Chapter 58

Mid-July, and Antarctica was locked in endless polar night.

The one leading them was a Soviet girl dressed far lighter than Ode and the others, her hand steadier than theirs as she held up a magic lantern without so much as a shiver, trudging through the blizzard. “Stick close! The Icefall Zone is shrouded in blizzards and the Milky White Sky phenomenon year-round. I don’t want you stepping off a cliff by accident.”

“We can see the cliffs, how could we possibly—” Ode’s words cut off midway as the snowstorm slammed into his face. He threw up a hand to shield himself, while Faust gripped his other wrist and dragged him forward. Only when the gale eased enough to breathe did Ode lower his arm. Through his goggles, he saw nothing but white.

Heaven and earth had vanished. He could feel the snow crunching underfoot, but even looking down, he couldn’t tell up from down, slope from flat. It was as if they’d tumbled into a vat of milk, every direction the same endless white.

At least the girl in red was still visible. She turned back with a teasing grin. “See? The Milky White Sky phenomenon. Still think you can spot the cliffs?”

Faust poked his head out. “Hey! I think we’ve found that fissure.”

·

The “fissure” everyone was talking about was actually a massive vertical gully.

Ode sized it up—at least several hundred meters deep. For some reason, the mouth of the gully was bare of any snow, exposing strange black rock of an unusual texture. Even through his near-frozen nose, he caught a faint whiff of sulfur.

“Wait.” Just as Ode moved to follow Natasha down into the gully, Faust held him back. He fumbled with his stiff fingers, still bundled in thick insulated gloves, and pulled something from his pocket.

“…A ring?” Ode stared at Faust in confusion.

Faust flicked out the hidden needle in the ring. “Eva told me to give this to you. Normally, these are filled with poison, but this one’s loaded with the gray mist extracted from your blood. She’s improved it—the ring’s space connects directly to the extraction vial in the lab. Now you won’t have to force-feed it to targets anymore.”

Ode took the ring and stared at it for several seconds before blurting out from the depths of his soul, “Then why not make it a bullet?? I get the feeling you all forgot my work doesn’t just happen in the bedroom.”

“…Ah.” Faust realized too late, but under Ode’s death glare, he dropped the feigned innocence in a blink, chuckling as he clapped Ode on the shoulder. “Reloaded, reloaded. Just a joke, man.”

The two descended into the fissure one after the other. On the first platform they reached, they found Natasha crouched on the ground, inspecting something.

Their Soviet companion waved them over and pointed to marks on the ground, keeping her voice low. “A group just passed through here—look at the footprints! Still fresh and damp. At least… thirteen of them, I’d say. Doesn’t look like an exploration team. See that alchemy array? I think these guys are wizards or something.”

“Not just any.” Faust squatted down and studied the shoe tread patterns. “Look at this emblem, and these… all custom jobs expensive enough to buy out an entire outpost. British-made, even. Looks like we’ve caught the tail end of those Deep Sea Mansion stragglers—hmm? This pattern…”

“?” Ode knew nothing about shoe soles, so he just squatted beside Faust to make up numbers.

Faust turned to him with an odd expression. “Doesn’t it look familiar? Royal bespoke craftsmanship. I remember you got a call right before we left—something about the Duke threatening you to release someone. You were sure it was a scam?”

Ode was still convinced it was a scam, though his definition meant Cavendish unilaterally scamming the kidnappers. “You think Deep Sea Mansion remnants kidnapped Cavendish to trade for their comrades? Then what are they doing in Antarctica?”

The real question was what Cavendish was doing bringing a pack of fugitives here. Did they want in on his hunt for the stele? And where did Cavendish stand—helping him, or getting in the way?

Too many questions with no answers. They drew their weapons, stayed alert, and continued descending. They passed several more platforms, even spotting ruins of ancient structures clearly not built by human hands.

As they went lower, Ode’s ears picked up a noise. He immediately signaled his companions: target sighted.

The three lightened their steps and slipped silently behind the ruins of a massive building to drop onto the next platform. When they reached the fugitives’ position under cover, the enemies were still bustling about—but chaotically, as if something had thrown their plans into disarray midway:

“Don’t rush me! Where am I supposed to find firewood in a place like this? If you want a fire so bad, switch tasks—you gather wood, I’ll prep the ritual!”

“Are you sure we should keep going? What if it’s a trap? We might just die here for nothing—”

“Shut it! Do your jobs! At least we’re trying down here instead of getting dragged off by GORCC and shot without a fight!”

“Wait! Someone’s here!”

The enemies shouted a warning, and the three lurkers sprang into action.

Faust slapped his palm against the broken wall beside him. The freshly drawn alchemy array unleashed several golden whips that lashed viciously at the foes charging in for close combat.

The Soviet colleague bellowed and barreled straight into the crowd, seizing two enemies by their collars and smashing their heads together with raw physical power!

“Where’s Cavendish?” Ode kicked a man away just before he could trigger the alchemy array, sending him crashing into the wall. Before the guy could fall, Ode pinned his throat. “Where’s the man you kidnapped?”

The remnant leader let out a low, malicious laugh. Beneath his unkempt bangs, his glare burned with hatred. “I thought you didn’t care about your little lover at all. Turns out there are feelings after all? Perfect. Let me share a secret… your dear Duke has been a Deep Sea Mansion member for generations.”

The leader stared at Ode unblinkingly, his face twisted in mania. But after several seconds, no shock, betrayal, hurt, or rage appeared on Ode’s face as he’d hoped. “…You knew? You already knew! Ha! I can’t believe it—you, a GORCC agent, harboring a cultist! Do your companions know?”

“I don’t.” Faust stomped on the last groaning fugitive. His expression darkened as he eyed Ode. “Is he telling the truth? When did you find out? You know hiding this upends everything I thought about you so far, right? You better have a damn good explanation.”

Ode hadn’t expected this to blow up here and now. He smashed the butt of his gun into the leader’s head to knock him out cold before he could slip away in the chaos, then turned back. “I can explain, but it might not sound reasonable. See… Cavendish’s background is probably even more outlandish than this guy claims.”

Faust snorted a laugh, gun in hand as he crossed his arms. The look he gave Ode carried a father’s disappointment and fury at a son’s betrayal. “How outlandish? Enlighten me.”

Ode licked his lips. “Uh. He’s actually… Yog-Sothoth.”

Faust: “…”

The Soviet girl still tying up the enemies: “?”

The struggling foes on the ground: “…?”

The noisy platform went dead silent the next instant, as if time itself had frozen.

A moment later, Faust repeated himself. “Yog-Sothoth… Which Yog-Sothoth?”

Ode shrugged at him. “Are there multiples in this world?”

“That’s not—” The fugitive on the ground didn’t finish before Faust stomped him quiet with brute force.

Faust took several deep breaths, struggling to sort his thoughts and pinpoint the first question. “Why didn’t you ever tell me?”

“What good would telling you do?” Ode said bluntly. “You couldn’t help me kill Them anyway. Back then, we were playing this ‘I know who you are but pretend I don’t know you know I know’ game. Your reaction might’ve shattered the fragile balance, and who knows what They’d do? I didn’t understand Them at all then.”

“Plus, flip the perspective: good thing I didn’t expose Them back then. What about your oath? Were you really ready to go head-to-head with Yog-Sothoth right there?”

It was a very real issue. Ode’s caution had accidentally sidestepped a hidden landmine.

Faust’s mouth worked for a long time without finding words. In the end, he blurted the next question that hit him. “So how the hell did you two end up together??”

“Honestly? I still haven’t figured that out.” Ode paused in thought. “Us being bound was pure accident—probably the last reincarnation. Somehow I formed a marriage contract with Them—”

“Marriage… contract?!” Faust’s breath hitched, but that was mild compared to the fugitive under his foot, whose eyes nearly bulged out. He just clutched his chest. “Your political record’s a bit messy, friend??”

“It wasn’t my choice!” Ode raised his voice. “I was critically wounded and ate a marriage contract from Dagon plus a summoning contract from Yog-Sothoth. Who knew mixing them would forge Yog-Sothoth’s marriage contract?! I bet even They didn’t see it coming! They kept trying to kill me in Dreamcatcher Town—did you think I was living it up there?! Do you think I’d willingly hop into bed with some random Outer God I just met?! Tell me! Every time I’ve kissed a person—a god—whatever it was, was it ever for me?!”

“…” Ode’s words cut too deep. Faust couldn’t muster a joke. “I just mean, it’s unusual. I’m… okay, very shocked. Forget the past—what about today? Yog-Sothoth faking a kidnapping by these small fry—what’s the play? Testing your feelings? Seeing if you’d rescue Them?”

Faust ground his heel into the kidnapper, who hadn’t stopped trembling since learning their hostage was Yog-Sothoth. “Tell me what They did while with you. Why come to Antarctica? No more holding out—They ditched you lot plain as day—”

“It… It brought us here and taught us how to summon Ubbo-Sathla…” Tears streamed down the young noble’s face. Ode recognized him as the one who had provoked him earlier at Cavendish Manor. “It said… It knew how to send Ubbo-Sathla away after we got our revenge. But It left! And the ritual was already complete—ah!!!”

A piercing scream burst from the young noble’s mouth. Faust raised his gun and stepped back, watching as the man convulsed wildly, his fingers clawing desperately into his own throat, as if trying to excavate something causing him excruciating torment.

The next instant, the handful of remaining fugitives on the scene erupted into inhuman shrieks. Lurid green mold had already blossomed across the skin of the first young noble to react, his flesh melting away like candle wax plunged into concentrated sulfuric acid. “No—no! Save me!!”

Ode reached out toward the young noble almost on instinct. Hatred took a backseat to the primal urge to save a life amid the crisis.

But Faust charged forward and locked his arms around Ode from behind. “Don’t go playing the holy Mary! They didn’t summon Ubbo-Sathla—look at what’s happening to them! What Yog-Sothoth taught them was the ritual to summon Abhoth!”

Abhoth, Source of the Unclean, Ancestor of Evils, the ultimate origin of all twisted deformities and filthy corruptions… Ode dimly recalled his instructor’s lecture: this Outer God had never manifested in the mortal world, leaving humanity without countermeasures. Only ancient mages who had communed with celestial divinities had committed warnings to dusty tomes, describing Abhoth’s endgame as the total corruption of existence, submerging all things in a mire of impurity and decay.

He had to stop the summoning. That thought flashed first into Ode’s mind—only for the grim realization to follow: the ritual was finished. Abhoth’s arrival was inevitable.

So what could they do? What was left in their power?

Ode seized Faust’s arm and yanked it away. Faust clamped right back down. “No. You can’t go. This isn’t Cthulhu or Hastur. Abhoth is an Outer God! You barely held your own against the Sleep God—how do you expect to face Abhoth? We pull back, Natasha! Tell the branch outpost to seal this whole area—”

“No.” Ode held firm. “You’re overprotecting me again, Faust. Because of what I said before?”

“This isn’t the time for baring souls,” Faust growled through clenched teeth. “I’m the team leader. I call the risks. And my call is that sending you in is a death sentence. Obey your orders, soldier!”

From nearby, the Soviet Colleague suddenly yelled, “Damn it! Too late!”

Boom…

The ice shelf shattered beneath them.

Faust triggered the teleportation array at once, hauling the Soviet Colleague along for the evac. But in the final moment, Ode drove his boot into Faust’s midsection.

“Tell Eva I need ammo. More ammo.”

Golden light erupted from the array, enveloping the trio. Ode kicked off hard with his toes, the recoil flinging him free of the glow as he tumbled backward.

Faust thrust out an arm, grasping for the plummeting Ode—but the light pulsed, spatial severance slicing clean through his limb. Blood trailed the severed arm into the fathomless Fissure.

“Fuck!” Faust bellowed the instant his boots hit conference room floor, his fist cratering the tabletop. The agony of his stump couldn’t quench the fury boiling in his skull. “I told you not to rush in alone! Why the hell do you always have to play the lone hero with that pigheaded stubbornness?! Who’s the overprotective one here?! Me?!”

The blizzard’s roar battered Ode as he slammed into the snowdrifts.

He pushed himself up swiftly. Fear barely registered—death held no terror for him, pain no weight. Lives, though… He refused to shoulder even one more.

“…” His breaths rasped thickly inside the mask. Ode leveled his rifle and rose, glancing back to behold the gray, sludge-like mass slithering from the black rock’s fissures, just as the grimoires described. Every surface it grazed bore unique scars of corrosion.

Yet amid the storm, a second silhouette stood sentinel beside the black rock.

Cavendish, clad for once in a trench coat, fixed his misty blue eyes through the flurry ahead. The creeping filth at his feet might as well have been nonexistent. “Everything you just said… was that the truth?”

“What?” Ode shot him a furrowed glare. “About the fake sentiments? I figured that was our mutual understanding.”

Cavendish hesitated a beat. “What I mean is: in your eyes, am I really no different from the other gods you’ve kissed?”

“…” Ode’s gaze dropped to the ground. “You think now’s the moment for relationship talks? Oh, right—I forgot. This is the very thing you schemed so hard to summon. Maybe to an Outer God, this passes for romance?”

“Isn’t it?” Time itself hung suspended, Abhoth frozen along with it.

Cavendish held back from advancing; without Ode’s lead, direction eluded him entirely. What had once been playful mutual indulgence, a teasing wait, had curdled into irritation—an encumbrance he couldn’t shake. His brows knit tight.

“You said you were hungry, so I hunted down a meal for you. Don’t whine that it’s ‘twisted’ or ‘inhuman’—no normal human cuddles their lover just to beg a bite out of them. So what’s with the cold shoulder? Oh, wait. You’ve always iced me out on a whim. Never needed a reason.”

He’d once seen it as what set him apart from the other divinities. But if it was merely Ode’s brand of “situational play”? Logic deemed the idea sound, yet his emotions rebelled.

Emotions. He was dwelling on emotions now? The corruption ran deeper than he’d thought.