Chapter 655

The world was dangerous. Evenson had always believed that no amount of caution was excessive. When it came to staying alive, you could never be too careful.

Unfortunately, he was beginning to suspect he’d seriously underestimated just how dangerous this world could be.

Take the Sorcerer Supreme standing in front of him.

One moment, she was the embodiment of righteousness and serenity. The next, she had casually revealed that she’d been playing with forces of darkness all along.

And she’d done it so suddenly that Evenson hadn’t even had time to mentally prepare himself.

"You’ve always known I wasn’t as pure as I appeared," the Ancient One said, hands clasped behind her back.

Evenson’s magic was already gathering inside him, ready to explode at the first sign of trouble. Yet the Ancient One couldn’t help noticing that his stance was loose and his weight had shifted backward.

He looked less like someone preparing to fight and more like someone making absolutely certain he could run at a moment’s notice.

"The nature of the power I wield is deeply dark," she continued. "But how did I obtain it? How did I even learn that such power existed? Why is it that everyone else who comes into contact with this power hears the whispers of Cthulhu and eventually submits to him, while I remain unaffected?"

Her gaze sharpened.

"The answer is there. In R’lyeh."

"You admitted it!"

Evenson pointed at her like he’d just caught a criminal confessing on camera.

"You finally admitted your power comes from R’lyeh! And the reason you didn’t fall to Cthulhu is because you’ve already given yourself to him! Loyalty means you don’t serve two masters!"

He gave her a hearty thumbs-up.

"Now that’s what I call devotion."

The Ancient One paused.

How was this still not getting through to him?

"I am trying to tell you that the power in R’lyeh isn’t nearly as dangerous as you imagine. Ever since I obtained it, I’ve devoted myself to protecting this world. Judging by the results, I’ve done a reasonable job."

"You once told me that when I accepted my own dark power, the predecessors of your order observed me. They judged that I wasn’t dangerous. That suggests they were willing to accept the use of such power."

"Emm..."

Evenson made a thoughtful noise.

Had he actually said that?

He vaguely remembered saying something along those lines.

Probably.

Maybe.

Most likely.

"But the dark power of the Void is extremely deceptive," he said. "It can make falsehoods feel completely real. For all we know, your predecessors simply got it wrong."

The Ancient One’s expression flattened.

"I thought you trusted the judgment of my predecessors."

"I’ve never even met them. There are limits to how much trust I can place in people I’ve never seen."

Internally, Evenson was screaming.

Those people had basically been names he’d thrown around to make the Ancient One back off. Trust them? He’d have to be committed to the bit to that degree.

"Besides, maybe you were fine back then," he continued. "But your predecessors left Earth a very long time ago. Who knows what might have happened to you since? Dark power corrupts. People change."

His eyes narrowed.

"And this time, you went to R’lyeh. What exactly were you doing there? Performing some kind of Ascension ritual?"

The Ancient One’s mouth twitched.

"I have no interest in turning my body into an elemental form."

Evenson’s eyes widened.

Wait.

He’d thrown that out as a wild guess.

She actually knew about Ascension?

"The primordial city, R’lyeh. The stars have aligned, and the path has revealed itself."

The Ancient One suddenly turned her back to him and recited the words with an almost prophetic calm.

"The stars are about to return to their proper places. When they do, R’lyeh will undergo subtle changes. It has remained quiet for a long time, but I couldn’t be comfortable without seeing it for myself."

She glanced back over her shoulder.

"Especially now."

Her eyes narrowed slightly.

"Darkness is rising throughout the universe, and this period of upheaval happens to coincide with a particularly important time for R’lyeh. I need to make certain that place won’t answer that call."

Darkness was rising?

Right. Evenson had once invented that explanation too.

He nodded slowly.

So the Ancient One wasn’t traveling to R’lyeh to pledge herself to Cthulhu.

She was going there to make sure Cthulhu didn’t cause trouble.

That sounded reassuring.

It also sounded like absolute nonsense.

R’lyeh was Cthulhu’s domain. After existing for countless ages, who knew what that ancient god had turned the place into?

You couldn’t simply stroll into the home of something that had driven even Titan guardians to madness and expect to come back unchanged.

The Sorcerer Supreme was powerful, sure.

But she was still flesh and blood. She’d also embraced dark power.

And yet she’d gone to R’lyeh and returned completely intact.

Anyone honestly expecting Evenson to believe there was no connection between that fact and Cthulhu was asking too much.

"Actually..."

The Ancient One turned around.

"Cthulhu isn’t in R’lyeh."

She smiled faintly.

"R’lyeh doesn’t contain Cthulhu either."

Evenson nearly jumped out of his skin.

His stomach dropped.

The Ancient God had escaped?

What exactly was he supposed to do with that information?

Someone call customer support. This situation seemed to require immediate intervention.

The Ancient One watched as Evenson’s hair became plastered to his forehead with cold sweat.

"Don’t panic," she said, almost sympathetically. "To be precise, Cthulhu never truly arrived in R’lyeh."

Evenson blinked.

"Which means he never came to Earth."

"Huh?"

After being yanked violently between terror and relief, his vision had begun to sparkle at the edges.

"What does that mean?"

"Cthulhu. An Ancient God. An Old One. A manifestation of chaos. An incomprehensible existence."

The Ancient One spoke slowly, as though laying out a history lesson.

"There are more beings of their kind than there are stars. They exist beyond the constraints of time, and there is no power in a single world capable of standing against them."

The claim was enormous.

Yet Evenson found himself believing it.

Sargeras had created the Burning Legion, an army capable of sweeping across worlds. He had used it to oppose the Void that threatened reality itself.

If Sargeras truly believed he could defeat the Void head-on, why would he resort to destroying entire worlds in such an indirect and desperate fashion?

"That race consists of pure parasites," the Ancient One continued. "They attach themselves to worlds, consume their power, and grow stronger. Once a world has been drained dry, they move on to another."

"They have several methods of doing so."

"The simplest is direct. A planet becomes their vessel, carrying them through the endless darkness of space toward another world they can infest. They travel aboard the remains of the worlds they’ve already consumed."

"That method is straightforward, but slow. They may exist beyond the constraints of time, but that doesn’t mean they’re patient."

"Which is why there is a second, much more convenient method."

She smiled.

"Cthulhu chose that one."

Evenson’s eyes shifted.

"Directly selecting a destination and using overwhelming power to perform an interdimensional transfer."

That actually made sense.

An Ancient God possessed incomprehensible power, and one that had already drained an entire planet would presumably be even stronger. If something like that wanted to move between worlds by brute force, who was he to say it couldn’t?

"You said Cthulhu never truly reached Earth," Evenson said. "Did something go wrong during the transfer?"

"You and I both know that the stronger the individual, the more demanding the conditions for interdimensional travel become. A being of sufficient power cannot simply appear somewhere else without restrictions."

Evenson nodded.

That made perfect sense.

It was like downloading a movie.

Higher resolution meant a bigger file, and a bigger file meant more time and more bandwidth.

"With Cthulhu, however..." The Ancient One hesitated, choosing her words. "There was an unfortunate coincidence."

She looked up.

"The movement of celestial bodies contains tremendous amounts of energy, and their alignment can profoundly affect reality. The next great convergence of the stars is one such event."

"The effects on Earth will be relatively minor. Asgard, however, is another matter."

"So?"

Evenson had no interest whatsoever in Asgard right now.

Nor did he care about some future celestial event.

He cared about one thing.

Earth.

And Cthulhu.

"The timing Cthulhu chose long ago happened to coincide with one of these stellar convergences," the Ancient One explained. "And the destination he selected was, by extraordinary coincidence, one of the places revealed by that convergence."

"So?"

Evenson’s brow furrowed.

"Do you understand now?"

"Wait."

He rubbed his temples.

"So Cthulhu began transporting himself to Earth during the stellar convergence. He targeted a location that only became accessible because of that convergence. But the transfer hadn’t finished when the convergence ended."

He slowly pieced it together.

"And when the convergence ended, that location disappeared again. Meaning he couldn’t complete the transfer."

"Not completely," the Ancient One corrected.

Evenson’s stomach sank again.

"A small portion of him did arrive on Earth."

"Of course it did."

Evenson shut his eyes for a moment.

A small portion.

Wonderful.

Just what he’d wanted to hear.

"It was tiny compared to his true body," the Ancient One continued. "But it was still a part of him."

Evenson couldn’t relax.

"So the stellar convergence happens periodically. If that’s the case, why hasn’t Cthulhu simply tried again?"

The failed transfer reminded him of uploading a file only to lose the internet connection halfway through.

Surely Cthulhu wasn’t going to see that failed upload and decide, Fine, guess I’ll wait until next time.

"I’ll finish it during the next convergence."

The Ancient One shook her head.

"He hasn’t."

Her certainty was absolute.

"Only a tiny fragment of his body made it through. By our standards, even that fragment was enormous and contained a terrifying amount of power. But compared to the whole, it was insignificant."

"And the stellar convergence on Earth occurs only once every thousand years."

"There are countless worlds beyond Earth. There are countless universes beyond this one. Why would he remain fixated on one insignificant planet?"

She gave him a meaningful look.

"As I said, they exist beyond the constraints of time. But that doesn’t mean they enjoy wasting it."

"So you’re saying Cthulhu simply found somewhere else to feed?"

Evenson’s voice carried a trace of uncertainty.

"Yes."

The Ancient One nodded.

"Based on the information available to me, that is the most likely explanation."

"The information available to you?"

Evenson’s expression changed immediately.

He’d caught that.

"Where did you get this information?"

Everything she’d told him was absurdly beyond what he should have known. For a man who had crossed worlds and thought himself knowledgeable, he suddenly felt like a frog staring up from the bottom of a well.

The Ancient One hesitated.

"From a... friend."

"A friend?"

"That friend taught me how to control the dark power of the Void. You could almost call him my mentor."

Evenson’s curiosity sharpened instantly.

The Sorcerer Supreme’s mentor?

Someone who understood beings like Cthulhu well enough to teach her how to control dark power?

Who exactly was this person?

"Who is he?"

He frowned.

"Don’t tell me he’s one of the Faceless Ones."

The possibilities raced through his mind.

"Or one of those giant lobster-looking things?"

The Ancient One stared at him.

"Give me one good reason I shouldn’t stab you the next time you show me something like that."

Evenson wisely said nothing.

The Ancient One sighed.

"I already told you he’s a friend. Why would you immediately assume he’s some kind of Faceless One?"

"He’s a normal being."

She paused.

"Well... relatively normal, compared to the things you’re thinking of."

Evenson leaned forward.

"And who exactly is this ’normal’ friend?"

The Ancient One answered with complete calm.

"He calls himself the Walker Between Worlds."

...