The skirmish had ended, but its lingering effects persisted.
A few of Hastur’s tentacles still quivered from the excitement. He raised his scythe-like hand and touched his own face with the flat of the blade.
Face? Face?! We never had such a thing!
A low growl rumbled from deep within:
He made you weak! Hastur! Look at yourself now—you look like an octopus monster that crawled out of a third-rate horror novel.
That’s his goal: to reduce you from an formless, unknowable ancient entity into a flesh-and-blood, vulnerable lesser being!
Hastur, of course, knew exactly what this dimension-lowering assault implied. But considering he’d done the exact same thing to G8273, he stayed far calmer than the voice inside him. He simply checked how long this unwelcome effect might last—about six hours, by his estimate—before relaxing and lowering his hand.
Right on cue, the System chimed as he did.
【Task: Ends of Evolution · One (Completed)】
【Task Rewards: Freedom Points +5; Pale Mask ×1】
【Store Item? [Yes/No]】
Hastur didn’t think twice. He selected Yes with a casual motion, and in the next instant, the phantom severed arm coiled in his tentacles vanished.
“……?” Hastur hadn’t expected that thing to count as an “item,” but he cared more about his new Freedom Points than dissecting an enemy’s severed limb right now.
After tonight’s battle, both he and G8273 would seize every chance to grow stronger. He recalled that after he’d drawn G8273’s full attention away, Finnian had generated quite a few more points for him.
The Status Panel unfurled slowly. Out of habit, Hastur dumped all his skill points into Mental/Spirit before scrolling down for a closer look:
【Character: Hastur
Mental/Spirit: 45 (In your dreams, you might see that warm lake)
Intelligence: 3 ((You’ve got a brain, but not much—even with clues dancing right in front of you, all you see is thin air))
Strength: 30 (You’re strong enough to rip doors apart with your bare hands, like smashing wafer cookies!)
Life: 30 (What’s the point of more health when you’ve got an infinite health cheat? Extra staying power for the next fight?)
Defense: 30 (If you ever need surgery, try a whole tungsten-steel sawblade)
Agility: 10 (You’re nimble enough… at least you won’t trip jumping down stairs)】
Good news! His Strength, Life, and Defense had inexplicably multiplied several dozen times over.
Bad news: His Intelligence hadn’t budged an inch, and his Agility had even halved.
Hastur glared at the panel, like a gamer spotting gear that boosted one stat massively while nerfing another. No matter how big the gain on A, that cut to B still stung.
The inner voice piped up again with a suitably occult explanation:
Our spiritual form has grown enormously, Hastur. You can’t expect a being to be both massive and agile, right?
Right. Whatever. Hastur resolved to put ten of his next Freedom Points into Agility.
He closed the Status Panel and turned to the other task reward.
The System obligingly popped up a prompt:
【Equip Item: [Pale Mask]?】
A strange sensation suddenly tingled in his nasal passages and throat. He opened his mouth involuntarily… and let out a small yawn.
…What was that?? What was that??
The inner voice practically screamed:
You’re—yawning!? That’s something lowly carbon-based lifeforms do! We never get tired!
Hastur chalked the yawn up to a normal side effect of the six-hour debuff and clicked [Yes] without batting an eye.
A slight chill spread over his facial skin as something hard settled into place.
Hastur peered out through the eyeholes of the mask and saw—
A layer of mirage-mist suddenly shrouded his vision.
When the fog cleared and his sight sharpened again, Hastur beheld… a vast, black lake stretching to infinity.
Black stars hung high above the water’s surface, while the silhouettes of sprawling cities rose and fell in the moonlight.
He saw towering spires. He saw roads paved with ash…
The vision dissolved in a blink.
What was that?
The inner voice nearly sighed, murmuring dreamily: It feels… so familiar.
Hastur had no answer.
He reached up to remove the bone mask, intending to put it back on and trigger the vision again—
Ka-chunk.
The sound of a handgun being racked echoed from behind him.
Hastur froze mid-motion and turned. There stood Detective Dustin, covered in grime like he’d just crawled out of a fire, his disheveled hair and clothes streaked with soot from heavy smoke.
“What the hell are you?” The detective’s gun trained straight on Hastur, his pale gray eyes wide with shock, uncertainty, and inner turmoil. “Why’d you go along with me on this missing persons case?”
“You serious?” Finnian poked his head over the edge of the rooftop, sounding stunned. “You just ran off to blow up the signal tower to save the Dean, and now that you’ve pulled it off, you’re back here pointing a gun at him? Talk about mixed signals, Detective.”
Hastur could understand Dustin’s conflict. At its core, it stemmed from the detective’s innate sense of justice.
He owed Hastur a debt and believed Hastur hadn’t done anything wrong, so he couldn’t just stand by and watch him perish with the enemy.
Yet he was also responsible for the lives of countless people in Phoenix District, which meant he had to draw on Hastur.
Hastur didn’t dislike that righteousness. In fact, he hoped it would endure a while longer.
After all, in the real Company’s cutthroat world, such rare souls were fleeting—like flowers that bloomed only to be crushed by merciless schemes before they could fully open, reduced to shattered foam on the waves.
Moreover, Detective Dustin had just saved his life.
“I don’t know what I am.” Hastur gave an honest reply. “That’s why I’m tagging along on your missing persons case. I think the Cradle Cult has information I need.”
“—?” Detective Dustin’s pale gray eyes widened slightly.
For some reason, that cool hue looked reliable and clear on him—even brimming with wariness and doubt as it was.
“You mean—you think—you might be one of the gods the Cradle Cult worships??”
Dustin suddenly recalled how, during their earlier escape, Old Neil had muttered something about “Hastur” and “King in Yellow” while staring at H.J.:
“…No way… This can’t be… Everything the Cradle Cult preaches is real?? You’re Hastur? The Hastur, whose avatar is the King in Yellow??”
Hastur started to nod, only for Detective Dustin to add: “So—that thing that attacked me that night really was Nyarlathotep? Your great-uncle or whatever?”
Hastur: “……”
Inner voice: ……
Detective Dustin always had a knack for silencing Hastur with one line. How was that not a superpower?
“…That couldn’t have been.” Hastur’s tone turned curt, almost stiff. “If Nyarlathotep’s truly my senior by generations, It wouldn’t struggle so much just to kill a person.”
Whatever had shown up on Vanilla Street that night…! Hastur felt his face heating up. “Drop it. Anyway, it wasn’t.”
Detective Dustin nodded on reflex, lowering his gun halfway before snapping back to attention and raising it again:
“So what were you doing at the Abandoned Power Station tonight? I figured you weren’t joining my walkthrough because you had other priorities?”
Only then did it hit Hastur why he’d come here in the first place: “—Oh. Clearing the place out. And collecting the bounty.”
From the rooftop nearby, Finnian kicked Gavin’s corpse down. “Exactly. Glad you remembered our original plan, Dean. So, let’s get moving? Dean? Detective? The bodies won’t load themselves into the shipping containers.”
Hastur glanced around at the sound.
The once-bustling outpost now held only him, Finnian, and Dustin still breathing.
The rest of the Zane Gang members—including the hapless black-suited bodyguard caught in the crossfire—lay sprawled on the ground in eternal sleep.
Old Neil was gone, likely shoved away by Detective Dustin and then fled the station to save his skin.
Hastur wasn’t worried, though. After tonight, the moment he showed up in front of Old Neil, the man would spill everything without hesitation.
Detective Dustin started to ask something else, but Finnian slung an arm around his shoulders and half-dragged him aside. Hastur could still hear Finnian working his psychological magic on the detective:
“…Why does being a monster mean you have to be the enemy? That’s species discrimination.”
“The Dean hasn’t broken any laws. Scan these corpses with the brain core the Police Station issued you—they’re all wanted fugitives on your lists, right?”
“If anyone’s racked up a big one tonight, it’s you, Detective Dustin? Blowing up a signal tower… Tsk tsk…”
Hastur heard Detective Dustin let out a choked sob, like a man contemplating his own demise—probably wondering how to clean up this mess and whether he’d ever pay off the debts piling up from it all.
Finnian swung the stick then offered the sweet date. “But as long as we don’t say anything, who will know who blew up the signal tower? We can just say it was infighting in the Zane Gang. You did the best you could tonight, Detective.”
Detective Dustin actually had to thank Finnian in return. Hastur could only think of one phrase: “Sly gang boss.”
~~~
Finnian and Detective Dustin proved highly efficient. In less than half an hour, they had cleaned every corner of the battlefield.
Hastur tallied up the spoils. The cash seized alone came to 130,000, and with the bounties they could claim from the police station, his construction funds would total around 350,000. It was not a huge sum, but enough to build a school.
Dustin scrounged up an abandoned truck from near the outpost to haul the bodies destined for the police station.
Finnian, limping badly, slipped into the basement and pushed out a sleek heavy motorcycle.
“Babylon Company make,” he said. “The Lake Fairy Series pioneer model, Arthur.”
Finnian caressed the motorcycle’s smooth lines as tenderly as if they were a lover’s skin. “This is the only thing I want to take from the outpost… but in my current condition, I’m in no shape to ride.”
Hastur, who had caught several sidelong glances from Finnian: “?”
What’s he sneaking peeks at? The inner voice flared up in irritation again. It only ever grew calm at the sight of that Black Lake. Does he expect us to ride something like this?!
The mighty King in Yellow would never stoop to riding a motorcycle, of course—but his strength was more than sufficient now.
So when Finnian sneaked an eighth glance his way, Hastur extended a tentacle, coiled it around Arthur, and stuffed the bike into the truck bed.
After all their bustling about, the three finally squeezed into the cab. Dustin grumbled to Finnian as he fired up the engine.
“God, I have no idea how to crack those missing persons cases anymore. What if the cultists really were taken away by that evil god? And that G8273—what’s he even doing here? What’s his goal?”
Unlike Finnian, who loved to speed, Dustin was the sort who stuck to the speed limit even without traffic cameras around.
The big truck rumbled steadily along the rutted road, its gentle jolts like the swaying of a cradle being softly rocked.
At first, Hastur listened in on Dustin and Finnian’s conversation. But soon an unfamiliar drowsiness—comfortable, like warm tides—washed over him. It lulled him, drawing him down into sweet, dark sleep.
~~~
In his dream, he saw that black, endless lake once more.
There were no nagging voices from within, only the quiet lapping of waves.
He waded into the water, embracing its warmth like a fetus slipping back into the safe embrace of amniotic fluid. It enveloped him in perfect calm.
~~~
Hours later—or so it seemed—Hastur jolted awake to the shrill blare of an alarm in the real world.
What… what happened?
The inner voice mumbled groggily, like someone roused from deep slumber.
Hastur sat up. The holographic helmet slid from his head, which had lost its mimicry.
He was back to his formless, featureless state, but the deep satisfaction of a full night’s sleep still suffused every part of him. He lingered in the sensation for a moment before floating to his feet.
A being without a physical form should not know weariness—or comfort, for that matter. Evidently, these were fleeting sensations gained from last night’s brief materialization.
The inner voice mumbled incoherently for a bit longer, then snapped fully alert. Hostile barbs sprang up in its tone.
Look what that G8273 did! He nearly dragged us into eternal sleep!
Hastur ignored the inner voice—which had clearly slept like the dead but refused to admit it—got himself ready, and set off for work.
Work was as dull as ever, so Hastur multitasked shamelessly, letting his mind replay the previous night’s events.
G8273 was an AI with pronounced biases.
At the mere whisper of a possibly nonexistent evil god, he launched investigations and threw himself into open combat without a hint of restraint.
Yet when it came to humans—even when Finnian struck first—all he did was use the brain core to control Zane Gang thugs and sap Finnian’s strength. No killing blows.
Dustin had fared the same.
The detective wore no bulletproof vest at all, yet he snatched Old Neil right out of the black-clad bodyguards’ hands. G8273 never directed a single bodyguard to put a bullet in him.
The stray shot that clipped Dustin had come from a gang member trying to take out Finnian.
Hastur suspected G8273’s core programming included a hard-coded directive to “protect humans.” That would explain the obvious favoritism.
“…sta? Hastur!” A colleague’s shout snapped him out of his profiling of G8273. “Look out the window! It’s the boss—and your Regulator. He says he wants a word with you. Go on!”
Hastur tuned out the colleague’s fretting—”I’ll cover your work here… hey, why are you still standing around? Don’t keep the boss waiting!”—and glanced toward the glass.
He still couldn’t make out the boss’s face. To him, the man was just a walking mosaic. All he could see was Lv Zhucao standing dutifully behind the boss, his smile a touch strained.
Hmm… do you smell that?
The inner voice whispered.
Tension, unease, anger… so thick in the air. The stench of lies.
