Chapter 47 Part 1

To prove his noble character, the Duke politely declined the guest’s invitation.

Ode watched Cavendish’s seemingly calm retreating back with amusement as it disappeared up the stairs and into the room, where the door clicked shut. He had just shrugged off his bloodstained suit and tossed it into the laundry hamper when his phone rang. It was Little Qianning. “Did you run into trouble at the party?”

【What? Of course not. Who do you think I am, still that dumbass from before?】 Little Qianning held nothing back, even when cursing himself. 【I just wanted to give you some good news—I’ve bought back your ancestral home for you.】

【It wasn’t easy, you know. Want to head back tonight and check it out? While you’re still buzzing from the nightclub, I can help you tidy up the master bedroom. Shouldn’t be too tough—you’ve only been gone two months.】

“…Uh.” Ode’s fingers slowed as he undid his cufflinks, and he switched the phone to his other hand without thinking. “It’s late, Karo. How about we meet up during the day instead? Don’t worry about the manor; I can handle it myself. You just pick a spot for dinner.”

【Fine… When are you planning to go back? I’ll give you the keys.】

“…” Ode found himself at a loss for words.

He stepped into the bathroom and turned on the faucet to fill the tub. Propping himself against the sink, he stared at his reflection in the mirror, where hesitation and aversion stood out plain as day. “Maybe, next—”

【Is that the bathtub running?】 Little Qianning’s voice crackled through the phone, thick with suspicion. 【Hold on… Your rental blew up. I just checked with my mom—you’re not at base, no hotel room booked. I figured you were wandering the streets somewhere, so I invited you over all enthusiastic like. But you’re here running a nice hot bath?】

【Where are you right now? Don’t tell me you’re at that Duke’s place. Faust said you were planning to cut ties with him, but now you’re shacking up?】

Ode: “…It’s complicated, okay?” He glanced back toward the wall of bookshelves outside the door. “I think I really do need to stay here for a while.”

【…Whoa. ‘A while’? He’s got you locked down tight, huh?】

“…” Ode stared ahead blankly, thinking, What the hell do you know? He’s sacrificing himself for the good of the world, you know?

Otherwise, if he jumped out the window and hid anywhere right now, the whole world might go to hell—but he himself could survive another twenty-one years, until he reunited with his lover to take on Cavendish in that final showdown.

“Yeah, yeah,” Ode muttered dismissively. “I’m totally obsessed with his face.”

【Isn’t it because you don’t want to go back to the ancestral home?】

“…” Ode froze.

【Come on, Ode. You know yourself better than anyone—when has a problem ever landed in your lap and you didn’t tackle it right away instead of dragging your feet? When has a late-night invite ever made you ditch business as usual to lounge in a beauty soak?】

【Deep down, you know—if you really wanted to go back to that house, even a meteor crashing down tonight wouldn’t stop you from hitting the party. God himself couldn’t hold you back. The only thing stopping you is you.】

【You’re scared to go back to the ancestral home, aren’t you? You’re not ready to face that empty place, where every corner brings back memories of your family. That’s why you cut your own dividends, why you don’t mind if buying it back takes longer.】

“You should charge psychologist rates for this pep talk, Karo,” Ode said, his tone half teasing, half dour. “Just not sure the patient won’t sock you one before leaving the office.”

【I don’t know… Normally, I’d tell a friend in your spot, ‘Take it slow, don’t push yourself.’ But something tells me you’d rather someone give you a shove. Listen, bro, not to judge, but you seem to kinda enjoy the self-flagellation.】

“Ha.” Ode turned his head to eye the neat row of empty blood bags lined up by the tub. “You really should charge psychologist rates.”

“Fine… Problems don’t solve themselves—early or late, you’ve got to face them. Next Monday work? I should wrap up my stuff by then. I’ll drop off the keys and buy you a drink.”

Little Qianning rambled on a bit longer before hanging up. Ode finished his nighttime routine and drew his blood, shoved a few blood-replenisher tablets into his mouth at random, and collapsed onto the bed in a haze.

Midnight struck—the ideal hour for sleep. But for Ode, tonight’s real show was just getting started.

He’d barely slept a wink in R’lyeh, so the soft covers pulled him under fast. The moment he slipped into the Dream Realm, he latched onto a nearby wandering skeleton.

“Mind asking around if anyone here knows anything about the London Underground Secret Society?”

“Trying to cheat, eh?” El’s voice echoed from the skull.

Luckily, stripped of any fun in the flesh, this tireless soul—who’d fallen into the “Ode” pit time and again—had ditched his old clingy habits. After a quick jab at Ode, he swiveled his skull bone and unleashed a visible ripple of sound waves. “Anyone got intel on the London Underground Secret Society?”

No one answered.

Everyone glanced around in bewilderment, as if hoping someone would pipe up and scratch that itch of curiosity.

“？？” Ode’s disbelief mounted. “Don’t tell me after all these loops, we haven’t even grazed the hem of that Secret Society?”

“Hold up, don’t rush it.” El held up a bony finger to hush him, then pointed meaningfully downward. “Some loops might’ve touched it, but whoever did isn’t on this level.”

Ode: “…Are you saying the Dream Realm has layers?”

El let out a bony chuckle. “Of course! Forgot about fighting Cthulhu? There was that giant me who nearly snatched this version of me?”

“That’s not from this layer. Think of what you see as the ‘friendly neighborhood block party.’ But down under the Corpse Sea? More of us lie sleeping… and they aren’t the welcoming type.”

Ode forced down his shock. “Okay. But no way to talk to them at all?” He wasn’t ready to give up the lead. “How do I get down there?”

“Follow me.”

The skeletal El led Ode straight down below the cliff’s edge.

There lay a vivid green lake, its outline weirdly familiar. “Dive to the bottom, and you’ll hit the second layer. Too easy? Heh, anything with a low bar to enter isn’t leaving easy. My advice—”

The skeleton tossed a hemp rope at Ode’s feet. “Tie this ’round your waist. Get down, get back up. Don’t ask how I know—just look at the empty space around this lake. Blood and tears paid for that wisdom.”

“…” Ode snatched the rope, eyed it, then the lake, and finally tamped down his nerves to tie it securely around his waist.

He leaped in still puzzling: Did the hidden dream spaces stop at this underwater layer, or were there deeper ones even the surface shades didn’t know? And this lake—why so damn familiar…

The water closed over him. Strangely, it held no chill, just a warm embrace that kissed his skin and lulled him with sun-warmed drowsiness.

He couldn’t tell if this was dream or memory anymore. He saw the old manor under bright sun, his child self pumping chubby legs across the lawn to flee his mother’s grasp—only to end up tackled and dissolved in giggles.

Further back still: Over his cradle, wooden animal chimes swayed. His mother’s hushed voice filtered into the swaddled infant’s ears, who could only beam idiotically. “Should we tell him…”

His father: “No! I know keeping it secret isn’t right, but I swear—knowing versus not will forge two totally different…”

Different how? Ode strained to catch the rest, but in a flash, he stood in a familiar grand hall.

He ought to scan the room, get his bearings, but his viewpoint locked in place… as if riding shotgun in the memory, trailing its gaze through the whole banquet hall until a noise sounded behind.

“Who?” The memory’s owner whipped around—but saw only the empty opulence of the hall.

In the next heartbeat—

“Gah…”

Silver flashed across his vision. A cold slash bit Ode’s throat, and scalding blood gushed from the severed pipe. The owner clawed futilely at the gash, but collapse pulled him down as darkness swallowed his sight.

Ode’s breath hitched in sync, but before he recovered, the scene cut again. Now at the hall’s far end, through corridors, pausing to admire the misty peaks from an open balcony.

Then—

“Thud!”

A spike rammed through his chest.

Visions flickered, deaths piling on.

Poisoned. Skull pierced. Neck hacked. Decapitated. Fed to the grinder. Butchered to pulp with a rusty axe…

Ode’s sole mercy: no pain carried over. It let him study each one cold.

First off, same person every time. View height, quirky tics, voice—all matched.

Second, that nagging banquet hall.

Seen it endless times; every kill kicked off here. And now he remembered: the Old God’s Palace.

He’d visited in a prior dream, met Eva’s husband there, learned Faust was more than a buddy.

String it together… an Elder God’s memories? Getting offed in fresh ways on home turf every loop?

Nah… Elder Gods don’t drop to throat slits or poison, do they?

Or some intruder in the palace, done in by the god?

Doesn’t fit—why spikes and toxins for a god’s kill??

‘Okay, chill. Shelve the wild guesses.’ Ode coached himself. ‘Killer’s invisible, sure, but the victim’s ID? He’s gotta check a mirror sometime. Or the floor—that polish gleams like glass; it’ll reflect his mug.’

He nailed it.

But it was not a reflection in a mirror or on the ground. Instead, it appeared on the surface of a lake. During the umpteenth increasingly brutal slaughter, the owner of the memory was dragged before a lake and forced wretchedly to his knees. Just before his struggling head was pressed underwater, the lake’s surface captured His face, twisted in shock and fury—

“Ctharnid!” Ode’s pupils contracted sharply. In the next instant, agony exploded in his left calf!

“…!” Ode wrenched himself free from the dream realm. He realized with a jolt that he had slowly sunk to the bottom of the lake at some point.

A massive black void yawned directly beneath his feet. A bony claw, its fingertip adorned with a golden ring, emerged from the abyss. It hooked into his calf like a scythe and tore savagely. “Give me… flesh and blood!”

“Faust!” Ode’s heart stuttered for a beat the moment he recognized the hand’s owner. But he reacted with lightning speed, yanking out his heavy machine gun and smashing it down onto the claw. At the same time, he yanked hard on the hemp rope tied around his waist. “El!!”

Whoosh…

A surge of brute force transmitted along the rope. The instant Ode battered the claw away, it hauled him sharply upward.

Lake water slapped against Ode’s back from the sheer speed of his ascent. Glancing down, he saw more skeletal hands clawing out from the black void below, stretching toward him with ravenous greed.

“Give us… give us more…”

“Power… give me power…”

Splash!