Reincarnated In a Cthulhu World And Everyone Is Obsessed With Me - Chapter 4

Chapter 4: Delirium

It is calling to him.

It was very late when Xia Mingyu left the hole-in-the-wall eatery.

The base at night was like a city of the dead. He walked alone through the darkness, not a single soul in sight. He kept himself covered from head to toe.

That “Guide pheromone”—something he had never felt before—had caused a massive riot in Paradise Lost tonight. Nie Yinniang’s final “strong dose” must have temporarily sealed his scent, allowing him to move freely like an invisible man for now.

“Guide.”

It was almost comical. He had been reborn, not genetically mutated. He hadn’t even gone through a proper Delirium Phase.

Wait—what if the “previous life” in his memory was actually one long, protracted Delirium?

Paradise Lost was real, Nie Yinniang and Chesapeake were real… but did that mean he was necessarily real? Could a person truly master expert survival and combat skills within a dream?

Xia Mingyu knitted his brows slightly, belatedly noticing a cold sensation on the back of his hand.

A drizzling rain had begun to fall over the base.

Generally, it never rained in the base. There were no living things here that required irrigation. Only when the blood of the dead and injured accumulated too much for the water filtration system to handle would the base turn the semi-purified liquid into rain, letting it fall from the sky-canopy.

The first time he saw rain in the Southern Base, Xia Mingyu had been excited. It had been so long since he’d seen water that wasn’t highly acidic or polluted. But after learning the truth, he felt only despair. Another hope had turned to ash.

The rain pattered against the metal ground like the ticking of an hourglass, counting down his fragile life. The falling droplets reflected the cold, cybernetic lights of the night—a recurring cycle of death.

Who knew if the next rainfall would be his own blood?

Xia Mingyu tilted his head back, letting the turbid, iron-scented rain soak him. The weeping canopy looked mournful.

The rain lasted a long time that night.

When Xia Mingyu returned to the unified dormitory, the inspector stepped out of the monitoring room on the first floor. Leaning against the door, he asked, “No. 2215 Xia Mingyu, why are you back so late?”

Though there were rules against late returns, the inspectors usually didn’t bother enforcing them. However, Xia Mingyu was so beautiful that people always looked for excuses to talk to him.

Xia Mingyu was drenched. He lowered his hood and mask, revealing a face of breathtaking beauty. With the cool raindrops tracing his features, he possessed a delicate, fragile vulnerability.

Like a white flower drifting in the rain.

“Looking for work,” Xia Mingyu replied indifferently. His eyes held a deep, sorrowful emotion, turning his usual “peach blossom” charm into something cold and thin.

Before stepping aside, the inspector glanced at him again. Xia Mingyu’s expression was now sharp and cold, his slight frown adding a touch of overbearing pride. The fragile “white flower” had transformed into a seductive ghost seeking a soul in the rain.

The inspector clicked his tongue. He felt a strange ache in his temples, like a needle pricking the very center of his mental stability.

Back in his cramped, cold metal room, Xia Mingyu efficiently packed his belongings into a single backpack. It was light—everything he owned after the Great Migration.

Thinking of the inspector’s blatant lust, Xia Mingyu felt a surge of nausea. To be looked at by that man for one more second would shorten his lifespan. He decided to take his bags to the Church tomorrow. Whether his “Awakening” succeeded or not, he wasn’t coming back to this hellhole.

In his previous life, Xia Mingyu had lived here for a long time. Poor and without connections, he couldn’t move, forced to endure the inspector’s increasingly invasive surveillance. The man never actually made a move—not out of conscience, but because Xia Mingyu’s face had attracted too much “attention” from powerful figures. The inspector knew he couldn’t afford to offend them.

Recalling those miserable days, Xia Mingyu tossed and turned on the hard bed before finally getting up to do planks. This body’s physical foundation was far too weak.

In the Ruins, he had met a kind Sentinel named Yin who took care of him and taught him close-quarters combat. Only then did he build himself up. This time, Xia Mingyu intended to take control of his survival much sooner.

He exercised until the dead of night, then took a quick cold shower. The water supply was strangely plentiful tonight; Xia Mingyu forced himself not to think about why.

Exhausted, he fell asleep the moment his head hit the pillow. But for him, this night was destined to be restless.

Xia Mingyu had an incredibly long dream—so long it felt as if eons had passed.

He was submerged at the deepest part of the ocean, eternally watching the rise and fall of civilizations on land. Damp, dark green monoliths reflected a brilliance that defied the laws of optics, only to turn into a stinking sludge under his gaze.

There were carvings on the pyramidal altar… faint, shifting… like bizarre runes. Whenever he tried to see them clearly, the runes would squirm, causing a sickening dizziness.

A voice echoed from the void—wavering, haunting, pained.

It was calling to him. It was luring him.

…What was It?

Xia Mingyu jolted awake, touching his forehead. He was burning up as if from a lethal fever, yet he was drenched in cold sweat.

Madness. Pure madness.

His heart hammered against his ribs. Inside the dream, he had felt only pain and… sadness. Upon waking, he was consumed by a vast, unknown horror. It was an unspeakable terror, a memory etched into his mind with jagged edges, leaving him nowhere to hide.

Is this Delirium?

This was the first time Xia Mingyu had experienced mental pollution of this magnitude. He finally understood why so many people chose to end their lives rather than endure the Delirium Phase.

Thin morning light seeped through the small window. It was dawn. After washing up and packing his bags, he left the base. He didn’t have the time or energy to figure out why this was happening. In the apocalypse, survival was the only priority.

Someone had once told him: “Don’t live too clearly; ignorance is bliss.”

Having been an ordinary person for so long, Xia Mingyu had to ask for directions to the “Church” along the way. Curiously, he had never seen a Church in any base; his knowledge of it was purely theoretical. Most ordinary people were just as clueless about its exact location.

After several wrong turns, he accidentally found himself standing before the Sentry Tower.

The Sentry Tower of Southern Base No. 1, also known as the Grand Tower, was a magnificent, all-white structure. Together with the “Sanctuary” that managed Guides, they were known as the two great architectural marvels of the end times.

Three years ago, the first Chief Sentinel, Ao Nie, was appointed here. Soon, the second Chief, Xie He, would stand atop this tower to receive the medal symbolizing the pinnacle of human power.

The glory of the world, the weight of thousands, and the future of humanity were all being placed on the shoulders of this young War God.

Xia Mingyu admitted to himself that for a long time, he had fantasized about awakening as a Sentinel after a terrifying Delirium. A huge part of that reason was Xie He.

The six known S-Ranks in the world—five Sentinels and one Guide—formed the cores of the Three Great Guilds. Xie He’s Shadow Guild was the leader, followed by Ao Nie’s Nirvana Guild, and the Hunting Guild founded by the mysterious Guide.

The guilds differed in their treatment of ordinary people. Ao Nie advocated for their protection, giving him and Nirvana a stellar reputation. The Hunting Guild rarely helped with migrations, focusing only on the interests of Sentinels and Guides. Meanwhile, the Shadow Guild tended to be neutral and elusive.

However, a subtle balance had been maintained between them—until the tenth year, when factional wars broke out as the bases fell to ruin. In that chaos, the Shadow Guild remained “neutral.”

Xia Mingyu suspected it wasn’t neutrality, but “indifference.” Indifference to the bases, indifference to the power struggles. Their only concern was the truth behind the apocalypse and the fog surrounding humanity’s future.

In ten years, Xie He had entered over ten thousand Domains and Territories—many of them grueling S-Ranks. This was a number most combatants couldn’t reach in a lifetime. It was almost like a form of self-mutilation.

Rumor had it that Xie He had grown so powerful he could harvest several large Domains in a single day, his combat power reaching a level that inspired fear. Some speculated he had gone mad from a decade of slaughter and pollution; others claimed he was a monster born for the end times.

During his days in the Ruins, Xia Mingyu would listen to the radio while practicing his combat moves. When his body ached with exhaustion, he would wonder: How does Xie He keep going?

Ten years. The combat career of a Sentinel or Guide was usually very short. Brother Yin, who taught him to fight, had been a Sentinel for five years—a feat unheard of in the Ruins.

But ten whole years? Xia Mingyu didn’t dare think too deeply about it.

It seemed to be Xie He’s destiny—to be born to seek the truth and fight relentlessly to expand the boundaries of human survival… until the day he inevitably died on the battlefield.

Perhaps Xie He was seeking the same end as Ao Nie: to be a martyr.

Xia Mingyu shielded his eyes from the harsh light of the canopy. Before him, the white Sentry Tower seemed to be shrouded in the dark mist of “Shadow.” The entire tower stood under the massive silhouette named “Xie He.”

In the boundless shadows and unknown horrors, one figure always stood at the very front, holding back the storm of the apocalypse by his strength alone.

If given the chance, Xia Mingyu truly wanted to ask the twenty-year-old Chief Xie: What is it that supports you?

Was it truly “conviction,” as people said? Could someone really be that pure in the midst of the end of the world?