Mahoraga in Lord of the Mysteries

Agony was instant, searing through his entire being, yet it was not pain that consumed him. It was memory.

Time fractured, shattering into jagged fragments of past and present. In an instant, he was no longer here. He was back there; on that fateful day, watching as his captain fall, his own death following moments later.

His body crumpled, his consciousness fading…

Then the world twisted again, and he was falling backward into time, reliving the suffocating cascade of Beyonder events he had been unwillingly dragged into during his days in Tingen. The smell of blood and damp parchment returned, the echo of whispers seeping from forbidden books.

A quill; feathered and tainted with something far beyond mortal comprehension, lurched into focus. It wrote, it decided, it controlled.

But it was never just the quill. It was the one who wielded it. It was the one who killed him.

The scene unravelled further. The ink on his own notebook blurred, shifting into something more sinister.

And then, he saw himself. His own hand trembling as he wrote, his own fingers gripping the pen like a condemned man gripping a blade.

The final stroke of ink, the decision, the act of ultimate inevitability.

He had killed himself.

But time did not stop. If anything, it accelerated.

His perception expanded, his vision wrenched from the limitations of flesh and cast into the vast expanse of space. From this impossible vantage point, he saw the planet he was on, its blue oceans and vast continents spinning beneath him.

But time was reversing. The planet rotated backward, epochs unravelling one after another. Civilizations crumbled into dust, then reformed in grotesque, unrecognizable ways.

The Fourth Epoch faded, then the Third, the Second… until at last, the First Epoch dissolved. And then… everything changed.

A tremor rippled through existence as the "Western Continent," long sealed away, unsealed itself. And from its depths, something ancient stirred.

The Celestial Worthy of Heaven and Earth for Blessings, the Lord of the Mysteries, returned, not reborn, but resurrected from corruption itself.

His grey fog returned back to his body, and as it did, the world reshaped. Continents contorted, their forms shifting into something eerily familiar… too familiar.

The Abyss rose, forming what he recognized as Australia. The Forsaken Land of the Gods moved, shifting like a puzzle piece into place to create West Asia and Europe. The newly unsealed continent took the form of East Asia. Sonia Island stretched and twisted until it became Greenland. The Southern Continent reshaped into South America, and the Northern Continent expanded into North America.

It was impossible.

It was unthinkable.

It was the Earth.

A shuddering breath left Klein, no, Zhou Mingrui.

The realization struck him harder than any wound, and dread bloomed within him, black and choking.

This was not another world. There was no grand journey across dimensions, no distant land to return home from. This had always been his home. It had always been Earth.

"T-This was Earth…" but time did not stop. The universe had not yet finished unravelling its horrors. The barrier; the thin, fragile veil that had shielded Earth from the Outer Gods, did not break. It was unmade.

The protection that had once kept the horrors at bay was reversed, never having existed at all. The corruption that had festered on the planet; the crude oil, black and tainted was dragged back beneath the surface, swallowed by the core of the world.

Beyonder Characteristics; scattered from shattered divinity, collapsed inward. The remains of gods, of kings, of forgotten monstrosities, all pulled back into a singularity within Earth's very essence.

And then… humanity returned.

The dead, the erased, the forgotten, they appeared. As if their nonexistence had been a mere illusion, as if history had been rewritten to place them back where they belonged.

And that was when it all stopped. Klein's vision narrowed, rushing down toward a singular moment, a single figure standing amidst an ocean of reality undone.

A young man in China; Zhou Mingrui.

And above him, like a deity descending to claim what was rightfully His, the Lord of the Mysteries reached forth, plucking his soul from its fragile, fleeting vessel.

"It was Earth all along?" Zhou's voice broke, his words raw with horror, with disbelief. But the moment he uttered them, pain lanced through his skull. His eyes burned, bled, as crimson tears streaked down his face.

"Always has been, child," the voice was not mocking. Nor was it kind. It was ancient, vast, layered with a depth of understanding that no mortal mind could endure.

Zhou, no Klein, turned.

And in the vastness of space, three colossal beings loomed. Their forms defied shape, shifting, writhing with divine magnitude. They did not move. They did not speak again. They simply waited. Patience was effortless for creatures that had witnessed eternity fold and unfold countless times.

Klein trembled, his mind clawing for stability. Every belief he had held, every certainty, had shattered. He had thought… hoped that if he became strong enough, he could return home. That his suffering, his sacrifices, would one day bring him back. But there was no 'returning.' There was no 'other world.'

This was his world. This had always been his world.

The beings remained unmoving.

Then, one of them finally spoke, "Child, if Divine General Mahoraga is left alive, it will resurrect the Great Old Ones it has slain… and will unite all to awaken Him."

There was no need to ask who He was. Klein's lips parted, but no words came.

"If He awakens, all life will cease. Everything will return to Him."

Silence stretched. Klein barely breathed.

"We will give you power, the ability. Take it, and slay the Trojan Horse of Fate; Amon."

Amon. The name slithered through his mind like a whisper from something lurking just out of sight. A name woven with fate itself.

"You will be guided. The battle awaits. Your allies will find you in time. Fate blesses it so."

The void around him trembled, the very fabric of existence bending to their words. "Go, child. Save the universe, and all who exist within it."