Reincarnated In a Cthulhu World And Everyone Is Obsessed With Me - Chapter 8

Chapter 8: The Core –

Until now, no Guide has ever dared to approach She…

Accustomed to the chaotic disorder within the domains, the steady flow of linear time in the white noise room felt somewhat tedious to Sheikh.

He had spent two months in the domain this time, while only ten days had passed in the real world. For someone who lived amidst constant peril, spending long, stable, and uniform time was a luxurious waste.

Sheikh opened his eyes from meditation, controlled his body to descend slowly, and touched the floor lightly.

Sheikh was of mixed heritage, possessing a pair of rare light blue-green eyes—a blend of shimmering, watery azure and bright, sunlit cyan. They were often misunderstood as a “sign of excessive mental pollution.” They were eyes that looked almost non-human, lending him an air of cold detachment.

Holding peerless power and positioned at the peak of authority, he appeared to have an icy temperament. Consequently, aside from the core squad of the Shadow Guild, few people ever interacted with him.

Sheikh paced the space with rhythmic precision. The gap between his steps, the speed of his gait, and even the sway of his body were held in a state of precise, calculated stability. Within the human base, he had to retract his mental power carefully so as not to damage the fragile apocalyptic structures—”fragile,” of course, only by his standards.

The various bases held an ambiguous attitude toward S-class individuals—especially Sheikh. They wanted him there because he represented absolute safety, yet they restricted him because the pressure he brought was no less than that of a monster.

Compared to Ruan Congyun’s unbridled recklessness, Sheikh seemed more “obedient.” Since arriving at the Southern First Base, he had stayed in the white noise room without leaving once.

In truth, Sheikh just wanted to rest in silence. The mental fluctuations of the base were too chaotic and cluttered, which bothered his heightened senses; after all, he didn’t care to know the latest local utility prices or rent.

And, he was waiting—waiting for Him to appear.

Since the first day of the apocalypse, Sheikh had been haunted by delirium. Everyone’s delirium was unique; Sheikh’s was monotonous—a single, massive golden pupil. But this golden pupil was more terrifying than any domain core Sheikh had ever harvested. It carried an indescribable aura of horror, staring at him indifferently. No blinking, no emotion, no reaction—just eternal, silent observation.

Whether in ruins or at a base, that golden pupil would suddenly manifest and watch him with chilling apathy. Only within the domains did its frequency of appearance significantly decrease. Sheikh sometimes wondered if it was his final phantom of the apocalypse.

Once, in a battle so tragic it neared total annihilation, Sheikh lay on the ground covered in wounds. When he opened his eyes, there was nothing but that golden pupil. He stared back until his eyes bled. Perhaps one day, he would die under that despairing gaze.

No one else experienced such a long and terrifying delirium. Powerful as he was, the mental pollution on Sheikh’s body remained at a consistently high absolute value. If his threshold weren’t high enough, he would have succumbed to mania long ago. If that day ever came, he would likely do nothing but harvest domains endlessly—using the act of facing horror to escape another kind of horror.

But after this latest domain, the golden pupil vanished. Without warning, It never appeared again.

Sheikh pulled three relief fragments from his inner pocket. They were inscribed with grotesque imagery and mysterious script. In the pure white space, the strange metal pulsed with a light like black fog. They hovered before him, flipping with erratic regularity.

These were three S-class Domain Cores.

Sheikh hadn’t destroyed them; he carried them with him. While they looked chaotic individually, they could be pieced together. Under the drive of his ability, they hovered and bonded; the black fog light faded slightly, but because a corner was clearly missing, they soon repelled each other and scattered.

The first core was taken during the early days of the apocalypse by Sheikh and Ao Nie. The S-class Shub-Niggurath domain, also known as the “Black Goat of the Woods.” Sheikh’s strongest impression was the endless, self-resurrecting monsters. Inside the monument praising the Dark Goddess of Fertility, this core distorted all matter like a black hole. Before Sheikh could destroy it, Ao Nie stopped him because he felt an energy field transcending the domain itself.

The second was in the Nyarlathotep domain. Sheikh found the same texture of relief fragment inside a towering monument. It was then he realized these cores were ranked even higher than S-class, as Ruan Congyun, who accompanied him, showed a violent mental pollution reaction in its presence. The Shadow Guild told the world the monuments were the cores and that Sheikh had crushed them, but the true cores remained in his hands.

The third came from the last domain he destroyed. If the Southern First Base knew Sheikh was carrying three such terrifying items, he would likely be banned for life.

Sheikh had been waiting for the Eye to appear, but after gathering three fragments, it stayed gone. This confirmed his suspicion: the golden pupil disliked these cores—or at least, It wouldn’t appear in their presence. But it seemed too early; he thought he would need the full set. Had something accelerated the process in a corner he hadn’t noticed?

As he sensed Yin Chengfeng’s spatial ability approaching the room, Sheikh stowed the cores and floated back into the air.

A strange, powerful mental force. A new S-class?

He had heard Ruan Congyun mention an S-class Guide appearing in Paradise at night before vanishing.

A black hole slowly opened before Sheikh, and a bedraggled, tall man fell out. Sheikh didn’t let him hit the floor; instead, he thoughtfully kept him suspended in mid-air.

Wet, curly long hair hung in a mess; droplets of water mixed with blood fell into the pure white space, looking starkly out of place.

“…He’s injured?” Sheikh was stunned.

…

Xia Mingyu felt he had endured far too much today.

After being struck and spitting blood, he had fallen into an unknown “rabbit hole” for the second time. Alice in Wonderland? No, Xia Mingyu was back in Hell.

Alright, he shouldn’t be snarking in his head at a time like this. He blamed his strong heart, his deep-seated “Ah Q” spirit, and his damn sense of humor.

Then, the snark stopped. He fell into a bottomless abyss of infinite emptiness and gravity, pulled apart by monstrous forces.

Just as he thought he had hit rock bottom, a piercing white light flashed, and he found himself floating. Xia Mingyu doubled over in pain, coughing up a mouthful of metallic-tasting blood. Once the initial dizziness passed, his vision returned.

From his bowed perspective, the first thing he saw was a pair of stiff black leather shoes.

…Someone is here?

Xia Mingyu slowly looked up past the straight, slender black combat trousers. The man wore standard black combat gear under a military-style trench coat from the General Sentry Tower. Medals of honor spanned from his shoulders to his chest, creating an aura of solemn majesty.

Upon seeing the medals, Xia Mingyu immediately looked down. He had seen a similar medal on Yin Chengfeng in the ruins. Each gold-tasseled medal represented an S-class domain harvested by the wearer. Yin Chengfeng had one. But seeing someone draped in them like a jewelry display? This was a first for Xia Mingyu across two lifetimes.

Unsurprisingly, he was likely meeting a truly major figure. Equally unsurprisingly, he was likely doomed.

As he thought this, a hand reached out. It was encased in a flawless black leather glove—fingers long, joints distinct, carrying a sense of immense power.

“Are you alright?” A surprisingly young voice—the clear tone of a youth with a hint of gravelly hoarseness, as if he hadn’t spoken in a long time.

Xia Mingyu hesitantly took the hand and finally looked up.

Deep features, an elegant mixed-race bone structure, an aura of frost and snow, and… those eyes. Eyes Xia Mingyu could never forget after seeing them once.

For a moment, he was back in the shifting sands of the ruins. Cornered, with a manic Sentinel appearing out of nowhere, dying at the end of a blade that tore through his heart. That pain and terror were things Xia Mingyu could never forget in his life.

…

Sheikh was helping him out of goodwill. This new Guide looked like he was on the verge of shattering. Sheikh’s movements were light, restrained, and cautious. His contacts with Guides were few and far between, but they were always disastrous. At first, he had sought mental soothing, but his pollution nearly drove those Guides into mania. Eventually, he stopped looking. In his mind, Guides were like glass—exquisite and fragile.

Sheikh didn’t even mind the pheromones leaking from this Guide. Generally, a Guide releasing pheromones to a Sentinel outside of necessity could be seen as a romantic overture.

But so far, no Guide has ever dared to approach Sheikh in that way.

Under extreme emotional fluctuation, a Guide cannot control their pheromones. The Guide before him was deathly pale, as if looking at Death itself. Sheikh gave a bitter smile; was his current mental pollution so high that it terrified this Guide?

He withdrew his hand and offered calm comfort. “Don’t be afraid, I won’t hurt—”

Before Sheikh could finish, Xia Mingyu simply fainted.

It had been an entire day since Xia Mingyu’s last meal—that bowl of nutrient porridge from the cheap diner. Finally, he couldn’t hold on anymore; he had quite literally fainted from hunger.

…

When Ruan Congyun entered the white noise room, his eyes nearly popped out of his head. His kind, righteous, and powerful Leader was carrying the “wicked, cunning, and frail” Mr. Guide in his arms.

The Guide was soaking wet; blood and rainwater stained Sheikh’s military trench coat, and tangled hair snagged on the medals on Sheikh’s chest.

…Could someone deal with that? That was the uniform the Leader was supposed to wear to the Chief Sentinel inauguration ceremony.

Sheikh asked quietly, “Did you fight him?”

Ruan Congyun leaned against the edge of the black hole, arms crossed. “Yeah, he was suspicious.”

The moment the words left his mouth, Ruan Congyun was pulled down by the black hole and pinned into the air of the white noise room.

Sheikh walked steadily toward the exit. “Guides are precious resources in this apocalypse. You shouldn’t have been so heavy-handed. Yin Chengfeng will report to me later; stay in the white noise room and calm down for a bit.”

Ruan Congyun gave a lazy response. He had injured a Guide protected by the base; Sheikh was essentially standing in for the base to punish him.

The blue light at the edge of the room flickered and vanished. Ruan Congyun raised his voice: “Sheikh, didn’t you say you weren’t going out until the day of your appointment?”

Sheikh paused, looking as though he found his own actions a bit strange. He thought for a moment and said:

“I’m going to find him something to eat.”

“…”