MU was in an uproar.
When Cthulhu pulled the Earth into his dream, MU wasn't affected, because it was located in the outskirts of the Dreamlands.
And because it wasn't affected, Miskatonic University's investigators were rattled.
Imagine how it would feel if you were in a hurry to get to class and suddenly looked up to see the Earth floating in the sky above you?
This was the exact scene that MU students witnessed.
The university immediately held an emergency meeting for all students and professors.
Everyone was horrified to discover the Gate of Truth was no longer operational.
The Gate of Truth connected reality with the world of dreams. It was set to the space-time coordinates of Earth.
But the Earth had been pulled into the Dreamlands. The destination coordinates were now empty, and the Gate of Truth couldn't resolve its terminus. Naturally, the gate couldn't open.
"If the Gate of Truth doesn't work, what should we do?"
In the conference room, investigators tried various methods to contact Earth.
But whether it was mobile communications or more old-fashioned methods, every attempt failed, one after the other.
MU had become an isolated island, unable to contact the outside world and unable to be contacted.
Of course, none of the investigators considered another possibility, that the outside world wasn't even trying to contact them.
The professors and students were as anxious as ants on a hot pan, trying desperately to think of countermeasures. Members of the Spire Council were among them.
"What about the vice chancellor?"
In the midst of the chaos, everyone gathered in the auditorium, and eventually someone noticed that Paracelsus, the man who was normally in charge of the entire university's affairs, had gone missing.
"I haven't seen him... Strange, Professor Domilian and several other professors are absent, too."
A member of the Spire Council cut in. "His Excellency Paracelsus led a team to the South Pacific to explore the abnormal phenomena there. Several professors joined him as members of his team."
The councilor was just as anxious as everyone else.
Paracelsus had made thorough preparations, and he certainly wouldn't leave himself without a backup. He'd sent almost all of the elite members of the R'lyeh sect to Pohnpei Island, but he'd stationed a few members of his inner circle at MU. If there was any trouble, these individuals would keep him informed.
This particular Spire Council member was one of the elite infiltrators who belonged to the R'lyeh sect, but from the time R'lyeh reappeared in the South Pacific to when the Lord of R'lyeh dragged the world into his dream, to Zong Yan's final counterattack, barely ten minutes had passed. Even if Paracelsus wanted to, he didn't have any time to pass on information explaining what had happened.
So right now the councilor had no idea what was going on.
'We're all faithful believers of our Lord, and we've felt our Lord's call in our dreams. Even if the world were dragged into the Lord of R'lyeh's dream, the members of our sect would be fine, right?'
But it now appeared that the Earth had been pulled into the Dreamlands. The councilor was a senior believer of Cthulhu's sect. He was well aware that his Lord liked to pull people into dreams, but the evil god didn't have much to do with the actual Dreamlands. He had limited ability to manipulate it.
"Use magic patterns and the latest equipment developed by the Department of Alchemy. Let's ascend to Earth and take a look."
While everyone was burning with anxiety, Xu Fu, who was clad in a Daoist robe, suddenly pushed open the door. His expression was guarded.
His eyes unobtrusively swept over everyone present. Maybe the effect of his observation was too strong or certain parties had a guilty conscience. Either way, the few pawns of the R'lyeh sect who were present felt a jolt.
All of them let out a breath and felt the absurdity of the situation more and more.
Who would have thought that one day they'd need to use alchemical flying tools to travel between the Dreamlands and the Earth?
"Why in the world would the Earth suddenly appear in the Dreamlands..."
One of the senior investigators laughed bitterly, but silence was his only answer.
Manipulating the Dreamlands at such a scale would be difficult even for Nodens.
When Miskatonic University first moved to the Dreamlands, all the Lord of the Abyss had done was open a door. The large and magnificent buildings of MU had been transferred by alchemists using a combination of black technology and experimental techniques.
The team of investigators shuddered at the prospect of having to drag an entire planet into the Dreamlands. What kind of being was capable of such a feat?
The investigators shook their heads and didn't dare to speculate.
"Don't think too much. The first thing we have to do is go to Earth and find out the situation there."
In the end, Xu Fu's arrival gave them a shot in the arm. Everyone reacted and began to assign tasks to various individuals.
---
Meanwhile, compared to the people of MU who were fumbling to understand what kind of situation they were in, Zong Yan didn't have nearly the same worries.
After all, he was the cause of the incident, though he didn't quite understand how he'd managed to drag an entire planet into the Dreamlands. Also, an omniscient and omnipotent god was by his side, and he'd already told Zong Yan about the current situation of Earth.
Right now, the entire external universe was frozen in time. As long as Zong Yan managed to retrieve the authority of the Dreamlands, and gained the power to control it within the next three days, he could return the Earth to its proper place.
It might seem like time was running out, but Zong Yan was accompanied by the Lord of Time and Space. When Zong Yan worried he might not reach his destination in three days, the evil god told him cheerfully that he could create as much time as they needed.
Zong Yan: ...
Well, the Lord of Time could do whatever he wanted.
Since he no longer even had that worry, and since time on Earth had been suspended, Zong Yan stopped thinking about it. All he wanted to do was get to the city of Kadath in the center of the Dreamlands as soon as possible.
Strictly speaking, the Dreamlands wasn't part of normal space-time, so Zong Yan had to physically cross most of the Dreamlands and travel deep into the continent.
The Lord of the Gate held him and leaped down from the sky above the border of the Dreamlands. As they fell, they passed through the clouds, crossing the multi-colored, glittering, glass-like boundary into the true Dreamlands.
"..." Zong Yan was so alarmed by the unexpected free-fall from a height of ten thousand meters that he almost went into cardiac arrest. When his feet finally touched the ground, his legs couldn't support him for a moment. He swayed and fell into the arms of the gray-haired evil god.
After Zong Yan rested for a while and finally managed to extract himself from a daze, only then did he stagger to his feet. His face was puzzled.
"The Dreamlands... Does it have something to do with my superpower?"
Zong Yan had suspected it before, but he hadn't dared to form any conclusions.
His card-drawing space had always been colorful in exactly the same way.
In the past, Zong Yan had tried to widen the opening to the card-drawing space, but the most he could manage was a slit shaped like a smile, just large enough for one hand to fit inside. He'd also tried to peer into it, but all he ever saw was a multi-colored scene of confusion and chaos with no end in sight.
But when Yog took him into the Dreamlands just now, Zong Yan had caught a glimpse of the multi-colored fragments of the Dreamlands itself.
He also remembered the first time he'd crossed into the border of the Dreamlands, and the strange sense of familiarity he'd felt.
And the most important thing of all... When Zong Yan accidentally drew the Azathoth persona card, he was located in the outskirts of the Dreamlands.
There were no coincidences in this world, only inevitabilities.
They crossed a mountain range and walked through the wilderness to a mountaintop covered with snow. Only then did the Lord of the Gate tell him, "There is indeed a connection. One might even say everything you're capable of was provided by the Dreamlands.
"The Dreamlands can turn imagination into reality. It's their ruling principle. As long as an intelligent creature has enough creativity, it can get everything it wants here. However, those things cannot be brought back into the real world. With one exception."
Yog-Sothoth took his hand and spoke with emphasis. "When you reach your hand into that gap in space, what you are actually doing is crossing into the Dreamlands. You may not have put your instructions into actual words, but the Dreamlands has the ability to peer into your innermost heart and provide a corresponding response."
Zong Yan was stunned.
Take Cthulhu's half-self card as an example.
When the Lord of R'lyeh was born, there was no such thing as a "half-self". This concept was created by Zong Yan's will, or in other words, it was the result of the reluctance he'd felt at the moment he was about to give up his life. This was registered by the Dreamlands, and the Dreamlands proceeded to create an identity that Zong Yan instinctively wanted. Then, through some unknowable supreme power, this identity was transferred from the world of fantasies into the real world, where it finally tampered with reality itself.
Zong Yan thought he was drawing cards from the card-drawing space, but in fact, he was making a wish.
The ability to instinctively tamper with reality, to directly modify the timeline, to alter the perceptions of all the beings involved, so that even Great Old Ones didn't notice anything had changed—this was even more frightening than the ability of the three original pillar gods to tamper with reality at will.
Just as Yog-Sothoth had told him, there must be some unknown connection between Zong Yan and the Lord of the Universe.
The time he spent walking with the evil god passed quickly. The Dreamlands were obviously a place with many dangers, but he was accompanied by the Lord of the Gate. He might as well be strolling through his own backyard.
They crossed a lake as blue as the bluest pair of eyes, beyond the ships moored in the air, across a lush forest of white bones.
The legendary city of Kadath, which stood in the center of the Dreamlands, was close at hand, but Zong Yan felt more and more uneasy.
If I'm not Zong Yan... who am I?
If even the Lord of the Gate doesn't know, how should I know?
He looked down at the palms of his hands in confusion, but a moment later they were covered by the evil god's larger, well-jointed hands.
"Time is linear. It may not necessarily be the past you who caused something. It may be a future you, or a you from a parallel world."
Yog-Sothoth's words were simple and concise. "But no matter what, I will always be there."
It was so strange. This was obviously a promise made by an evil god, but Zong Yan couldn't help but feel a flood of warmth when he heard it.
And, incredibly, the words of an evil god made him feel somewhat reassured.
"Mmm," Zong Yan hummed.
He frowned, and his fingers involuntarily reached for the Silver Key suspended over his chest.
---
The author has something to say:
This arc, Little Majesty, is the last arc of the main text.
There will be some extras after this. Because this arc only covers the end of the main story, some of the side plot lines will only be made clear in the extras _(:з」∠)_
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TL Notes:
in an uproar - 一锅粥 - a pot of porridge -- a complete mess; all in a muddle
Professor Domilian - 多米伦教授 - Duōmǐlún jiàoshòu