Chapter 172: Threat

Chapter 172: Threat

The deck of the vessel had shifted entirely. Under the horrifying, bleeding pressure of the true deity’s Embodiment’s manifestation, the wood had softened into a porous, rubbery substance that felt like dense muscle.

Every time Murphy’s leather boots pressed down, the deck secreted a thin layer of green muck that hissed against his soles, trying to anchor him to the ship’s decay.

Outside the relative safety of the main cabin, the world had turned into a shifting, non-Euclidean madhouse.

The three-dimensional Shadow Eaters were no longer simple silhouettes gliding across the surface. Spurred by the close proximity of Cthulhu, the dark blobs had begun to cluster together, their flat figure folding and expanding as they fed on the raw flesh slime dripping from the sky.

They were building themselves a collective body. It became a shifting wall of slippery, green-black meat encrusted with sharp barnacles that actively crawled up the bow of the ship.

Murphy stood at the center of the tilting deck, his long coat fluttering in the gale-force winds kicked up by the deity’s mountain-sized wing. His fedora left his head and rushed through the air, hitting the wooden wall of the cabin behind, leaving his dark hair exposed to the downpour of acidic bloody rain.

The invisible, phantom stitches running from his wrist up to his shoulder throbbed once again, threatening to snap his newly sewn spirit threads with every beat of his heart.

Yet, Mo Fei had completely recessed his own panic behind the absolute mask of the Detective. Although currently he didn’t have any deep conceptual abilities, except for the spiritual damage and mimicking the movements and fighting style and shifting weapon. He was an Ordinal Ten who had performed the Descent of Ordinal Nine two week back then.

His authority did not command the elements or rewrite physics; at that time, it existed simply to exploit the fundamental weaknesses in creation by observing what others could not see.

"Ph’nglui... mglw’nafh..." The cosmic shanty of a million drowned voices shrieked through his ears, magnified twofold by the curse of the Phantom Thread. Blood leaked from both of his nostrils, painting his upper lip in a dark red as his flesh began to reform the gills over his neck.

The flesh around his throat started to twitch rapidly as it attempted to tear open to breathe the air through those gills.

"Be quiet, would you?" Murphy whispered softly and walked forward toward the shifting mass of the shadow eaters that had taken the shape of their creator.

He raised his left hand and smashed a hand over his temple, forcing his cracked, bloodshot Apprentice’s Eyes to wide open.

Through the eyes, he saw the spirit threads of the advancing wall of green flesh and Shadow Eaters, who had tangled threads that anchored their unnatural existence to the dreaming god’s subconscious malice.

Lifting his revolver toward his face, he twisted it back into his soul-cutting Glaive as the structure of the revolver rapidly shifted into a long double-edged weapon.

A swarm of rubbery face tentacles erupted from the advancing wall of flesh, snapping through the air to tear his torso apart.

Murphy took a step forward, his boots sinking an inch into the rubbery deck, and swung the Glaive in a wide, sweeping arc.

The sharp blade of the Glaive passed cleanly through the invisible coordinates of the glowing spirit threads he had targeted through his Apprentice’s Eyes.

Snap!

An audible, conceptual crack echoed across the deck. The moment the Glaive severed the spirit threads, the massive wall of green flesh instantly lost its cohesive logic. The tentacles violently dissolved back into flat, lifeless patches of ink-black shadow that were immediately washed away by the boiling crimson sea.

The collective aberration had been unmade at its structural root.

Murphy quickly turned on his heel, his long coat spraying droplets of green muck as he scanned the perimeter. The absolute domain of isolation provided by the Grade 2 charm was rapidly crumbling. The leaden light it emitted was being completely smothered by the mere shadow of Cthulhu’s descending wing.

As more of the shadow eaters began to form from the shadows, he threw his Glaive forward in a spinning arc.

Using the spirit threads connected to the weapon, he clawed his hand through the empty air and shifted its direction, slashing through each of the threads before taking it back in his hand.

The physical wind generated by the deity’s proximity was compressing the space around the vessel, tilting the hull at a threatening angle. If the ship stopped moving for even a single second, the conceptual gravity of the dreaming god would immediately collapse the ship into a two-dimensional blot on the horizon.

"Silas! Keep moving. I’m going outside to handle the Kraken." Murphy called out, his voice a cold command as he rushed outside, where the colossal squid was swimming behind the vessel.

He entered the open deck, his eyes immediately locking onto the sea where the tides rose fifty feet as the monster swam.

We cannot outrun a deity’s true Embodiment when the monster is after us... moreover, if we looked at the Embodiment, all of us would lose control.

Murphy’s gaze dropped to the wooden poles where the sinister tentacles crashed, breaking the poles apart.

He rushed toward the tentacles that gripped the edge, preparing to lift the vessel once again, but threw the Glaive toward the extending flesh.

Controlling the direction of Glaive with his left hand, he slammed his right hand directly into the slippery flesh and pulled it forcefully, tearing through the layer. Although his superhuman capabilities of an Ordinal Seven — from the Warden Embodiment — wasn’t enough to uplift it.

’Divine Serpent, is there any other tool to use?’

The ancient, grumbling voice of the Divine Serpent reached into his mind. "Great Master, I can create a weapon."

’Perfect, give me something that can enhance my grip and tear through the flesh.’

Thinking that, he pulled the Glaive, slashing the other parts of the sinister tentacles that pushed the ship. The Glaive didn’t stop spinning as Murphy twisted its direction into a follow-up attack; just then an iron tiger claw-shaped weapon appeared beneath his palm.

"That’d work." With that, he slammed his palm against the rough, dense tentacle that had been wrapped around one of the major wooden pillars of the ship.

Using all his might, he pushed the flesh out, leaving the kraken shrieking in pain as its multiple tentacles slashed down by the Glaive, and now one’s flesh tore open.

The tentacle curled around the pillar began to retreat, but before it could, Murphy jumped and pulled the Glaive back into his grip as he slammed the sharp blade of the upper side directly into it, then twisted the weapon, moving the second blade to chop the flesh apart.

Before he could adjust his movement, a large tentacle lunged at him and wrapped around his waist, threatening to tear him apart. It pulled him into the deep crimson Sea, Murphy frantically moved to grab the ship’s edge, but the slippery, wet fluid slipped his hand.

Then tentacle wrapped around the ship slowly writhed and retreated inside the ocean as the kraken pulled Murphy even deeper, leaving him holding his breath as he tried to escape.

For a moment, Murphy saw the ship’s distorted silhouette above him, its broken masts resembling the fingers of a corpse reaching toward a sky that had forgotten how to exist.

Then the crimson waters closed over his head with a sickening splash. The moment his body entered the sea, Murphy’s ears continued to receive the whispers. Each syllable pushed against his thoughts, trying to force him to madness.

His lungs started to contract as he tried not to breathe.

The enormous tentacle wrapped around his waist dragged him toward the depths with an indifference that made resistance seem almost laughable. Whenever he attempted to grip it, the flesh shifted beneath his fingers, as though its physical properties had been decided by a mind that had never encountered the concept of a hand.

Beneath the boiling crimson waters, countless spirit threads extended into the distance where a presence occupied the depths.

Finally, the silhouette of Embodiment he had seen before was beginning to descend back into the ocean to sleep again in the Primordial ocean.

A thin line of blood slipped down his cheek as the invisible wound opened up.

’Ph’nglui... mglw’nafh...’

The words reached Murphy, his ears began to fill with the crimson water and illuminated by the strange green luminance.

The tentacle had carried him into a region where the crimson waters gave way to an expanse of absolute darkness. He twisted his body, seized the slippery appendages, and got himself free.

Just then the enormous tentacles launched at him, slamming his stomach with a loud thrust that pushed him toward a nearby vast stone that rose from the deep ocean.

The remaining oxygen in Murphy’s chest nearly came out as he forced himself to hold his breathing.

Bubbles erupted from the place around him as he tried to rush toward the surface of the sea, but the tentacles caught his leg and pulled him toward the large mouth of the kraken as it attempted to devour him.

Through the blurry mess of the ocean, he pushed the Glaive to slash it, but the pressure in the ocean slowed the movement down. Leaving no option behind, he let go of the Glaive and slammed his clawed hand that held the sharp iron weapon in and tore apart its flesh.

By then, he found the enormous spiritual pressure coming toward him. When he looked in that direction, he found the Embodiment coming forward. ’I can’t breathe... and that thing... damn it.’

Just then the sinister tentacles pushed him backward toward the stone pillar behind and gripped his whole body with multiple tentacles that held him tightly.

From the suction cups, a dozen thin threads emerged, shaped like a slippery tongue with rough edges and a sharp blade in the top.

All the sharp blades stabbed Murphy in dozens of places and some of them pushed deeper into his cheeks. One of them pierced through his forehead as if preparing to suck the fluids of his brain and eat his mind alive.

But just then, suddenly a feminine, soft voice emerged in his mind, calling out the names in a language that belonged to the honorifics of the Lightless.

It was the voice of someone who was performing the ritual of an Authority, asking for the divine protection of the Mysteries.

Her words quickly ignited the spirit world to rustle into the cosmic wind that instantly dissolved into a protective mist as she called out.

"You are The Lord Light that Walks Beyond the Sun."

"You are The Keeper of Godless Heaven."

"You are The Last God of a Dying World."

"You are The Lost Destiny of Time."

The extending flesh around him instantly exploded outward as his wounds began to heal within microseconds, covering the wounds entirely with the Divine mist.

Mo Fei gasped as the barrier gave him breathing space. ’That voice... the Spirits are louder now... They gave me an anchor.’

"Is that Miss Sage performing her Descent!"