G8273 clearly didn’t like that.
Grabbing hold of an AI’s core code was far more invasive than seizing those mental tentacles that could be severed at any moment. In the next instant, Hastur found himself yanked by the collar of his robe and slammed hard onto the ground. The sensation of flesh sprouting—the same one he’d experienced just last night—spread from the gripped collar across his entire body.
Rolling and tangling on the floor was utterly humiliating for both an AI and an Outer God.
The only thing stopping them from escalating into a full assault was the simple fact that neither wanted to repeat last night’s blunder: pointlessly perishing together with the enemy just to trap them in a physical body.
G8273 stared at Hastur and yanked the tentacle protruding from his chest free with force. The tip, solidified from contamination, brushed against the pale bone mask. Strangely, it sent a chill through Hastur, as if the mask were merely a layer of his own skin.
“No book records Hastur as having the power to control time,” he said.
He even lowered his body again, his optic green eyes—brimming with technology and order—nearly pressing against Hastur’s chaotic muddy-yellow pupils etched with disordered patterns.
“Does that disappoint you? You can’t halt my time.”
Hastur felt squeezed between two unyielding walls. Even someone whose skin required full-body tungsten sawblades to slice through was feeling the pressure, so it couldn’t be mere body weight. G8273 must have directly set his spatial coordinates.
“No book records intelligent AIs having precise mind-reading abilities either,” Hastur retorted.
It was a pointless standoff. Soon enough, both withdrew.
Hastur closed his game panel. As time resumed its normal flow, Detective Dustin picked up right where he’d left off. “We might need to talk alone about how to get over there… What the hell?! Why are you materialized again?—G8273???”
To Hastur, both his own materialization and G8273’s presence made perfect sense. But to the others, frozen in time, it was like people appearing out of thin air.
Detective Dustin and Old Neil stared in shock. But G8273’s logic functions clearly lacked any “consider others’ feelings” subroutine. He simply scooped up the biomimetic cat at his feet and strode out of the basement.
“No… how…” Old Neil stammered incoherently.
Detective Dustin snapped to attention and hurried after him. “Wait, where are you going? Aren’t you coming with us to Lowend District for the ritual?”
“My core directive is to protect humanity from external interference. That doesn’t extend to meddling in human infighting.” G8273 paused for a few seconds. “Since Mr. Coran Domino has no real intention of summoning an evil god, whatever he plans to do is none of my business.”
He turned, gave the group a polite nod, and walked out of the basement without looking back.
Detective Dustin stared blankly at the exit for three seconds before turning to Hastur in confusion. “What just happened? I thought when he was teasing you with his tail, it meant he was gonna help us with transportation and come along. How’d he get pissed off in the blink of an eye?”
Hastur couldn’t fathom humanity’s excess empathy. “Would a computer have a ‘pissed off’ emotional function?”
“You—” Detective Dustin was at a loss for words, unsure how to criticize a non-human for lacking any human warmth.
Old Neil was different.
In Old Neil’s eyes, everyone standing before him lacked human warmth.
So after last night’s brutal fight—amid the raining blood and chunks of flesh—the Outer God had really carried the enemy-turned-cat to infiltrate a signal-blocked zone??
What??
Amid the astonishment, he felt his face sting as if slapped repeatedly. The confidence he’d brimmed with earlier—”Don’t I know what’s what?”—now burned with humiliation.
Unfortunately, the god he worshipped wasn’t some benevolent deity like the Christian God who might comfort believers. After a few suffocating deep breaths, Old Neil sourly pulled himself together.
“We’ve got less than half an hour until the ritual officially begins. To make it there on time, we’d need to borrow a Merlin right now.”
“But Babylon Company only produced seven of those Lake Fairy Series flyers, all sold to private individuals or the government. Even with my connections, I couldn’t rent one in half an hour.”
“Perfect. Now what? Should I call the police station?” Detective Dustin said without much hope.
“No need.”
Hastur extended his materialized deep-brown tentacles and picked up Detective Dustin like a kitten. “We won’t be late,” he said simply.
He opened his game interface and halted time once more.
A massive surge of mental energy enveloped Detective Dustin. Under Hastur’s focused and precise control, it formed a cocoon that shielded him without touching him directly.
“…”
Detective Dustin couldn’t see the “cocoon” around him, but he could see everything else frozen in place.
He swallowed hard while staring at the motionless Old Neil, then got straight to business. “I’ll go get the car.”
~~~
Detective Dustin wasn’t dogmatic when working cases. He emerged and immediately “requisitioned” a hovercar parked by the roadside.
It was a wise choice. After crossing dozens of congested streets, they finally arrived in Lowend District.
“Look at those lavender fields!”
Detective Dustin’s excited voice roused Hastur from his drowsiness.
He looked up through the front windshield and saw, in the direction Detective Dustin pointed, a vast ocean of purple—deep and shallow shades blending together.
“Isn’t it beautiful?” The gray-haired detective sighed. “I’d only ever seen this flower sea in photos before.”
Hastur eyed the standalone villa amid the fields below. “Rich people’s area?”
“Mid-tier rich folk.” Dustin corrected him as he began descending. “The real company execs, the big bankers—they live farther north in Nuri District.”
“Farther north?” Hastur glanced at the condensation on the car window’s inner wall. “Won’t it be too cold?”
“You’re serious? You’re worried about rich people freezing in the wind?” Dustin chuckled as he landed steadily in the port below. He got out, opened the door for Hastur, and smiled. “Look at those lavender fields down there. While so many can’t eat or stay warm, forced to ‘donate’ organs just to survive, these moneybags have the leisure to maintain a huge lavender field, keeping it blooming even in the cold winds.”
Dustin shut the car door behind them. Hastur agreed with Detective Dustin’s view. He waited in the car a moment longer until his mental tentacles faded back into immateriality, then gathered his yellow robe and drifted slowly from the vehicle.
With the system’s help (unwilling though it was), they arrived at the gathering spot early.
Most guests were still mingling by the docks. A cluster of them whispered near a private cruise ship.
“I’ve never heard of anyone holding a Hastur worship ritual during the daytime! On a cruise ship, no less! What the hell is Coran up to?”
“Oh, I asked the sailors. They said Coran’s throwing a grand banquet in Hastur’s honor. It kicks off with a performance of The King in Yellow script and ends with his offering.”
“Offering? What offering? He can’t seriously be preparing over two hundred human brains for Hastur, right? That’s—that’s illegal! The Cradle Cult’s gods are just weird, but they never do anything unlawful!”
“Relax, friend. He’s just offering up Poe Lake—and this cruise ship on it, plus all his worldly assets—to Hastur, to prove his devotion.”
Hastur: “…”
Offering… what?
Dustin, who had just parked, was stunned too. “Poe Lake? You mean the only lake in Lowend District?? I thought that lake belonged to the government?”
“Not anymore. Not for the past three days.” The one who turned to answer wore a yellow robe and a white mask—a standard outfit for King in Yellow followers, judging by how no one batted an eye at him. Several others on deck wore the same: “Coran bought it from the government.”
Hastur pressed immediately. “How is he offering it?”
He could really claim it?
The sea breeze blurred the oddity in Hastur’s voice. The yellow-robed man didn’t notice anything off about the “person” before him and replied enthusiastically.
“By—signing the transfer contract?”
“According to what the sailors told me, after the King in Yellow play, Coran will take the stage. In front of all the guests, he’ll sign over Poe Lake, the cruise ship, and his entire fortune—”
“Oh, oh! And before signing, he’ll rename Poe Lake to Lake Hali first.”
“You know Lake Hali, right? The black lake where the great King in Yellow, Hastur, resides?”
—So that’s what it’s called.
An inner voice suddenly surfaced, low and laced with deeper emotion.
Lake Hali…
Hastur had no time for sentimentality with that voice. His mind was entirely on one thing: Would those assets really transfer to him?
Lake Hali—this one he had no intention of selling. But the cruise ship and all his assets—did they add up to thirty-five million? Would that be enough for him to renovate it into a top-tier private school?
“Wooo—”
A long, resonant horn blared from the cruise ship. Several burly sailors, their uniforms straining against bulging chests, descended the gangway on the ship’s side and took up positions on either side of the entrance. “Please present your invitation and board one by one.”
“…Hold on, something feels off about this.” Dustin seized Hastur’s yellow robe, his eyes locked on the sailors. “See the way they stand? Those are either professional bodyguards or battle-hardened veterans. For some kind of worship ritual, why dress guys like that up as sailors?”
“?” Hastur lifted Dustin’s wrist and pulled it away. “Didn’t you hear them? Tonight’s banquet is being held in my honor. Along with the offering.”
Whatever schemes they had in mind, the moment he set foot on that cruise ship, it would become a revelry prepared just for him—a grand act of worship in his name.
Hastur drifted toward the gangway entrance with the swagger of a future owner. Dustin trailed after him like a dutiful nanny, handing Old Neil’s invitation to one of the sailors and feeling every bit the old housekeeper escorting the young master out for the day.
The sailor glanced down at the invitation, then flicked his eyes toward Hastur and Dustin. “We don’t accept anyone who doesn’t match the description on the—”
The sailor froze abruptly. A streak of green light flashed deep in his eyes.
In the next instant, he handed the invitation back with fluid grace and stepped aside for Hastur. “Welcome aboard, honored guests.”
Those eyes glowing green, that half-hearted welcome devoid of any sincerity.
Time came to a complete standstill.
Hastur pried the invitation inch by inch from the sailor’s deliberately clenched grip. “I thought you didn’t have a habit of going back on your word.”
“I don’t.” The sailor yanked the invitation, drawing Hastur a fraction closer. “Just being cautious. After you left, I looked into Coran Domino. Turns out the gentleman plans to transfer all his assets tonight—to King in Yellow Hastur.”
With a slight tug, Hastur wrenched the last sliver of the invitation free. “It’s all above board and legal. What’s the problem?”
“If everything goes smoothly, none at all. The King in Yellow receives his offering, Coran proves his devotion—everyone wins.”
G8273 arched the sailor’s eyebrows. “But what if it doesn’t go smoothly? Would the King in Yellow, denied his offering, resort to some ‘necessary’ measures to claim his sacrifices anyway?”
Hastur couldn’t deny the thought had crossed his mind—in fact, he’d boarded the ship with exactly that in mind. “So you expect me to stand down just because you’re here?”
A dangerous aura rippled through the frozen pocket of time and space.
Dustin, standing behind them, glanced left and right in desperation. He seemed to be the only one in the entire world capable of playing peacemaker.
He stood numb for a few seconds before steeling himself and stepping into the eye of the brewing storm.
“How about everyone takes a step back?”
“For instance, we handle the asset transfer tonight using strictly human methods? That way, both sides get what they want—no fighting necessary, right?”
The detective’s gaze bordered on outright pleading.
Hastur and G8273 locked eyes, then chorused, “Deal.”
Time resumed its flow.
Hastur floated up a few steps before suddenly whipping back around to seize the sailor by the collar.
“?” G8273 hadn’t departed yet, his face registering surprise at the abrupt move.
Hastur dragged him in close. “Ever considered that an AI like you is just another form of ‘alien invasion’ to humans?”
G8273 raised the sailor’s eyebrows high. After a beat, he let out a low chuckle aimed at Hastur, a cool breath scattering across the mask—impossible to tell if it was scorn or genuine amusement.
“So, are you suggesting we go down together?”
