Ode stood amid the frozen blizzard, gazing at Cavendish. “…You know some things lose all their charm if you drag them out into the open, right?”
“Why do they?” Cavendish refused to let it go, pressing on relentlessly. “I’d really like to know—after this round of the marriage contract took hold, aside from that night when I blew up the car to keep you from the gala, have I ever done anything to betray you, Ode? Have I ever fallen short in any way?”
“You don’t want to see anyone die, so I told you Jack was hiding in the cabin—even if it meant revealing your reverse pollution ability to you directly. And that power could be used to kill me. Did I hesitate? Did I hide it?”
“You went berserk, chasing death like an addict to self-harm. Was I wrong to stand in your way? You learned the truth and wanted to run to Faust and blow your own brains out—was I wrong to stop you?! Were all my secrets for my own sake?!”
“Don’t bring up that night I fed you Cthulhu. You know it was the right call. Not even a week later, you faced Hastur. Without Cthulhu’s corpse, could you have escaped that opera house so easily, caught between the Sleep God and Hastur?! If you didn’t need that power, then tell me—why, after learning the true faces of the Elder Gods, did you come to me for Hastur’s body?”
“You needed them! Even if you won’t admit it! What was I supposed to do? Watch someone starve to death out of respect for their wishes, knowing full well they’re on the brink? I’m sorry—my logic doesn’t run that way.”
“And don’t tell me summoning Abhoth with human sacrifices was cruel. You used the cultists in that theater to kill Hastur yourself. Neither of us has clean hands on that score.”
In the halted time, Cavendish’s voice faded, leaving only silence in the world.
After a long moment, Ode blinked. “Whoa. You’ve been bottling up a lot of resentment, huh? Anything else you want to get off your chest?”
“Of course—plenty!” Cavendish could tell Ode wasn’t convinced, but he had no idea what else to say. Emotions piled up in his chest, usually dormant but now surging uncontrollably, spilling out in words that served no purpose but to vent. “I know our power imbalance is real—it can’t be erased, at least not quickly. But in all that, haven’t I shown every bit of respect I could understand?”
“I could have imprisoned you! Back in Dreamcatcher Town, when you barely grasped your own abilities! Did I?”
“I could have treated you like a rose in a greenhouse, clearing every obstacle, delivering your enemies gift-wrapped. But is that really what you wanted?!”
Cavendish drew a deep breath, unsure how to go on. “I’ve—I’ve done everything I could, everything I could comprehend, whether it was right or wrong from my perspective.”
“You want to conquer your enemies on your own terms? Fine! Even if it means watching you head out plump and healthy, only to drag yourself back battered and broken. I patch you up on the sly, and you hold it against me!”
“Your work demands you flit between targets, no time for personal matters. Fine! If you won’t come to me, I’ll go to you!”
Cavendish panted for a few seconds, then gritted his teeth and murmured, “I really want to know… have you truly noticed nothing of what I’ve done?”
“You can say I’ve betrayed my kin, gone against my instincts. But have I ever done anything to wrong you?”
“This isn’t the first time I’ve asked. But—don’t you think your attitude toward me is a bit unfair? Only human feelings count as feelings, human efforts as efforts—mine don’t? Everything I’ve done counts for nothing? Just because I’m an Outer God, because I don’t grasp what emotions mean? So I deserve this treatment?”
Ode opened his mouth, ready to deflect the conversation as before, but at last he murmured, “Maybe it’s because we’ve never been on equal footing from the start. This relationship of ours began twisted, stayed twisted—what good fruit did you expect from a tree like that? Look at us now: you’re standing before Abhoth, calmly talking feelings, while all I can think about is survival.”
Cavendish felt they were going in circles, trapped in a dead end. “I can help you! That’s why I’m here—to help you hold Abhoth in check. Or did you think I was just standing around for fun? The only problem is—I know you won’t let me.”
Ode shrugged. “I can’t. No matter what you say or how I feel, we’ll have to fight eventually. If I need your help just to face Abhoth, what happens when we clash? Should I just surrender?”
Snowflakes clung to Cavendish’s frost-white lashes, giving the illusion that he was a marble statue in the chill wind—unyielding yet fragile. “…So that’s why, in those futures, you chose that Soviet guy? Because you’re equals together—no worrying about who lives or dies, just fighting side by side to survive? No matter what I do, it’s never enough, is it?”
Cavendish actually laughed—a bitter, self-mocking sound. “So yeah, I did betray you. I blew up the car, kept you from meeting him. I severed your future with a normal human.”
Ode couldn’t help sighing. “That has nothing to do with the Soviet guy—why are you still hung up on him?? I’ve told you a million times we’re not meant to force it. ‘At least one of us will kill the other!’ But you think that’s romantic—what can I say? I can’t find any fairy tale or romance in it. I have responsibilities. You get that, right? I can’t die! How do I face the people who’ve bet everything on me?”
“I never said it had to be you who dies,” Cavendish shot back. He tried to step forward but, lacking guidance, irritably planted his foot back in place. “Can’t we deal with that when the time comes? What I’m saying is—even if we have to fight, it doesn’t have to ruin what we have, right?”
“…??” Ode couldn’t fathom how an Outer God handled emotions. “What are you—”
“Because we don’t have much time left! Get it?” Cavendish cut him off with a low growl. “I don’t want to waste what little we have on pointless fights. Not spending our final days playing Romeo and Juliet!”
Ode’s prepared rebuttals evaporated. After a pause, he licked his lips. “How much time do we have left?”
Cavendish’s jaw clenched for a moment. “Thirteen days. Azathoth wakes on August 4th. Today is July 22nd—no need to check a calendar. Trust me, you can’t imagine counting down the days these past two weeks.”
In the face of death, even deities seemed little different from mortals—anxious enough to double- and triple-check the date, as if staring harder might squeeze an extra day from the calendar.
And Cavendish could have avoided it all.
Ode’s conscience surfaced briefly, whispering: Hadn’t he caused it? Without Cavendish vouching for his Time Alchemy Array, without the car explosion outside the sanatorium that let him consume Cthulhu, how would Azathoth have stirred?
But against the weight of all those lives he carried, conscience and feelings alike were insignificant.
Ode racked the gun with a click. “Good. Then I’d better speed up my hunt. Mind releasing Abhoth, Mr. Duke?”
Cavendish’s expression grew cold. “You’re a coward, you know that? You’re fearless when it comes to others’ troubles, but with your own, you’re like a kid who buries his head under the covers at the first unsolvable problem.”
Ode shrugged indifferently. “You could give up early too, seek your next spring. There are so many forests out there—why hang yourself from one tree?”
“Because—I’ve made—my choice.”
Time resumed its flow. Amid the roaring, blinding white snowstorm, Cavendish’s trench coat whipped wildly. He enunciated each word: “And unlike this coward, I never run or know the meaning of giving up.”
Ode smacked his lips. “You know a forced melon isn’t sweet, right?”
“Then let that forced melon tell me why he can whisper sweet nothings to any god without a second thought if it serves his goal. But now he wants to pick a fight with me?”
Cavendish extended his hand toward the gray mud tide surging from the ground. “Ready?”
“You bet.” Ode’s finger rested on the heavy machine gun’s trigger. The next instant, Cavendish vanished, and the mudflow rushed in!
Bang-bang-bang… Bullets flew from the barrel.
In mere seconds, Ode emptied the magazine. As the mud tide writhed madly from the gray mist injected into it, he rolled backward, retreating from its reach. Switching to a grenade launcher, Faust’s voice crackled through the earpiece: [Call a ride!! Use the mortar cannon!! Blow up these ice platforms—drop Abhoth down! Whatever monster’s killing in this fissure, it won’t let Abhoth invade its lair. Let them tear into each other!]
Ode hefted the launcher. “Smart idea, but what if the stele is right below this fissure? I can’t let their fight destroy it—that might be our key to—!”
Boom…
Chunks of ice cracked from corrosion, the once-white ground now coated in coppery green slime, as if the earth itself were shriveling and rotting under Abhoth’s assault.
“—victory.” Ode finished the word stubbornly, summoning the Aston Martin with a glance. He slid into the driver’s seat and floored the accelerator just as the spreading corrosive pollution nearly kissed the car’s rear wing. “Faust! Faust! Remotely control the mortar cannon for me! Don’t target the ice—aim at Abhoth!!”
Roaring engines chased the silver sports car through the snowstorm that blurred heaven and earth.
Under the milky white sky’s influence, Ode couldn’t distinguish front from back on the snowfield with the naked eye alone. But with the headlights on, the illuminated patch ahead turned starkly rugged.
Ode floored the accelerator, the ice and snow battering the windows like hailstones. “Faster! Faster!”
【I’m already going as fast as I can!! Do you even realize you’re driving on a snowfield right now?! One wrong twitch of the wheel, and you’ll be spinning out like clothes in a washing machine!】Faust’s roar crackled through the earpiece, laced with fury. 【My plan is the safest! Even if those shells can assimilate Abhoth, then what?! Drag his humanoid form into the Dream Realm? Last time you tangled with the Sleep God, you nearly got skewered! Even if you’ve got the Sleep God as a puppet this time, who knows how much hot air is in his claim to be the ‘master of the Dream Realm’? You’re gambling with your life here, you know that?!】
Ode gripped the steering wheel with every ounce of strength he had. “Lucky for me, I can afford to gamble.”
“Bzzz…”
A bizarre hum erupted behind the car, like some massive presence had been yanked from the air, sending the surrounding airflow rushing in to fill the void with a muffled thud.
Faust’s voice came over the earpiece: 【He’s transforming.】
“Screeech—” The Aston Martin came to an abrupt halt, tires shrieking. The next moment, with power cut off, it sank into the snowdrift.
Ode leaped out through the upside-down door, crunching across the snow behind the car—now hardened like rust-covered driftwood—and approached the figure struggling to shed its new shell and revert to its primal form.
“Ahnah…” Abhoth rasped, his shell visibly turning a sickly green, reversing Ode’s Reverse Pollution right before his eyes.
【…Shit.】
Faust fired another shell with a resounding boom. The pale gray projectile grazed Ode’s cheek and slammed into Abhoth’s remudding left arm: 【I still say we toss this thing into a cockfight—】
A black-red fissure tore open amid the snowstorm. Ode seized Abhoth by the collar and dragged him toward the gaping Dream Realm. “Yeah, I could toss Abhoth into a cockfight. But what about Azathoth? Should I chuck him in somewhere to scrap with some bugs too?”
The Corpse Sea trembled with a deep, rattling thud. Ode hurled Abhoth into the Dream Realm and sealed the fissure. In the next instant, the Sleep God’s towering form—puppeted by fine threads—leaped to his side like a cheetah, reaching out toward Abhoth. “Obey my command. Tell me—what do you know about the Ancient Stone Monuments buried beneath the Frozen Tundra?”
“Crack…” The bony hands clamped around Abhoth groaned under the strain as rust-green flesh repeatedly reformed over his body.
“How dare you…” Abhoth’s gray curls gleamed attractively in the flare light, quivering with his struggles. “A mere human…”
“How dare I treat a god this way?” Ode crouched down, tilting Abhoth’s gaunt chin up to meet those ink-green eyes peeking from beneath the lustrous gray hair. “I guarantee you’re not the first god to say that to me. Now tell me—what do you know about the Ancient Stone Monuments buried beneath the Frozen Tundra?”
“I won’t tell—” A horrific shriek exploded into the air, echoing across the entire Corpse Sea. Every corpse and bone shuddered in excitement.
“…” Even Ode was startled, glancing back at the Sleep God puppet with a mutter. “Damn, he really is something. This is an Outer God… sure, Cavendish roughed him up and left him without much dignity, but it’s still Yog-Sothoth. Who keeps their dignity in front of him?”
Ode rubbed the back of his neck, sensing he’d lucked into a real find by accident. He stood and directed the Sleep God to press the interrogation again:
“Speak.”
“I know those monuments are fragments from the dawn of Azathoth’s Dream Realm, and Ubbo-Sathla guards them down in that Gully—no! No! Stop!!”
Abhoth thrashed, his limbs gripped by countless bony hands. With a terrifying screech, he tore apart. Gray-green corrosive blood sprayed out, sizzling as it splattered onto the corpse piles.
“…” Ode wiped the blood from his face after a long pause, then licked a taste from his palm. “Hmm, tastes like crab roe.”
His long-starved stomach quivered in ecstasy at the rare indulgence. With no time to worry about overeating and turning into a monster amid the chaos, Ode shut his eyes and gorged himself wildly.
When something turned his stomach, he’d force himself to visualize similar foods until every pore on his body hummed with satisfied bliss. Only then did he slowly open his eyes, ending the feast.
【…How are you feeling now?】Faust asked cautiously over the earpiece. 【Eva’s holed up in some secret lab again, playing hide-and-seek. You’d better not croak before she resurfaces, kid. I can reload shells at best—her gear? No clue how any of it works.】
Ode exhaled deeply, feeling like he’d swallowed a furnace warming him from within, sweat beading on his skin. He stripped off his cumbersome winter gear, flexing in just his suit. Then he paused, rolling his shoulders. “? Why does the suit feel a bit tight?”
He quickly looked down, lifting his shirt hem. The faint lines of his abs had sharpened into defined, sleek muscle: “…Whoa.”
【…What the hell does that ‘whoa’ mean?】
“It means after all this high-intensity action, I’ve finally got abs worth looking at.” Ode couldn’t resist patting his stomach, struck by the bizarre sense that the muscles were his but still strangers—though with his current training load, they should’ve been old friends by now.
He dropped the hem. “I’m heading down into the Gully, Faust. And, uh…”
Faust hummed questioningly as Ode stepped out of the Dream Realm.
Ode stripped off his vest and shirt too, stowing them in the Alchemy Space. Crimson wings unfurled with a snap across the snow, kicking up flurries. A few powerful flaps carried him back to the Black Rock Rift, where he dove in without hesitation—almost eagerly—finishing his thought: “…Cavendish dropped by. He said Azathoth wakes on August 4th.”
【He said wha—】
Faust’s voice drowned in the howling wind.
Ode kept his wings spread, beating them harder to whip up thunderous gusts that propelled him faster toward Ubbo-Sathla—toward the monuments, toward the truth he’d chased so relentlessly.
What was he, really?
If his power was Reverse Pollution, why had his parents snapped on the same day? Was it connected to him, or were there deeper secrets?
He craved the truth. After this long journey, he deserved it—good or bad.
“Ding-a-ling…” A faint chime tinkled into his ears.
Ode’s heart lurched. Instinct screamed danger. He flared his wings to halt his plunge, but a sweltering gust—not from Antarctica—blasted his face.
The rush of air stirred fine dust from the Tomb Chamber floor.
Nyarlathotep, lounging indolently on the Pharaoh Throne, withdrew the hand he’d meant to catch the beauty with. Tilting his head back, he admired the gorgeous six-meter wingspan and sighed in wonder. “I’m almost tempted to think you’re deliberately seducing me, Sister-in-Law. Why else do you always appear before me looking so… impossible to ignore?”
“You should know my dear brother pulled out all the stops to keep us apart. It took real effort to slip past the prison and link up with Zane, and it left me very unhappy. Extremely unhappy. Have you figured out how to make it up to me for your brother’s sake, Ode?”
“Faust.” Ode ground the words out through clenched teeth. “I don’t want to tangle with this guy right now. Do something!”
【Now you come to me for ideas? What can I even—wait, I’ve got one. Stall him! Give me five minutes! No, three!】
The Black Pharaoh, seated on the sandstone throne, uncrossed his legs. His gem-encrusted hand patted his knee, while his left fingers dangled a string of golden bells. “Come, sit. Make yourself at home. I’ve prepared so many gifts for you today, Sister-in-Law… Like that cheap trinket in your ear—why not swap it for real golden earrings?”
“Zzap!”
The earpiece exploded in his ear canal.
