The clear sound of water filled his ears as Ode was yanked to the surface and flung onto the shore. The surface wraiths had gathered around. White-bone El quickly unwound the rope from Ode’s body—perhaps copping a feel in the process—and helped him to his feet. “How are you holding up? Did you get any answers?”
“…” Ode trembled. The wound Faust had inflicted on his calf was far more than mere physical damage.
A bone-chilling cold seeped relentlessly from the gash into his body. Fortunately, after a moment, it faded along with the healing wound, vanishing without a trace.
“No… but I saw a memory. I don’t know why an Elder God’s memory appeared in my dream, but there was definitely one belonging to Ctharnid beneath the lake—about how He… kept getting assassinated over and over.”
Ode wiped his face and pushed himself to his feet with one hand against the ground. “I need to warn Ctharnid to watch his back.”
“Killing an Elder God with such crude methods on their own turf? The only thing I can think of is the Outer Gods.”
“Disrupting the current fragile balance and sparking infighting among the Elder Gods—which would throw the entire standoff into chaos—seems like the only motive I can imagine for the assassin.”
Sleep was clearly out of the question tonight.
Once Ode escaped the dream realm, he quickly briefed Faust on what had happened. Perfect timing, too, as he enlisted Jack—who had just joined GORCC, eager to hone his powers to protect his mother and find his brother—to relay the message to Ctharnid.
By the time he finished all those tasks, it was already four in the morning.
After nearly half a month of non-stop high-intensity work, compounded by exhaustion from massive blood loss, Ode sent his final reply to Faust. Then his eyelids drooped, and he passed out.
He had no idea that moments later, the master of the manor slipped into the room like a shadow, materializing silently at his bedside.
The red-haired young man on the bed slept deeply, sprawled out defenselessly. He had not even bothered to crawl under the covers.
He was wrapped in the bathrobe prepared for him in the bathroom, but now the hem had ridden up considerably. It exposed the agent’s long, elegantly sculpted legs—from his lean, slender ankles, along the taut lines of his calves without an ounce of fat, all the way to the pale roots of his thighs.
The more prominent curve was half-buried beneath the rumpled fabric. Only a small arc where buttock met thigh peeked out, veiled by the black cloth of his underwear.
—But that was not the reason Cavendish had come. Even setting that aside, he could not see the view anyway.
Ever the goal-oriented sort, Cavendish wasted no time pondering whether Ode’s defenseless state presented an opportunity. He simply retrieved a test tube from his pocket.
Moonlight filtering through the window illuminated the object inside: a jellyfish no larger than a fingernail.
—Anyone examining it closely would be stunned to recognize its uncanny resemblance to Cthulhu, who was supposed to have perished in the South Pacific, reduced to ashes: the octopus-like head, the clawed limbs, the vestigial wings…
Nestled beneath this miniature Cthulhu corpse was a tiny shark, black with white star-like spots, hidden amid the tentacles like a clutch of eggs.
The manor’s master leaned down slightly and located his guest. He gently stroked the sleeping youth’s soft red hair, then tilted up his chin. Pressing the transparent tube against the youth’s lower lip, he parted his teeth and soft tongue, feeding the contents into his mouth along with a sweet syrup.
“Mmm…” In his sleep, the youth instinctively squirmed for a moment. But his long-starved stomach and taste buds bloomed with delight. After a few shakes of his head, his tongue shifted from resistance to eager lapping at the tube. If human tongues could fit into such a narrow opening, he might have plunged it inside to scour for lingering morsels.
There were no remnants, of course. A feast of Cthulhu was no dish to be replicated across the universe. Without Cavendish’s authority over time, Ode would never have tasted it at all.
Annoyed, he clamped down on the tube with his teeth, as if intent on devouring the vessel itself along with its faint flavor.
Cavendish pinched Ode’s chin just before glass shards could draw blood. “Let go.”
He dared not speak too loudly—what if he actually woke Ode? Within the limits of a whisper, Cavendish issued a stern reprimand. “Let go now… be good.”
Obedience was never Ode’s strong suit, at least not in this cycle.
Cavendish’s fingers slid to the jaw hinge, hesitated, then trailed downward. “Let go.”
His palm slipped beneath the rumpled fabric. Ode gasped sharply in his sleep, and the tube tumbled free. Strands of clear saliva gleamed wetly in the moonlight.
Cavendish swiftly pocketed the tube with one hand. But as he reached with the other, his thoughts plunged into profound conflict.
—Really withdraw? Why?
You know our kind lacks any notion of morality. We do not fuss over human obsessions like exclusivity or keeping promises.
You would drive away Nyarlathotep only because the current Ode cannot consume Him—you await a better moment. You care about that Soviet human because he spirited Ode from your sight. Absent that, though? You would not mind an extra irrelevance by his side.
So why let human ethics restrain you? Is yielding to desire not our true nature?
—But Ode would be displeased.
He had seen enough of furious Ode, blood-drenched Ode, blade-edged Ode. Yet he rarely glimpsed this beautiful beast in a state of languid comfort. Was such a rare sight not worth some effort and sacrifice?
Keeping this lovely predator relaxed was far harder than alert. Ode’s nerves seemed perpetually taut, every breath a battlefield maneuver.
Deliberation and restraint were among Yog-Sothoth’s qualities that set Them apart from other Outer Gods. Eons of seeking had honed Their astonishing patience, along with a mad determination to achieve goals at any cost—and an unshakeable self-control.
Beneath the moonlight, Cavendish slowly and gently withdrew his hand from the fabric. The slick, resilient texture did nothing to slow him.
Ode mumbled something in his sleep, rolled over, and clutched the soft, fluffy quilt. He slept straight through until four in the afternoon.
Twelve full hours of slumber left every bone and pore in Ode’s body singing with comfort. After lounging lazily for a bit, he sat up to get out of bed and freshen up. As he shrugged off the bathrobe, his movements paused abruptly. “?”
He tweaked the robe, then grabbed the left hem and sniffed it. A scent of glacial ice and cold iron lingered there. But when he checked other spots, nothing remained.
“…?” Ode’s eyes gradually narrowed.
The lingering scent meant Cavendish had touched this fabric for quite some time. Yet the absence of any other suspicious odors confirmed nothing untoward had happened last night… So what exactly had Cavendish done? Stand by the bed and fondle his clothes before leaving?
Brimming with questions, Ode settled into his routine at Cavendish Manor: reading, note-taking, research, and eating heartily to build his strength.
By Sunday afternoon, he had skimmed through every book at a blistering pace. Nowhere in the sections on transformation did he find even a hint of a special case like “A Druid using the Fish Transformation Spell turns into a mermaid.”
“This is the last one.” Ode sat on the examination chair in Eva’s lab, tossing aside the hefty tome as he waited for her routine contamination check. “I didn’t turn up a single clue.”
“Maybe it’s not recorded in these ancient texts.” Eva suddenly frowned and prodded Ode’s waist and abdomen. “I remember you only ate one Behemoth during the fight in R’lyeh. Isn’t the energy level of Dagon’s avatar and Cthulhu’s that different? One Dagon barely got you back to healthy, but after the Behemoth, you’ve got abs?”
“?” Still dazed from days of eye-straining research, Ode looked down—and sure enough, a faint layer of muscle etched his abdomen. “Uh, I think I also drank a bit of Cthulhu’s blood?”
Eva stood abruptly, setting aside her portable scanner. She tapped the larger detection device beside it—the one used only when Ode first joined GORCC. “Lie down in it.”
“Got it… but Eva, you seem a little tense. Like you’re seeing threats in every shadow. Is there something you’re not telling me?”
“…” Eva’s lips pressed into a thin line. After a long pause, she pulled open a drawer and handed Ode a newspaper. “That dog—the one at your alma mater’s library entrance that bit and chased off a monster. Remember it? Three days ago, it mutated. The team monitoring Mida University tried to cleanse its contamination but failed. I brought it to the lab temporarily and kept it next to your blood sample for eight hours before it stabilized.”
Ode glanced at the newspaper, then at Eva, and asked tentatively, “Isn’t this good news?”
Eva removed her non-prescription blue-light-blocking glasses and turned to Ode. “Let me be straight with you—no one who comes into contact with contamination shows absolutely no reaction. To date, there have been no exceptions.”
Eva’s gaze on Ode was profoundly complex. “Ode, you’re the exceptional case. Sometimes, that really sparks a terrifying hypothesis in my mind, but all I can do is pray that it’s wrong.”
She exhaled slowly. “Lie down. Once this scan is done, you’re free to go. Oh—and I’ve updated your gear recently. The new earpiece I promised you, plus a new phone designed to evade detection, are all ready. Swap them out before you head out.”
Ode stretched out on the bed and promptly latched onto the cabin door, his eyes gleaming with eager longing as he stared at Eva.
“…” Eva held his gaze with a stern expression for several seconds, ultimately surrendering beneath those green eyes. “The Aston Martin is fixed too. Can we proceed with the scan now?”
Ode let out a triumphant cheer and released his grip. Just as Eva reached to activate the machine, Ode’s old phone—sitting nearby—suddenly vibrated.
“?” Under Eva’s dagger-like glare, Ode reluctantly sat up. He checked the caller ID before answering. “Mr. Qian Ning?”
【Ode,】 Old Qianning’s voice emerged from the phone, tinged with urgency. 【Have you seen Karo? Two days ago, he said he was planning a surprise for you. He left home and hasn’t been heard from since… I was wondering, maybe he dropped some hints to you beforehand? About what kind of surprise he had in mind?】
“What?” Ode’s brows knit together. “He never mentioned any sur—”
Ode fell abruptly silent.
【Ode?】
Ode suddenly recalled what Little Qianning’s surprise had been. Six days earlier, the other had indeed said:
‘…Do you want to head back tonight and check it out? While the nightclub buzz is still going strong, I can help you tidy up the master bedroom. It shouldn’t be too tough—you’ve only been gone two months.’
Not too tough… What if Little Qianning intended to clean the ancestral home before he returned?
His grandfather had gone so far as to delay emergency treatment in his final moments, solemnly charging him never to let anyone set foot in that ancestral home!
