Chapter 3221

"Nyar, you..."

Before Shiler could curse, he noticed the surface of the red blood beginning to flicker with green light. Blue and green intertwined and merged, becoming like the light of the ocean disappearing into the deep sea.

Terrifying whispers echoed in the narrow space. Shiler heard a faint friction sound in his ears, like the light sound of damp, smooth skin passing through seaweed, making him feel waves of dizziness and nausea.

The book in front of him split open, the pages dissolved into the water, a complete lake unfolded, and a behemoth was gradually rising from the bottom of the lake.

Enduring the severe pain in his head, Shiler remembered the name he had just heard in that whisper—Cthulhu's knight, "Othuum."

Tentacles stretched out from the lake. A huge head, wreathed on both sides by countless tentacles, was rising from the surface. The skin was a grayish-green covered in pore-like bumps. In the center was a large, golden eye that kept rotating, and below it, a vertically split mouth contained layers of tiny tentacles and teeth.

This wasn't some cultist at all, Shiler realized; this was Cthulhu's knight, the Great Old One Othuum!

"Uh oh." The Beyonder's voice rang in Shiler's ear, "Didn't you all come out of that room? How did you still summon it?"

Because of the severe headache and dizziness, Shiler couldn't speak at all. Humans cannot face any Great Old One directly; the effect of the Elder Sign was minimal.

Fortunately, the first round began quickly, and Shiler was finally able to detach himself from the previous sensations.

He let out a long breath, resisted the urge to curse Nyar, and asked the Beyonder, "The final boss you designed is Othuum?"

"Yeah, it's not like I could really let you fight Cthulhu, right?"

Shiler suddenly recalled that he had thought this book contained the evil spirit of a cultist, actually because Nyar told him the book was alive, saying a cultist had sacrificed everything to create it.

Nyar, that lying bastard!

Shiler felt that Nyar might not have been lying, just not telling the whole truth. Perhaps a cultist really had sacrificed himself and used his skin to sew this book, but the greatest danger hidden in this book wasn't some cultist at all, but Othuum!

When certain conditions are met, the Great Old One Othuum is summoned. The final boss battle designed by the Beyonder is also to fight this Cthulhu knight.

Information about Othuum is very scarce, only mentioned once in the literature, saying that Cthulhu occasionally communicates with this Great Old One, especially when he feels angry.

Shiler interpreted this as Othuum being Cthulhu's secretary and best friend; whenever Cthulhu had troubles, he would complain to him.

But those records were all there was; they only recorded Othuum's private life and didn't mention a word about his appearance or abilities, which led Shiler into a very dangerous situation.

"What do you think my chances of winning this battle are?"

"Haha, zero." The Beyonder was very blunt.

But seemingly afraid of being misunderstood as gloating, the Beyonder explained a bit, "In this situation, if you were all present and had collected over 80% of the important items for this stage, you would have about a 70% chance of winning."

"Winning means?"

"Banishing him."

"What about the casualty rate?"

"100%."

The Beyonder paused and then said, "In the style of the Cthulhu Mythos, humans cannot resist the horrors from the deep stars. Othuum is a minor Great Old One, barely resistible, but can only be banished, and it requires someone to make a sacrifice."

"Sacrifice means?"

"Offering one's own soul to become Othuum's thrall. This can help you buy some time, and then use the Elder Sign to drive him away."

Shiler roughly understood. They were supposed to find the Elder Sign and the method to use it during the game's progression, and then in the final battle, one person would step forward to sacrifice themselves to buy time while the others set up a formation to drive Othuum away to win.

Now Shiler had the Elder Sign, but his method of using it was clearly quite superficial; it was fine for disgusting Deep Ones, but ineffective against Othuum.

But now he was alone; he couldn't sacrifice himself to buy time, and besides, he didn't have a better way to use the Elder Sign. Even if he bought time, he couldn't drive Othuum away.

Shiler sighed.

But fortunately, although they didn't follow the process, they had obtained the clearance treasure chest in the Captain's room without clearing the level, which was the small sculpture weapon and the Golden Mead.

Shiler looked down at the bottle in his hand, pulled the cork without hesitation, looked up, and swallowed the golden liquid.

Instantly, the effect of the Golden Mead activated, and Shiler felt a warmth burst forth from his chest.

Those colors representing terror faded, turning into dreamlike hues; orange, red, and yellow intertwined like a sunset on the West Coast.

Within a few short seconds, Shiler seemed to see the entire history of Earth's development from a barren land to modern society, saw alien flying saucers, dogs dancing in skirts, Broadway theater performances, and heard all kinds of dance music in his ears, cheerful and lively.

The symptoms of dizziness and tinnitus disappeared completely, and breathing was no longer so difficult, as if he had drifted into a beautiful dream.

After an unknown amount of time, Shiler felt someone shaking him.

"Shiler! Shiler! Wake up! Are you okay?"

Shiler woke up in a daze to see Batman crouching beside him, shaking his body.

Shiler's consciousness was still hazy until a hint of blood smell entered his nostrils, making him completely sober.

He sat up from the ground, feeling reeking of alcohol, and looked down at the bottle in his hand, taking several seconds to realize what had happened before.

"I'm fine," he said, feeling his voice was a bit hoarse, and cleared his throat.

"What did you encounter?"

"A Great Old One... never mind, when did you get here?"

"Just now. I saw you lying on the ground, holding this bottle of wine, and that book was thrown over there."

Shiler looked in the direction of Batman's gaze and realized that *The Cult of the Water God* hadn't been destroyed; it was just lying quietly on the ground, as if everything just now had been his hallucination.

But Shiler knew very well it wasn't; the two disasters that destroyed the fleet were the arrival of the Great Old One Othuum.

Shiler sat up straight, took a deep breath to let his brain resume functioning, and said, "Something happened just now. A Great Old One arrived, and I drank the wine to protect myself. How about you?"

"I withdrew a bit late and had a conflict with some church members. I got injured, but it's not serious."

Then Batman brought over a bag, returned Shiler's gun to him, and said, "I've modified this gun. You can load it from here and perform normal aiming and firing."

"I modified the electric baton again; its safety has increased significantly. I tested it on the church members, and the lethality is quite good."

"You're injured?"

"Yes, they were professionally trained and had guns," Batman nodded and said, "I took a bullet in the calf, but after getting out of danger, I removed the bullet and bandaged it. It's not a big problem."

Batman took some food and water out of the bag, and they replenished their supplies on the spot. Shiler ate while saying, "Nyar, come out, let's talk."

Nyar didn't make a sound.

"You should know that anyone can write a novel," Shiler's tone implied a threat, "If you continue to remain silent, I will assume you tacitly agree to me sending out our chat logs."

"I just didn't expect you to be so straightforward," Nyar said, "It seems you really hate mental instability."

"I do hate mental instability, but in this situation, if I didn't drink, it wouldn't be a matter of mental instability; I would have died a miserable death. This is all thanks to you."

"But all of this could have been avoided. Reading a novel isn't a very difficult thing for you."

"But this novel was written by Constantine, and it's about you. The combined lethality is almost greater than Bruce's thesis. Not wanting to read it is normal."

"You have extreme prejudice against both the novel's author and me."

"And your actions just now confirmed my prejudice."

"So you still don't intend to read it?"

"If I don't read it, do you still intend to continue your actions?"

Nyar fell silent again.

At this moment, Batman suddenly said, "Perhaps you could read it."

"Why?"

"I can't stand the two of them badmouthing you in my head anymore," Batman said, "They say you are impervious to reason, unreasonable..."

"Is this the attitude of someone asking for help?"

"You said this was a fair trade," Nyar replied.

"Is this how you do business?"

"I have no intention of engaging in a verbal battle with you. You just tell me under what conditions you will read it."

"It's because you always lose in verbal battles, right?" Shiler sneered and said, "This matter of you plotting against me won't be forgotten so easily."

"I can give you some compensation."

"What compensation?"

As soon as Shiler finished speaking, he heard a crisp sound behind him. He looked back and found it was actually a bottle of red wine.

He picked up the red wine and handed it to Batman. Batman turned the bottle to look at it and said, "It's a good wine."

"Is that all? I'm not as easy to fool as Pride."

"You can appraise it."

Shiler was skeptical. He picked up the red wine and activated his Cthulhu Mythos skill, quickly learning the information about this bottle of wine.

"Nyar's Compensation Gift: A bottle of vintage red wine, emitting an alluring aroma. After drinking, it reduces mental health by 100%, causing the drinker to fall into an endless state of hallucination, unable to be awakened."

Shiler widened his eyes slightly. Good grief, pure poison; he's not even pretending anymore.

He told Batman about the effect, but Batman said, "It's poison to others, but not to you."

Shiler realized it now too. That's true; normal people go insane when their sanity hits bottom, but Shiler has a second stage after his sanity hits bottom.

For normal people, falling into an endless state of hallucination is basically equivalent to taking a direct train to heaven, but after Shiler's sanity is drained, he falls into hallucinations anyway, so this negative status is effectively nothing to him.

In other words, this is a special poison that Shiler can drink, but no one else can.

Shiler immediately thought of how to use this thing.

From the fragments of the black man's words and the deduction of a series of clues, Shiler felt that this so-called Great Prophet Gade should be a pretentious guy.

What pretentious guy could refuse to share a drink with an enemy?