Myths Reawakened

Roar—

High in the sky, dense fog blocked out the sun. Countless tentacles with suckers swung downward like an embrace, attaching to the seal’s protective barrier, which was supported by the five-colored aurora. The tentacles contracted like they were going to devour the barrier whole. Space groaned and boomed, with cracks bursting open every few moments.

“Even gathering the power of all five chosen knights isn’t enough to hold on...” Wayne’s eyes sharpened. “Senna, get me up there. I’m going to move the base, too!”

If we can’t defend against it, don’t bother. Just soar up and chop off all the tentacles.

Senna obeyed and transformed into a hundred-meter-long green dragon, spreading her wings and lowering her head, waiting for Wayne to mount her. He leaped onto the dragon’s back, his boneless body oozing white foam.

He turned into a three-meter-tall pale figure wielding Shadow Nightmare. A vertical line opened in his chest, revealing a great eyeball that whispered lowly.

You’re wrong. Let me do the talking!

The Pale Nest waved its tentacles to sweep up the magitech puppet before merging with the green dragon. The yellow robe squirmed, and then the figure emerged behind Wayne, standing on the dragon’s back.

Anastasia watched the scene unfold in horror, realization dawning on her. When the green dragon was about to take flight, she instinctively jumped up.

She didn’t make it. Senna had dodged her.

Not everyone was allowed to ride on her back, and Anastasia clearly wasn’t one of them. Soon, however, Senna had to reluctantly let Anastasia ride along under Wayne’s order.

Anastasia looked down at the green dragon beneath her feet, trembling. “It wasn’t Thoggua that changed my thoughts and body. Sir Wayne, who... was it?”

“You know the answer, Anastasia. You have a bright future ahead of you!” The green dragon roared as she ascended.

From the dragon’s back, a clump of white foam rose and morphed into Senna’s pale face. “How about it? You can do this too. Isn’t there a beauty in this power?”

“You’ve lost your mind!” Anastasia hissed, closing her eyes to mobilize her thoughts, trying to separate them from her body as quickly as possible.

Once, Anastasia had used this trick to escape before her thoughts could fall into madness. This time, though, her body trapped her thoughts tightly like a prison.

It wasn’t just her body. Her thoughts didn’t want to leave, either. She saw an indescribable beauty in Senna, and she wanted to become as powerful as she was, to dedicate everything to faith just like her.

Anastasia shivered, grief and anger rushing out of her in a suppressed howl.

“Your body was corrupted by Thoggua,” Wayne said without turning around. “I reshaped it into mine. After careful consideration, I concluded that you were too good a person to be sacrificed unnecessarily, so I returned your body to you.”

“I’d rather die...” Anastasia’s voice cracked.

“That’s it, pure Holy Maiden. Keep resisting with the belief that you can maintain your sense of self!” Senna whispered like a demon. “I once had the same false hope, but I fell quickly. You must hold on to please our master well. Compared to seeing your fallen state, he much prefers enjoying the process of your fall.”

...That’s a misunderstanding, Wayne grumbled inwardly.

Anastasia paled. She charged toward Wayne, but after taking two steps, she stopped herself. No matter what, he had been fighting for the Land of Seal. She couldn’t attack their hope for her own sake.

Besides, she couldn’t win anyway.

“That’s it. You’re doing well.”

Senna smiled arrogantly, admiring Anastasia’s trembling body. She was enjoying the process of taming her.

Anastasia glared at her. “You knew. You knew all along, didn’t you?”

“Of course. I told you that you’d understand me!” Senna laughed, extending a tentacle to lift Anastasia’s chin. “Thank me, my friend. I couldn’t bear to see you die here, so I begged for you. I convinced Master to return your body to you.”

“I’ll kill you one day, Senna!”

“I very much look forward to that!”

“...”

The two went at each other’s throats. Their shaky friendship sank completely to the bottom of the ocean; there was no salvaging it.

Wayne didn’t intervene. He could tell that Senna had bottled up a lot of resentment. Unable to go after him for his wickedness, she vented her frustration on Anastasia instead. Anastasia was in the same boat. Knowing that she was helpless facing Wayne, she redirected all her firepower at Senna.

Wayne considered for a moment and issued a restriction to both of them: they could argue, but no physical fight or underhanded schemes, such as using someone else to go after each other.

The Church of Darkness’s Holy Maiden had never experienced such restriction. Realizing that she couldn’t resist, she felt like her future was nothing but darkness.

Senna dismissed her reaction. Her pale body circled Anastasia before mocking her in her face, “How nice. You’ve only just joined, but Master already favors you so much. Want me to help distract our master’s fiancée so that you can enjoy more love?”

“Shut up. I’m the Church of Darkness’s Holy Maiden!”

“That’s right. Keep going like that until you can’t anymore.”

You’re incorrigible. A true demon! Wayne cursed inwardly, vowing never to create another follower like Senna. The way she behaved and spoke would make people who didn’t know better think that he was the villain.

Ahead of them, the five-colored aurora was on the verge of falling apart. The green dragon flew out of the safe zone covered by the aurora, her body stiffening uncontrollably as soon as she made contact with the mist.

The surrounding whispers and a massive amount of information poured into her ears all at once. It made Senna dizzy, and her head rang. It took her three to five seconds to adapt to it.

Wayne’s feet melted, merging with the green dragon. His large chest eye madly proclaimed the true meaning of life, injecting Senna with the faith power that she so craved.

The green dragon mutated mid-air, its pale dragon body appearing like an enlarged version of Wayne. The body was entirely covered in wrinkly tissues, and the dragon’s head had lost its eyes, leaving only a giant white maw. On the chest, roughly where the reverse scale would be, a huge single eye opened.

The pale dragon raised her head and roared, beating her wings toward the black fissure.

Anastasia watched the change in horror, a desire rising from the depths of her heart. Although she knew that it was wrong to think so, she still couldn’t help but feel jealous.

If Senna could have it, so could she. No, she wanted more!

“Stay rational. I’ve been conducting an experiment recently...”

“Just hold on, and you’ll regain your freedom.”

Wayne‘s voice sounded in her heart. The comforting words only made her cry out in sorrow. She had lost herself both inside and out.

Resigned, he confronted the tentacles ahead with all his power.

He had done his best, but the current situation didn’t help his case, and the more he said, the deeper the misunderstanding would become.

Forget it.

Time would prove everything. Anastasia would understand him in the future.

Boom!!

Death energy spread through the sky like an invisible plague. Its suffocating heaviness silently corroded everything. The grey tide ruthlessly swallowed everything in the area, propping up the dense clusters of tentacles descending from above and forcing them back into the spatial fissure.

Everything withered, and a deathly silence fell. In the aftermath of the tentacles’ loss of vitality, grey ashes poured down like snow.

The giant eyeball on the dragon’s chest erased Thoggua’s voice, disrupting and scrambling all the surrounding information, which eliminated the possibility of the tentacles regenerating and reproducing through division.

Guided by the voice, a black fissure suddenly opened up. Hundreds of eyeballs glowed with light, looking down at the mad being who dared to disturb their praise for the ancient god.

All they saw was pure white.

Roar—

Thoggua roared in fury. In their ancient booming voice, they demanded to know which ancient god Wayne followed, why he had descended to this continent, and why he had obstructed their descent.

Wayne barely deciphered the questions. He raised Shadow Nightmare, which was too small for his current size, and responded with powerful Death energy.

He had marked this land as his world. Thoggua was forbidden from entering.

The exchange between the two monsters ended quickly. Thoggua roared powerfully. Thick darkness shrouded the sky and tore through the clouds with intangible force. Over a hundred eyeballs exuded unfathomable terror and madness.

Their fury at Wayne far exceeded their hatred for the three chosen knights. The reason was simple: Wayne had denied their faith and spouted incomprehensible truths about the meaning of life.

At the edge of the darkness, a massive, distorted face appeared, covered in green scales. Each of the scales radiated a cold, eerie energy. Hair-like tentacles covered the entire face, leaving only furious eyes visible through the gaps.

Tentacles too numerous to count swayed with no rhyme or reason, each enormous beyond measure. They hung down from above like a kilometer-high tornado ravaging the land.

In the center of the tentacles—perhaps the center of Thoggua’s face—was a vicious maw that resembled a vortex in the deep sea. It spiraled inward, embedded deeply into the skull. The large maw writhed and protruded, opening up like layers of flower petals. The sharp teeth inside were coated with viscous fluid. The tentacles had turned dark green and grown spikes.

Not bad. It’s not as creepy as it could be!

Wayne had looked into the mirror a lot lately, so, with his improved sanity threshold, he didn’t curse out loud at the sight.

Between the two of them, Wayne’s arguments made more sense, but Thoggua was louder. It was just like the musical instrument, suona[1]. Once it joined the chorus, it might as well be the only thing playing in the orchestra.

Wayne had come prepared. He reached toward the Pale Nest, which acted as an amplifier for his thoughts like a megaphone.

The Pale Nest extended its tentacle to coil around Wayne’s palm. The moment his thoughts were amplified, the great eyeball at the center of the Book of Greed’s cover started spinning wildly. Under its influence, the surrounding smaller eyeballs started darting around, too.

“This feeling...”

“It’s the true meaning of life!”

Wayne froze. He couldn’t describe the mysterious feeling. Following his heart, he abandoned Shadow Nightmare.

Around the great eyeball, the smaller eyes of Nature, Sun, Moonlight, Darkness, and Death looked toward the center, injecting information and Laws at the same time. Wayne’s pale body mutated once more. The slimy skin of proliferating tissue dried and hardened into an armor-like carapace. It spread from the large eye in his chest with black veins crawling and writhing along the surface, sealing the radiating whispers. By reining in the projected pressure, a more intense oppression emerged.

Looking at the body directly would bring about a comprehensive understanding of the world.

“Finally, I don’t have to be someone’s knight...”

Wayne raised his hand, turning his arm into a blade. “A stable Golden Triangle, the Pale Nest...”

“The Pale Knight!”

1. An instrument of traditional Chinese music. It makes an incredibly loud and piercing sound. ☜