Mars.
The Temple of the Fabricator-General.
The glow of teleportation tore a rift in the air without warning. Pale gold light poured out like liquid, illuminating the dense gear decorations and mechanical icons within the temple.
Adam stepped out.
He looked ahead and saw Archmagos Belisarius Cawl standing beside a massive creation. On that face, which had long since been restored from machinery to flesh, a rare look of surprise appeared.
"Lord Adam?"
Cawl's voice carried a hint of hesitation, as if he were confirming the identity of the person before him. "Why have you come?"
"Long time no see, Archmagos Cawl."
Adam nodded to him, his gaze sweeping over the temple's interior—the mountains of scrolls, the shimmering holographic projections, and the automated production lines still humming in the corners. Since arriving on Mars, he had changed many things, but the roar of machinery and binary hymns remained, like a never-ending industrial symphony.
"I've come to see you because I need to prepare for some new actions," Adam said, turning back to Cawl. "And you have something that I need very much right now."
"What is it?"
Cawl tilted his head slightly, his mechanical eye flickering with a cautious light. If anyone else had made such a request, he would have already activated the temple's defense systems—but facing Adam, he simply said, "If it is your request, I will obey."
"Inferior Cawl."
Adam gave the answer directly. He knew Cawl had been researching projects related to Abominable Intelligence. This "Inferior Cawl" was actually a personality backup of Cawl himself, which could be viewed as an AI version of his personality. Since Adam had granted Cawl reality-warping abilities, even he didn't know how much Cawl had improved it.
Without a doubt, this was something extremely private. If anyone else had asked for it, Cawl would have eliminated them physically in the most violent way possible.
However, things were different now. Cawl remained silent for two seconds, his breathing clearly audible in the stillness.
"Of course."
He turned and walked toward an encrypted storage locker deep within the temple. Complex binary verification codes flashed in the air, and heavy metal plates slowly slid open to reveal an inconspicuous data storage device.
"This is the core data of Inferior Cawl," Cawl said, handing it to Adam. "It contains all my research data from ten thousand years, personality backups, and various analytical modules. What do you need it for?"
"I am heading to a certain location and need a reliable assistant to help me look up data and perform various calculations," Adam said, taking the device and placing it into his spatial pocket. "This will do perfectly."
Cawl nodded and asked no more questions. The Omnissiah surely had his own deep reasons.
"And next, I need one more thing."
Adam looked past Cawl at the giant creation being studied behind him. "What a coincidence," he said, the corners of his mouth curling upward. "I was just looking for where this thing had been taken."
The creation looked like a giant clockwork device, weighing several tons and taking up a vast area. A massive number of drive screws, conveyor belts, pulleys, gears, springs, and other clockwork parts formed an incredibly complex structure—a quick scan suggested at least eight million moving parts. It was made mostly of copper and tin, with a copper tube on the panel connecting to the main body, labeled for input and output, and large knobs to adjust settings.
It looked like a bizarre workbench.
Adam knew exactly what it was. Or rather, it was an anomaly he had personally crafted—SCP-914, "The Clockwork," a terrifying device that could modify anything through different refinement modes. It could turn a common gunpowder revolver into a nightmare weapon that fired high-density gamma rays, or transform a living being into a powerful psychic.
If Adam were still a weak Level 2, he would have treated this like a priceless treasure. But now that he was a Level 3 reality warper, the device held little use for him personally. However, considering his next destination, it could still provide a lot of help.
Adam looked around, his brow twitching slightly. The surface of the machine was covered in Purity Seals, prayer scripts, and various Mechanicus gear decorations. A group of Tech-Priests were kneeling respectfully nearby, their foreheads touching the ground as they continuously chanted binary prayers. They were as fanatical as if they had encountered a holy relic.
"Lord Adam," Cawl said with a hint of helplessness. "Every Magos who has seen this creation is going mad. You should see them—one highly renowned Tech-Priest on Mars even declared on the spot that this is physical proof of the existence of the Broken God."
Adam fell silent. In a way, that priest was right. The prototype for this device was indeed a holy relic of the Church of the Broken God, and the Church had dealt with the Foundation many times because of it.
"I am here to take the anomalous weapons you processed through this machine previously."
Adam stated his purpose directly. Cawl didn't ask questions and wordlessly opened a storage room. Inside, a series of refined anomalous weapons were neatly arranged. They looked like standard plasma pistols, volkite guns, vortex grenades, and neural shredders, but their power was likely incomparable to their original forms. At the same time, there was a variety of individual combat supplies, including medicines, emergency rations, theological prayers, and psychic talismans.
Adam packed them one by one into a spatial storage device. In passing, he used his reality-warping power to secretly add many anomalous devices from the Foundation that he could think of.
"That will be all."
Adam turned and nodded to Cawl. Cawl's face was solemn as he performed a gear salute to the entity he believed in. "May you achieve your heart's desire."
"Of course."
With a wave of his hand, Adam opened a temporary portal in the air and threw the spatial storage device through it.
Terra.
Inside the Throne Room.
The other Adam reached out immediately, catching the storage device that appeared out of thin air and tucking it away securely. He looked at the Emperor beside him.
"I'm ready."
"Are you certain?" The Emperor looked up, watching him silently.
"Don't worry, this is what I've been looking forward to," Adam laughed. "It's been so long since I went back, and I've been crushing weaklings here for so long that I'm actually quite eager."
Returning home in glory is the only way to go! He couldn't wait to start something big.
'Just make sure you don't end up being the one who gets crushed.'
The Emperor shook his head and said nothing more. He lightly raised a hand, and pale gold light flickered at his fingertips. An ethereal bridge between worlds slowly emerged in the air. It wasn't as clear as a portal; it was shimmering and translucent like a mirage, as if it might be scattered by a breeze. The bridge was composed of countless tiny light particles, each flickering and leaping like living stars. The end of the bridge vanished into chaos, making it impossible to see clearly.
Adam took a deep breath and smiled. He stepped into the stream of light. A chaotic blur of light and shadow shifted, as if he were passing through an invisible veil. The frantic imagery flashed through his mind and then fell into silence.
After an unknown amount of time—perhaps a moment, perhaps an eternity—Adam felt his body come to a stop. He looked around.
He was now in the middle of heavy traffic. Skyscrapers lined the streets, their glass walls reflecting the afternoon sun. The asphalt road was slightly soft from the heat, and the sound of car horns rose and fell, mixed with advertising music from shops, the chatter of pedestrians, and the distant, faint sounds of a construction site. The air carried a faint scent of exhaust and the aroma of pancakes from a roadside stall.
Pedestrians crowded the sidewalks. Someone was looking at a phone, someone was waiting for a bus, and someone was rushing home with groceries. A child was being led across a crosswalk by his mother, holding an ice cream that was about to melt.
All was peaceful. A modern city as ordinary as it could be.
Adam pondered for a moment and crooked a finger at a young college student who had just passed him. The student stopped in a daze, subconsciously took his phone out of his pocket, and handed it over.
"Thank you," Adam said politely. His finger swiped across the screen, skillfully opening the browser.
It was well known that Adam understood the Foundation world perfectly. He only needed to browse social media platforms and search for key terms to quickly narrow down which version of the Foundation's world-view he was in. This was a technique he had mastered while traveling through the multiverse before.
Adam opened a common social app. Before he could even start searching, his finger froze on the screen, and the expression on his face hardened. On the phone screen, the three-arrowed inward-pointing circle of the Foundation was clearly visible.
[The following information has been written and published following a unanimous decision by the Council.]
[For those of you who are currently unaware of our existence, we represent an organization known as the Foundation. Our previous mission revolved around the containment and study of anomalous objects, entities, and other phenomena. For over a hundred years, these tasks have been the focus of our organization.]
[Due to circumstances beyond our control, this directive has now changed. Our new mission will be the extermination of the human race.]
[There will be no further communication.]
With a speed as if he had been electrocuted, Adam's hand jerked. The phone drew a graceful arc through the air and turned to ash before his eyes.
Adam laughed. It was a laugh of pure exasperation.
"Motherfucker, where the hell have I been sent?!"