Reincarnated In a Cthulhu World And Everyone Is Obsessed With Me - Chapter 46

Chapter 46: Blue Moon – The body is but a husk; the soul is the master.

Have you seen the hellscape of ten thousand people fleeing? Man and beast are indistinguishable, chasing, slaughtering, and devouring each other. Humanity and morality are discarded like trash while demons wander the earth.

Have you experienced betrayal by your most intimate companion, who cuts out your organs and feasts on your flesh? You are powerless, at their mercy. Their guilt is more piercing than their sneers. You survive, gasping for breath, yet you are already dead.

He had seen it. He had experienced it. He knew it all. After the “Sentinel-Guide” hierarchy relegated him to a “useless person,” he was driven out of the human bases and drifted to the Ruin.

…

Perhaps the most influential phrase from Limbo was: “Dress this skin up well for me.”

Xia Mingyu thought of this numbly. Limbo No. 0, the flamboyant “floral shirt” worker, was currently obsessed with transforming Xia into a “Perfect Beauty.”

Xia Mingyu caught Limbo’s trembling right hand. “Let me do it.”

Limbo had been hesitating over the eyeliner for a long time. Xia took the brush and, with a single fluid motion—a muscle memory etched into him by his past as an assassin—flicked the wing upward. It was enchanting, sharp, and graceful. He was more skilled at drawing eyebrows than wielding a sword.

“Ah, Beauty, you are…” Limbo’s heart rate accelerated. His morbid desire for possession was being satisfied.

Xia Mingyu sat coldly in his shackles, like a silent statue. Limbo leaned in, whispering, “Death and Desire—those are the iron laws of the Ruin. Don’t we share that? Won’t you stay with me forever?”

Limbo begged for a kiss. Xia Mingyu replied flatly, “If you insist on seeking death.”

The moment Limbo’s lips moved toward him, Xia’s neck chains tightened, ending the man’s life. The warm corpse collapsed into Xia’s lap with a satisfied smile.

…

“You killed the only Limbo who knew how to clean up the mess,” said Limbo No. 3, her voice icy. She was braiding Xia’s hair, securing a high ponytail with a colorful cord.

“You care about this cord. Did Archer give it to you?” she asked.

“Why do you ask?”

“Because… only he would like something like this,” she sighed. “If it were from him, I’d go to the Iron Nest and kill him right now.”

She fitted Xia with two prosthetic eyes—brilliant red and black, like dark rivers, masking his blindness. “Cherish your body. Stop sacrificing your eyes—or any part of you.”

…

The Domain covering the Northern Base was collapsing. Extreme weather—downbursts and blizzards—hammered the earth. Visibility was non-existent, and the temperature dropped to negative one hundred degrees.

In the midst of this apocalypse, a massive, quiet, and eerie Blue Moon phantom hung in the sky.

“Do you like the blue moon?” asked Limbo No. 5. He spoke stiffly but liked to talk. He held a thin chain connected to Xia Mingyu’s suppressors.

Xia Mingyu whispered, “The Blue Moon…” He had seen it in his delirium. Along with Sheikh.

As they walked, the ground began to heave. The Damocles sword had finally fallen. The Northern Base’s Domain shattered like an eggshell, birthing a tide of monsters.

“Don’t go any further… your body can’t take it,” Limbo pleaded. He knew how broken Xia was.

Xia leaned in and whispered, “Is the way I cough up blood beautiful? I calculated the angle perfectly, fearing you wouldn’t be soft-hearted.”

Limbo shook his head frantically. “I’ll give you my life! A thousand times! Just… let’s go back!”

“But Limbo,” Xia said softly, his hand pressing into Limbo’s chest, “You died a long time ago.”

…

Years ago, during a sacrificial ritual in the Ruin, Limbo was the one on the pyre. He had prayed to every god, but only He—the Great One from beyond—answered.

Limbo’s weak, broken body was cast aside. His consciousness and soul were archived into data. He became a vast engine, his heartbeat synced with the Ruin. He was no longer a person; he was LIMBO—the edge of hell.

He created “human” shells: Limbo No. 0, No. 3, No. 5… Each was an avatar of his fragmented personality. He was everywhere in the Ruin, yet he was trapped in a two-dimensional, noisy world of data.

Then, he saw Xia Mingyu, who carried a radiance similar to his “Master.”

…

Xia Mingyu’s fingers broke through Limbo’s synthetic skin, snapping a rib. “Not this one?”

“When did you realize?” Limbo asked.

“You left too many flaws,” Xia replied.

Xia could see the blue moonlight pulsing through Limbo like a tide. He methodically dismantled the puppet’s body. Limbo didn’t struggle; he watched Xia with a sweetness in his eyes.

“You will die,” Limbo said. He wouldn’t unlock the suppressors. The shackles were the tightest link between them.

Xia dismantled Limbo’s mouth and threw it off the cliff. Then he broke Limbo’s legs.

Suddenly, Limbo lunged, choking Xia. He wasn’t trying to kill him—he was trying to “upload” him. “Become like me… we will be together forever… ignoring the world until it ends…”

Fluorescent light began to glow on Xia’s neck. Limbo’s data was pouring into him.

Finally, Xia saw the core. It was in the heel—the true Achilles’ heel. Xia’s upper body was frozen, so he knelt and used his heavy shackles to smash the heel.

Limbo crashed. The data transfer stopped.

Xia threw the remaining parts of Limbo off the cliff into the hungry mouths of the monsters below. He was exhausted. Ahead was the monster tide; behind was the Ruin where Limbo would eventually reform.

The sound of a massive avalanche roared like thunder.

Xia Mingyu knelt at the edge of the cliff. The Blue Moon was peaceful, unlike this world. He tore off the heavy veil, the jewelry, and the long velvet skirt.

Before the blizzard could swallow him, he leaped into the abyss.

Better a vivid death than a trapped life.