The bathroom floor had been flooded time and again, with expensive and exquisite clothing scattered all across it.
In a brief moment of mental haze midway through, Ode half-reclined against the edge of the porcelain-white bathtub, staring blankly at the ceiling.
His arm dangled limply over the rim of the tub, the bruises and finger marks on his forearm and upper arm fading away in an instant.
Unlike most of the campus celebrities, Ode wasn’t actually all that open-minded. It wasn’t that he opposed free relationships; he simply had no interest in them.
Childhood truly left an indelible mark on a person. Even more than a decade after his parents’ deaths, Ode still had no hobbies whatsoever. On campus, aside from eating, drinking, and sleeping, he spent his time either studying or laying the groundwork for a future career in politics.
Thus, when faced with pleasure, he should have been reserved and at a loss.
Yet deep in his bones lurked a long-suppressed madness, much like that day in the woods when, with his mother’s guidance, he had fired his first shot at a rabbit teeming with life; or in Qian Ning Mansion, when he had deliberately drained the skull of Big Qianning’s compatriot right in front of him to spare Big Qianning’s life, then severed the head under the man’s furious glare.
Perhaps his father had been right—he truly was a monster.
Those abnormal, inhuman pleasures bubbled through his limbs like the fizz in soda, restrained only by the moral Grandfather had taught him, the one he clung to in his heart.
That made the current situation all the more precious. What occasion could be better suited for unleashing that madness to its fullest?
The mermaid suddenly flipped over, sending what little water remained in the tub sloshing wildly.
Cavendish’s hand clamped firmly and steadily at the junction of skin and scales on his waist, refusing to let him crash down. “Didn’t your boss set you up with a therapist to fix that self-destructive streak of yours?”
Struggling and tussling ensued—Ode seemed to relish adding these little elements to their intimacy, no matter who got hurt in the process. It only heightened his excitement.
The red-haired agent frowned with a soft tsk, his voice husky and impatient. “If you don’t like it, then we’re done.”
It wasn’t that he disliked it enough to end things outright. Cavendish’s mind raced through logic chains that would baffle most humans as he gripped Ode’s wrist and yanked him back into his arms.
The unfortunate bathtub cracked several more times, only for Cavendish to restore it casually each time. The water drained and was refilled, over and over.
By the time it finally ended, Ode—now back to having legs—leaned against the edge of the sink for a good long while before his healing ability fully dispelled the lingering muscle soreness.
Once the trembling stopped, Ode tilted his head slightly and scrutinized himself in the mirror as the flush faded from his skin. He couldn’t help but tsk. “Good thing you’re blind.”
“…?” Cavendish, who had been retying his bow tie, felt utterly baffled, as if he’d been going about his business only to get nipped by a mischievous puppy. He lowered his hands and asked earnestly, “Why?”
“If you weren’t blind, we probably still wouldn’t be done.” Ode felt a surge of relief. No matter how wild he got, he was still just human in the end, and the latter half had pushed him to his limits. But this vindictive bastard had insisted on proving those “animal” taunts true, leaving Ode in a hazy daze of self-reflection: Holding grudges really isn’t a good habit.
Now that the suit was back on, however, Ode’s thoughts did a complete one-eighty.
He sneered inwardly: I hold grudges? That’s just counterattacking—only when someone provokes me first. That mutt? He only called him out after being provoked himself. Why should he be the one grudge-held against? What right did Cavendish have to bear a grudge against him?
Ode fastened the last button, shot Cavendish a massive side-eye, and strode out of the bathroom without looking back.
As if sensing that glare through some ethereal intuition, Cavendish stepped after him. “I was thinking—”
“Don’t think anything.” Ode cut him off rudely. “I’ve repaid your little service. If there’s anything else, figure out how the principal of Dreamcatcher Town croaked first, then come talk to me.”
Ignoring Cavendish frozen in place as he sorted through his thoughts, Ode hurried toward the middle of the ship.
His feet squelching through the seaweed-green muck, he reached the banquet hall just in time to hear the muffled sounds of furious arguing from behind the tightly shut doors. Faust and Eva stood guard outside like a pair of doormen. When they spotted him, Faust removed the cigar from his mouth and tossed out a lazy greeting.
“Yo, made it back without sealing the deal, huh? Commendable work ethic.”
Ode’s gaze shifted awkwardly, a twinge of guilt creeping in. “What’s the racket inside about?”
“What else?” Faust snorted. “Right to know, who’s responsible, how to handle it… Politicians, am I right? As long as there’s breath left in ’em, they’ll bicker over interests till the bitter end.”
Faust spoke with perfect composure, as if he weren’t one of those politicians himself. He followed up with a jab. “Lucky you joined GORCC. Otherwise, you’d probably be in there tearing into them too.”
Ode replied with sincere earnestness. “I don’t think I’d get promoted that fast—you’re flattering me. Anyway, business: What’s our next move?”
Their goal was crystal clear: Get this pack of still-squabbling, lively politicians back safely.
Faust pierced the already thin veil. Squinting through the doors into the banquet hall, he said, “Shouldn’t be too hard in theory… The stars confirm we’re back in reality. But Eva just tried—we still can’t connect to the outpost. And after all this time, no sign of GORCC reinforcements… Only one possibility: We’re sealed off by some force.”
Eva’s face was grim as she spoke. “Likely Cthulhu’s power. I just cross-checked our position with the sextant, marine chronometer, and the stars. If those references are accurate, we’re drifting right above R’lyeh—the palace where Cthulhu slumbers.”
“Not good news,” Faust muttered, fiddling with something as if searching for a vantage. “The Behemoth fled the Old Seal Array not because it’s all that powerful, but because to Great Old Ones like Cthulhu, it’s disgusting—like stepping in a pile of shit on the road. Honestly, the array might not even drive off a persistent Great Old One. We’re just lucky the Behemoth seems picky—didn’t want to dance with excrement.”
Ode tuned out Faust’s awful analogy in his mind, his expression blank. “In other words, to get them out, we have to go down and kill Cthulhu?”
“You sure this barrier’s Cthulhu’s doing?” came a voice. “Maybe I’m overthinking, but this ‘enclose everyone’ setup really looks like what happened at Dreamcatcher Town.”
Ode actually wanted to dig into his father’s ties with the Druids—that nature-worshipping group who could shapeshift into animals—and confirm what Chorazin meant by “Dagon’s death curse.” But with the external threat looming, airing personal matters now would be wildly inappropriate.
He was mulling over how to carve out time after this mess to sort it all out when Faust asked nonchalantly from the door, “What do you think, Eva? Does Ode have a point? Could some other power be blocking us from leaving and keeping reinforcements away?”
“Speaking of which, something’s off.”
“You’ve been monitoring every camera on the ship. Couldn’t you spot who was thickest with those six spies I nabbed? Couldn’t you rig the ship’s systems to knock out that repairman before he charged from the bottom warehouse all the way to the top bridge?”
Ode’s ears rang with a sudden buzz.
Faust hadn’t brought up “something’s off with Eva” in ages, interacting with her so naturally that Ode had nearly forgotten amid the barrage of events.
Or rather, he’d hoped to forget.
He stood rigid for a moment before finding his voice. “Wait. You mean none of this should’ve happened? It all should’ve been nipped in the bud when you caught those six spies?”
“Of course,” Faust said. “Why do you think Eva and I are sitting in the director’s and section chief’s chairs?” He tsked, straightening up from the door and turning to Eva, oblivious to Ode’s reaction.
His left hand loosely gripped the half-smoked cigar, its crimson glow ominous in the night. “Got a good explanation for me, Eva?”
Ode turned his head stiffly, like a mechanical owl long out of oil, his eyes locking onto Eva amid the rising drumbeat of his heart.
He’d never anticipated this. He desperately didn’t want Eva to have any issues.
In his dreams, he’d witnessed her deaths and sacrifices countless times. Whenever he’d teetered on the brink, she’d blocked his path, sending him back to the world of the living. And now Faust was saying she might be colluding with the enemy?
Impossible.
He knew it was.
Every time, Eva stood behind him. The only thing that could make her betray him was one reason—the one he refused to contemplate or admit.
“You’re possessed by a monster, aren’t you?”
Ode’s voice was soft, his soul seeming to detach from his body in that instant. His shell felt light as air, the faces of Faust and Eva blurring before his eyes.
The searing inferno rose again in his vision, along with Eva’s pale face half-hidden in shadows:
“Shoot.”
“Kill me.”
“Let me be born Soviet and die Soviet.”
Click! With a soft snap, Ode whipped out the Beretta, aiming it straight at Eva. Both Faust and Eva jolted in surprise—no one had expected this from him.
“Uh, wait, hold on!” Faust instinctively raised his hands to intervene, then nudged Eva, who hadn’t planned to play along and had merely intended a cold glare and silence. “Look what you’ve done! Explain yourself!”
Eva glanced down at the pistol she’d developed herself, then met his eyes with calm detachment. “No special reason. Someone tampered with the surveillance feeds—I missed the key footage.”
“Who can vouch for you?!” Ode growled lowly, his gun hand clenching so hard it nearly spasmed.
He stepped forward, pressing the barrel to her chin and forcing her to tilt her head up. “No one can prove your word. You could be lying to us, and we’d never know.”
“Don’t trust anyone…” In his memory, Eva’s voice slithered like a thin water snake beside his ear. “The Great Race of Yith can possess the body of any intelligent creature—”
“Give me proof to trust you.” Ode took another step closer, pressing the gun barrel into the flesh of Eva’s jaw until it dented inward.
