Reincarnated In a Cthulhu World And Everyone Is Obsessed With Me - Chapter 41

Chapter 41: Nightmare – Let your partner tell you the answer…

“—Delirium makes every night a nightmare.”

Chesapeake shed his tight inner jacket in the locker room, leaning against the wall with a sigh. A cigarette hung unlit from his lips—he knew Xia Mingyu hated nicotine.

Exhausted from a shift at Paradise Lost, Xia Mingyu reclined in his seat. He slowly loosened his tie, a faint smile playing on his lips. “That isn’t an excuse for seeking ‘consolation’ in a Sentinel’s bed every night.”

He closed his eyes—those dangerous, phoenix-tail eyes that kept him at the center of every storm. To survive Paradise Lost, he had to be more submissive than anyone, yet more rebellious than all.

Chesapeake’s expression turned solemn. “Xia Mingyu, are you sure you’ll never awaken?”

Xia Mingyu opened his eyes, their depths as still as a dead pond. “I’ve never even experienced delirium.”

Chesapeake shivered under that gaze and joked it off. “Right… just asking. If you were a Sentinel, I wouldn’t have to deal with those neurotic men.”

Xia Mingyu didn’t take the bait. “If I said I’d willingly endure the torture of delirium every night just to awaken, would I become one?”

Of course not. Delirium was the price of power. Xia Mingyu had never been chosen for the baptism of strength. He had been forced to struggle at the bottom, swallowing his pride to sell a harmless, polite smile—trading his beauty and intellect for cheap gold coins.

Until… his flickering life had been ended in the desert by the most powerful man of the apocalypse.

Regret? Resentment? No, his first thought back then had been: Release.

But now, as he drifted in a fever dream of past self-loathing and darkness, Gustav’s voice echoed: “You can’t imagine the damage you haven’t felt.”

His soul plummeted into a memory of a rainy night at the Base, suffocating under Ruan Congyun’s S-class pressure. Then, the vision shifted. He saw Tang Yaopeng covered in blood, crying for help. He heard Sea Amber whispering: “Whose pet are you?”

Is it worth it, Xia Mingyu? Losing your eyes for “comrades” you barely know? Are you truly as perfect as you claim? Do you not hate your own weakness?

The whispers grew into a deafening roar of despair. He allowed himself to sink into the numb, dead sea.

Suddenly, a blinding light tore through the depths. Xia Mingyu breathed in a lungful of oxygen. In the center of the light stood Sheikh.

Sheikh’s eyes were calm, like a blue-gold pond warmed by the sun—warm, yet sharp. He pulled off his black gloves, and a vast mental power, like a swirling nebula, gathered in his palm. Every atom of Xia Mingyu’s being trembled and shattered under that force.

Before the light faded, a clear, magnetic voice—Sheikh’s voice—echoed in his ear, more vivid than any broadcast.

“Chief, is it almost over?” a voice asked. “Yes, soon,” Sheikh replied. His voice was gentle, but hidden in the lower registers was a profound loneliness.

Even the powerful Sheikh had “human” emotions.

…

“—Mr. Xia Mingyu, wake up.”

A cold metal band snapped around his neck. Xia Mingyu bolted upright. Archer’s warm, firefly-like mental energy surrounded him.

Was it all a delirium? Past and present had blurred into one. He felt a sticky sensation on his face—blood. He tried to speak, but his voice had vanished. He cleared his throat painfully. “I’m fine… did I scare you?”

Archer remained unusually silent. The boy looked at a man who had been bleeding from every pore in the throes of delirium, only to wake up and worry about someone else.

Xia Mingyu touched the cold collar. “What is this?”

“A mental suppressor,” Gustav said, leaning against the wall. “It stops the delirium from seeping further. It’s a double-edged sword, but I had no choice.”

Gustav had been terrified. An S-class “Going Berserk” (Manic state) was a catastrophe he didn’t want to witness. Seeing the pale, withered state of the man before him, even the jaded Gustav felt a flicker of pity.

“Go wash up and change,” Gustav muttered.

As Xia Mingyu stood, a thunderous roar shook the earth—the aftershocks of a overlapping Domain near the Northern Base. Archer immediately covered Xia’s ears with his small hands. It was a futile gesture, but Xia Mingyu smiled softly. “Thank you.”

Gustav looked toward the North. “It’s almost over.” The storm that had hung over the Ruin for so long was finally reaching its end.

…

The warm water scalded him. He was cold as ice. The delirium had tried to salt every wound in his soul, mocking his fear and his “inferiority.”

His long hair clung to his bare skin like spilled ink. The dark silver suppressor ring around his throat was etched with strange runes that shimmered under the light. He submerged himself in the water, using the sensation of near-drowning to remind himself he was alive in the now.

He dressed in a new combat suit—it was actually an Shadow Guild uniform, though Gustav hadn’t mentioned it.

“Have you ever had a mental debriefing (mental soothing)?” Gustav asked as Xia emerged, donning his mask.

“No,” Xia replied. “How does a Guide perform a mental soothing on themselves?”

Gustav looked at him with a bizarre, half-amused expression. “You really don’t know?”

“What?”

“Ha.” Gustav’s tone turned suggestive. “Keep that question. Let your Sentinel partner tell you the answer someday.”

…

The Arena—or as the regulars called it, the Hunting Ground.

Here, slaughter and sex were two sides of the same coin; adrenaline and hormones were the same drug. There were no eternal winners or permanent hunters.

Sea Amber sat behind a glass wall on the top floor, sipping wine. Beside her was the “Killer Queen,” Selena, a Sentinel whose mental body was a vibrant, venomous snake.

The crowd roared for Selena, but the glass across from them held a man in a black suit—a subordinate of Sea Amber’s recently deceased lover. The black market was in chaos, and while he was fuming, he couldn’t touch her.

A girl in Sea Amber’s crew spoke into her earpiece. “Sister Amber, a man is here with your authorization, but he’s not registered.”

She held up a silver mask.

Sea Amber saw the tall man behind her. A slow smile spread across her lips. “Let him in. And take his mask. I want to see that face in the light of the arena.”

Selena, seeing Amber’s interest, began to warm up. Her snake flickered its tongue behind her. “Since he’s Sister Amber’s guest, I should ‘entertain’ him properly.”

Her voice was like a predator spitting out the bones of its prey.