Reincarnated In a Cthulhu World And Everyone Is Obsessed With Me - Chapter 1

Chapter 1: Rebirth

The despair of the apocalypse… a feeling so familiar it is etched into my very marrow.

Prologue

Xia Mingyu fell into a vast, boundless, delirious dream.

He dreamed he was traversing a damp city of giant stones. Silence reigned; even his footsteps were as quiet as a ghost’s.

Slippery green monoliths lay scattered at odd angles. Bridges carved with grotesque bas-reliefs seemed to stretch on forever, and beneath their arches flowed a silent, black river.

Atop a recessed pyramidal altar crouched a terrifying, octopus-headed monster forged from strange metal. Seated upon a pedestal etched with hieroglyphs, It gazed down upon all living things with cold disdain.

Inexplicably, Xia Mingyu felt a sense of familiarity and kinship, as if he and It had once been one—flesh connected, souls merged.

A low murmur echoed from the void: “I… return… the end of the world…”

The words were indistinct, but a bone-deep agony struck him like a tidal wave. Xia Mingyu touched his cheek and felt a trail of cold moisture.

Was it tears? Seawater? Or…

A curse?

…

An old, battered radio crackled to life: “New Era Year 5, September 13th. Overcast with rain. Mental pollution levels in Southern Base No. 1 are Grade F, judged safe. According to statistics, 46,789 people entered the delirium phase yesterday; 21,536 were exiled…”

…His head felt like it was splitting open.

In his hazy vision, shifting sands surged. The blade that had pierced his heart shimmered with a cold light. The Sentinel wielding the knife had bloodshot eyes, clearly in the throes of a “manic outbreak,” having completely lost his sanity.

Warm, crimson blood dripped down. Piercing pain swept through his entire body—

Xia Mingyu jerked awake, bolting upright from the hard cot. He panted heavily, dry-heaving in a state of lingering shock.

Wait… the surface beneath him was dry and soft.

Xia Mingyu regained his senses and looked around carefully.

He was sitting on a hard cot, dressed in the stiff-fiber uniform provided by the base. He was in a cramped, cold metal prefab house. A dim window allowed a faint glimmer of morning light to seep through.

The radio hadn’t stopped; a cold, mechanical female voice droned through the static: “…Since the total collapse of the nine Northern Bases, which have become the largest ruins of the New Era, Southern Base No. 1 has processed 147,362 enlistees as of yesterday. Today’s numbers are expected to exceed 30,000.”

…This wasn’t right.

According to his final memories, he should be in the tenth year of the apocalypse, lying in a pool of blood amidst the ruins, ending his young life in obscurity.

Perhaps that manic Sentinel died beside him shortly after. After all, almost no Sentinel survived a total outbreak.

But—

“…The total collapse of the Northern Bases,” Xia Mingyu whispered.

That was old news from the fifth year of the apocalypse. And there would never be a second “Northern Base” in the world.

Xia Mingyu had a vague suspicion. He got out of bed and walked to the washbasin. In the mirror was his own face—but younger.

…He had been reborn?

It sounded like a fantasy, but after ten years of being lashed by the apocalypse, Xia Mingyu calmed down quickly and began to analyze his current situation.

The end of the world began with a debate over a falling meteorite. Some insisted they saw it; others sneered at the idea.

That night, the stars arranged themselves in a bizarre pattern. When the dark clouds parted, they revealed a blood-red moon. That unknown meteorite, which had plunged into the ocean, eventually triggered an unprecedented global catastrophe of tsunamis and earthquakes.

Humanity suffered staggering losses, and that was merely the overture.

In response to nature’s call, mutated marine ecosystems—corrupted by nuclear pollution—claimed the oceans. The polar ice caps melted rapidly, releasing ancient viruses sealed away for eons.

Interference from radiation made technological progress grueling. Once the ocean became a forbidden zone, the continents were isolated into islands, and humanity’s defensive lines crumbled step by step.

Overnight, it was as if humanity had returned to the primitive, ignorant ages before the discovery of the New World.

And that illusory meteorite brought with it a collective delirium.

That terrifying dreamscape was as infectious as a virus. People’s souls were snatched away in their sleep. Most woke up mad, unable to endure the “unspeakable” mental torture, choosing to end their own lives.

At the same time, a tiny fraction of people awakened new senses and abilities after that delirium. Once the chaos stabilized into a new order, they were defined as “Sentinels” and “Guides.”

Sentinels possessed acute senses and powerful combat abilities, facing the ever-emerging monsters on the front lines. Guides possessed the ability to control mental energy, capable of soothing Sentinels who overused their powers, preventing delirium or manic outbreaks.

Sentinels and Guides were the most reliable combat force of the end times, but because they were as rare as phoenix feathers, human bases continued to fall one by one.

In the face of natural disaster, no one expected humanity to be so fragile.

And yet, the humans still optimistically referred to this in the news as the “New Era.”

Xia Mingyu lifted the hem of his shirt. Unsurprisingly, he saw shocking purple bruises all over his body.

In the fifth year of the apocalypse, the Northern Base fell, officially declaring failure and exile.

In the early stages of the end times, Xia Mingyu had lived a smooth life. Because of his family background and connections, he was assigned a cushy job in the Northern Base. He didn’t have to rush to the battlefield like the Sentinels and Guides, nor did he have to live in constant terror like everyone else.

Xia Mingyu’s mental strength was so stable it almost never fluctuated; he seemed immune to all mental pollution.

He had even evaded the collective delirium. However, because of this, he never had the chance to “awaken.” He wasn’t even a “half-finished product” of a failed awakening—he was a complete and utter ordinary person.

It wasn’t until the Northern Base was overrun and Xia Mingyu followed the main force in their wandering migration that he witnessed the cruelty and horror of the apocalypse for the first time.

To ensure the success of this great migration, every Sentinel and Guide union sent people to escort them. New teams arrived every day—which meant the previous ones were almost all dead.

The main force shrank rapidly from millions to just a few hundred thousand.

Even after witnessing it countless times, death remained terrifying. The Great Migration between North and South was when Xia Mingyu truly began to face the apocalypse.

Xia Mingyu picked up the newly opened medical disinfectants and medicines by the washbasin and began to treat his wounds.

In his memory, his past self had been scared out of his wits, thinking even disinfection was too painful, so he just curled up and slept—consequently, his wounds had festered.

Looking back at his former self, he had been childish and stubborn. He hadn’t been able to shed the spoiled habits of peaceful times, and in the end, he could only swallow his own blood.

Right now, these medicines were still being distributed in large quantities. In a year or two, they would become scarce. After ending up in the Ruins, any medicine was priceless, and he could only survive by relying on his natural immunity.

Before wrapping the bandage around his abdomen, Xia Mingyu looked down and frowned with some irritation. This body had not yet been trained or honed; it lacked power.

It was, frankly, a bit of a hassle.

Xia Mingyu was used to having lean muscle covering his bones, moving with agility and strength, with small weapons hidden all over his person. The sense of security provided by being fully armed was incomparable in the apocalypse.

The radio continued its tireless drone. Xia Mingyu couldn’t help but drift off, thinking back to his death.

Why was he exiled? Why did he end up in the Ruins? And why, in the desert region of the Ruins’ eleventh sector, did he encounter a lone, manic Sentinel…

His memory seemed to have a massive gap. There were no clues, and the more he tried to remember, the more his head ached.

Was this the price of rebirth?

A knock came from the door. “Southern Base No. 1, No. 2215 Xia Mingyu, come out for reporting.”

It was an organizational official of the Southern Base, the inspector in charge of the unified dormitories.

The inspector wore his uniform meticulously, flipping through a thick stack of paper documents with impatience. Due to the migration, many official records had been lost, including basic photographic information, which undoubtedly increased the workload.

The exiles entering the Southern Base had all filled out a brief profile. The handwriting on this specific paper showed a panicked tremor, but it wasn’t hard to see the elegant, free-spirited brushwork of the writer.

Tsk, only in his twenties? After the apocalypse, young people weren’t that common anymore.

Number 2215 was slow to open the door. Was he another unlucky soul who failed to survive the delirium phase? Just as the inspector was about to shout again, the door opened.

The moment he saw No. 2215, Xia Mingyu, the inspector froze involuntarily.

The young man behind the door had a face of intense beauty. It lacked color due to months of travel and exhaustion, but his thin lips were still vivid—the color of countless roses crushed into juice, strikingly bright.

Skin that was overly pale, supple long black hair, and a tall, bony frame. A pair of “peach blossom eyes” looked down at him slightly, his expression indifferent, but the small mole beneath his right eye added an unintentional touch of sensuality.

Standing there, he looked exactly like a “beautiful ghost” out of an old folk tale.

Xia Mingyu’s beauty was quite aggressive. The sheer shock of him opening the door was so strong that the inspector couldn’t say a word for a long time.

Xia Mingyu was accustomed to this reaction. He spoke calmly, “Hello. I am No. 2215, Xia Mingyu. Please lead the way.”

The inspector coughed awkwardly. “Then… this way, please.” He lowered the documents in his hand to hide an unprofessional physical reaction.

Xia Mingyu caught the movement out of the corner of his eye and gave a faint, emotionless sneer. Seeing this disgusting inspector again—is this also part of the price of rebirth?

In times of peace, beauty was a weapon to be pursued; in the apocalypse, if beauty was not matched by equal power, it became a liability that everyone craved.

This was Xia Mingyu’s “crime of the innocent” as an ordinary person.