Chapter 102: CH 102

In China it was nine in the morning, while in the United States, on the opposite side of the planet, it was exactly nine P.M. Night had just fallen.

In an alley in Boston, space itself was quietly torn open, revealing something shadowy inside it.

A gray-haired evil god in a dark khaki trench coat slowly walked out. He was holding the hand of a black-haired young man. 

The street lights were dim, and the warm yellow light from above haloed Zong Yan’s head, gilding his hair with a layer of gold, making his dark eyes shine with a starry glow.

Yog casually took his other hand and stepped forward. A second later, the cold and deserted street around them changed dramatically again.

For a moment Zong Yan thought he’d seen a multi-colored streamer of light flicker and fade away.

Wait, multi-colored light…?

On some level he thought it was familiar and wanted to think about it more, but the little flash of inspiration passed him by too quickly, and he couldn’t catch it.

The scene around him changed too rapidly for him to concentrate. Both sides of the street transformed from modern minimalist architecture to baroque medieval spires. Steam rose vigorously from a peak above the central auditorium. A tangle of massive gears turned inside the mechanism, and the grooves in the central cogwheel interlocked and slowly rotated.

Once again they’d traversed the dimensions, easily crossing the threshold of the Gate of Truth, entering the border of the Dreamlands where Miskatonic University was located.

Most of the time, MU matched the time zone of the city where the Gate of Truth was located. It was night time in Boston, so it was also dark inside MU.

The young investigators who graduated from MU every year were always in demand. It was said that graduates were not only sought after by the Spire Council and various national organizations. The world’s cults also actively recruited fresh underlings.

Right now, the cradle of investigators and cultist double agents was silent under the night sky, as quiet as a statue standing in the dark.

Zong Yan’s premonition that something was wrong grew stronger and stronger.

It was really too quiet, so quiet it felt eerie.

It wasn’t like he’d never toured MU after dark. He used to wander around in the middle of the night with his Night Watchman persona. He wasn’t afraid of being caught by the professor on night patrol. After all, he could hide in the shadows whenever he wanted. It was simply a must-have ability for home robbery and arson.

MU was built on the ocean shore of the Dreamlands. Ghouls were active at night, but the ghouls in the Dreamlands weren’t the same as the ghouls who made trouble in New York. The Dreamlands ghouls believed in Nodens, were law-abiding, and maintained a friendly relationship with MU. Occasionally, the ghouls would make arrangements with the nightgaunts to play exciting high-altitude disco games in the middle of the night. In short, it was rare for MU to be so quiet.

“What’s going on? Has the jade piece of R’lyeh already been stolen?” Zong Yan blinked in surprise, glanced over and asked.

The black-haired young man didn’t realize that after encountering something strange, his first instinctive reaction was to turn to an evil god.

He’d unknowingly developed an emotion similar to “dependence”.

The Lord of the Gate didn’t overlook this detail. With pleasure he crooked the corner of his mouth. “Not yet.”

Zong Yan gave him a puzzled look.

“But it will happen soon.”

Yog said nothing more. Instead he pointed a distance away and signaled for Zong Yan to look straight ahead.

Almost immediately after these words left the mouth of the all-knowing, all-seeing god, the long toll of a bell echoed through the campus.

Between the auditorium and the cafeteria of Miskatonic University was a long walkway known as the atrium.

In the middle of the atrium stood a tall, golden alchemical clock. It was said to be a magical artifact recovered from an ancient ruin, and it could accurately predict the approach of major disasters. It was called “Cassandra”, named after the priestess of the Sun God from ancient Greek mythology.

Cassandra was one of the greatest treasures of MU. When the university was still located in the United States, it was attacked multiple times by cultists. MU was always able to prepare in advance because of this alchemical warning system.

Later on, when MU moved to the border of the Dreamlands, they naturally relocated Cassandra as well.

The Dreamlands contained a high concentration of magical power. When professors from the Department of Alchemy were bored and ran out of things to do, they decided to make Cassandra the focus of a large alchemical formation constructed on the ground. Supposedly, one of the graduation tests for each class of MU students was to help reinforce this alchemical array.

Dong—Dong—Dong—

The distant sound of the bell resounded under the otherwise silent night sky. Magic patterns on the walking paths that were normally invisible lit up one by one, glowing with a mysterious, arcane light in the darkness.

In the residential area, the villa windows that had been dark began to light up one by one.

Professors and students struggled out of their blankets and hurried into their clothes.

During the previous incident in New York, MU performed regular emergency drills. Each time, everyone woke up in the middle of the night and was forced to assemble in the open space in front of the school. So this time everyone still reacted quickly.

“If you’re looking for Paracelsus, he’s inside the auditorium,” Yog-Sothoth advised him kindly. “Perhaps I should mention, when I altered reality before, I twisted it a bit…. You can use those little cards of yours at will. No one will notice anything wrong.”

Zong Yan: “…”

At the moment, the Lord of Time and Space gave him a surprising feeling of reliability.

Zong Yan: “But Paracelsus is in the auditorium, not the central storeroom. It’s pointless to go find him. Maybe I should just start a fight?”

It was an awkward situation. Zong Yan was the only one who knew that Paracelsus was a villain.

And Paracelsus was in a powerful, prestigious position. Even if he tried to pretend he didn’t have any infiltrator friends in MU, Zong Yan wouldn’t believe it for a second. If Zong Yan hurried over and tried to arrest him, the end result would be embarrassing.

Wait. Zong Yan suddenly thought of something.

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He reached into a gap in space, took a card from a glittering seam in reality, and crushed it without any hesitation.

When the card shattered into fragments, a deep blue mist billowed up, filling the air.

A man in a crane cloak with scattered ink-black hair stepped out from the obscure, murky cloud. In his hair jingled a gold ornament in the shape of a moon and the stars. His face was cold and his eyebrows were lifted high. Everything about him was noble, inviolable, and detached.

This face was completely different from Zong Yan’s youthful high school student face. Not just the temperament but even the contours of his face were completely different.

“If I use this persona, I can just beat him up directly, right?”

The voice of the King in the Cloud was glacially cold, but his words left the evil god speechless for a moment.

The more Zong Yan thought about it, the more sense it made.

People in the occult world might be able to guess about the persona card of Apollo, the Sun God. But aside from saving Jiangzhou in the past, Zong Yan had basically never used the persona card of Yun Zhong Jun again in public.

That meant he could activate the Yun Zhong Jun persona card, throw caution to the wind, hunt down Paracelsus the cult leader, and beat him senseless. As the saying went, catch the ringleader before the other thieves. After Paracelsus was captured, his henchmen probably wouldn’t be able to accomplish much.

Besides, Yun Zhong Jun was a genuine Elder God, more than capable of fighting the Lord of Tindalos. This was the same as a dimensionality reduction strike against a human. No need to worry at all.

Zong Yan admired the brilliance of his own idea, then quickly activated the clouds around him and vanished.

The gray-haired evil god in the trench coat didn’t move.

His hands were in the pockets of his trench coat, and his golden eyes glittered with continual flashes of light.

Yog-Sothoth hadn’t told Zong Yan that Paracelsus transferred R’lyeh’s jade piece long ago.

Paracelsus had been dormant in Miskatonic University for a very long time, long enough to become an honorary member of the Spire Council. Most of the time, Chancellor Nicholas Flamel didn’t bother with university business. Paracelsus had become the primary leader and decision maker.

Moreover, Paracelsus was a genius gifted in alchemy and medicine. He’d even been involved in the most forbidden field of alchemy—human alchemy—and succeeded in creating new life out of nothingness.

However, his talent wasn’t great enough to refine the philosopher’s stone on his own. There had been many legendary figures throughout the ages. Nicholas Flamel learned how to refine the philosopher’s stone after receiving a dream from an angel, and Paracelsus followed his example. He searched ancient books and performed secret rituals, hoping the angel would also teach him how to make the philosopher’s stone.

In the end he got the recipe, but the being who taught him was an evil god.

In exchange for immortality he traded away his soul.

Later, Paracelsus infiltrated MU and waited for the great Cthulhu to recover.

As for the jade piece of R’lyeh, he stole it long ago. The point of today’s business was to make a show.

‘We’ll wait for the appointed people to arrive and discover the jade piece is missing. Then we can start the full-scale operation.’

The red-haired alchemist stood in the center of the auditorium, gazing up at the alchemical symbol of an eye in the ceiling.

He’d been alive for many years, from the Renaissance to the discovery of the New World, from the Age of Steam to the Age of Electricity, to the Information Age of today.

Paracelsus had lived a very long time, and the longer he lived, the greedier he became.

He knew that only by reviving the evil god could he reach the pinnacle of alchemy. As a man who’d sold his soul, he had no choice.

‘All we need to do is wait until tonight. When the jade of R’lyeh descends into the South Pacific… You will finally awaken from your long, healing slumber, O Lord.’

Paracelsus’s eyes were filled with a frenzy of excitement. He’d planned this for so many decades, and now he was even more determined to win.

Then—

He was suddenly punched across the auditorium.

And it was a punch to the face.

Paracelsus: ? ? ?

—

The author has something to say:

Zong Yan: Evil gods have hit me so many times with dimensionality reduction strikes, I finally learned to do the same to others. Smile.

Zong Yan: Don’t ask, just ask how you’ll be punched

TL Notes:

throw caution to the wind – 不管三七二十一 – no matter three, seven, twenty-one – casting all caution to the winds; come what may; in spite of anything; recklessly; regardless of the consequences

catch the ringleader before the other thieves – 擒贼先擒王 – catch the king before the thieves – capture the ringleader first in order to capture all his followers; Before you can get rid of the petty criminals you must catch their boss; Destroy the leader and the gang will collapse; To catch a snake by the head is good advice

dimensionality reduction strike – 降维打击 – A sci fi term from the science fiction novel The Three Body Problem by Liu Cixin (officially released in English and very popular). It means to attack a problem by reducing its spatial dimensions. To put it crudely, if you convert a 3D object to a 2D object and shred the paper it’s written on, it’s suddenly much easier to deal with

Don’t ask, just ask how you’ll be punched – 别问，问就是直接打 – “Don’t ask, just ask XXX/don’t ask, the question is XXX” is a popular insult meme from the DOTA2 e-sports circle (Baidu)

[ Project Page | Ko-Fi ✿ | Other translations by Confectioner ]

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