"Report—! Satellites are detecting sudden changes in the South Pacific!"
"There's too much atmospheric interference. It's difficult to get a clear picture."
Countless surveillance satellites hovered over the sky of Earth.
In the information age of the 21st century, satellites were an inescapably important part of information warfare. This was why China finally broke away from using the GPS technology of the United States and developed its own Beidou system. More and more countries were realizing the importance of airspace.
Even as the news broke out, the sky over the South Pacific Ocean dramatically changed.
A moment ago the ocean was bright and sunny, but now a massive, seething bank of black clouds had formed, like a swarm of snakes covering the sky. Thunder rumbled behind dark billows of mist.
The shimmering sea churned like it had been stirred by a giant, invisible hand. An immense vortex with no apparent bottom formed on the surface of the dark blue sea, as if a demon of the deep had suddenly opened one of its long-sleeping eyes.
Furious waves surged in from the ocean and beat violently against the reefs off shore. Residents of Pohnpei Island watched in fear, then turned to stare at the volcano summit in the distance.
The volcano on this island was extinct.
Volcanoes were divided into three types: active, extinct, and dormant.
Active volcanoes erupted regularly, while extinct volcanoes had erupted in the past but subsequently lost their ability to do so. Dormant volcanoes were volcanoes that had erupted before, still possessed active volcanic features, and had the possibility of erupting again.
Volcanoes were common on islands along the equator. Pohnpei Island had itself been formed from the ash produced by previous volcanic eruptions.
Although a volcanic eruption might not sound too terrible in itself, in fact, there were countless mega-volcanoes distributed around the Earth. For example, Yellowstone National Park in the United States was the site of an enormous dormant volcano whose crater was the size of Tokyo. If it erupted, ash and particulate matter ejected from the Earth's core would suffocate the atmosphere for years, easily destroying the entire ecosystem of the planet, and its force would be equivalent to a thousand atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima.
The volcano on Pohnpei island was also a supervolcano. Fortunately, it was extinct.
Hundreds of millions of years ago, the volcano erupted and created the island. Over the following years, the supervolcano never erupted again. When geologists surveyed the site, they said that the channel from the volcano's crater to the Earth's core had been completely blocked. There was no possibility that the volcano would erupt in the future.
But now...
It seemed that something had dredged the interior of the volcano and restored the channel to the Earth's core.
"Oh God! Is this the end?!"
The ground was violently shaking throughout the island. Dark-colored ash spewed from the volcano's crater, as if the Earth were exhaling smoke from its nostrils.
"Not good! The volcano's going to erupt!"
Fishermen who were familiar with the area knew this was a sign the volcano was about to erupt.
Not only that, the ocean looked like a scene from hell.
Several passenger boats near Pohnpei Island weren't able to escape in time. The huge whirlpool pulled them in, and the boats disappeared without so much as a ripple, sinking to the bottom.
The ocean was a pump, relentlessly pulling everything to the sea floor, churning and rumbling like a freshly-brewed nightmare of incredible power.
"The eruption might trigger a tsunami. Quick, get to high ground!" experienced sailors shouted.
Meanwhile, on top of the summoning altar, even more green fog had appeared. Billows of poisonous mist rose into the sky.
What was going on?!
Zong Yan was slightly crouched down. His eyes were piercing.
The cult followers who were on their knees got up and began to chant.
"Behold the eternal city of silence! R'lyeh has manifested from the bottom of the ocean!"
"This is the awakening of R'lyeh!"
"Our centuries-long dream is finally here!! May the ignorant world receive the glory of R'lyeh!"
All their faces were excited, like they were pumped up with adrenaline, and their eyes glittered with fanatic exhilaration. Cultists swarmed to Zong Yan's feet to kiss the base of the altar.
"O my Lord, recover your lost memories of your true self!"
They were so noisy that Zong Yan's head began to ache. The situation on Pohnpei Island wasn't optimistic. All around them, leaves of the tropical palm trees were falling to the ground, and the earth was trembling so violently that one wondered if it were about to split open.
The whirlpool on the ocean continued to rotate. The black clouds grew heavier and heavier, descending lower in the sky. From a distance it looked like they were about to be sucked into the vortex.
In the center of the spiral, an eerie black spire began to slowly rise. The thorny spikes that covered its surface pointed to the sky.
Zong Yan's eyes widened.
It had only been a few months since he'd returned from prehistoric times, but since then Zong Yan began to feel more and more like it belonged to some other world, that it wasn't entirely real.
It felt like he'd always been an ordinary high school student, struggling in a sea of test papers. Not someone who'd almost lost his life saving the planet, or a person who'd just come back from a tour of prehistoric Earth.
After all, R'lyeh had submerged so long ago, and its sinking was necessary to world history. Across countless timelines, no R'lyeh in any version of Earth had survived.
If R'lyeh had continued to exist, Cthulhu's clans would have maintained near-permanent domination. For the development of intelligent life on Earth, it would have been a devastating blow.
As the distant spire slowly rose up from the ocean, gradually revealing the platform below it, Zong Yan clenched his fists.
Even after lying dormant for hundreds of millions of years, the gigantic city of black and dark green hadn't lost any of its glory.
Those hideous, lofty towers stretched up from the base of the city, arranged in three distinct levels, constructed from incomparably bizarre angles. A massive bridge of white bone connected several towers, covered with long spiky projections like the razor-sharp claws and fangs of a devil, glowing with an unsettling light.
The black spire at the top of the palace was so huge that from a distance it was all that could be seen.
Everyone who gazed upon the city was struck with physical disgust, as if someone had punctured the corneas of their eyes with a fine needle. Their brains churned with a powerful feeling of loathing.
"Ah! Praise be to you! Great R'lyeh—!"
"We've waited for thousands of years! At last—you've finally reappeared from the bottom of the sea! Oh Great Lord of R'lyeh! Your power will lead us out of the darkness to victory in the higher dimensions!"
"Our great heavenly father and savior!!"
Cultists in black robes danced around the altar hand in hand. Their faces were as happy as if they were celebrating the New Year.
Everything happened with incredible speed. From the first change of the ocean and sky to the appearance of R'lyeh in the world it only took a few minutes.
In that short amount of time, it wasn't possible for the satellites monitoring Earth to collect much information, let alone evaluate it and respond.
"Whew—" Zong Yan let out a breath.
Even for him, the moment he saw the black city he felt the mental pollution that pierced straight into his head. But since he'd activated the Night Watchman card, he was able to keep a firm gaze on his target. He didn't move his eyes away, and felt a deeper level of psychic damage.
No, this wasn't good.
Zong Yan remembered Professor Darwin's description of the king of R'lyeh in biology class.
When deciphering the jade piece of R'lyeh, the linguistics professors at Miskatonic University sensed an unparalleled curse contained within it.
Once R'lyeh was reborn into the world, the Great Old One would drag the entire planet into his dream.
That was why Cthulhu must never be allowed to awaken.
The Night Watchman gripped the handle of his black umbrella so tightly that blue veins were visible in the backs of his hands, striking against his pale skin.
The elegant aristocrat of the fog suddenly leaped into the air. A swirl of black shadows flowed from the island like a woven bridge, gathering under his feet. The shadows lifted the Night Watchman into the air.
The Night Watchman moved with lithe and uncanny footsteps. Each time he lifted his feet, shadows instantly formed below him, paving a delicate, wraith-like staircase in the air for him to tread.
As he climbed higher and higher, gusts of wind whipped at his gray hair. The ribbon that tied his hair was torn away. His scarlet eyes were sharp.
"Look there!"
Many of the islanders who didn't have time to take refuge saw this amazing sight and fell to their knees in fear. "What darkness! Has God abandoned us? Is Satan about to open the gates of Hell and return to Earth?"
Naturally the Night Watchman didn't hear any of this. By now he'd climbed a hundred meters into the air and was just barely at eye level with the first level of the palace of R'lyeh.
"I have to hurry... If I can mobilize enough shadows, I'll be able to... return R'lyeh to the bottom of the sea."
Zong Yan fought to catch his breath.
He didn't have enough San value to activate another S-rank daily disposable persona card. The Night Watchman was an A-rank card able to mobilize the power of nature, and that might barely be enough. Fortunately, when R'lyeh returned to the surface, dark clouds blocked out the sun, and now the entire surrounding ocean was dark. Zong Yan could try to command all the shadows within a hundred miles to peel back the waves, returning R'lyeh to the ocean floor.
But it was too much of a strain for him. If... if only the Lord of the Gate were here...
Zong Yan was stunned by his own thoughts, but he didn't have any time to examine why this idea occurred to him. He quickly returned his focus to the sea in front of him.
"O shadows... Obey my command!"
The Night Watchman opened his black umbrella. Thousands of shadows swept up from the sea, rushing into the air, bearing sea water with them into the clouds. The countless shades converged into a vast, majestic curtain.
Such a large-scale mobilization of power consumed an enormous amount of energy and will. The Night Watchman's hands began to shake. Sweat dripped from his forehead.
His long gray hair streamed behind him, dancing and tossing in the wind, while the storm gusted around him, roaring with fury.
Suddenly his eyes narrowed.
On the central platform atop the palace of R'lyeh, a man slowly emerged.
His upper body was naked, his skin was the color of wheat, and his long hair was dark green.
Even from a distance, the Night Watchman could see the tyrannical cruelty in the man's dark golden eyes.
Zong Yan couldn't help but remember when he lived in R'lyeh, when he'd called this god his "elder brother", and how the evil god had treated him.
Did an evil god have feelings? No, but an evil god certainly wouldn't mistreat his own half-self.
"C..."
He opened his mouth, but a second later the evil god lifted his hand.
In an instant, millions of shadows woven with mysterious green fog shot into the air. They stabbed directly at the Night Watchman hovering in the sky.
---
The author has something to say:
Mr. C is online again!
---
TL Notes:
There's too much atmospheric interference - 因大气团过于密集 - "The atmospheric mass is too dense" - I'm not certain what "atmospheric mass" was so I tweaked the language. Optical satellites can't see through clouds, but satellites that use other wavelengths don't have that problem
hundred miles - 百里 - hundred li - A li is an ancient unit of distance approximately equal to 500m, about the same distance as a customary mile
You can find the master list of transliterated names and titles in Chapter 0 - TL Notes. New in this chapter:
Yellowstone National Park - 黄石国家公园
Tokyo - 东京
Hiroshima - 广岛