POV's
It had been several weeks since his holiness had personally recruited a new priestess. To her this had been very odd, his holiness had always been uninterested in matters regarding the matters of the church, it had also seemed to her that His holiness never seemed to even bother praying or even taking the lord's words seriously.
Of course, any normal priest or priestess wouldn't have dared question the pope himself who is often called the best friend of the lord of the heavens, but she wasn't any normal priestess, she was the left hand of the pope.
She knew that the pope was far from the image that was shown to others, he never prayed to the lord, only ever acknowledging the lord's presence and might.
When she asked him why, he simply said it was due to his aspect and flaw. The pope was an awakened, and she suspected that the pope might be a master or even a saint, but it was hard to confirm as the pope's presence would constantly change, once she would feel the pope was mundane and other times a being greater than a saint, a supreme.
obviously, she was one of the few people who were aware of the existence of the sovereigns who had kept the secret of themselves being supreme from the rest of the world. like her and other priests of special ranks are aware of this fact, those people are more or else special in their own regards some of them were not even carrier's of the nightmare spell, yet they exude the presence of one.
She was also aware of the Forgotten shore and the major events that would be unfolding in the future, from the number of survivors to everything about it. She had received this knowledge from her visions and some from the pope himself, but the latter seemed reluctant to speak about it, perhaps because of the lives that would be lost.
He had however made some remark about it….
"aria..", pope keter called her.
He was seated on the soft couch in the same room where she had bought the new priestess, all that time back, except this time the room was darker, almost dim, and in front of him was a long mottled table, with multiple shadowy figures seated at either side. She could not tell how many figures there were but she could discern more than 3 individuals were present, it was like a meeting over the net, except with more mystical elements.
This is how the pope usually controls the church and all its branches from all around the world, he never leaves this room in this mystical place which seemed to be more and more like a dream realm.
Now that she thought about it, she had never in her long years of serving the church, seen the pope come out or even address the believers from day 1 of her time in the church; he had always been in this room other than that, he always seemed distant from those below him.
"Yes your holiness", I replied without delay, burying any unnecessary thoughts.
"What are the updates regarding our expansion into Antarctica?" keter asked her as he read a paper with plans regarding creating a new route from Antarctica through the sea to the other quadrants with the help of the house of night.
Taking a look at the stack of pages on my hand, I read some details about the plan from under my veil and then turned my head to speak.
"We used several excuses, primarily the supply chain and stronger connections between the quadrants as an excuse to get the government and the house of night to work with us and put more focus in building newer and sturdier ships and creating new roads and other facilities of easier population transport, while we secretly work on the streamlining the escape routes for large scale evacuations with our resources, the government however have noticed this but avoided mentioning it as it didn't get in the way of their plan or maybe simply because they don't want to risk putting tension on our relations".
I finished my short summary of the report, and awaited for his holiness to speak. For a moment it seemed that pope keter was happy.
"That's good, very good actually… with this many of the troubles of the future will be under control…", pope keter said with a bit of melancholy in his voice.
"Don't you think you're being too paranoid.", one of the shadowy figures spoke up finally, from the voice it sounded like a middle aged man.
"while preparing for the future disaster is important, i still do not understand why we are spending so much of our resources on a yet to come disaster that we don't even know will come or not? if you as me it seems your making decisions paranoia"
the middle aged man's shadow paused momentarily while looking around, he then continued
He straightened up, then said in a neutral tone "I am saying, it would be best if we utilize our resources on something we are sure of. such as the forgotten shore", the middle aged voice finally stopped and the table came to a silence.
Even though the old man had been slightly rude at his holiness, his words held truth in them, it was indeed much cheaper and a logical choice to venture on the safe route through the hallow mountains that your holiness had personally routed and saving the forgotten shore's sleepers, it was not a secret, the forgotten shore sleepers are on an entirely different level compared to those of the same rank, so having saved them would benefit the larger populous.
however the pope had constantly been a roadblock to this idea, he had constantly somehow convinced all of the members present into turning their focus to Antarctica rather then forgotten shore.
Keter regarded the figures for a moment.
"Aria.. leave this room and wait outside", he asked first.
the order was sudden but i heeded it regardless, placing the stacks of paper from my hand on the mottled table, i turned and left the room.
***
keter POV
"bloody hell, why cant you just listen to what i say without question", he cried out inwardly.
normally, he wouldn't bothered to listen to their complains but just a few weeks ago that bastard sent Cassie's mother to me, the message was obvious, 'i have awakened, i am sending Cassie's mother to keep cass's family safe while i woo their daughter to the astral world and oh yea you better do the dishes before i get back'.
because of him, i now have to speed up the churches expansion into Antarctica, he told me that his awakening would likely be after the forgotten shore arc had been completed but i could not on the life of my darling Morgan have guessed he meant becoming an awakened from a sleeper. back then he made me think he meant waking up literally but in reality he toyed with words i cant even say he lied cause technically he didn't lie.
AHHHHHHHHH, fuck you visionary!!!!
after a few short moments of cursing a certain person who cannot be named, he turned his attention back to the individuals, these were some hopeless people he randomly chose after he returned to start the church, after training them on many things and making them a believer of the certain Almighty simp, he had left them to manage the church while he controlled the entire organization from the top, it was his only option really, he wanted to leave this room but doing so would have made the corruption to start spreading again, so he could only resort to this method.
obviously without the leaders involvement, the subordinates would without a doubt grow complacent,no matter how powerful the leader is or how influential, the leaders presence is paramount to a successful organization.
what the middle aged man said is true, but that is under blind faith that it would work, in reality its not simple, even when.i did save more people from the forgotten shore then in the original story, the following events become more dire and the losses become too much for me to even look at, it was only thanks to "him" that it didn't go much worse, but that time was already catastrophic, without the main protagonist back then the end result was much worse.
that is why, this time we had decided to absolutely not tamper with the original story except those that dont affect the grand scheme of things -it was mostly "his" idea-.
turning his attention back to the shadowy figure's, i dont have time i will simply have to use force here, time is of the essence very soon "he" is going return.
"there are reason that you are still not yet ready to know", while saying that he stood up, he pulled on the crucifix on his neck wrapped the chain around his hand while letting the cross dangle.
"when the time comes you will know, but for now i need you to speed up all operations, asap", i am just bullshitting here, nothing will be explained, if you dont know how to get out of a tough situation you can always take help from the "100 ways to fool the members of your organization into thinking you got everything covered but in reality others are gonna cover it for you", if your listening you better come fast.
~~~
after several more minutes of dialogue, the shadowy figures dissolved one after another only leaving one.
the shadow on the figure dissolved leaving a women in her early twenties, she wore a simple white chiton, which carefully carved her generous figure on to the world, she had crossed one leg over another.
We met a long time ago, back when i was trying to cross the Hallow mountain's, back then i never thought i would actually come across someone like her but i did, because she was a demoness, or rather she became one, "he" had already long established a formula to acquire a certain type of aspects, however this formula didn't come simply come out of nowhere, it was experimented, researched, observed and then complied, however experiments weren't done with lab or other ethical methods but by using actual people as lab rats for him, this is where he and I part ways, i don't like his methods but i cant say anything against it, at the time his humanity was on an all time low but he did ensure all he did was simply observe and only interfere enough to see if its possible to get desired aspects, but of course, this could also be selective honesty, he might have done what he said but could have also easily omitted the fact he had done worse things before me and her.
yet he is still the best person to follow behind, i- you damn bastard, you better keep your promise.
if it works, this time line would be the best timeline of all timelines..
"are you sure Adam has awakened?", the women spoke first.
"yep, that Simp Almighty has awkaned and apparently is already in the forgotten shore, in about a month the siege of the crimson spire will start-"
"has Adam awakened?", the women interrupted.
Keter stared at the women. then closing his eyes he replied, "Yes".
he then asked a question back, "why do you care about him so much?"
a moment passed then two, then she replied "Adam has given me life…".
Keter sighed and closed his eyes, it was always the same, she was only a vessel a vessel after all…
***
Ivan POV
he was laying down on the hard floor, under. ragged tent, staring at the whole on the ceiling tent.
haha…. hahahaha. hahhahahahahaha…
he started laughing like maniac, he didn't even care if he was being heard by others… because right now there was another Ivan or rather an apparition of himself seating right across from him.
he lifted his head to look at the apparition again then dropped his head back to the ground. "i am going insane, i have a sin of solace, hehhehehe damn i going to be mad prince fr fr".
the apparition did indeed look like Ivan but there were clear difference for example, the apparition had black hair with golden accents on the root of his hairs, and he was clearly older looking compared to the current Ivan.
the apparition finally spoke, "you have been like those since reaching bright castle, can you quite it already, even i dont have that much patience".
"i will stop after you explain yourself, are you trying to make me into a mad prince.. i knew it there was a price for being so over powered", Ivan continued his ramble.
"i will have Ca-", before the apparition could finish.
"alright alright i am listening", Ivan instantly sat cross legged across from the apparition.
"good, now for gods sake stop calling me apparition, just call me Adam, i-", before the apparition could continue, Ivan interrupted him.
"but its my true name-", Ivan corrected.
"FOR FUCKS SAKE IT OUR TRUE NAME, AND SHUT THE HELL UP AND LET ME EXPLAIN", Adam shouted which finally managed to shut the half mad Ivan.
"ok ok, i get it no need to shout", Ivan said while rolling his eyes.
"i wouldn't have to if you weren't driving me mad", Adam sneered back.
hehe, how the tabled turned.
"enough, a simple summery i am basically a fragment of our mind which split, so i am basically you and your basically me, it could have been the other way around as well, like you being the apparition instead of me, but that doesn't matter what matters is that we are currently in the merging process and i hold a shit ton of our memories, until now i have been growing separately from you while gathering information regarding the current status of the world and our other fragments.", Adam explained.
"hahahaha, this is…. i dont know how to feel about this, until now my mind had been fragmented and split and there are other me's roaming around the dream realm and the waking world as we speak each of them growing on their own. does this mean i or we are all virtual persona's? then where is our real body? wait everything i know are they false?", Ivan found it hard to believe himself, but the evidence was there.
"more or less we are all virtual persona's and no our knowledge is still relevant nothing about it is made up the only thing we lacked is the knowledge of one another but now that is no longer, as for the question of main body we generally consider you the main consciousness for obvious reasons", Adam explained further.
"visionary… then what is our purpose?" Ivan didn't dive into the realm of doubt, if what his or the virtual person says is true then there had to have been an objective on to why we all split in the first place, i couldn't seem to recall my first nightmare of anything before the academy and that always seemed to go over his mind but now, it was clear why, most of his memories was with this virtual persona.
"our purpose is simple, we should avoid the main casts -except Cassie of course- and make sure they make it to the tomb of ariel just like in the original story, and merge with our other personas before it as well", Adam explained.
"so we just spectate and do nothing?", Ivan asked.
"isn't the first principal of a spectator to spectate and not get involved?", Adam smiled and said, "we have too much to do like getting out of here and…" Adam paused dramatically.
"making sure nephis and sunny's fate get bound together in their final fight".
Ivan's expression become more solemn and serious, as Adam continued to explain the plan.
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A/N: sorry for the late update, lost motivation to write but hey i am back... kinda...