Sunny let out a long, ragged sigh as he stared into the endless darkness beneath the Hollow Mountains. Months. They had spent months trudging through the Forgotten Shore: bleeding, fighting, risking their lives for nothing.

His jaw tightened, anger flaring in his chest as his eyes cut toward Nephis. That's it? That was her grand plan? They had followed her, bled for her, suffered for her… only to stand here empty-handed. And worse, he had somehow lost the Midnight Shard. The memory of how it happened was gone, erased as if it had never been. No matter how many times he tore through his mind, the answer never surfaced.

And he wasn't the only one. Effie had lost the Zenith Shard, too. Together they had nothing.

"What now!?" His voice came out harsher than intended, echoing against the cold stone.

Nephis furrowed her brow. For the first time since he'd known her, Sunny saw true unease in Changing Star's eyes. No icy calm, no impenetrable resolve. Just quiet conflict and maybe even fear. And who could blame her? The entire Outer Settlement had pinned its hopes on her promise: the shards would become a key, the key would open the door, and they would escape this cursed place.

But all seven shards were gone. Lost to time. Their desperate trek had been nothing but a mirage.

Cassie trembled beside them, pale and shaken. Her visions had failed and betrayed her. She had seen so clearly, so certainly… and now all of it lay in ruins. Her parents, her future, her hope of survival... Slipping away like sand through her fingers.

Effie leaned casually on her spear, but Sunny wasn't fooled. He could feel the weight pressing on her. She had smothered her hope long ago, content to keep living day by day. But Nephis had rekindled that flame when she invited Effie into the cohort. And now that flame was gone, leaving behind only the hollow ache of despair.

Caster stood quiet and stiff, his expression carved from stone. To him, duty was everything. The mission above all. But even so… he was only human. And humans wanted to live. To return home.

Sunny clenched his fists. Hope was poison. He had abandoned it long ago, learned to live without it. And yet… here he was again, choking on the bitter taste. Maybe the voice under his bed had been right all along. He was a failure. He couldn't accomplish anything. He would die here: a nameless, filthy rat, born in shit and fated to rot in it.

But no... No... There had to be another way.

And then…

Nephis straightened, her pale face blank, strangely solemn. For a long moment, she was silent, motionless until her hands closed into fists. A spark of white fire burned in the depths of her eyes.

Her voice, low and taut with iron, cut through the despair.

"Get ready. We're going back."

Sunny grinned darkly, his voice dripping with mockery.

"Ah, yes. Conviction. And enlighten us, oh radiant one, what will we do?"

Nephis only spared him a glance before turning away, silent. She wasn't in the mood to spar with his venom.

Sunny's jaw tightened. He was about to spit another remark when the others began to rise, preparing to leave the cave. But then Caster stopped.

His boots scraped against stone. His posture stiffened.

The others turned, following his gaze.

There, half-buried in shadow, was a tablet. Obsidian black, yet streaked with faint veins of light, like frozen lightning, like fragments of stars caught in stone. At its heart glowed a spiral, white and radiant, ringed by five smaller circles connected by fine etched lines. Within each circle: a motif like a clock's face, the hands frozen in impossible arrangements.

The spiral pulsed faintly, like a heartbeat.

Caster stared. His expression twisted in unease… then blurred, as though his very thoughts began to slip out of alignment. His eyes grew glassy and unfocused. A tremor passed through him as he recoiled with a sharp breath, as if wrenching himself free.

But then words slipped from his lips, trembling, unwilling:

"The Trojan Horse of Fate,

The Slug of Time, the Loopholes in Rules,

The Manifestation of All Errors…"

As the last syllable fell, something ripped free of him. His breath caught as his spirit was yanked from the dream realm and hurled elsewhere.

When Caster opened his eyes again, a shudder wracked his being.

He stood on a vast plane of overlapping clocks. Thousands of them, suspended in the void. Their faces gleamed gold, their roman numerals sharp, unblinking. Cogs and massive rings circled him, translucent and infinite, layered like a thousand interlocking timelines. The machinery turned with a jittering rhythm, as if time itself stuttered.

Caster's stomach lurched. His mind reeled.

And above it all loomed something… wrong.

The sky... no, there was no sky. A gray sphere flickered above, its surface glitching in and out of existence like a broken screen. The heavens around it had shattered into jagged shards, suspended in midair, frozen like falling glass caught on pause. Wisps of pale mist bled from the edges, swallowing detail, eating away at reality itself.

Caster swallowed hard, terror gnawing at his core. He tried to think, to form words silently in his mind but froze.

The thought left his lips anyway.

"…What is this place?"

His eyes widened. "Why did my thought echo? How?"

Another broken whisper escaped his mouth unbidden, a half-formed question he hadn't even finished thinking.

Terror clawed into him. His face crumpled as he reached for a body that wasn't there. No sweat, no breath, no flesh. Only a trembling awareness bound in this… Erroneous environment.

But soon, Caster realized he wasn't alone.

Perched high above on a massive, slowly turning cog sat a figure. A tall silhouette, draped in flowing wizard's robes and crowned with a ludicrously pointed hat. A faint glimmer of a crystal monocle winked from its right eye.

At first, it almost looked comical. Then he saw the tentacles.

Transparent, illusory appendages writhed around the figure, every one covered in symbols so wrong that Caster's flesh seemed to peel away and crawl from his bones. His body convulsed, a guttural scream tearing out of him like some feral beast.

Than a figure above him waved his hand.

The gray fog surged forward, muffling the sound, cocooning him. The horror didn't fade, but it was blurred, contained and pressed out of sight.

Caster's warped form flickered, then stabilized into something resembling a human again. He trembled violently, eyes wide with terror.

"Wh… wha-what are you?" The words came unbidden, grinding out through his clenched teeth. His hands twitched uncontrollably. He hadn't wanted to speak but here, his unwanted thoughts spilled into the open, while the words he tried to form remained echoing uselessly inside his mind. The roles were reversed.

The silhouette shifted. One blink it was far above, the next it was standing right in front of him. Its features were blurred, impossible to perceive, as though the act of looking slid away from his memory.

Then, at last, the voice was heard.

It was smooth, mischievous and pleasant. No longer distorted, no longer monstrous and somehow that was worse.

"A God of Deceit."

Then the God vanished, flickering like a glitch across the shifting sea of clocks.

One moment He was perched lazily on the second hand of a colossal dial, the next He was strolling backward through a cascade of gears, only to reappear a heartbeat later standing ahead of Caster in some future that hadn't happened yet. Time bent to His amusement: forward, backward, sideways. A game played for His own entertainment.

"I am the God of Tricksters, Adventurers, and Thieves."

The words carried no thunder, no divine weight: just lightness, a calmness edged with childlike amusement. That made them infinitely worse. The realm shuddered around each syllable, but His voice remained pleasant, casual, even playful.

"And now… why would someone as disciplined as you ever pray to Me? You look more like a knight than one of my mischievous followers, mortal…"

Caster's throat tightened. His body trembled, though it was not really a body. A God? A living God… His thoughts stuttered, breaking apart as dread drowned him.

But his thoughts didn't echo like before, as if the error had been fixed…

"It's more interesting this way. If I can read your mind, then conversation is useless," the God said with a smile.

Gods were supposed to be dead. All of them. What lingered were only their remnants, corrupted abominations, half-rotten echoes of divinity. And yet this presence… this mind… this voice... alive, awake and alien.

What have I called into being? Was He in slumber? Did my words… awaken Him?

What could he do now? Nothing... Absolutely nothing. His training, his discipline, his honor all were meaningless here. Even gazing upon this being frayed the edges of his sanity. Laws themselves bent like toys in His hands.

Then suddenly, He was there again. Standing close. Adjusting His monocle with delicate precision, His mouth curling in a smile that did not reach the eyes Caster could not see.

"Ah. I see. A speedster…" His tone was one of discovery, almost fascination. "How curious. Your power is fitting for an adventurer. But alas…"

The God's smile widened.

"…your personality is inflexible, simple and naïve. Mortals like you always lack creativity."

The words struck deeper than any blade.

But Caster couldn't even get angry. What was the point? Against this being, wrath was meaningless. He would die in the blink of an eye. So instead, with his teeth clenched, he forced out a trembling question.

"W-why… would you?"

The God chuckled faintly, as though humored by a child's curiosity, and ignored the question entirely.

"I think I know what to do…" His tone shifted, almost playful. "You see, I feel one of my blessed somewhere near you. That alone makes this a good opportunity. And obviously, far more fun. And yes, there's no need to mention it. I know the state of the world."

The God's steps left no mark as He strolled across the air itself, each word reverberating like a whisper between seconds. Then His voice darkened, gaining weight.

"But just because every other god is dead… does not mean I am too."

He paused, and a smile curled in the unseen void of His face.

"I can cheat even death."

Caster nodded quickly, though his hands trembled. Blessed? Opportunity? The words buzzed in his head like hornets. What does He mean? What blessed? What is happening to me…?

Gathering his remaining composure, he asked softly, "May I ask… the meaning of your words?"

The God sighed, a sound not of anger but of boredom.

"Why so formal? Hm. Well, whatever. Your language is amusing, though."

Caster's eyes widened. He learned it in a blink… No, perhaps it wasn't learning at all. He simply understood. Maybe every word, every tongue, every symbol was already His. What else could a God not comprehend?

The God of Deceit's silhouette flickered, blurry and shifting, writhing tentacles unfurling like a playful ribbons.

"What I mean is this: wouldn't it be dull for someone with such a funny aspect to waste away as a knight?" He leaned closer, His voice gleaming with mockery. "Become my follower instead. That would be so much more… entertaining."

Caster swallowed hard, then forced out, "Pardon me, my… God. But… are You saying You are bored?"

"Yes." The answer was immediate. "I need entertainment, even in sleep. I can create anything within my dreamscape… but what's the point, when I already know what happened, what is happening, and what will happen? Predictability is dull. So…"

He let out a soft chuckle.

"…I restrain myself. Just a little. And watch you."

Caster's face twisted with conflict. He couldn't refuse a God, the very thought was impossible. Yet his mission still weighed on him, heavy as chains. He had to kill Nephis. He had to bring glory back to his family name. He had to…

The God's faint smile widened, as if plucking the thoughts straight from his skull.

"Is that truly what you desire? To chase another's shadow, when others should be chasing yours? Why suffer for someone else's purpose, when you could seek pleasure instead of pain? Why carry a meaning that was forced onto you at birth, instead of creating your own?"

Caster clenched his fists, teeth grinding. Rage simmered in his chest, not just at the mockery of his mission, but at the mockery of his life. Before he could spit out a reply, the God leaned closer, voice smooth and sharp as glass.

"Why waste so much energy pretending to be normal? Why fight so desperately to uphold illusions? Why not embrace the absurdity of existence? Why not revel in thrill and joy instead of grinding yourself into dust? Why not write your own story… and chase your own peak?"

Caster trembled. His whole body quaked under that delighted, curious gaze. The God's wide smile seemed mocking, yet… no, it was genuine. He was entertained.

"How…?" Caster whispered hoarsely. "How can I? I don't even have time…"

The God laughed. It was loud, rich, and merciless, echoing endlessly through the fractured horizon of clocks and gears.

"And why not appreciate the time you do have?" His tone was gleeful, almost tender, as though addressing a favored pet. "Mortals are such strange creatures. So stupid… and yet so endlessly fascinating."

Then He was before Caster in an instant, His presence pressing like the weight of eternity. The distorted grin widened, and His voice warped into something wrong, something primordial and thunderous.

"No loss is more regrettable than the loss of time, for it is irretrievable. Until you value yourself, you cannot value your time. And until you value your time… you will do nothing with it."

The cogs and clocks around them screamed, grinding in reverse, rushing forward, freezing in impossible patterns.

The God's words resounded like a verdict:

"Be grateful for my gift. After all… I am not only the God of Deceit."

Than, the world itself seemed to hold its breath.

"I am also… the God of Time."

***

[A/N: Here we are, guys. Hah, did you expect this? I bet no one expected Caster to become Amon's follower. But it's kind of symbolic that a follower of the God who controls time has no time of his own. And yes, I already said it: Amon will fuck up the plot. I think it's boring if everything stays the same as in the novel, so I only leave untouched what isn't related to Amon. And yes, Amon is scamming Caster into becoming his believer, hahaha. So right now, Amon has Kai and Caster. What do you think? Who will be the other followers?That's it for now, enjoy the meal]

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