Chapter 55 - The Astrologer 09 Chapter 54 - The Astrologer 08 Chapter 53 - The Astrologer 07 Chapter 52 - The Astrologer 06 Chapter 51 - The Astrologer 05 Chapter 50 - The Astrologer 04 Chapter 49 - The Astrologer 03 Chapter 48 - The Astrologer 02 Chapter 47 - The Astrologer 01 Chapter 46 - The King of Clouds 15 Chapter 45 - The King of Clouds 14 Chapter 44 - The King of Clouds 13 Chapter 43 - The King of Clouds 12 Chapter 42 - The King of Clouds 11 Chapter 41 - The King of Clouds 10 Chapter 40 - The King of Clouds 09 Chapter 39 - The King of Clouds 08 Chapter 38 - The King of Clouds 07 Chapter 37 - The King of Clouds 06 Chapter 36 - The King of Clouds 05 Chapter 35 - The King of Clouds 04 Chapter 34 - The King of Clouds 03 Chapter 33 - The King of Clouds 02 Chapter 32 - The King of Clouds 01 Chapter 31 - The Night Watchman 14 Chapter 30 - The Night Watchman 13 Chapter 29 - The Night Watchman 12 Chapter 28 - The Night Watchman 11 Chapter 27 - The Night Watchman 10 Chapter 26 - The Night Watchman 09 Chapter 25 - The Night Watchman 08 Chapter 24 - The Night Watchman 07 Chapter 23 - The Night Watchman 06 Chapter 22 - The Night Watchman 05 Chapter 21 - The Night Watchman 04 Chapter 20 - The Night Watchman 03 Chapter 19 - The Night Watchman 02 Chapter 18 - The Night Watchman 01 Chapter 17 - Child of the Wind 17 Chapter 16 - Child of the Wind 16 Chapter 15 - Child of the Wind 15 Chapter 14 - Child of the Wind 14 Chapter 13 - Child of the Wind 13 Chapter 12 - Child of the Wind 12 Chapter 11 - Child of the Wind 11 Chapter 10 - Child of the Wind 10 Chapter 9 - Child of the Wind 09 Chapter 8 - Child of the Wind 08 Chapter 7 - Child of the Wind 07 Chapter 6 - Child of the Wind 06 Chapter 5 - Child of the Wind 05 Chapter 4 - Child of the Wind 04 Chapter 3 - Child of the Wind 03 Chapter 2 - Child of the Wind 02 Chapter 1 - Child of the Wind 01
There were just three minutes left, but to Zong Yan they felt far longer than the three minutes before the countdown began.
It even felt like his hands were sweating, but such a thing was impossible given the status of his current divine body.
The Lord of Tindalos narrowed his eyes, scrutinizing the ancient god of another world.
With the addition of the majestic power of faith, Yun Zhong Jun’s strength was increased by an incredible level on this land, inching ever closer to the upper level of the Great Old Ones who wielded “world destroying” power.
According to the Daoist classification, the power of the Hounds of Tindalos belonged to the Yin or cold type. In the end, they were evil beings. Meanwhile, Yun Zhong Jun consisted of the purest form of divine energy, the orthodox Yang category.
If the fight continued like this, it would be difficult to win. Normally, given the warlike nature of the Tindalos clan, the Lord of Tindalos would never consider a temporary truce, but it hadn’t been easy to track the traces of Yog-Sothoth. Even if all they managed to do was rush over and get killed, he was determined to infuriate their old enemy.
After all, what the Tindalos clan cared about the most was their archenemy. That was the reason they came.
Even for Tindalos Hounds, it was rare to travel through time on such a large scale. For them it took a day to traverse a hundred million years. In order to seek revenge, this race had been running through the timeline for over a month.
“Very well, I promise you.”
The enormous wolf demon gave a long roar. All the Hounds that heard it transformed from solid entities into mist-like beings, then lifted their heads to echo the call.
Only then did Zong Yan breathe a sigh of relief.
The Tindalos clan might be notorious, but they had some credibility. The great race of Yith, which was a powerful, independent race of equal strength, also cooperated with the Tindalos. The reason humans were chased down and killed by the Hounds was partly because, on the one hand, they couldn’t communicate with each other, and on the other hand, because they’d violated this species’ great taboo.
But Zong Yan was now an ancient god. He had no difficulty communicating with the Lord of Tindalos.
Meanwhile, a long-buried anger surged in Zong Yan’s soul.
Yog-Sothoth…
There were two minutes left. After the agreement was made, Zong Yan took a deep breath and made a gesture with his fingers. The clouds receded like the tide.
“That’s… What’s going on?”
On the ground, the investigators who were fighting the Tindalos Hounds drew to a halt.
But they were just responding to their enemies. The Hounds suddenly changed from solid state to liquid vapor and threw down their prey. They rose straight up into the air and ran back to where they’d first descended.
After such a long battle, there were heavy casualties on the ground. Everywhere were scattered puddles of blood, severed limbs, and torn flesh, shocking anyone who saw it.
“Look at the sky! That blue and gold cyclone seems to be disappearing!”
He Yuan held his severely damaged arm. He didn’t have any time to deal with his injury, but propped himself against a wall and shouted.
High above the three-towered Dujiakou Financial Building, the mysterious ink-blue mass, which had been obscured by a cyan and gold fog, slowly became visible again.
No one knew exactly what that cloud was. But everyone knew it was protecting humanity. It was precisely because the situation wasn’t totally out of control that hope had blossomed in the midst of desperation.
""
But now their despair began to grow.
“Could it be… that today we’ll…”
The investigators had seen it clearly. What they were up against was just a tiny fraction of creatures, the ones that had managed to escape the huge drop of ink blue liquid. But when facing such a small number, the investigators had lost so much. Even the Monarchs were wounded.
If those creatures truly reached the city… the consequences would be unimaginable.
Their blood slowly froze. At the moment, no one cared about the rule of not looking directly at the Hounds.
The communications networks and electricity throughout Jiangzhou had been cut off. It was impossible for ordinary people to learn much about the mythical creatures in such a short time. And even if they did find out, they might not necessarily believe it.
Numerous investigators had come in support, but excluding the dead and wounded, only sixty percent survived. For ordinary people it would have been a straight up slaughter.
“Please bless this land, God, and look after your people.” Foreign investigators had already begun to make the sign of the cross on their chests.
But—the cloud gradually dispersed.
The mysterious unknown evil hovered in the sky, poised to fall to the ground the way a drop of water descends to the sea.
The Tindalos Hounds who’d just left their prey returned to this huge drop of liquid like birds to the nest.
If you didn’t know how vicious that thing was, based on its appearance alone it might remind you of oil and pigment, suggesting the beauty of nature, light and shadow, like the Barbizon school of painting.
One minute left.
After seeing the Lord of Tindalos had kept his promise, Zong Yan, who was on alert with his muscles tensed, felt a sense of relief.
Of course, Yun Zhong Jun’s appearance remained unmoved, noble, and cold.
The man in the crane cloak flicked his sleeves and finally gave a nod to the Lord of Tindalos. With his bare feet he stepped onto the clouds above the void, and slowly descended to the top of a financial building in Dujiakou.
Even if he only had one minute, he couldn’t show his weakness.
If the Lord of Tindalos knew that Zong Yan was just pretending to be a tiger, the consequences could be imagined.
Zong Yan wasn’t shy about attributing the utmost malice to the minds of alien creatures.
“Ah ah ah, it looks like they’re teaming up.”
On the top of the building opposite the one where Yun Zhong Jun had landed, Nyarlathotep tucked his hands into the pockets of his white coat and spoke gleefully.
It was well-known that Nyarlathotep had two hobbies in life. One was watching theater and the other was causing trouble.
This time he wasn’t to blame, but he was definitely part of the show.
And Yog found everything about him irritating. The Lord of Time and Space knew it was impossible for his plan to go awry, but he was displeased by that derisive tone of voice.
“The script has been laid down. It must be followed,” Yog said coldly.
A moment later, it was like an invisible, indescribable hand of dread suddenly loomed over them.
With a simple flick of this hand, certain appalling facts within the present reality were altered.
The Lord of Tindalos might claim to be the archenemy of Yog-Sothoth, but sadly, according to Yog, the Lord of Tindalos was just another being whose name he didn’t bother to remember.
The Lord of Tindalos had actually received his many deaths from two of Yog-Sothoth’s Great Old One avatars.
After all, the true essence of Yog resided entirely outside the universe, beyond space and time.
As terrifying as the Tindalos Hounds were, they could only move within the timeline. For a higher-dimensional evil god, they too were ants that could be crushed to death with a finger, no different from flattening a human being.
The reason he didn’t squash them was simply because their usual small brawls didn’t interest him at all. With such insignificant strength it was impossible for them to make the evil god unhappy.
But if this enemy didn’t follow his script, it didn’t need to exist.
Something in the distance rumbled—
The next moment, the drop of ink blue liquid suddenly seemed to boil, then exploded in the air.
Yun Zhong Jun had just stepped onto the rooftop of the building. A moment later he was shocked by the mountain-shaking noise of an earthquake.
And then the last second of the countdown was over. A cyan and gold flash of light surrounded Zong Yan’s body, and the ancient god with ink-black hair and ornate clothes disappeared. Standing in the same place was a powerless black-haired teen dressed in a blue and white school uniform.
The body of the Lord of Tindalos suddenly twisted in the air. Then, overruled by a paramount consciousness, it was removed from existence.
In just an instant, like a flash of lightning, the Lord of Hounds whose power was comparable to an Elder God, and who’d dared to challenge the most terrible being in the universe, was erased from reality for all time.
It was well-known that Tindalos Hounds were immortal. No matter how many times their lord was killed, he resurrected at the end of eternity.
But now these Hound subordinates sensed their king no longer existed, would never recover, and had been totally obliterated.
What kind of being could do such a thing, erasing a deity-level creature without any effort?
The answer was clear.
The death of the Lord of Tindalos left these Hounds without a leader.
Compared to the lord of their race, the rest of the Hounds weren’t that intelligent. They couldn’t communicate with other races and only knew the common language of their kind.
And after more than a month of sleepless running in the timeline, the Hounds were starving.
The ending was predetermined. The script that was close to deviating returned to the evil god’s control and wouldn’t go awry again.
The fractured drop of liquid disintegrated.
""
Ten thousand… no, a hundred thousand… or more like millions, tens of millions, an infinitude of liquid droplets fell from the sky like a storm.
The Hounds poured down like a waterfall to earth.
Without a commander, this was a rain of killing machines.
Zong Yan’s vision was a little blurred but he could clearly see the hell below his feet.
Blood, everywhere was blood.
A city in mass confusion, buildings destroyed by intruders, corroded asphalt roads, human body parts scattered everywhere.
It was a land that no longer resembled itself.
The creatures who’d lost their commander hurtled towards the defenseless humans. Against such numbers, even Monarchs could only meet their deaths.
He Yuan’s arm had been severed in the previous battle, and the wound hadn’t been treated in time. He could only hastily use alchemy to stop the blood loss.
Investigators were lucky. If they lost an arm or leg, they could install alchemical limbs with their Awakening ability and avoid the tragedy of amputation. But if treatment was delayed too long, the upper tissue would become necrotic.
But this was no longer a matter of losing limbs. When the Hounds came in like the tide, the investigators wouldn’t even leave their bones behind.
Not to mention Si Yan, even Si Xun, the long-established second Monarch, wasn’t able to resist them. The Tindalos Hounds tore him to bloody pieces. In excruciating pain, he died.
“What’s that noise outside, mama?” In a dimly lit underground passage, a little girl cowered in her mother’s arms and asked softly.
“Be good, YuanYuan. Special Forces brothers are outside protecting us. Wait a little longer and we’ll be able to go out.”
The mother patted the little girl soothingly on the shoulder and kissed her forehead.
“But…” The little girl opened her big eyes and pointed up. “There’s a crack in the house. I saw a pair of beautiful blue eyes up there.”
In the damaged, prefabricated roof, a split-open crevice revealed the gleaming, hungry eye of a wolf.
Countless tragedies repeated throughout the city.
It was a reality far worse than any horror film.
“…”
The black-haired teen’s face was pale from the prolonged drain of power. His lips trembled and he fell to his knees on the edge of the building.
Rain began to fall from the sky. It came down quickly, streaming from high above, falling in a thin drizzle.
The rain blurred the blood on the ground as well as the shapes of the Tindalos Hounds, and it cleansed the bloodied ruins of the city.
Anger.
A flood of anger.
Right now, how could it be possible for Zong Yan not to understand?
Everything was under the control of the Lord of Time and Space from the beginning. All these events were in the palm of his hand, and now it seemed the god was still watching the struggles of the ants.
Powerless.
It was the powerlessness one felt when facing a strength beyond imagination.
And finally… despair.
“No… I won’t give in to despair, never—!!!” Zong Yan spoke coldly, as if he were speaking to just one listener in the entire world.
He held a card with no pattern in his hand.
According to the myth, Azathoth was the Lord of the Universe. He could do anything.
If he could do anything, then naturally he could—
Unmake this scene of tragedy.
He dragged himself painfully into that abyssal sea, and it was as if a huge, cold, ruthless being had taken him by the throat.
His spirit crossed the worlds again.
He became “He”.
The Lord of the Universe. The Blind Idiot God.
Azathoth。
In an instant the young man’s hair lengthened. His black irises changed to empty scarlet.
His body transformed from the proper shape of a human being to a form beyond recognition.
The beauty of His face surpassed the limits of human imagination. If someone had the privilege of seeing His face, they would have knelt and offered everything they had. He was clad in the simplest of light brown rags, and yet this covering was finer than a kingly robe of lavish jewels and opulent fabrics.
“Who… am I?”
He seemed to speak, but He also seemed to say nothing at all.
Azathoth was famous for being the Lord of the Universe but also for his stupidity.
Yes, Azathoth was called the “blind idiot”, for he had no spiritual or conscious existence. He’d slept forever. That was the reason the Outer Gods were so alarmed when they’d first detected a flicker of consciousness.
Now that the card was activated, the personality of “Zong Yan” was firmly suppressed to the deepest part of his soul.
Moreover, because of Azathoth’s stupidity, even though the persona card was activated successfully, He’d forgotten what He wanted.
What the hell was I doing? It feels like I forgot something important.
It was very, very important, so important it seemed to echo in His soul, reminding the Lord of the Universe not to forget.
“That’s right… I want…”
The moment Zong Yan transformed into Azathoth’s avatar, the two evil gods standing on the other skyscraper both sensed something. In an instant they reappeared at the top of the same building.
“I want all of this to go back to the beginning, before it happened.”
Azathoth didn’t even look at them. The blind and foolish God who’d just gained consciousness suddenly remembered His mission, so He spoke softly.
What a profound thing this sentence was. The moment His sight touched the mottled land below His feet, He was actually able to surpass the limitations of His existence, emerging from the empty sea of the Lord of the Universe’s consciousness.
“You—” Nyarlathotep was about to speak, but he stopped his words.
The Lord of the Universe, all-powerful.
This timeline seemed to become an almost kaleidoscopic string, unfurling in His sight.
The Lord of the Universe looked at the timeline almost randomly and saw the myriad parallel worlds that were derived from this axis.
The subject of parallel worlds was quite mysterious. Theoretically, when people encountered certain choices, each branch would constitute a new parallel world.
Major events like the dramatic upheaval in Jiangzhou might derive thousands of parallel worlds from the timeline.
For example, if He Yuan didn’t choose to go to Qingyang High School to seek help from Zong Yan. Or if Zong Yan chose not to verify his conjecture but rushed out of the bathroom and immediately told the Dragon Group that the location was Dujiakou. Or if Si Yan didn’t reach Team 7, or if the Lord of Tindalos refused Yun Zhong Jun’s request to make peace…
All these things were possible, and each possibility extended a parallel world.
The Lord of the Universe didn’t bother with these parallel worlds. He just cut off the subsequent timeline.
After the timeline was severed, all the parallel worlds created from all subsequent timelines collapsed and were destroyed.
While He was doing all this, the scenery around them rapidly changed and retreated.
The destroyed buildings were rebuilt in an instant, the potholes in the asphalt roads were restored and smoothed, the broken street lamps were erected again, and the setting sun that was about to sink into the horizon was dragged back above people’s heads.
Broken limbs were reattached, broken necks were reconnected, and the investigators on the battlefield returned to the state they were in before everything began.
Si Yan was still playing games in the dormitory, He Yuan was still sweating in the training room, Li Wu was eating a meal, and Commander Si was leaning on the command console taking a rest.
Everything in the Dragon Group was running in an orderly way. In the central operations room, all that could be heard was the sound of the analysts clicking away at their keyboards.
The students of Qingyang High School were buried in their schoolwork. On the podium the teacher was lecturing about the knowledge points that would probably be tested in the college entrance exam.
The elites of the Dujiakou financial district came and went. In countless office windows, gold-collar workers were dialing one foreign phone number after another.
Life revived, everything was reborn, and the world was quiet.
Time had gone backwards.
Backwards to… four hours ago.
No one knew that in a few hours this place would be a hell on earth.
After doing all this, Azathoth even had the leisure to drive the Tindalos Hounds back to the long ago past where they lived.
So that future could never happen again.
Azathoth’s thoughts were vague. His scarlet eyes returned to blankness once again.
And the moment His eyes emptied, the light that symbolized the end of the persona status suddenly lit up. Without any warning, He fell backwards.
The man with gray hair and golden eyes steadily caught him in his arms.
The Lord of the Universe, the god with brown hair and red eyes, was gone. Lying against Yog-Sothoth’s chest was an ordinary high school kid.
“Let go! I’ve never touched the Father in such a position!”
Nyarlathotep was shocked. The next moment, evil tentacles stretched out behind him.
“Get out.”
Yog stood where he was and didn’t move a muscle. Just as the attack was about to reach him, he easily altered the position of space-time.
Nyarla’s blow landed in prehistoric times.
“It was just an avatar’s consciousness.”
“Obviously.” Drawing up his human body, Nyarla rolled his eyes. “If the Father God’s true body regained consciousness just now, the universe would have disappeared.”
The universe was nothing more than a manifestation of Azathoth’s dream. Once Azathoth awoke, the universe would no longer exist.
Those were more than empty words.
“So what about a conscious avatar? I’ve never seen the Father God have a stream of consciousness.” Nyarla’s tone was slightly uncertain as he looked at the person in Yog-Sothoth’s arms.
As was well-known, Nyarlathotep was the agent of Azathoth’s will. He faithfully carried out the Lord of All’s orders and traveled through the universe.
But the truth was, Nyarla himself didn’t know what commands he was executing, because his blind idiot Father God never gave him any orders.
… But that didn’t stop Nyarla from being Azathoth’s number one (licking) devotee (dog).
Yog didn’t move. His golden eyes stared intently at the black-haired teen, who was deeply unconscious at the moment.
‘Such a thing… overturned my previous conjecture.’
So thought the Lord of Time and Space. Suddenly he took his hand and cleared away the remaining fragments of parallel worlds and timelines.
He’d never before felt surprise, the feeling of being out of control, but at the moment he didn’t feel the slightest bit unhappy.
Azathoth was the leader of all the Outer Gods. For Yog, being able to pinpoint the existence of this stream of consciousness was by far the greatest reward of the journey.
‘It’s only a conscious avatar of His Majesty Azathoth. When it comes to controlling time, after all, it’s still unskilled and crude.’
At this point, Zong Yan, who had just acquired consciousness, was by no means as skilled as the master of space-time.
‘It will take time to hone.’
This was Yog-Sothoth’s conclusion in the end.
For an evil god, there was never a shortage of time.
“Let’s go. Now that time has been retraced these people won’t retain their memories.” Nyarla rubbed a handful of his gray hair with some annoyance. “This time the Father’s stream of consciousness was a lot more intense. That Shub guy will probably show up soon.”
“En.” Yog nodded coldly.
With the black-haired teen in his arms, he disappeared from view.
Chapter 55 - The Astrologer 09 Chapter 54 - The Astrologer 08 Chapter 53 - The Astrologer 07 Chapter 52 - The Astrologer 06 Chapter 51 - The Astrologer 05 Chapter 50 - The Astrologer 04 Chapter 49 - The Astrologer 03 Chapter 48 - The Astrologer 02 Chapter 47 - The Astrologer 01 Chapter 46 - The King of Clouds 15 Chapter 45 - The King of Clouds 14 Chapter 44 - The King of Clouds 13 Chapter 43 - The King of Clouds 12 Chapter 42 - The King of Clouds 11 Chapter 41 - The King of Clouds 10 Chapter 40 - The King of Clouds 09 Chapter 39 - The King of Clouds 08 Chapter 38 - The King of Clouds 07 Chapter 37 - The King of Clouds 06 Chapter 36 - The King of Clouds 05 Chapter 35 - The King of Clouds 04 Chapter 34 - The King of Clouds 03 Chapter 33 - The King of Clouds 02 Chapter 32 - The King of Clouds 01 Chapter 31 - The Night Watchman 14 Chapter 30 - The Night Watchman 13 Chapter 29 - The Night Watchman 12 Chapter 28 - The Night Watchman 11 Chapter 27 - The Night Watchman 10 Chapter 26 - The Night Watchman 09 Chapter 25 - The Night Watchman 08 Chapter 24 - The Night Watchman 07 Chapter 23 - The Night Watchman 06 Chapter 22 - The Night Watchman 05 Chapter 21 - The Night Watchman 04 Chapter 20 - The Night Watchman 03 Chapter 19 - The Night Watchman 02 Chapter 18 - The Night Watchman 01 Chapter 17 - Child of the Wind 17 Chapter 16 - Child of the Wind 16 Chapter 15 - Child of the Wind 15 Chapter 14 - Child of the Wind 14 Chapter 13 - Child of the Wind 13 Chapter 12 - Child of the Wind 12 Chapter 11 - Child of the Wind 11 Chapter 10 - Child of the Wind 10 Chapter 9 - Child of the Wind 09 Chapter 8 - Child of the Wind 08 Chapter 7 - Child of the Wind 07 Chapter 6 - Child of the Wind 06 Chapter 5 - Child of the Wind 05 Chapter 4 - Child of the Wind 04 Chapter 3 - Child of the Wind 03 Chapter 2 - Child of the Wind 02 Chapter 1 - Child of the Wind 01
There were just three minutes left, but to Zong Yan they felt far longer than the three minutes before the countdown began.
It even felt like his hands were sweating, but such a thing was impossible given the status of his current divine body.
The Lord of Tindalos narrowed his eyes, scrutinizing the ancient god of another world.
With the addition of the majestic power of faith, Yun Zhong Jun’s strength was increased by an incredible level on this land, inching ever closer to the upper level of the Great Old Ones who wielded “world destroying” power.
According to the Daoist classification, the power of the Hounds of Tindalos belonged to the Yin or cold type. In the end, they were evil beings. Meanwhile, Yun Zhong Jun consisted of the purest form of divine energy, the orthodox Yang category.
If the fight continued like this, it would be difficult to win. Normally, given the warlike nature of the Tindalos clan, the Lord of Tindalos would never consider a temporary truce, but it hadn’t been easy to track the traces of Yog-Sothoth. Even if all they managed to do was rush over and get killed, he was determined to infuriate their old enemy.
After all, what the Tindalos clan cared about the most was their archenemy. That was the reason they came.
Even for Tindalos Hounds, it was rare to travel through time on such a large scale. For them it took a day to traverse a hundred million years. In order to seek revenge, this race had been running through the timeline for over a month.
“Very well, I promise you.”
The enormous wolf demon gave a long roar. All the Hounds that heard it transformed from solid entities into mist-like beings, then lifted their heads to echo the call.
Only then did Zong Yan breathe a sigh of relief.
The Tindalos clan might be notorious, but they had some credibility. The great race of Yith, which was a powerful, independent race of equal strength, also cooperated with the Tindalos. The reason humans were chased down and killed by the Hounds was partly because, on the one hand, they couldn’t communicate with each other, and on the other hand, because they’d violated this species’ great taboo.
But Zong Yan was now an ancient god. He had no difficulty communicating with the Lord of Tindalos.
Meanwhile, a long-buried anger surged in Zong Yan’s soul.
Yog-Sothoth…
There were two minutes left. After the agreement was made, Zong Yan took a deep breath and made a gesture with his fingers. The clouds receded like the tide.
“That’s… What’s going on?”
On the ground, the investigators who were fighting the Tindalos Hounds drew to a halt.
But they were just responding to their enemies. The Hounds suddenly changed from solid state to liquid vapor and threw down their prey. They rose straight up into the air and ran back to where they’d first descended.
After such a long battle, there were heavy casualties on the ground. Everywhere were scattered puddles of blood, severed limbs, and torn flesh, shocking anyone who saw it.
“Look at the sky! That blue and gold cyclone seems to be disappearing!”
He Yuan held his severely damaged arm. He didn’t have any time to deal with his injury, but propped himself against a wall and shouted.
High above the three-towered Dujiakou Financial Building, the mysterious ink-blue mass, which had been obscured by a cyan and gold fog, slowly became visible again.
No one knew exactly what that cloud was. But everyone knew it was protecting humanity. It was precisely because the situation wasn’t totally out of control that hope had blossomed in the midst of desperation.
""
But now their despair began to grow.
“Could it be… that today we’ll…”
The investigators had seen it clearly. What they were up against was just a tiny fraction of creatures, the ones that had managed to escape the huge drop of ink blue liquid. But when facing such a small number, the investigators had lost so much. Even the Monarchs were wounded.
If those creatures truly reached the city… the consequences would be unimaginable.
Their blood slowly froze. At the moment, no one cared about the rule of not looking directly at the Hounds.
The communications networks and electricity throughout Jiangzhou had been cut off. It was impossible for ordinary people to learn much about the mythical creatures in such a short time. And even if they did find out, they might not necessarily believe it.
Numerous investigators had come in support, but excluding the dead and wounded, only sixty percent survived. For ordinary people it would have been a straight up slaughter.
“Please bless this land, God, and look after your people.” Foreign investigators had already begun to make the sign of the cross on their chests.
But—the cloud gradually dispersed.
The mysterious unknown evil hovered in the sky, poised to fall to the ground the way a drop of water descends to the sea.
The Tindalos Hounds who’d just left their prey returned to this huge drop of liquid like birds to the nest.
If you didn’t know how vicious that thing was, based on its appearance alone it might remind you of oil and pigment, suggesting the beauty of nature, light and shadow, like the Barbizon school of painting.
One minute left.
After seeing the Lord of Tindalos had kept his promise, Zong Yan, who was on alert with his muscles tensed, felt a sense of relief.
Of course, Yun Zhong Jun’s appearance remained unmoved, noble, and cold.
The man in the crane cloak flicked his sleeves and finally gave a nod to the Lord of Tindalos. With his bare feet he stepped onto the clouds above the void, and slowly descended to the top of a financial building in Dujiakou.
Even if he only had one minute, he couldn’t show his weakness.
If the Lord of Tindalos knew that Zong Yan was just pretending to be a tiger, the consequences could be imagined.
Zong Yan wasn’t shy about attributing the utmost malice to the minds of alien creatures.
“Ah ah ah, it looks like they’re teaming up.”
On the top of the building opposite the one where Yun Zhong Jun had landed, Nyarlathotep tucked his hands into the pockets of his white coat and spoke gleefully.
It was well-known that Nyarlathotep had two hobbies in life. One was watching theater and the other was causing trouble.
This time he wasn’t to blame, but he was definitely part of the show.
And Yog found everything about him irritating. The Lord of Time and Space knew it was impossible for his plan to go awry, but he was displeased by that derisive tone of voice.
“The script has been laid down. It must be followed,” Yog said coldly.
A moment later, it was like an invisible, indescribable hand of dread suddenly loomed over them.
With a simple flick of this hand, certain appalling facts within the present reality were altered.
The Lord of Tindalos might claim to be the archenemy of Yog-Sothoth, but sadly, according to Yog, the Lord of Tindalos was just another being whose name he didn’t bother to remember.
The Lord of Tindalos had actually received his many deaths from two of Yog-Sothoth’s Great Old One avatars.
After all, the true essence of Yog resided entirely outside the universe, beyond space and time.
As terrifying as the Tindalos Hounds were, they could only move within the timeline. For a higher-dimensional evil god, they too were ants that could be crushed to death with a finger, no different from flattening a human being.
The reason he didn’t squash them was simply because their usual small brawls didn’t interest him at all. With such insignificant strength it was impossible for them to make the evil god unhappy.
But if this enemy didn’t follow his script, it didn’t need to exist.
Something in the distance rumbled—
The next moment, the drop of ink blue liquid suddenly seemed to boil, then exploded in the air.
Yun Zhong Jun had just stepped onto the rooftop of the building. A moment later he was shocked by the mountain-shaking noise of an earthquake.
And then the last second of the countdown was over. A cyan and gold flash of light surrounded Zong Yan’s body, and the ancient god with ink-black hair and ornate clothes disappeared. Standing in the same place was a powerless black-haired teen dressed in a blue and white school uniform.
The body of the Lord of Tindalos suddenly twisted in the air. Then, overruled by a paramount consciousness, it was removed from existence.
In just an instant, like a flash of lightning, the Lord of Hounds whose power was comparable to an Elder God, and who’d dared to challenge the most terrible being in the universe, was erased from reality for all time.
It was well-known that Tindalos Hounds were immortal. No matter how many times their lord was killed, he resurrected at the end of eternity.
But now these Hound subordinates sensed their king no longer existed, would never recover, and had been totally obliterated.
What kind of being could do such a thing, erasing a deity-level creature without any effort?
The answer was clear.
The death of the Lord of Tindalos left these Hounds without a leader.
Compared to the lord of their race, the rest of the Hounds weren’t that intelligent. They couldn’t communicate with other races and only knew the common language of their kind.
And after more than a month of sleepless running in the timeline, the Hounds were starving.
The ending was predetermined. The script that was close to deviating returned to the evil god’s control and wouldn’t go awry again.
The fractured drop of liquid disintegrated.
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Ten thousand… no, a hundred thousand… or more like millions, tens of millions, an infinitude of liquid droplets fell from the sky like a storm.
The Hounds poured down like a waterfall to earth.
Without a commander, this was a rain of killing machines.
Zong Yan’s vision was a little blurred but he could clearly see the hell below his feet.
Blood, everywhere was blood.
A city in mass confusion, buildings destroyed by intruders, corroded asphalt roads, human body parts scattered everywhere.
It was a land that no longer resembled itself.
The creatures who’d lost their commander hurtled towards the defenseless humans. Against such numbers, even Monarchs could only meet their deaths.
He Yuan’s arm had been severed in the previous battle, and the wound hadn’t been treated in time. He could only hastily use alchemy to stop the blood loss.
Investigators were lucky. If they lost an arm or leg, they could install alchemical limbs with their Awakening ability and avoid the tragedy of amputation. But if treatment was delayed too long, the upper tissue would become necrotic.
But this was no longer a matter of losing limbs. When the Hounds came in like the tide, the investigators wouldn’t even leave their bones behind.
Not to mention Si Yan, even Si Xun, the long-established second Monarch, wasn’t able to resist them. The Tindalos Hounds tore him to bloody pieces. In excruciating pain, he died.
“What’s that noise outside, mama?” In a dimly lit underground passage, a little girl cowered in her mother’s arms and asked softly.
“Be good, YuanYuan. Special Forces brothers are outside protecting us. Wait a little longer and we’ll be able to go out.”
The mother patted the little girl soothingly on the shoulder and kissed her forehead.
“But…” The little girl opened her big eyes and pointed up. “There’s a crack in the house. I saw a pair of beautiful blue eyes up there.”
In the damaged, prefabricated roof, a split-open crevice revealed the gleaming, hungry eye of a wolf.
Countless tragedies repeated throughout the city.
It was a reality far worse than any horror film.
“…”
The black-haired teen’s face was pale from the prolonged drain of power. His lips trembled and he fell to his knees on the edge of the building.
Rain began to fall from the sky. It came down quickly, streaming from high above, falling in a thin drizzle.
The rain blurred the blood on the ground as well as the shapes of the Tindalos Hounds, and it cleansed the bloodied ruins of the city.
Anger.
A flood of anger.
Right now, how could it be possible for Zong Yan not to understand?
Everything was under the control of the Lord of Time and Space from the beginning. All these events were in the palm of his hand, and now it seemed the god was still watching the struggles of the ants.
Powerless.
It was the powerlessness one felt when facing a strength beyond imagination.
And finally… despair.
“No… I won’t give in to despair, never—!!!” Zong Yan spoke coldly, as if he were speaking to just one listener in the entire world.
He held a card with no pattern in his hand.
According to the myth, Azathoth was the Lord of the Universe. He could do anything.
If he could do anything, then naturally he could—
Unmake this scene of tragedy.
He dragged himself painfully into that abyssal sea, and it was as if a huge, cold, ruthless being had taken him by the throat.
His spirit crossed the worlds again.
He became “He”.
The Lord of the Universe. The Blind Idiot God.
Azathoth。
In an instant the young man’s hair lengthened. His black irises changed to empty scarlet.
His body transformed from the proper shape of a human being to a form beyond recognition.
The beauty of His face surpassed the limits of human imagination. If someone had the privilege of seeing His face, they would have knelt and offered everything they had. He was clad in the simplest of light brown rags, and yet this covering was finer than a kingly robe of lavish jewels and opulent fabrics.
“Who… am I?”
He seemed to speak, but He also seemed to say nothing at all.
Azathoth was famous for being the Lord of the Universe but also for his stupidity.
Yes, Azathoth was called the “blind idiot”, for he had no spiritual or conscious existence. He’d slept forever. That was the reason the Outer Gods were so alarmed when they’d first detected a flicker of consciousness.
Now that the card was activated, the personality of “Zong Yan” was firmly suppressed to the deepest part of his soul.
Moreover, because of Azathoth’s stupidity, even though the persona card was activated successfully, He’d forgotten what He wanted.
What the hell was I doing? It feels like I forgot something important.
It was very, very important, so important it seemed to echo in His soul, reminding the Lord of the Universe not to forget.
“That’s right… I want…”
The moment Zong Yan transformed into Azathoth’s avatar, the two evil gods standing on the other skyscraper both sensed something. In an instant they reappeared at the top of the same building.
“I want all of this to go back to the beginning, before it happened.”
Azathoth didn’t even look at them. The blind and foolish God who’d just gained consciousness suddenly remembered His mission, so He spoke softly.
What a profound thing this sentence was. The moment His sight touched the mottled land below His feet, He was actually able to surpass the limitations of His existence, emerging from the empty sea of the Lord of the Universe’s consciousness.
“You—” Nyarlathotep was about to speak, but he stopped his words.
The Lord of the Universe, all-powerful.
This timeline seemed to become an almost kaleidoscopic string, unfurling in His sight.
The Lord of the Universe looked at the timeline almost randomly and saw the myriad parallel worlds that were derived from this axis.
The subject of parallel worlds was quite mysterious. Theoretically, when people encountered certain choices, each branch would constitute a new parallel world.
Major events like the dramatic upheaval in Jiangzhou might derive thousands of parallel worlds from the timeline.
For example, if He Yuan didn’t choose to go to Qingyang High School to seek help from Zong Yan. Or if Zong Yan chose not to verify his conjecture but rushed out of the bathroom and immediately told the Dragon Group that the location was Dujiakou. Or if Si Yan didn’t reach Team 7, or if the Lord of Tindalos refused Yun Zhong Jun’s request to make peace…
All these things were possible, and each possibility extended a parallel world.
The Lord of the Universe didn’t bother with these parallel worlds. He just cut off the subsequent timeline.
After the timeline was severed, all the parallel worlds created from all subsequent timelines collapsed and were destroyed.
While He was doing all this, the scenery around them rapidly changed and retreated.
The destroyed buildings were rebuilt in an instant, the potholes in the asphalt roads were restored and smoothed, the broken street lamps were erected again, and the setting sun that was about to sink into the horizon was dragged back above people’s heads.
Broken limbs were reattached, broken necks were reconnected, and the investigators on the battlefield returned to the state they were in before everything began.
Si Yan was still playing games in the dormitory, He Yuan was still sweating in the training room, Li Wu was eating a meal, and Commander Si was leaning on the command console taking a rest.
Everything in the Dragon Group was running in an orderly way. In the central operations room, all that could be heard was the sound of the analysts clicking away at their keyboards.
The students of Qingyang High School were buried in their schoolwork. On the podium the teacher was lecturing about the knowledge points that would probably be tested in the college entrance exam.
The elites of the Dujiakou financial district came and went. In countless office windows, gold-collar workers were dialing one foreign phone number after another.
Life revived, everything was reborn, and the world was quiet.
Time had gone backwards.
Backwards to… four hours ago.
No one knew that in a few hours this place would be a hell on earth.
After doing all this, Azathoth even had the leisure to drive the Tindalos Hounds back to the long ago past where they lived.
So that future could never happen again.
Azathoth’s thoughts were vague. His scarlet eyes returned to blankness once again.
And the moment His eyes emptied, the light that symbolized the end of the persona status suddenly lit up. Without any warning, He fell backwards.
The man with gray hair and golden eyes steadily caught him in his arms.
The Lord of the Universe, the god with brown hair and red eyes, was gone. Lying against Yog-Sothoth’s chest was an ordinary high school kid.
“Let go! I’ve never touched the Father in such a position!”
Nyarlathotep was shocked. The next moment, evil tentacles stretched out behind him.
“Get out.”
Yog stood where he was and didn’t move a muscle. Just as the attack was about to reach him, he easily altered the position of space-time.
Nyarla’s blow landed in prehistoric times.
“It was just an avatar’s consciousness.”
“Obviously.” Drawing up his human body, Nyarla rolled his eyes. “If the Father God’s true body regained consciousness just now, the universe would have disappeared.”
The universe was nothing more than a manifestation of Azathoth’s dream. Once Azathoth awoke, the universe would no longer exist.
Those were more than empty words.
“So what about a conscious avatar? I’ve never seen the Father God have a stream of consciousness.” Nyarla’s tone was slightly uncertain as he looked at the person in Yog-Sothoth’s arms.
As was well-known, Nyarlathotep was the agent of Azathoth’s will. He faithfully carried out the Lord of All’s orders and traveled through the universe.
But the truth was, Nyarla himself didn’t know what commands he was executing, because his blind idiot Father God never gave him any orders.
… But that didn’t stop Nyarla from being Azathoth’s number one (licking) devotee (dog).
Yog didn’t move. His golden eyes stared intently at the black-haired teen, who was deeply unconscious at the moment.
‘Such a thing… overturned my previous conjecture.’
So thought the Lord of Time and Space. Suddenly he took his hand and cleared away the remaining fragments of parallel worlds and timelines.
He’d never before felt surprise, the feeling of being out of control, but at the moment he didn’t feel the slightest bit unhappy.
Azathoth was the leader of all the Outer Gods. For Yog, being able to pinpoint the existence of this stream of consciousness was by far the greatest reward of the journey.
‘It’s only a conscious avatar of His Majesty Azathoth. When it comes to controlling time, after all, it’s still unskilled and crude.’
At this point, Zong Yan, who had just acquired consciousness, was by no means as skilled as the master of space-time.
‘It will take time to hone.’
This was Yog-Sothoth’s conclusion in the end.
For an evil god, there was never a shortage of time.
“Let’s go. Now that time has been retraced these people won’t retain their memories.” Nyarla rubbed a handful of his gray hair with some annoyance. “This time the Father’s stream of consciousness was a lot more intense. That Shub guy will probably show up soon.”
“En.” Yog nodded coldly.
With the black-haired teen in his arms, he disappeared from view.
