Reincarnated In a Cthulhu World And Everyone Is Obsessed With Me - Chapter 36

Chapter 36: Ruin – A legalist’s hell, a chaotician’s heaven.

“Hey, Old Man Iron, my mechanical arm is completely trashed!”

A hulking shadow blocked the natural light filtering into Gustav’s workspace. Scott, a man of massive build and knotted muscles, grumbled furiously. “It’s madness! The arena master just released a dozen Facehuggers into the coliseum!”

Gustav let out a cold snort of disinterest. He shifted slightly, using the dim light to continue soldering the circuitry of a mechanical limb. In the Northern Ruin, it was a known law: a product from Gustav’s hands never failed.

“Your physical constitution couldn’t handle an A-class limb, but you insisted,” Gustav said without looking up. “You gambled in the arena, lost due to your own lack of skill, and now you blame my craft? There’s no after-sales service here. Go ask the ghosts for a refund.”

Infuriated, Scott pulled a gun and aimed it at Gustav’s forehead. Gustav only smiled contemptuously. In Scott’s blind spot, eight massive mechanical legs, shaped like a spider’s, descended silently from the ceiling.

…

In the Ruin, one could find almost any “faith.” Faith in slaughter, in sex, in death; faith in powerful gods or in science that had long since left humanity behind. It was a land of no faith, a place abandoned by the “civilized” bases, overflowing with pollution and hidden dangers.

Gustav returned to his shop—known as the “Old Man’s Nest.” He walked past the capsule-like rooms to the largest storage area. After an iris scan, he pulled out an A-class prosthetic for a high-level Sentinel from the Hunting Guild.

In the operating room next door, his young assistant, Archer, was already using a mechanical saw on the Sentinel’s lower legs. The Sentinel howled like a stuck pig; the local anesthesia was barely holding.

Archer, a boy with a scar running across his face, signaled in sign language: “He said even if I go into the treatment pod every day, I’ll never kiss Snow White awake.”

Gustav laughed. “He’s just bitter. Go on, Archer, go wash your face.”

After Archer left, the Sentinel grumbled, “I just see him sneaking in and out of that treatment pod every day. He won’t say who’s in there. Secretive… like he’s hiding a lover.”

Gustav smiled. “He did pick up a ‘Snow White,’ though the gender needs swapping. Whether he lives or not, I still don’t know.”

A few days ago, Archer had been hunting monsters for materials. He got cornered but was guided back to the Ruin by a massive Monarch Butterfly. The butterfly led him to a man lying in a pool of blood in the desert. Archer brought him back, and Gustav, who had a soft spot for the boy, threw the stranger into a treatment pod.

…

Inside the pod, Xia Mingyu drifted.

The Shining Trapezohedron had shattered at his fingertips, becoming a galactic waterfall of entropy. Like a nutshell, it had broken. Inside that shell, he had been God, the Rule, the Truth. Outside, he was just a human shell, burnt out and exhausted. He had bet everything to fight the unnamable entities from the void. Now, he just wanted to sleep.

Slowly, his consciousness returned. He felt the warmth of the treatment fluid. He was safe.

Gustav watched him from outside the glass. The man in the pod had hair like thick seaweed, pale skin, and long lashes. He looked like a flawless specimen, a butterfly preserved in formalin. His vitals were climbing to “perfect” levels—too perfect.

Most shockingly, his mental pollution was zero. Gustav had watched it drop from human-breaking levels to nothing, as if the man were “digesting” the corruption internally. In a world where pollution destruction was irreversible without a Guide, this was a miracle.

…

Xia Mingyu woke. As he opened his eyes, the treatment fluid receded.

He was completely blind. He couldn’t see the room, but his mental power captured everything. He sensed the cold metal of the pod and the presence of others. Behind him, thousands of butterflies—his mental bodies—surged out. They were invisible to the residents of the Ruin, but the shockwave of mental energy was so powerful it made warriors outside the shop shiver.

Archer entered with clothes. He was a mute, so he took Xia Mingyu’s hand and pressed it to his forehead, sharing information through a mental link. Xia Mingyu understood: he was in the Northern Ruin, saved by Gustav and Archer.

“Thank you, Archer,” Xia Mingyu said, his voice gentle and melodic.

Archer gave him a set of clothes—a low-cut, flamboyant silk shirt with lace and flowing trousers. It looked like a stage costume, but on Xia Mingyu, it looked divine.

Gustav gave him a silver mask to hide his hollowed eyes and a cane made of a special metal that felt warm to the touch.

“Welcome to the Northern Ruin,” Gustav said, pouring a glass of absinthe and lighting it on fire. “A legalist’s hell, a chaotician’s heaven.”

…

Gustav explained the science of prosthetics. They were made from monster bone minerals that were chemically inert but highly sensitive to a Sentinel’s or Guide’s mental power.

“I can give you eyes,” Gustav said. “But the metal I need is either stripped from a rare monster or won as the top prize in the Arena. It’s been the unclaimed trophy for a year.”

“I’ll get it for you,” Xia Mingyu said calmly.

Suddenly, the ground shook. A massive rift had opened in the sky near the Ruin— a fluorescent red crack indicating a high-level mental pollution event. A monster tide was coming.

Xia Mingyu stood up. His long hair flowed like a waterfall. “Since I’m already blind, I might as well go out,” he smiled.

He walked out, leaning on his cane. To others, he looked like a blind beggar in eccentric clothes, but his steps were steady. In his mental vision, he saw the rift—a jagged wound in reality.

He wouldn’t fight as a warrior today. He would be the Strategist of the Battlefield, a Guide standing above the carnage.