Daily Disposable Persona - CH 81

Fortunately, Cthulhu didn’t delve into it.

Zong Yan was a little scared of the other party’s reaction, but he wasn’t especially afraid of being found out. After all, according to the timeline, animals like apes didn’t even exist yet. The only people on Earth right now were amphibious creatures and the Atlanteans, and their languages were completely different from the profound and elegant Chinese. There was no reason to worry about revealing the truth.

It was just… Do I really have to be an evil god from now on?

Zong Yan was a bit depressed.

But now that he couldn’t use his superpower anymore, he didn’t have much choice.

Compared to other people who’d lived and died, Zong Yan’s experience in the afterlife was reasonably similar. It was just that he’d avoided the process of drinking Meng Po soup, still retained the memories of his past life, and avoided the process of being judged in the Ten Courts of Hell.

‘For me, the college entrance exam, school, being MU chief… they’re all things from my old life.’

He secretly clenched his hands.

In the past, Zong Yan was a straight man of the science track. These kinds of thoughts never would have crossed his mind. But this was obviously different. After all, he was now a person who’d died. It was normal to grieve things that were gone.

So… It turned out the ancient Chinese myths and legends were correct. It really was necessary to drink Meng Po soup in the underworld to reincarnate, otherwise a person would go through all sorts of unnecessary trouble, just like Zong Yan.

Miskatonic University had been invaded left and right by evil gods. They probably never expected their chief would defect too.

I fought evil gods every day, but I never thought I’d become one. Nietzsche’s words really didn’t lie ah. You gaze into the abyss, and the abyss gazes into you.

Everything was meaningless now.

350 million years in the past, the human species didn’t exist. What was the point of talking about the college entrance exam?

Zong Yan suddenly began to feel depressed.

‘Hey, hey, of course no one wants to die. It’s normal to be a little sad about it, right?’

At that moment, the evil god who was silently holding his hand swept him a glance.

Cthulhu was puzzled.

He sensed very clearly that his other self wasn’t in a good mood.

Why was that?

If an evil god was in a bad mood, it was usually the result of anger. For example, whenever Cthulhu met his mortal enemy Hastur, his mood would plummet instantly and he’d launch endless attacks.

Aside from that, evil gods were quite stable emotionally. It was rare for their moods to fluctuate very much.

The longer they lived, the truer this became, just like Cthulhu. Time was meaningless to an evil god. No evil god would remember his birthday like a human, let alone celebrate it. Over such a long existence, their emotions were smoothed out. It was actually difficult feel such a thing as “interest”.

Therefore, many evil gods found things for themselves to do.

Nyarlathotep, for example, loved being entertained and liked to set up enemies for himself. Meanwhile, Cthulhu had built a city when he was bored.

Of course, it was difficult for human beings to understand the mind of an evil god. They were limited to using words like “boring” or “interesting” to try to understand them.

According to this logic, Zong Yan, who’d been able to arouse the interest of Yog-Sothoth, was relatively impressive.

After all, the Lord of Time and Space was an all-knowing, all-seeing god who could observe all the rivers of time. Among the three original proto-gods, he probably had the weakest desire.

Zong Yan was immersed in his thoughts, and it took him a while to return to himself.

When he raised his eyes to look at his new elder brother, he was caught in the act—

The other party was looking back at him with a slight sideways glance.

Those dark golden eyes were originally full of cold tyranny, but now he was standing in front of his own half-body, and his emotions were a bit restrained.

“You’re in a bad mood. Why?”

The Lord of R’lyeh had never been the type of person to evade an issue. He was a god, he was the king, and everyone should obey him.

A god wouldn’t bother to try to understand a mortal. Of course, that didn’t apply to his second self.

“Well…” For a rare moment Zong Yan was at a loss. He gazed at that pair of dark golden eyes with vertical pupils. “Maybe I’m a little confused because I just woke up.”

The evil god pondered for a little while.

Then he grasped Zong Yan’s hand and took a seemingly random step.

The next moment, the scene around them turned upside down, and they moved directly from the cold Arctic Circle to the sparkling, breezy Mediterranean coast.

In the future this would become the famous Strait of Gibraltar. Above it was the Iberian Peninsula, which belonged to Spain. Of course, right now it was the territory of the Lord of R’lyeh, including the island that stood nearby in the Atlantic.

That famous city rose from the edge of the Atlantic Ocean like a pearl.

Zong Yan had passed by this place with Cthulhu not long ago, but at the time he had something on his mind, so he only glanced at it.

Now that he was an evil god, his body was enhanced in unparalleled ways, including his vision. If he chose, he could see into the submolecular level. Similarly, he was able to see much farther away. Gazing across thousands of kilometers was a routine operation for an evil god.

So this time Zong Yan took a closer look at the inhabitants of Atlantis.

These people were very tall, and the power and intelligence of their bodies far exceeded modern humans. They had a third eye on their forehead, a bit like Erlang Shen, which shed its own light.

The architectural style of the city of Atlantis was drastically different from R’lyeh. The city of Atlantis consisted of concentric circles, divided into an inner and outer city, with a palace in the center. R’lyeh, on the other hand, exuded an unpleasant atmosphere and was structured with three levels. On the first level was an eerie palace, the middle layer contained tall towers and other city buildings, and the third level was below the sea and provided dwelling places for Cthulhu’s clan members.

Right now, all the inhabitants of Atlantis seemed to have come out of their houses. They stood outside, looking toward the center of the city.

What were they doing?

Zong Yan was confused. He wanted to take a closer look, but then he heard the cold voice of the evil god.

“Such arrogance.”

Zong Yan froze for a moment. Then he realized Cthulhu wasn’t talking to him.

“I slept for hardly a moment. I didn’t expect that in the meantime… They would dare to create something that rivalled the gods.”

The voice of the Lord of R’lyeh was laced with an endless amount of fire as well as ice. Zong Yan almost thought the hand that was holding his had turned into a cold and sticky tentacle.

This time there was no mistake. Displeasure was written all over the evil god’s face.

When he sensed the body of his second self was about to wake up, Cthulhu had activated the spell formation in his palace and went to the dark cave beneath R’lyeh.

In order to awaken Zong Yan, Cthulhu expended a great deal of effort, power, and time.

Time wasn’t important to an evil god, but things were different for humans.

Previously, Atlantis had just been built, and the king of Atlantis led his subjects to submit to the rule of the Great Cthulhu.

Unexpectedly, in the time it took Zong Yan to awaken, they had a change of heart.

Zong Yan had just acquired the body of an evil god. He was like a child with a treasure he didn’t know to use. Cthulhu’s control of power was naturally far superior.

“Something that rivals the gods?” Zong Yan was astonished.

“Indeed.” The evil god’s face revealed his displeasure. “Only R’lyeh possesses an eternal energy source. It serves as the core of the entire city and will power the incantations engraved on the city’s base indefinitely.”

Naturally, R’lyeh wasn’t an ordinary place. As the city of an evil god, every one of its buildings, including its shadowy base, was densely covered with magic patterns. This was what kept the city suspended over the sea and provided light as well as heat. The basis for its operation was an energy core in the center of the palace.

Cthulhu had brought this object from another galaxy. Hastur’s City of Carcosa had one, so Cthulhu went and got one too.

“These humans are now trying to build an imitation with the technology and magic they learned from R’lyeh.” Cthulhu’s tone was filled with the utmost contempt. “They are mere ants, and yet they try to touch the realm of the gods…”

Zong Yan was silent. After he heard Cthulhu speak, a strange feeling of indignation rose up inside him too.

There weren’t many things that could anger an evil god, but the instance before them was undoubtedly serious, like someone dancing on a minefield.

No evil god could tolerate such a provocation.

“Well, it may be a good thing.” The Lord of R’lyeh suddenly revealed an extremely cruel yet satisfied smile. “Weren’t you in a bad mood just now?”

Zong Yan suddenly had a nasty premonition. Sure enough, he heard Cthulhu say—

“I hope the blood of these tiny ants will please you, Zong Yan Didi. If so, their lives are not completely worthless.”

When he said Zong Yan’s name, the evil god’s tone completely changed. It was obvious he was trying to reproduce the Chinese pronunciation in the language of evil gods.

The bare-chested man casually hooked his finger.

A moment later, terror descended on the city.

The sky had been clear and cloudless, but now it was overcast. Terrible lightning rolled through the dark clouds.

The volcano on the seabed suddenly erupted, and the ocean, which had no waves for kilometers around, was lifted up by an invisible force, setting off a tsunami almost a hundred meters high.

The earth began to shake, visibly shattering and collapsing.

“My lord—! We meant no offense!”

The Atlanteans panicked. The third eye set in their foreheads opened, and they tried to use their technology and magic to stop the sudden disaster.

But it was no use.

The wrath of the evil god couldn’t be nullified so easily.

Only blood and souls could wash it away.

Fiery red magma flared up from the earth and scattered down in flurries, leaving scorched bones as the only testament.

Other Atlanteans struggled and drowned in the cold water, or fell into dark crevices of the earth.

The great lord of R’lyeh revoked the rewards he’d given his followers. The Atlanteans weren’t able to breathe underwater. The moment they fell into the sea, they were dragged into the eternal nightmare of the evil god. They stopped struggling and slowly sank to the bottom, as still as statues. Their faces were frozen in terror.

The earthquake weakened the base of the continent. The entire foundation of the island of Atlantis broke apart and began to tumble into the sea.

An indescribable tentacle emerged from behind Cthulhu. It slammed down hard, splitting the sea in two, leaving a deep trench in the ocean floor.

Atlantis slid into this trench and sank to the bottom.

Fiery red flames mingled with the deep blue sea and those desperate cries, and one by one, lives were extinguished by the god’s wrath.

A civilization that had developed for countless years, with technology and magic far beyond that of modern humans, ceased to exist in a moment.

To make things even worse, everything that just happened matched what Zong Yan learned in his ancient culture course at MU.

The historical Atlantis sank to the bottom of the sea after an earthquake and tsunami.

With this tragedy as a background, the Lord of R’lyeh leisurely stroked Zong Yan’s hair. “How is that, feeling better?”

—

The author has something to say:

Zong Yan: The way evil gods comfort people is really… unique

…

The humans of Atlantis aren’t the same species as our modern humans. You can treat them as an alien species

So don’t scold me for moral reasons 55555! Absolutely no misconceptions! The author is a good flower raised under the red flag!! It’s absolutely not a case of “three views are incorrect”!!

In the original work, Cthulhu’s favorite hobby is to drag people into a dream and drive them crazy. Don’t talk about morality with evil gods. Look at my desire to to survive (holds head and cowers)

TL Notes:

“profound, elegant” Chinese – 博大精深 – broad and profound; have extensive knowledge and profound scholarship; extensive and profound

Meng Po – 孟婆 – The goddess of forgetfulness in Chinese mythology who serves soup on the Bridge of Forgetfulness or Nai He Bridge (奈何桥). This soup wipes the memory of the person so they can reincarnate into the next life without the burdens of the previous life (Wikipedia)

Ten Courts of Hell – 十殿阎罗 – In Chinese mythology, the realm of the dead (“Diyu” – 地狱) is typically depicted as a subterranean maze with various levels and chambers to which souls are taken after death to atone for the sins they committed when they were alive. The exact number of levels in Diyu and their associated deities differ between Buddhist and Taoist interpretations. Some speak of three to four “courts”; others mention “Ten Courts of Hell”, each of which is ruled by a judge (collectively known as the Ten Yama Kings); other Chinese legends speak of the “Eighteen Levels of Hell”. Each court deals with a different aspect of atonement and different punishments; most legends claim that sinners are subjected to gruesome tortures until their “deaths”, after which they are restored to their original state for the torture to be repeated (Wikipedia)

grieve things that were gone – 伤春悲秋 – grieve over the passing of spring or feel sad with the advent of autumn; shed tears over the changes of seasons

invaded left and right – 成了筛 – turned into a sieve – pierced through with a lot of holes

gaze into the abyss etc. – 你凝视深渊，深渊也凝视你 – Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, Aphorism 146: “He who fights with monsters should take care that he himself does not become a monster. And if you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you.”

Erlang Shen – 二郎神 – A Chinese god with a third truth-seeing eye in the middle of his forehead. He may be a deified version of several semi-mythical folk heroes who helped regulate China’s torrential floods dating variously from the Qin, Sui, and Jin dynasties (Wikipedia)

Three Views – 三观 – A concept in Chinese thought which originally referred to a person’s outlook on the world, life, and values. The modern update, announced in 2007 by the PRC Ministry of Education, emphasizes the “new” three views of “career, work, and achievements” which is promulgated in ideological education. The “three views are not correct” (三观不正) is a popular phrase in Internet forums, describing something that subverts or corrupts one’s values and world outlook (Wikipedia)

holds head and cowers – 抱头蹲 – If you google the Chinese you’ll find lots of moe anime examples

55555 – Chinese internet slang. 555 (wǔwǔwǔ) represents 呜呜呜 (wūwūwū) the sound of tearful crying, but it’s more pitiful than sad (Wikipedia)

Cthulhu:

Image source: Xardwen – H.P. Lovecraft Wiki

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