Myths Reawakened

After discussing with Vera and Valkyrie, Wayne turned to Knight and said, “You said you were a marginalized slave. What about the inner area? Are there more monsters like you?”

“The Golden City houses a large number of Thoggua’s people. We’re all waiting for our great master to awaken. They will lead us to the more abundant Chosen Land,” Knight said longingly.

I’m afraid that won’t happen. You guys are too creepy!

“How many of your kind are there?”

“Not sure. The Golden City is large, so there should be at least thirty to forty thousand.”

“How powerful are they?”

“There are many stronger than I am. The leading priest wields the power of sunlight. They’re effectively the god of the Golden City, and everyone follows their commands.”

The power of sunlight!

Seeing the blonde twin-tails swishing around, Wayne grasped them and spoke through their telepathic group chat, “Don’t be hasty. That person might not be Father-in-Law. Forgive my bluntness, but it’s best not to get your hope up, or the disappointment may be great.”

Vera had such hopeful expectations that Wayne had to temper them. Only the chosen knights themselves or those permitted by the knights could wield a knight’s power—cheaters like him being the exception that proved the rule. If the leading priest truly wielded the Sun Knight’s power, the possibility that they were Vera’s father was extremely high.

However, he would have lost himself under Thoggua’s influence.

Wayne took a deep breath. It was good news; at least Vera’s father was still alive.

“At the end of the day, I’d advise against heading to the Golden City. It’s too dangerous. Head back. You don’t know how much I envy you,” Knight murmured at Wayne and Vera, remembering his human form.

“You can leave. The exit is right there.”

“Then what? Where would I go?” Knight shook his head. With his appearance, he would be a monster anywhere. He had just frightened Vera, and rather than giving his loved ones nightmares, he would rather stay away and let time wash away their pain.

Wayne raised an eyebrow, feeling newfound goodwill for the monster. He circled him and offered, “I know a surgery that can restore monsters corrupted by the void to their original form. Lead us to the Golden City, and I’ll give you a chance to be human again.”

Knight’s pupils contracted. “What surgery is that? Magic?”

“You can consider it magic. Truth is, we’re mages who uphold the justice of the world!”

Knight didn’t deem that a response. It was difficult to imagine the man having anything to do with justice, given the way Wayne had stabbed him earlier.

Wayne didn’t say anything either. Be cunning but make just decisions. Extraordinary times called for extraordinary measures. That was justice.

“I can lead you to the Golden City, but with the way you look, you’ll be discovered as soon as you enter the city. There’s no point in venturing there.”

“We just need some makeup.”

“???”

Knight’s eyes went blank as he watched Wayne scrounging around, borrowing different organs from Knight’s fellow monsters and piling them into a wriggling mass of black flesh.

What is he doing?

Wayne then dove headfirst into the mass of flesh, and the black lump seemed to come alive, changing and wriggling bit by bit until five minutes later, it transformed into a monster of similar size to Knight.

It was narrow at the top and wide at the bottom, with three extended tentacles waving and swaying around without a set pattern, mimicking the monster’s behavior to perfection. Under Knight’s shocked gaze, a black crack opened, revealing the pale flesh inside. Two tentacles wrapped around Vera, dragging her inside while she screamed.

“You, you, you...”

“How about it? It looks exactly like you guys, right?”

Wayne rotated the two eyeballs, controlling the monster’s body from within. Inside, he held the armored Vera from behind, completing the achievement of a throuple cuddle.

Valkyrie’s and Vera’s visions went dark. Soon, the pale flesh in front of them became transparent, providing a clear 360-degree view like a one-way mirror.

“You’re amazing, Wayne!”

”This is nothing. When the mission ends, I’ll show you something even better.”

“Have Veronica and Senior seen it?”

“Many times. They all said it was good.”

“Then I want to see it, too.”

They didn’t even try to make their conversation sound less scandalous, and the imbalanced relationship was obviously mutual. Valkyrie fell silent. Knight became utterly speechless, too. Forgive his curiosity, but based on that snippet of conversation, he pictured a complicated polyamorous relationship.

Was he old, or were young people these days too open-minded?

The two monsters moved forward with their wriggling tendrils. Knight led the way toward the Golden City, located on the other side of the black mountains.

After they left, the other monsters flipped themselves upright and attacked their fellow monsters, having lost all reason. They divided the weakest among them and scattered with full bellies.

***

The desolate mountainous path was barren. After moving away from the tunnel highway, the fog gradually thinned until it completely dissipated. There was no tree or vegetation, only undulating black mountains.

The low hills that consisted of fist-sized stones were like tendrils extending from the distant black mountains, spreading in all directions. Cold wind howled past, and the hills wobbled, changing the landscapes constantly.

The closer they were to the black mountains, the lower the temperature, quickly reaching below zero.

Knight extended two tentacles to lift the snail shell like he was lifting a skirt. His short tendrils turned into long legs as he ran at an astonishing speed of sixty kilometers per hour.

Wayne followed suit, holding up his shell to run rapidly. He had ample experience with tentacles, and after familiarizing himself with the technique, he was able to play monster better than Knight.

The Golden City was over three hundred kilometers from the highway. Knight’s race granted him incredible stats, especially stamina. Making full use of his tentacles, he maintained his top speed and never once stopped to rest, arriving at the destination in six hours.

Wayne thought that the Golden City would be cast in golden light, but everything was black. From far away, he saw a lump of black nest attached to the foot of the black mountains like a tumor. It housed over thirty thousand monsters, but Wayne wasn’t panicked at all. His power emboldened him.

His watch had completely stopped. The black mountains had an astonishing magnetic field, drawing lightning from the sky constantly. Wayne also sensed a faint, indistinct murmuring around them, chattering on about a chaos that made one’s scalp tingle.

With him bearing the brunt of the influence outside, Valkyrie and Vera couldn’t hear the whispers—Vera being the focus here. Valkyrie’s thoughts had been locked down by the ancient god, which was both a curse and a blessing. It made her thoughts abnormally solid and prevented her from being corrupted by external influences.

The black nest—the Golden City that Knight spoke of—was entirely black, its outer walls hardened into something as solid as rock. Inside was a maze of spacious passages with viscous and slippery surfaces. Twisted faces grew from the fleshy walls, including those of humans, beasts, and insects. Their mouths, noses, ears, and eyes shifted as they breathed rhythmically, exuding nauseating stench.

The foul air gathered at the top of the passages, falling in droplets to keep the environment damp for the monsters. Wayne was fortunate enough to witness a few monsters returning home. They pried open the large black mouths on the walls with their tentacles, squeezing their entire bodies inside.

Too creepy! x3

Vera’s stomach churned. Face ashen, she turned to look at Wayne pitifully.

“Wayne, if I throw up, you better not reject me.”

“If you throw up in the car, I’m throwing you out!”

Wayne shot her down ruthlessly, telling her to learn from their knight teacher. Valkyrie did not tear up and absolutely would not vomit.

Vera resigned herself to enduring the nausea, not wanting Wayne to find her disgusting.

Meanwhile, Snow, whom Wayne had released, looked down from the sky to take in the entire Golden City and transmit the image to Wayne with messenger bird magic. It was indeed a nest. The Golden City’s high walls encircled the low depression in the middle, with a skylight in the center. The entire structure was spherical.

In the heart of the city was a black open space with a bizarre sculpture and a palace-like building. According to Knight, that was where the leader who wielded sunlight resided. As a lowly slave, he wasn’t allowed to enter. Where they were now was as far as he could go.

“Well done. Leave the rest to me.”

Bidding Knight farewell and telling him to wait by the highway, Wayne walked around the black passage like a delinquent, quickly drawing the attention of several monsters. They all looked unfamiliar to him.

Gurgle...

Since they were different species, there was no way for Wayne to differentiate their appearances. He couldn’t even understand what they were saying. He waved his tentacles, asking for a private chat in a corner.

Crash! Bang! Clatter!

When Wayne re-emerged, he had evolved into an upper-class monster of the nest, sauntering toward the palace gates.

Meanwhile, Snow flapped its wings to soar as high as it could while shivering in the cutting wind, finally seeing what lay behind the black mountains.

It was complete darkness. A restless vortex of black mist yawned open like a gaping maw. From within, massive tentacles reached out, wriggling and whispering.

Caw...