Ximengsi Continent’s southern region, nearby Steinbeck Fief, outskirts of Needham Plain, the vicinity of Lost Murmans Regal Pyramid
Light Church’s investigative team set out from Stanley City and arrived at this mysterious area. Led by Light Church’s “Radiant Saintess” Suhiya, “Punishment Saintess” Tiffany and “Light Saintess” Maria who had gone together to investigate, the team represented a formidable force.
As one of the people in charge of Steinbeck Fief, Clyde came together with Light Church’s team. As for Bishop Nichols, as Clyde expected, he didn’t participate in this investigation. Those subordinates he brought also acted similarly. Waiting in Stanley City, they intended to casually write a report claiming to have completed their tasks. Before Clyde set out with this investigation team, he gave Bishop Nichols 10,000 gold coins in secret as a bribe.
As for “Radiant Saintess,” Clyde had no way to bribe her. Among the people of Light Church, she was a relatively upright type, so she couldn’t be bought with money. However, Clyde’s money was also not wasted. Bishop Nichols accepted the money and expressed that even if Needham Plain truly had some issues, it would not implicate Steinbeck Fief. After receiving the money, he would definitely help.
Although Suhiya was earnest and responsible, she was just a saintess, nothing more. She was not comparable to those bishops who had real power. Her findings report would be delivered to Bishop Garfield, the general supervisor of Light Church’s Franconia Empire branch, and he would report to the higher-ups of Light Church. Bishop Garfield and Bishop Nichols were from the same faction, and both of them were money-grubbing types, so there was little chance she’d manage to implicate Clyde.
Clyde gave Bishop Nichols a gift of money and also indirectly gave Bishop Garfield a gift of money. At that time when Suhiya reported, if Clyde wished to change the contents of the message, then as long as he spent the money, Bishop Garfield would similarly help him revise the report. Sometimes, it was truly simpler to deal with such greedy types.
This investigation team consisted of all the people brought by “Radiant Saintess” Suhiya. After they arrived at the periphery of Needham Plain, they immediately began to investigate the matters concerning the undead sighting. In the past, these city ruins had already been investigated by Kruft Kingdom’s expeditionary army, but they hadn’t found any major issues. Now with the expertise brought by Light Church’s investigative team, a more formal investigation could be performed into the dark secrets lurking within this space.
When Clyde returned to Needham Plain once more, he vaguely felt the atmosphere had something a bit off about it. The sky here was shrouded with black clouds and was almost like night. In addition, strange lightning swam in the midst of these dark clouds, but no thunderclaps could be heard. A cold wind blew through the entire Needham Plain, making people feel a kind of bone-piercing chill that went beyond the physical and seemed to lick at their souls.
Generally, an undead calamity wouldn’t give rise to such dark clouds. After seeing this strange scene, Light Church’s investigation team acted very cautiously. They could handle average small-sized undead calamities, but the current circumstances vastly differed from those observed during a run-of-the-mill undead calamity. It was already beyond the understanding of Light Church’s investigation team.
“Mister Clyde, you should return. This trip is very dangerous. Leave this problem for us members of Light Church to handle. You are an unrelated party; there is no need to get involved.”
“Clyde, go back and help us oversee the construction rates of our cathedrals. We two will go with Suhiya and take a look at what is going on. This won’t be a big issue.”
“This… fine. You all must be careful.”
“It’s okay. It won’t be a big issue. With us three saintesses here, there is no need to worry.”
Clyde wanted to refuse, but upon seeing these three saintesses’ very serious looks of not wanting Clyde to follow them, Clyde could only pretend to agree, thinking he would look for an opportunity to secretly follow them later. Even if he didn’t consider Saintess Suhiya’s safety for the moment, Saintess Maria and Saintess Tiffany were his fief’s nominal residents. If something happened to them, that would be a huge loss to Steinbeck Fief.
This being not a big issue was a lie told by these saintesses to convince Clyde to leave. This issue was so great that it was beyond their wildest expectations. In fact, they didn’t even have a clue about how to approach the problem. However, they couldn’t tell the truth and reveal their worries, so they had to use a white lie to make Clyde leave. Now, it was not an undead calamity in Needham Plain, but rather a chaotic warfare between three dark forces. This darkness was the result of the chaotic warfare between these dark forces. The outpouring of energy condensed into these terrifying phenomena.
Clyde could roughly distinguish these fighting three dark forces. Among them, one represent Lost Murmans Regal Pyramid Area’s dark civilization from that different world, Cursed Queen Lafania and her younger sister Nightmare Queen Mephis. As for the other two, they belonged to the Demon Realm’s and Ghost Realm’s Gates summoned by Sigrid, the daughter of Needham Plain Area’s Suzerain from those years past.
At that time, when Clyde had rescued Sigrid, those two gates had been sealed. He didn’t know what had happened, but he guessed that the seals had been opened, and the forces of Demon Realm and Ghost Realm had taken advantage of the occasion to attack this plane on a large scale. The luck of Ximengsi Continent was very good since the vanguard armies of Demon and Ghost Realm had truly chosen the wrong direction by selecting Murmans Regal Pyramid Area as the breakout point. The result was this: the dark force from another world hidden in this place had counterattacked.
Murmans Regal Pyramid Area instinctually defended its territory. Regardless of whether these new forces were of the same kind or not, all would be treated as intruders. If both sides couldn’t come to an agreement, then they would directly use force to resolve any disputes. This perfectly explained the truth of what was called moving the hands and not using the mouth.
In this respect, Divine Realm had neglected its duties. Valkyrie Cynthia who originally had been responsible for monitoring and controlling the Needham Plains Area had received a temporary task from the God King and went to northernmost land to suppress Demonic Dragon Alcurus; thus, she couldn’t return for the time being, and the Valkyrie responsible for taking over Cynthia’s job had yet to arrive to work. Now, Divine Realm had a gap in the surveillance of the Needham Plans, and without an on-duty Valkyrie, they hadn’t learned about such a large-scale, chaotic warfare between dark forces.
After Light Church’s investigation team left a distance away, Clyde used flight magic to rise to a high altitude. From a high altitude, he could see the fierce battle situation far in the distance. Through the dark clouds, three forces’ large dark armies fought against one another. Demon Realm’s army mainly consisted of skeleton soldiers, ghouls, and large ogres. Ghost Realm’s army mainly consisted of zombie soldiers and ghost knights. As for the pyramid side, its army mainly consisted of various kinds of mummy soldiers. The three sides were locked in conflict with none having a decisive advantage. On the ground, countless corpses had been torn to shreds, making it impossible to determine to which side the dead belonged to. It was simply a host of terrifying beings dancing wildly to the death.
In order to prevent the other sides from using the corpses, the warring sides thoroughly destroyed all corpses, mutilating them beyond use. The battle between demonic creatures was a lot bloodier than one of the Human Race. The shredded corpses were just a small scene. All parties on the scene weren’t afraid of death. The warlike demonic creatures employed an unusually ferocious fighting style.
The vanguard army of Demon Realm and Ghost Realm weren’t able to break through the mummies’ fierce defensive line even after cooperating. The two sides had been in a mutual stalemate, continuously fighting back and forth, churning the ground into a muddy mess filled with gruesome fluids. Upon careful observation, Clyde noticed the existence of a fourth party at the scene. Some mysterious shadows stood on the side of the mummy army. Although they had no banners, they were indeed an independent fourth party.
The top-level combat powers of Murmans Regal Pyramid, Cursed Queen Lafania and her younger sister Nightmare Queen Mephis, were sealed in the coffin camber, and many Pharaoh level mummies also couldn’t break out of their seals. Without the secret support of these mysterious fourth party, this scene of one against two wouldn’t have appeared.
Those mysterious shadows mainly just watched the battle. Only when Demon Realm and Ghost Realm’s vanguard armies sent out their aces would they make a move by annihilating the other party’s ace units, but they didn’t participate in the general chaotic warfare. Clyde could sense a familiar aura from those mysterious shadows. At that time, Sigrid had summoned altogether three gates, so he suspected that these shadows should have come through the final dimension gate.
Facing the hands of those shadows, the aces of Demon Realm and Ghost Realm couldn’t last long. All were instantly killed. Those shadows were shrouded in black mist and belonged to an indescribable type of force. Clyde couldn’t even see how they moved; merely, when the opponents came into contact with them, they immediately disintegrated into ashes. Although Demon Realm and Ghost Realm’s people knew that this situation was bad, they were still attacking to save face since they’d already sacrificed so much for this attempt.
“Lord Hastur, you are here? That petty and lowly human body is not worthy of your supreme status.”
“Eh, you are…”
“Ithaqua, one of your kinsman.”
A burst of fierce wind gusted behind Clyde. Clyde looked back and saw a huge emaciated humanoid figure with fiery red eyes. Its face was distorted as if it had been forcibly yanked into strange shapes and filled with pained human faces. With the appearance of this giant, a fierce wind blew all around, almost scraping Clyde.
After Clyde had crossed the world, the original owner of the body he had possessed was Hastur, one of the Great Old Ones in Cthulhu Mythos. Hastur’s real body was not here. At most, Clyde could be regarded as one of Hastur’s avatars, The King in Yellow Hastur. Naturally, even if he were just an avatar, that wouldn’t affect his status. This giant behind him, Ithaqua, The Wind-Walker, God of the Cold, and God of the Air, ( 大气之神) served The King in Yellow Hastur.
When Clyde had begun a summoning last time, his kinsmen had discovered their master’s position. Ithaqua had then intruded upon here from that dimensional gate and broke the seals against the next door Demon and Ghost Realms in passing. To sum it up, regarding the Demon and Ghost Realm being able to invade Ximengsi Continent, Clyde was indirectly responsible. This matter was caused by his kinsmen.
The attractiveness index of Cthulhu Mythos’s existences was basically so low that it was beyond description. Normal was very rare. Because they were beings from the same side, Clyde didn’t have a big reaction upon seeing Ithaqua. Since Ithaqua was his underling, he didn’t need to worry much. As a mere avatar, Clyde’s current combat power was not equal to his final form’s, and he was a lot weaker than his own kin Ithaqua.
“Ithaqua, how did you all find this plane?”
“Lord Azathoth told me your position. Lord Cthulhu also seemed to know. He just can’t find the way to arrive. Those mummies’ masters received your protection, so we are helping them in passing.”
Clyde vaguely remembered that Cthulhu and Hastur were arch-enemies/rivals. Fortunately, Cthulhu hadn’t found a way here; otherwise, this different world would have turned into the battlefield of The Great Old Ones. After confirming that those shadows were all his own kin, Clyde made them continue to help him monitor the battlefield here. As for himself, he went to Murmans Regal Pyramid to see whether he could find a way to remove the divine seals on the coffins of Cursed Queen Lafania and her younger sister Nightmare Queen Mephis.
Originally, Clyde had wanted to wait for Valkyrie Cynthia to deal with these divine seals; however, the current situation didn’t allow for him to wait for Valkyrie Cynthia; thus, Clyde decided to try some other methods.
