It was terrifying for a teacher to know the instant a student was distracted in class.
As Zong Yan discovered.
This was the scene when Yog-Sothoth began his tutorial session.
‘From now on, I can’t think of anything at all!’
Zong Yan admonished himself secretly, then turned his attention to the book in front of him. “You can start now.”
He swore he’d never listened to a physics lecture so intently before. He was so serious that it was like having his eyes glued to the exercise book.
In fact, putting everything else aside, Yog-Sothoth was actually a very effective tutor. The Lord of Omniscience and Omnipotence was worthy of his title.
When Zong Yan listened to his physics teacher in class, he was never able to follow along. But now the knowledge points he didn’t understand were instilled one by one, neatly arranged in his mind. Like a flash of illumination, everything became simple and clear.
At first Zong Yan was worried about being suddenly ambushed again. But the more he listened, the more he became absorbed. For the first time he was able to swim in the ocean of physics instead of being slammed into shore by the tumbling waves.
His exclusive, limited edition evil god tutor would begin by analyzing the problem bit by bit. Then, after listening to a summary, Zong Yan went back and did three similar questions in a row.
Initially Zong Yan felt awkward having someone constantly staring at him as he wrote. But the instant his mind began to wander, Yog would give him a death ray stare, or the tentacle of a spirit-shadow would wrap around his wrist as a warning.
Later on, as he overcame more and more types of problems, Zong Yan felt like a new person. He didn’t have time to think about anything else. The little science gears in his brain began to whir, carrying out calculations at high speed.
AD
Zong Yan wasn’t stupid. He was a natural born science-track student. In the past, he hadn’t scored well in physics because he didn’t know enough to cross the threshold. Although the textbook from the Great Race of Yith had retrogressed him 10 points in physics, it had also opened up several channels of learning in his head and gave him the basic concepts. Now, as he was being tutored, the things he’d learned before fed back in. All of a sudden the obstacles were swept away. He was on a roll.
Of course, the evil god didn’t bother to tell him this. Zong Yan only thought this guy was a powerful tutor, so he bowed his head and studied in silence.
“I’m done!”
After finishing the last big problem in the set of exercises, Zong Yan let out a deep breath. He turned his head in excitement.
They were sitting at the desk in his room. A huge, unnamable shadow still surrounded them, wrapping the two people inside a dark, tightly sealed ball. The lamp on the table was faintly trembling.
The short-haired man sat beside him with his head propped in his hand. The chaotic color in his eyes hadn’t faded at all. When Zong Yan turned his head he saw his own small reflection in those eyes.
Somewhat embarrassingly, Zong Yan turned his head so fast he almost hit the other party’s face.
The black-haired teen gulped silently.
‘His looks are so perfect I can’t pick out any flaws. But it’s creepy that he’s not even breathing ah!’
He looked at the inhumanly smooth skin on the evil god’s face, which didn’t show the slightest trace of pores, and thought quietly to himself.
The next moment, the evil god’s low laughter resounded in the narrow space. Zong Yan suddenly felt a warm breath intertwining with his own, inseparable and close.
That was the bad thing about a psychic connection. As long as the evil god was interested, not even the slightest flutter in Zong Yan’s mind could escape his attention.
AD
‘Simulating human physiological processes is indeed somewhat difficult for evil gods.’
As nervous as Zong Yan was, he began to feel a little strange. So he quietly scooted away, creating some distance between himself and the omniscient and omnipotent Lord.
“Come here.”
Before he could move away more than a little, a spirit-shadow wrapped around the back of his neck. It almost made Zong Yan shudder.
The back of the human neck is a very fragile place!! Don’t touch it casually, okay!
The omniscient and omnipotent Lord hadn’t turned a page of the book in his hand. It was covered in a multitude of words that Zong Yan was entirely incapable of understanding.
The gray-haired evil god didn’t even look up. He set Zong Yan down where he’d been a moment earlier.
“These questions are wrong.”
Zong Yan: “…”
He instantly discarded the unnecessary thoughts in his brain, picked up his pen honestly and began to work on problems again. He finished another chapter full of practice exercises without noticing.
Zong Yan began to think this tutoring session was taking an unusually long time. The lecture on charged particles ended and they moved on to the next chapter. Before he knew it, they covered half of the Five-Three book, but the tutorial still didn’t end.
Zong Yan felt like he was imagining things. He looked back at the pen in his hand. The ink hadn’t decreased at all.
AD
A bold idea entered his mind.
“I’m hungry,” Zong Yan said with great sincerity.
“No, you are not.” The pages of the book in front of Yog slowly turned over. “I’ve suspended time, and you now have undigested matter in your stomach, exactly as you did when you woke up.”
Damn, that’s too much.
Learning is learning. Even if time is suspended, your mind will still feel tired!
Zong Yan wanted to grab the tyrannical evil god’s shoulders and shake him.
“No, you will not.”
Yog lifted his eyes. Only then did Zong Yan notice he was wearing a faintly discernible smile.
Zong Yan’s inner alarm bells went off. Then he fell backwards.
The spiritual shadows lurking in the sea of Zong Yan’s consciousness suddenly emerged from under the surface of the water and extended out to every one of his nerve endings.
They accurately and precisely connected to each nerve fiber in his spinal cord and brainstem, but instead of activating the neurons, they mimicked various neurotransmitters, stabilizing the postsynaptic membranes to produce additional receptors.
At that moment, Zong Yan felt like his mind had been catapulted to the peak. His sight went gray.
AD
Under the evil god’s lightly-sketched manipulation, his nerves were overloaded, and the steady restoration of neurotransmitters revitalized his somewhat exhausted spirit.
Zong Yan seemed to see the gorgeous sky and flickering stars under the low curtain of night, every change from the end of the human race to the beginning, and all things in the universe turned into white static like the old-fashioned crash of a computer.
“—”
It was only for a moment.
But he saw the world through the eyes of an evil god.
The black-haired teen was lost in confusion and suddenly fell, but the spirit-shadows caught him in mid-air.
His pajamas were once again damp from sweat that seeped from his skin, plastering the fabric to his body. His whole person seemed to be steaming, like a freshly boiled pot of water or a hot branding iron. His chest heaved violently. A hazy color crept over his dazed face.
Like a broken toy, he possessed a soul-stirring, shattered kind of beauty.
The gray-haired evil god watched all this with keen interest, but inwardly he felt some regret.
The human body was far too fragile. It was almost overloaded at a level of less than 1%. If not for the fact the evil god had such good control, Zong Yan might have become a vegetable just now.
After that, Zong Yan didn’t feel any fatigue at all. Thanks to the evil god’s chemical stimulation methods, his entire body felt vigorous and energized, like he could complete an entire stack of papers.
“Well then, let’s continue.”
AD
Yog waved his hand, and the exercise book and pen automatically leaped into the hands of the black-haired teen. His voice was like the whisper of the devil, “If you feel tired, we can do that again at any time.”
—
This hellish cramming session lasted just one day.
Of course, that was one day by human standards.
The great Lord of Time and Space deliberately suspended time in order to tackle physics within one calendar day.
Zong Yan sensed that he might have actually worked for more than fifty hours in the time-suspended space. He got about halfway through his high school physics review.
It had to be said this tutorial process was immensely painful.
First of all, pausing time meant there was no need to drink, eat, go to the toilet, or address any other physiological needs. Secondly, the establishment of the psychic bridge meant Zong Yan couldn’t get distracted. The moment his mind began to wander in the sky, he would be caught in the act and face the mental punishment of hearing Yog recite out loud exactly what he’d been thinking. Finally, whenever Zong Yan began to feel mentally fatigued, the mighty Lord of Time and Space would use his chemical electroshock therapy to forcibly recharge Zong Yan’s energy levels.
With all this supporting hardware in place, the only thing Zong Yan could do was immerse himself in the ocean of physics without any rest.
Eventually, Yog observed that Zong Yan was growing too tired, so he mercifully allowed Zong Yan to go to bed and take a nap.
The moment when those spiritual tentacles were withdrawn from his head, Zong Yan collapsed on the bed like he had kidney deficiency. As soon as he touched the pillow he sank into a sweet dream.
The gray-haired evil god drifted slowly through the air and looked down at the young man’s serene, sleeping face. A rare, subtle emotion rose up inside him.
AD
‘Human beings are so small.’
The Lord of Time and Space gazed at his Zong Yan’s face.
He could easily see the bones of the young man’s body, see the blood flowing through his tissues, see the texture of his skin and the brain that had shut down its external senses.
‘One touch and it will break.’
In the eyes of a supreme evil god, all creatures deserved to be called ‘fragile’.
It was just that human beings were especially fragile.
Yog-Sothoth had never understood why the Father God’s stream of consciousness chose to be born as a human.
In the vast universe, there were countless races superior to human beings. In the eyes of the Lord of Time and Space, the 4.5 million year history of the human species was a stretch of time he could penetrate with a single thought. If Yog were so inclined, he could roll back human civilization millions of years.
In the wider universe, those that could be regarded as greater civilizations reckoned time in units of billions of years.
Those races were madly devoted to the mighty Lord of the Gate. Once, a species sacrificed a large galaxy as tribute to the god, requesting that he grant them his presence.
At the time, Yog was in a good mood. He sent an avatar over and gave them a great deal of knowledge in return.
Unfortunately, even with their most advanced light brain technology, the race was unable to receive the Lord of the Gate’s gift.
AD
They knelt on the ground and watched as a light brain comparable to a planet disintegrated and exploded into stardust. But the expression on their faces grew even more fanatical.
Throughout the universe, the weak were easy prey to the strong, and the law of the jungle prevailed.
The more advanced and powerful a race, the more aware they were of the gap between themselves and the gods, and so their adoration increased.
Zong Yan slept for a long time. When he woke up, there was no one else in the room, evil gods included.
The curtain was drawn to let in sunlight from outside. He squinted his eyes and looked at the blue sky. Suddenly, the phone at the head of the bed vibrated.
When he opened his cell phone to check, numerous headlines met his eyes.
【New York, U.S.A invaded by a black fog of unknown origin. Dark clouds block out the sun, covering the sky. Sightings of mutated animals have been reported】
【WHO response: The species is unknown and has never been recorded in existing scientific literature. The mutation may be caused by the previous nuclear power plant leak】
【The United Nations calls for nations around the globe to assist with the disaster】
【The New York Times: We have lost the sun forever】
Zong Yan’s heart began to sink. He continued to pull down news articles while opening the Miskatonic app.
【Latest emergency: Situation critical. Calling all active investigators to report to New York, U.S.A. immediately】
AD
The notification was placed on the main page of the app, highlighted in red and bolded. All other missions gave way to this one.
What was worse, the push message was golden.
A gold notice meant the highest level of emergency in the occult community. The Spire Council had strict control over such emergency declarations. The last time it had been used was during the Cuban Missile Crisis, when the entire world was nearly dragged into the grave.
In other words, the appearance of this notification meant one thing—
Humanity was in danger.
It was terrifying for a teacher to know the instant a student was distracted in class.
As Zong Yan discovered.
This was the scene when Yog-Sothoth began his tutorial session.
‘From now on, I can’t think of anything at all!’
Zong Yan admonished himself secretly, then turned his attention to the book in front of him. “You can start now.”
He swore he’d never listened to a physics lecture so intently before. He was so serious that it was like having his eyes glued to the exercise book.
In fact, putting everything else aside, Yog-Sothoth was actually a very effective tutor. The Lord of Omniscience and Omnipotence was worthy of his title.
When Zong Yan listened to his physics teacher in class, he was never able to follow along. But now the knowledge points he didn’t understand were instilled one by one, neatly arranged in his mind. Like a flash of illumination, everything became simple and clear.
At first Zong Yan was worried about being suddenly ambushed again. But the more he listened, the more he became absorbed. For the first time he was able to swim in the ocean of physics instead of being slammed into shore by the tumbling waves.
His exclusive, limited edition evil god tutor would begin by analyzing the problem bit by bit. Then, after listening to a summary, Zong Yan went back and did three similar questions in a row.
Initially Zong Yan felt awkward having someone constantly staring at him as he wrote. But the instant his mind began to wander, Yog would give him a death ray stare, or the tentacle of a spirit-shadow would wrap around his wrist as a warning.
Later on, as he overcame more and more types of problems, Zong Yan felt like a new person. He didn’t have time to think about anything else. The little science gears in his brain began to whir, carrying out calculations at high speed.
AD
Zong Yan wasn’t stupid. He was a natural born science-track student. In the past, he hadn’t scored well in physics because he didn’t know enough to cross the threshold. Although the textbook from the Great Race of Yith had retrogressed him 10 points in physics, it had also opened up several channels of learning in his head and gave him the basic concepts. Now, as he was being tutored, the things he’d learned before fed back in. All of a sudden the obstacles were swept away. He was on a roll.
Of course, the evil god didn’t bother to tell him this. Zong Yan only thought this guy was a powerful tutor, so he bowed his head and studied in silence.
“I’m done!”
After finishing the last big problem in the set of exercises, Zong Yan let out a deep breath. He turned his head in excitement.
They were sitting at the desk in his room. A huge, unnamable shadow still surrounded them, wrapping the two people inside a dark, tightly sealed ball. The lamp on the table was faintly trembling.
The short-haired man sat beside him with his head propped in his hand. The chaotic color in his eyes hadn’t faded at all. When Zong Yan turned his head he saw his own small reflection in those eyes.
Somewhat embarrassingly, Zong Yan turned his head so fast he almost hit the other party’s face.
The black-haired teen gulped silently.
‘His looks are so perfect I can’t pick out any flaws. But it’s creepy that he’s not even breathing ah!’
He looked at the inhumanly smooth skin on the evil god’s face, which didn’t show the slightest trace of pores, and thought quietly to himself.
The next moment, the evil god’s low laughter resounded in the narrow space. Zong Yan suddenly felt a warm breath intertwining with his own, inseparable and close.
That was the bad thing about a psychic connection. As long as the evil god was interested, not even the slightest flutter in Zong Yan’s mind could escape his attention.
AD
‘Simulating human physiological processes is indeed somewhat difficult for evil gods.’
As nervous as Zong Yan was, he began to feel a little strange. So he quietly scooted away, creating some distance between himself and the omniscient and omnipotent Lord.
“Come here.”
Before he could move away more than a little, a spirit-shadow wrapped around the back of his neck. It almost made Zong Yan shudder.
The back of the human neck is a very fragile place!! Don’t touch it casually, okay!
The omniscient and omnipotent Lord hadn’t turned a page of the book in his hand. It was covered in a multitude of words that Zong Yan was entirely incapable of understanding.
The gray-haired evil god didn’t even look up. He set Zong Yan down where he’d been a moment earlier.
“These questions are wrong.”
Zong Yan: “…”
He instantly discarded the unnecessary thoughts in his brain, picked up his pen honestly and began to work on problems again. He finished another chapter full of practice exercises without noticing.
Zong Yan began to think this tutoring session was taking an unusually long time. The lecture on charged particles ended and they moved on to the next chapter. Before he knew it, they covered half of the Five-Three book, but the tutorial still didn’t end.
Zong Yan felt like he was imagining things. He looked back at the pen in his hand. The ink hadn’t decreased at all.
AD
A bold idea entered his mind.
“I’m hungry,” Zong Yan said with great sincerity.
“No, you are not.” The pages of the book in front of Yog slowly turned over. “I’ve suspended time, and you now have undigested matter in your stomach, exactly as you did when you woke up.”
Damn, that’s too much.
Learning is learning. Even if time is suspended, your mind will still feel tired!
Zong Yan wanted to grab the tyrannical evil god’s shoulders and shake him.
“No, you will not.”
Yog lifted his eyes. Only then did Zong Yan notice he was wearing a faintly discernible smile.
Zong Yan’s inner alarm bells went off. Then he fell backwards.
The spiritual shadows lurking in the sea of Zong Yan’s consciousness suddenly emerged from under the surface of the water and extended out to every one of his nerve endings.
They accurately and precisely connected to each nerve fiber in his spinal cord and brainstem, but instead of activating the neurons, they mimicked various neurotransmitters, stabilizing the postsynaptic membranes to produce additional receptors.
At that moment, Zong Yan felt like his mind had been catapulted to the peak. His sight went gray.
AD
Under the evil god’s lightly-sketched manipulation, his nerves were overloaded, and the steady restoration of neurotransmitters revitalized his somewhat exhausted spirit.
Zong Yan seemed to see the gorgeous sky and flickering stars under the low curtain of night, every change from the end of the human race to the beginning, and all things in the universe turned into white static like the old-fashioned crash of a computer.
“—”
It was only for a moment.
But he saw the world through the eyes of an evil god.
The black-haired teen was lost in confusion and suddenly fell, but the spirit-shadows caught him in mid-air.
His pajamas were once again damp from sweat that seeped from his skin, plastering the fabric to his body. His whole person seemed to be steaming, like a freshly boiled pot of water or a hot branding iron. His chest heaved violently. A hazy color crept over his dazed face.
Like a broken toy, he possessed a soul-stirring, shattered kind of beauty.
The gray-haired evil god watched all this with keen interest, but inwardly he felt some regret.
The human body was far too fragile. It was almost overloaded at a level of less than 1%. If not for the fact the evil god had such good control, Zong Yan might have become a vegetable just now.
After that, Zong Yan didn’t feel any fatigue at all. Thanks to the evil god’s chemical stimulation methods, his entire body felt vigorous and energized, like he could complete an entire stack of papers.
“Well then, let’s continue.”
AD
Yog waved his hand, and the exercise book and pen automatically leaped into the hands of the black-haired teen. His voice was like the whisper of the devil, “If you feel tired, we can do that again at any time.”
—
This hellish cramming session lasted just one day.
Of course, that was one day by human standards.
The great Lord of Time and Space deliberately suspended time in order to tackle physics within one calendar day.
Zong Yan sensed that he might have actually worked for more than fifty hours in the time-suspended space. He got about halfway through his high school physics review.
It had to be said this tutorial process was immensely painful.
First of all, pausing time meant there was no need to drink, eat, go to the toilet, or address any other physiological needs. Secondly, the establishment of the psychic bridge meant Zong Yan couldn’t get distracted. The moment his mind began to wander in the sky, he would be caught in the act and face the mental punishment of hearing Yog recite out loud exactly what he’d been thinking. Finally, whenever Zong Yan began to feel mentally fatigued, the mighty Lord of Time and Space would use his chemical electroshock therapy to forcibly recharge Zong Yan’s energy levels.
With all this supporting hardware in place, the only thing Zong Yan could do was immerse himself in the ocean of physics without any rest.
Eventually, Yog observed that Zong Yan was growing too tired, so he mercifully allowed Zong Yan to go to bed and take a nap.
The moment when those spiritual tentacles were withdrawn from his head, Zong Yan collapsed on the bed like he had kidney deficiency. As soon as he touched the pillow he sank into a sweet dream.
The gray-haired evil god drifted slowly through the air and looked down at the young man’s serene, sleeping face. A rare, subtle emotion rose up inside him.
AD
‘Human beings are so small.’
The Lord of Time and Space gazed at his Zong Yan’s face.
He could easily see the bones of the young man’s body, see the blood flowing through his tissues, see the texture of his skin and the brain that had shut down its external senses.
‘One touch and it will break.’
In the eyes of a supreme evil god, all creatures deserved to be called ‘fragile’.
It was just that human beings were especially fragile.
Yog-Sothoth had never understood why the Father God’s stream of consciousness chose to be born as a human.
In the vast universe, there were countless races superior to human beings. In the eyes of the Lord of Time and Space, the 4.5 million year history of the human species was a stretch of time he could penetrate with a single thought. If Yog were so inclined, he could roll back human civilization millions of years.
In the wider universe, those that could be regarded as greater civilizations reckoned time in units of billions of years.
Those races were madly devoted to the mighty Lord of the Gate. Once, a species sacrificed a large galaxy as tribute to the god, requesting that he grant them his presence.
At the time, Yog was in a good mood. He sent an avatar over and gave them a great deal of knowledge in return.
Unfortunately, even with their most advanced light brain technology, the race was unable to receive the Lord of the Gate’s gift.
AD
They knelt on the ground and watched as a light brain comparable to a planet disintegrated and exploded into stardust. But the expression on their faces grew even more fanatical.
Throughout the universe, the weak were easy prey to the strong, and the law of the jungle prevailed.
The more advanced and powerful a race, the more aware they were of the gap between themselves and the gods, and so their adoration increased.
Zong Yan slept for a long time. When he woke up, there was no one else in the room, evil gods included.
The curtain was drawn to let in sunlight from outside. He squinted his eyes and looked at the blue sky. Suddenly, the phone at the head of the bed vibrated.
When he opened his cell phone to check, numerous headlines met his eyes.
【New York, U.S.A invaded by a black fog of unknown origin. Dark clouds block out the sun, covering the sky. Sightings of mutated animals have been reported】
【WHO response: The species is unknown and has never been recorded in existing scientific literature. The mutation may be caused by the previous nuclear power plant leak】
【The United Nations calls for nations around the globe to assist with the disaster】
【The New York Times: We have lost the sun forever】
Zong Yan’s heart began to sink. He continued to pull down news articles while opening the Miskatonic app.
【Latest emergency: Situation critical. Calling all active investigators to report to New York, U.S.A. immediately】
AD
The notification was placed on the main page of the app, highlighted in red and bolded. All other missions gave way to this one.
What was worse, the push message was golden.
A gold notice meant the highest level of emergency in the occult community. The Spire Council had strict control over such emergency declarations. The last time it had been used was during the Cuban Missile Crisis, when the entire world was nearly dragged into the grave.
In other words, the appearance of this notification meant one thing—
Humanity was in danger.
