The other end of the earpiece responded with utter silence.
“……?!” Ode’s heartbeat slowed by half a beat without him realizing it. “Faust…?”
The Black-Haired Deity, leaning against the porch and watching him, began to laugh, as if the long-awaited show was finally beginning. “How about we start with a small question—”
“Boom!”
Cannon fire erupted from the muzzle of Ode’s raised Gatling gun. In the blink of an eye, it churned the seawater into a murky haze, the dense bubbles obscuring Ode’s expressionless face—and also hiding the base of the stone pillar that toppled with a crash under the barrage.
Yet the Black-Haired Deity’s voice continued to emerge from beneath the pillar, laughing lightly amid the exploding murk. “—For example, when exactly did you cut off your outside communications?”
“…” No one wanted to play this guessing game with the enemy. Ode raised his muzzle again—
“Boom…”
Another stone pillar in the palace crashed down. But this time, it was Ode himself who snapped it as Cthulhu flashed forward and kicked him squarely in the chest without mercy, sending him flying nearly fifty meters with the momentum. He smashed through a full seven pillars in succession.
When he finally slammed to the ground, it felt like his spine had shattered. Even as he strained to move, his limbs could only tremble faintly. Blood surged from his mouth and nose in blooming clusters, like roses unfurling.
He heard Cthulhu stroll up beside him. As the deity crouched down, a soft sleeve brushed over his uneven, fractured back. Then a hand seized his hair, yanking his head up. “I gave you a chance to suffer less. Why not cooperate?”
Cthulhu ignored Ode’s broken spine and hauled him upright by the hair, half-embracing him. “Come on, take a guess… When did I cut them off?”
“…” Ode flashed a mocking smile. “When else could it be? Are you hoping I scared myself, thinking you were clever enough to spot my link to the higher-ups days ago?”
“You’re so smart,” the Black-Haired Deity said affectionately, kissing him—from his pale jaw to his thin lips, pressed tight in disgust. “Smart enough that you can’t be allowed to live.”
They released their grip and stood, looking down at him imperiously. “You see, I really hate to let you go.”
“You have a rather special bloodline—a Druid and human descendant. How could you turn into a mermaid after chanting the spell for the fish avatar? One of your parents must not have been your biological relation.”
Cthulhu didn’t notice Ode’s pupils suddenly contracting. Even if They had, They probably would have only found it amusing. “I was going to wait until you bore my offspring before addressing it—maybe even spare you. But the child never came, while the changes on my end…”
On the ground, the fish tail that had been limply draped suddenly whipped upward.
A massive wave of murk surged forth. The razor-sharp tailfin sliced through it, severing most of Cthulhu’s dark hair as They hastily dodged and leaving a faint white scratch on Their left shoulder.
“You!” Cthulhu touched the ragged remnants of Their hair on one side and flew into a rage, lunging into the turbid flow. Their left hand clamped onto the mermaid’s shoulder amid the waves—only for an icy gun barrel to press against Their chest.
“Bang!” The Gatling gun roared.
“Urgh…” A spray of blood bloomed as Ode’s left shoulder was torn clean off.
The murky waves didn’t subside; they only grew fiercer. In the tangle of combat, Cthulhu’s legs shifted into something inhuman as well. Thick, lead-black tentacles writhed like pythons, coiling tightly around the mermaid. They bound Ode’s weapon hand and that overly sharp tail, pinning him to the ground. “If only you’d been a little more obedient…”
“Ha!” Ode laughed outright, genuinely amused. He looked at Cthulhu. “You’ve been assimilated by my blood—did that make you more obedient? You’ve certainly picked up my paranoia perfectly, though.”
He even leaned forward of his own accord, drawing close to the Black-Haired Deity’s face. “Let me guess… You know full well that if you spread word of my uniqueness, all your kin would help you finish the kill. But you haven’t, have you?”
Ode’s voice was soft as sea silk. “You don’t want any other deity to get my bloodline… If you can’t have it, you’d rather destroy it.”
In the ruined palace, ghostly light flickered. Two pairs of similar pupils locked gazes from inches apart, reflecting each other’s forms.
The smile on Cthulhu’s face didn’t waver. In that position, They kissed Ode back, equally gently. “So I really don’t get why you had to be so stubborn. You know you can’t fight back.”
Meanwhile, on the sea surface.
A thick fog had rolled in at some point, blotting out all sunlight.
At the stern of the Ghost Ship, two tall figures clambered aboard, dripping wet. Chorazin didn’t stand on ceremony with his new partner and barked orders right away. “You kill, I’ll grab Khirra. Meet back here when we’re done—”
“No.” The Father of Sharks replied calmly. “You kill, I’ll extract. It’s been so long since the main body sent you and Behemoth to retrieve Khirra. No Khirra, but Behemoth’s dead. Searching’s still my job.”
Chorazin narrowed his eyes, watching the Father of Sharks’ back vanish into the fog. “Whatever you say.”
—As if he’d just let that happen?! If Khirra got back to the main body, killing them would be even harder. Even if Chorazin had zero interest in helping Ode, an opportunity this good might never come again!
The same thought burned in Chorazin’s chest: If I can’t have Khirra, then the main body sure as hell can’t either!
And so it was that the Father of Sharks, searching amidships on the Ghost Ship, suddenly picked up a faint sound: ‘I’m here… Under the sea, at the bottom of the cabin…’
Without hesitation, the Father of Sharks vaulted over the railing and dove in. The icy seawater jolted a question through their mind the instant they hit the water:
Strange. Khirra even had the strength to call for help actively—why hadn’t Behemoth and Chorazin found them after all this time?
Thinking wasn’t Their strong suit; furious slaughter was. The thought flashed and faded. They swam swiftly to the Khirra disguised as a massive dead octopus. “Are you hurt?”
‘Nail… in the abdomen…’ Khirra’s voice was so weak it nearly matched the mimicry camouflage.
The Father of Sharks was always decisive in action. They immediately swam toward Khirra’s abdomen to search for the nail.
But the next moment—
Khirra’s tentacles, drifting in the water, snapped tight! Like a pitcher plant clamping its trap.
At the center, the Father of Sharks—bound fast by every tentacle—stared wide-eyed and slowly looked down at the tentacles piercing their own abdomen. “You—”
“Shh.” The fake Khirra—that was Chorazin—clung tight, feeling the life ebb from the half-body in their grasp. “Shh…”
At the same time, in the hold at the bottom of the ship.
Khirra, finally free of Chorazin’s threat, perched on a large wooden crate. They swung their short legs, clad in little leather shoes, with a blank expression.
In the midst of idly primping, they suddenly heard the Father of Sharks’ voice outside the warehouse door: ‘Over here, Khirra. I’ve come to get you out.’
“!” Surprise finally lit up Khirra’s small face at last. Compared to Chorazin, who had tried to kill them, the Father of Sharks coming to rescue was far more welcome.
The little girl-clad Khirra hopped down from the crate at once and pattered over to push open the wooden cabin door. ‘I—Urgh!’
A tentacle—impossible on the Father of Sharks—pierced clean through their chest and abdomen.
The same instant, up on the bow deck.
“Still no connection??” Faust paced circles around Eva, nearly wearing a groove in the deck with his shoe soles. “This is fucking ridiculous… Can we hurry it up or what?”
“What’s the rush?” came Ode’s weak, teasing voice from the fog-shrouded railing. “Not worried about me—hey!”
Ode’s head poked out from the mist, nearly braining itself on the deck—he’d clearly tripped while climbing the rail from exhaustion. Fortunately, he steadied himself in time, coughed dryly with averted eyes, and pretended nothing happened as he vaulted over. “If you’re worried about me, no need. I’m fine—”
“That’s not Ode.” Eva didn’t even look up. She stood with her tablet and stepped out of the combat zone.
“Figured that out—no need to tell me.” Faust took a drag from his cigar, pinching it between the fingers of his left hand with a sneer. “Who’d impersonate that weirdo? The kid’s a freak—his head’s full of everyone else. He doesn’t even live for himself. But you? Chorazin?”
The golden jewelry on Faust’s fingers gleamed. In the motion of flicking ash, his figure blinked behind the “Ode.” “Your eyes are full of nothing but your own ambitions.”
A torrent of alchemical fire erupted across the deck. At the same moment, the “Father of Sharks” in the ship’s bottom hold froze for an instant from Faust’s attack.
Khirra’s eyes darted. Seizing the chance, they wriggled free, reverted to their true form in a crash through the hull, and fled headlong into the deep sea without looking back.
Deep in that abyss—the place Khirra desperately swam toward—
As the Father of Sharks died, Cthulhu pinning Ode suddenly gasped for air. Their hold on him loosened.
The next second, the vengeful mermaid whipped their tail and hurled Cthulhu away. Their solid form smashed spectacularly through another row of load-bearing pillars before tumbling into a corner.
Ode glanced swiftly at his regenerating left arm, coiled his tail to surge upward—only to be wrapped tight the next instant by tentacles shooting from the murk.
The silver gleam of the Fingertip Blade flashed out, swiftly swapped by the impatient agent for a full chainsaw. Ode yanked the starter cord. The roaring chainsaw cleaved through the water and tentacles in a frenzy. But as he thrashed his tail to escape, more tentacles lashed out to bind him.
It was right then, aboard the warship outside the Dream Realm.
“Communications still down?” El stared unblinkingly at the single red dot pinned on the control panel. At the affirmative, he gave the order without pause. “—Fire.”
“Boom…”
Nearly dozens of anti-submarine missiles—Eva’s handiwork—launched in a salvo, plummeting toward R’lyeh in the ocean depths.
One second, two… By the tenth, the missiles glowing with crimson lights had reached the silent spires atop R’lyeh.
The next instant—
“—”
A colossal, thunderous roar engulfed the entire seabed region. At the same time, GORCC’s vanguard team—summoned from around the world for this vicious incident—followed hard on the heels of the missiles, which far outpaced surface-world tech. In under five seconds, they had R’lyeh completely surrounded.
Elder Zhong, taking the lead, was still clad in his usual old man’s shirt. He shook his palm-leaf fan a few times, transforming it into a jade-colored mother-of-pearl folding fan. A single damaged white dragon horn materialized on his right forehead, and in moments, his aged features sloughed away, giving way to a handsome jade-like visage.
He snapped the fan shut with a flourish and tapped it against his palm. The vulgar pink Tarot Cards hovering behind him—about a dozen of them—remained unchanged, drifting obscenely around his body. “Nothing more to say. Let’s fight.”
The ocean floor shuddered violently as the green rocks splintered and crumbled.
The attack from reality swiftly echoed into the dream realm. Ode finally burst into uncontrollable laughter upon beholding Cthulhu’s expression of utter rage. “I’m waiting for someone. What are you waiting for? Do you really think cutting off the connection was a brilliant move? Don’t you know that in GORCC, disconnection carries another meaning—full assault?”
R’lyeh in reality was collapsing, and the dream realm’s R’lyeh was rumbling with the ominous groans of imminent ruin, deprived of its load-bearing pillars. Cthulhu, burdened by all-too-human tangled thoughts, faltered momentarily, torn between rushing back to reality to safeguard his foundation or slaying Ode first to eliminate the threat.
Ode’s mockery did nothing to slow his actions. He hoisted the arm gripping the chainsaw, and threads of black-red darkness erupted like electric arcs across the seabed. The Aston Martin came to a steady halt at the center of the several-meter-long arc.
Ode spared half a second to thank his past self for leaving the car window open in the thrill of the drive. Then, with a sudden flick, he retracted his fish tail, gripped the roof edge with both hands, and slipped smoothly into the vehicle through the window, agile as a darting fish. He fired up the engine, flipped open the control panel, and the roof-mounted mortar cannon sprang into position, aimed squarely at the black-haired deity.
Boom…
Cannons and spells wove a deadly net, both within the dream and without.
Cthulhu, his chance squandered by that cursed calculus of pros and cons, took another hit and unleashed a roar utterly inhuman. The sound thundered like war drums beaten upon the ocean floor. In the next instant, his half-shattered human form ballooned grotesquely with muscle, the transformation spiraling beyond control.
Just before Ode slammed the accelerator, a chill raced up his spine, hairs standing on end. Instinct drove him to throw the car into reverse and stomp the pedal, rocketing backward.
The car’s rear smashed through the palace wall and burst into the open as Ode spotted, amid the dim and murky seawater ahead, the shadow that was Cthulhu swelling relentlessly. Seconds later, a pair of eerie green eyes ignited—void of sclera or pupil—fixing upon him with unblinking intensity.
“…Damn.” Even Ode murmured in shock once he grasped what was unfolding.
He glared back at those eyes amid the crumbling palace. “What kind of grudge is this? You’re ignoring R’lyeh in reality altogether, diving into the dream in your true form just to finish me off?”
Cthulhu was not the only one manifesting his true form. All around the palace, the Star Spawn—those anemone-like horrors sprawled upon the ground, tentacles swaying with the currents—began to rise. Though none matched Cthulhu’s colossal bulk, each loomed three or four meters tall.
Amid Father God’s wrathful howl, they writhed their bloated, flab-sagging bodies toward the sole beacon on the seabed: the glowing Aston Martin. At the same moment, a gargantuan tentacle rivaling Dagon’s plunged from the pitch-black waters above—like a mountain range sheared from the heavens—crushing the sports car flat in an eyeblink!
The seabed boomed from the impact, nearby volcanic vents flickering with faint light.
Cthulhu’s tentacle remained clamped upon the flattened metal husk, refusing to relent. Not until a voice, brimming with amusement, rang in his ear.
“Getting so worked up you don’t even care about your own home anymore?” Ode tsked loudly, even reaching out to stroke the nearby tentacle—so thick its girth defied measurement at the base. “This hot-blooded streak, always charging headlong at the enemy when you snap—who’d you inherit that from? Come on, tell me. Tell me.”
