thought but a series of them, stealing an entire chain because of the amount of spirituality she had poured into the spell.
…
"Are we going to fight the Angels Mr. Error?" Hermione asked fearfully.
To which Loki spoke softly, "No, that would be stupid."
Just as Hermione was about to breathe a sigh of relief Loki spoke calmly, "I am going to kill them while you and Daphne fight a Sequence 2 Angel and kill the Primordial Chaos hidden deep within her mind with the Rat's help."
Hermione gulped dryly before nodding softly with a weary face.
She couldn't believe the words coming out of Mr. Error's mouth, but she could see just how demanding the world of Angels and True gods was, and if they were in a time limit that was set because of 'Her' presence and was going to become an issue then she would do her best to help Mr. Error by following his orders.
Loki looked at the despirited Hermione and nearly chuckled but he held himself at the last second and calmly gave Hermione the plan.
"Mr. Merlin here will send you to the Sea of Subconscious from where you will follow the ravings and madness that is constantly present in the background of this place. It will be apparent to you that you're getting closer the more ravings you hear. Don't get closer to it after you start to have to steal the corruption from yourself."
"Steal corruption? But… Miss Chadwick told us that we won't be corrupted Mr. Error."
"Don't worry about that, just do as I tell you to." Loki said softly.
Hermione nodded but she was clearly worried now.
'Did she lie to us?'
'Why?'
'Why kill some random Sequence 6 Beyonder and a Sequence 4 demigod when you are an angel able to call a Sequence 2 Angel a 'mere' angel?'
Hermione nodded again and turned to look at Daphne who was speaking to a player at the Roulette table.
"You may leave." Loki said to Hermione while turning to Merlin.
After Hermione left, Loki flicked his wrist and pulled out a glowing orb of crimson light from Merlin, it was the corruption of the Outer God that had infected him.
At the same time, Loki inserted his layered corruption he had planned before into Merlin's mind. But in addition to the simple corruption, Loki mixed in a bit of the Grey Fog wrapped around him so that it could corrupt the rat man once again if things came to the worst.
"Send them to the Sea of Subconscious when the time is right would you?" Loki asked Merlin and the rat man simply nodded, a little annoyed by the additional presence in the sanctity of his mind while also happy now that the corruption that had been bothering him for so long was suddenly gone, wiped away, fully.
But as Loki observed the corruption he found himself confused.
'Why does it feel like this corruption is layered too? It feels like it has something to do with order and disorder…'
'City of Calamity maybe?'
'Why did he get this corruption though…'
'And where did he get it from…'
'Is the City of Calamity on Earth or was it taken by someone else to someplace else?'
'The Genie exists in this world too?'
Not having the answers to these questions for now, Loki proposed another deal to the Rat man.
"Can you give me a way I can recover memories I stole from myself?"
"Huh?" the Merlin looked confused, he pondered for a moment before explaining, "Doing such a thing without prior inspection would be reckless."
Loki gave him a dead panned stare, asking, "Do you really think I'll let you do that?"
Merlin simply chuckled, "I just assumed you would since you didn't add this condition onto the previous deal."
"I didn't because you would've otherwise assumed that I was not who I said I was." Loki stated plainly, "And you wouldn't have let me corrupt you, even if it is only momentary."
Merlin nodded and explained with a sigh, "While it isn't really possible for me to tell what you mean by stealing memories from yourself. All memories have their roots in the sea of Subconscious, so as long as your memories were only stolen on the surface, dig deep enough and you will find them. Although since you are not a spectator, you will have to risk losing yourself if you want to find it on your own. All you have to do is find a way to summon it, either through a ritual inside the sea of subconscious or by performing a divination inside it."
Loki nodded for the information, a plan forming in his mind with the Accio spell and moved onto the next topic to prevent the Spectator from realising that he hadn't paid anything for that information. Not that it was worth very much since any spectator could say so.
"I will take leave now. When I give the signal, send the girls into the Sea of Subconscious. And if I don't give you a signal, send them in when 'She' comes here, at that point make sure to send me in too."
"Alright…" Merlin nodded before looking at Loki for a little while from under his blindfold and then asking him a question, "How long until you resurrect?"
Loki stared off into the distance at that question, pretending like he was seeing something that no one could before he murmured, "Soon… soon enough."
…
Helga looked down at one of her avatars being held up by a student and sighed.
She then turned to Rowena and asked her a question, "Are you sure there is no way out of the corruption? Two of my avatars have become corrupted. They were quite precious too."
Rowena already sad eyed glared at Helga before speaking snarkily, "The only way is resurrection. If it wasn't 'He' wouldn't be waiting to resurrect at the perfect opportunity."
Salazar interjected at that moment, "I think something is wrong with the way we are looking at things."
"Wrong? How can we be wrong? Everyone has reached the same conclusion as us. The mad Primordial Chaos is still rampaging while the one who he is rampaging for is lying asleep god knows where."
"..." Salazar kept quiet after that for a few seconds before speaking again softly, "We wouldn't be here if not for 'Him' saving us all that day and repairing the barrier."
"Are we even alive anymore!? She'll get the Primordial Chaos soon enough and then she'll have the ability to shatter the barrier again while we are all weakened for the third time in a row. Where is your Mr. Error then? Still asleep and keeping himself protected while we handle all his weight."
Salazar sighed softly before explaining himself, "I'm not arguing with you Rowena, what I'm saying is that if we can perhaps find his resurrection spot, we could wake him up and have him perform the substitution killing of the Primordial Chaos once again. What's one more corruption to him? After all he has all the time in the universe to resurrect himself, right? A whole epoch named after him."
Rowena, Godric and Helga all fell into a deep though after that point. Pondering the feasibility of the situation as they calculated the gains and losses if they did so.
Could they wake 'Him' up right as the barrier shattered to force him to perform the substitution? What if they left Cheek and 'Him' in the same room so that Cheek would remerge with the Red Priest pathway characteristics to awaken the Mirrored Original Creator to kill the Primordial chaos?
The answer was simple.
"She won't agree." Rowena said, sighing. "Once was already too much for her to handle. She won't risk permanently awakening the Mirrored Original Creator in her just to kill 'Her'. 'She' could just run away to a different planet. 'She's already suffering from madness here, another planet where she can actually proselytize her religion would only be freedom."
"But could we force her?" Godric asked softly.
"And how do you propose we do that?"
"We could offer her a chance to resurrect in the cycle of rebirth and death I created with Salazar?" Godric proposed, "One where she would be separated from the Mirrored Original Creator by the styx and resurrect in her vessel of choice. That way if we tie them up in the same room once we find them, the Outer Gods will think that they are going to perform the same trick as last time again and try to attack them, but if 'They' do attack the two of them, they will be forced to defend themselves and choose our alternative. It's a much safer bet than letting her reawaken the Mirrored Original Creator fully once again. After all, Mr. Error has nothing to lose, and once he sees that attacking Cheek to hurt 'Her' again is the only way, he will do it himself."
"Hmm…" Rowena closed her eyes with her fingers on her chin to think deeply.
Time passed and Rowena finally opened her eyes with a fierce resolve.
"Let's figure out where Mr. Error hid himself to sleep."
Godric nodded while Salazar smiled wryly, "We should still respect 'Him' you know… 'He' was the one that helped us grow."
"Don't be tricked Salazar. He wasn't someone kind. He only did that to have more Gods and Goddesses on his side. He would be proud that we are doing exactly as he taught us to save the planet. After all, if the planet goes away, no matter where his hiding place is, it'll get destroyed too right?"
Salazar finally nodded with Helga agreeing as well so the four of them began to look into where Mr. Error's resting place was.
"Where do you think we should start from? Or how do we even go about detecting it? Do you think the convergence of pathways would work? I still have the Fool pathway blasphemy Card and we know the location of the Uniqueness of two of the adjacent pathways, could we use those and search through the spirit world?" Rowena asked softly.
"That seems like it could work, but why don't we just first divine about it? The type of failure could also tell us a lot, could it not? After all, he doesn't have the Sefirah Castle with him to hide inside it." Salazar explained.
Rowena nodded and performed the divination with a simple flicker of her eye lid.
Only.
The second a vision flashed in front of her eyes.
Her eyes popped.
"Aghghhhhh…." Rowena muffled a scream as her eyes regenerated, before she looked back up and explained, "I was hit by an imbalance in order and chaos. Simply looking at him exacts a price I was unwilling to pay. And simply earning the right to look at him required the price of my eyes."
"The Justiciar pathway? The Genie?"
"Is he just in the Department of Mysteries?" Helga asked softly, a little unsure since she had been to the place several times before and never noticed something so unusual about it.
"I don't know…it should be somewhere on the planet. Just not visible without paying a high price… What would require such a price?" Rowena asked everyone.
"A sealed place could've been broken easily by your authority as a Great Old One… to exact a price from you would mean that the seal's integrity is beyond that of a Great old One…like the Original Creator's seal over the Astral Realm… Who even made such a seal?" Salazar asked, puzzled.
…