Days as a Spiritual Mentor in American Comics

"Nya, you..."

Before Shiller could finish cursing, he noticed that the originally red blood began to blink with green light, intertwining blue and green, merging into the light of the ocean disappearing into the depths of the deep sea.

Terrifying whispers echoed in the cramped space. Shiller heard faint friction sounds by his ears, like the light noise of damp, smooth skin passing through seaweed, causing him waves of dizziness and nausea.

The book in front of him split open, its pages dissolving in the water, unfolding into a complete lake, from which a massive creature gradually rose from the lake's bottom.

Enduring a splitting headache, Shiller remembered the name he had just heard amidst those whispers—Cthulhu's Knight, "Othuum."

Tentacles stretched out from the lake, a huge head entwined with countless tentacles was rising from the surface. Its skin was a porous, gray-green color, with a large, constantly rotating golden eye in the center, and a vertically split mouth below filled with layers of tiny tentacles and teeth.

This was clearly not some cultist, Shiller realized; this was Cthulhu's knight, the Old Day Dominator Othuum!

"Oops." The voice of the Transcendent rang in Shiller's ear, "Didn't you all come out of that room? How did you still end up summoning it?"

Due to severe headaches and dizziness, Shiller could hardly speak. Humans could not directly face any Old Day Dominator, and the effect of the old seal was minimal.

Fortunately, they quickly entered the first round, and Shiller finally managed to pull away from his original feelings.

He heaved a sigh, resisting the urge to curse at Nya and asked the Transcendent, "Did you design the final boss as Othuum?"

"Yeah, I couldn't actually make you fight Cthulhu, could I?"

Shiller suddenly remembered, he thought the book was possessed by the evil spirit of a cultist because Nya had told him the book was alive, saying a cultist had sacrificed everything to form this book.

Nya, that damn liar!

Shiller felt that Nya might not have been lying, but he hadn't told the whole truth. Perhaps there really was a cultist who had sacrificed himself, using his own skin to bind this book, but the greatest danger hidden within wasn't some cultist—it was Othuum!

Once certain conditions were met, the Old Day Dominator Othuum would be summoned, and the final boss battle designed by the Transcendent was to fight this knight of Cthulhu.

There was very little information about Othuum, mentioned only in passing in the literature, saying Cthulhu occasionally contacted this Old Day Dominator, especially when he was angry.

Shiller understood that as Othuum being Cthulhu's secretary and best friend, to whom Cthulhu would vent his troubles.

But that was all in the records, mentioning only Othuum's personal life, saying nothing about his appearance and abilities, which placed Shiller in a very dangerous situation.

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

"Ha-ha, zero." The Transcendent was very blunt.

Yet seeming worried he'd be misunderstood as taking pleasure in others' misfortune, the Transcendent still explained, "In this scenario, if all your members are present, and you've collected more than 80% of the key items in this stage, there's roughly a 70% chance you can win."

"Win as in?"

"Expelling him."

"The chances of casualties?"

"100%."

After a pause, the Transcendent continued, "According to the style of the Cthulhu Mythos, humans cannot fight against the horrors from beyond the stars. Othuum is a lesser Old Day Dominator, barely manageable, but can only be expelled, and sacrifices are needed."

"Sacrifices as in?"

"Offering one's soul, becoming an Othuum Follower, which could give you some time, then using the old seal to drive him away."

Shiller roughly understood; they needed to find the old seal and a way to use it within the game sequence; then during the final battle phase, someone would step forward to sacrifice themselves to buy time while the others set up a formation to drive Othuum away to win.

Now Shiller had acquired the old seal, but this method of use was obviously rather superficial; nauseating a Deep Diver was one thing, but it was ineffective against Othuum.

Now though, he was alone, and it wasn't possible for him to sacrifice himself to buy time, and without a better method to use the old seal, buying time would not drive Othuum away.

Shiller sighed.

But fortunately, although they hadn't followed the script, they had still acquired the passing treasure box in the Captain's Room without completing the level, namely, the small sculpture weapon and the golden honey wine.

Shiller looked down at the wine bottle in his hand, hesitated for only a moment before pulling out the cork, and raised his head to swallow the golden liquid.

Instantly, the effect of the golden honey wine set in, and Shiller felt warmth bursting from his chest.

The colors denoting terror faded, in turn becoming dreamlike hues, orange, red, and yellow intermingling, reminiscent of a West Coast sunset.

Within those few seconds, Shiller seemed to see Earth's entire history progress from barren wilderness to modern society, witnessed alien spaceships, dogs dancing in skirts, Broadway theater performances, surrounded by a variety of lively, jubilant dance music.

The symptoms of dizziness and tinnitus completely vanished; breathing was no longer difficult as if he had been immersed in a beautiful dream.

After an indeterminate amount of time, Shiller felt someone shaking him.

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

Shiller suddenly woke up to see Batman crouching beside him, shaking his body.

Shiller's consciousness was still fuzzy until a hint of a bloody smell entered his nostrils, completely snapping him back to reality.

He sat up from the ground, felt the smell of alcohol all over himself, looked down at the bottle in his hand, and it took him several seconds to realize what had happened before.

"I'm okay," he said, his voice sounding a bit hoarse, then cleared his throat.

"What did you encounter?"

"Old Day Dominator... never mind, when did you get here?"

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

Shiller followed Batman's gaze and discovered that "Water God Ketayat" had not been destroyed; it just lay there on the ground, as if everything that had just happened was only his illusion.

But Shiller was sure it wasn't; the disasters that twice destroyed the fleets were the coming of Old Day Dominator Othuum.

Shiller sat up straight, took a deep breath to get his brain working again, and said, "There was a bit of a problem just now, the Old Day Dominator arrived, and I drank the wine to preserve myself. How about you?"

"I was a bit late getting out, clashed with some people from the Church, got some minor injuries, but nothing serious."

Then Batman handed him a bag; he returned Shiller's gun to him and said, "I've modified this gun. You load it here, and it can aim and shoot normally."

"I modified the stun rod again; its safety has significantly increased. I tested it on some people from the Church; the lethality is quite impressive."

"Are you hurt?"

"Yes, they are professionally trained, and they had guns." Batman nodded and said, "I was shot in the calf but I removed the bullet and dressed the wound after getting away from the danger. It's not a big problem."

Batman took out some food and water from the bag; they replenished on spot. As Shiller ate, he called out, "Nya, come out; let's talk."

Nya didn't make a sound.

"You should know any person can write a novel." Shiller's tone carried a threat as he said, "If you continue to be silent, I'll take it as you agree that I should send our chat record out."

"I didn't expect you to be so straightforward." Nya said, "It seems you really detest mental instability."

"I do indeed detest mental instability, but not drinking the wine under these circumstances isn't about mental instability; I would have died a gruesome death, and all thanks to you."

"But all this could have been avoided, reading a novel isn't that hard for you."

"But this novel was written by Constantine, about you. The combined lethality is almost beyond Bruce's thesis; not wanting to read it is the normal reaction."

"You have a huge bias against both novelists and me."

"And your actions just now confirmed my bias."

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

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

Nya fell silent again.

Suddenly, Batman said, "Maybe you should take a look."

"Why?"

"I can barely stand the two of them bad-mouthing you in my mind," Batman said. "They say you are impenetrable and unreasonable…"

"Is that the tone to plead?"

"You said this is a fair trade," Nya responded.

"You do business like this?"

"I have no intention of engaging in a verbal duel with you, just tell me what it'll take for you to read."

"Is that because you always end up losing the verbal battles?" Shiller scoffed, "Tricking me over this isn't going to be that easy."

"I can offer you some compensation."

"What compensation?"

As soon as Shiller spoke, a crisp sound came from behind; he turned to see it was a bottle of red wine.

He handed the red wine to Batman; Batman rotated the bottle and said, "It's a great wine."

"Is that all? I'm not as easily fooled as Arrogant."

"You can check it yourself."

Skeptically, Shiller activated his Cthulhu Mythos Skill and quickly learned about the information of this bottle of red wine.

"Nya's compensation gift: A bottle of golden vintage red wine, emitting a tempting aroma, consuming it decreases 100% mental health value, sinking into endless illusions, unable to be awakened."

Shiller's eyes widened slightly, wow, pure poison, not even disguised.

He told Batman about the effect, but Batman said, "To others it is poison, but not to you."

Shiller then realized too, yes, a normal person having their sanity bottom out would go mad, but for Shiller, his sanity bottoming out meant he would fall into illusions, so this negative state was practically non-existent for him.

That is, this was a bottle of poison that Shiller could drink, but if anyone else drank it, it would be deadly.

Immediately, Shiller thought of a way to use this thing.

From that Black man's hints and deducing a series of clues, Shiller felt the so-called Great Prophet Gad was probably a fake.

Who among those faking could refuse to share a drink with an enemy?