The system hadn't appeared in a long time.
Outside of notifying him when his magic proficiency increased, Ian had rarely triggered it recently.
But this time, what he had gained was clearly significant enough to warrant a notification.
The Fire of the Old Ones he had devoured and accumulated within the Dreamscape had lost the restraints of that dimension and no longer faced Cthulhu's will directly.
Yet instead of calming down or rebelling, it rapidly fused with Ian's soul, his will, and the remnants of the Dark Emperor fantasy.
It collapsed inward.
It transformed.
{Warning! Extremely high concentrations of unknown Chaos Energy detected undergoing deep integration!}
{Integration completion assessment, Error! Reassessing… }
{Warning! Host's life form is undergoing a fundamental transition!}
{Proof of Legend being generated...}
{Generation complete!}
{Authority acquired: Fire of the Old Ones.}
{Description: A unique Authority formed from the erosive energy originating from the essence of Old Ones Dominator Cthulhu's Dreamscape, forcibly devoured, transformed, and redefined through the special Fantasy Anchor Point "Dark Tiga."}
{This Authority possesses partial characteristics of "Erosion," "Chaotic Assimilation," and "Mental Incineration," but remains restrained and controlled by the host's core will.}
{Current Authority Completion: 37%. Capable of further growth.}
{Host status updated: Life level advanced to "Undefeated Legend." Overall energy level has increased significantly.}
A series of cold, rapid system notifications flashed through his mind, some carrying a rare sense of disorder.
But Ian barely had time to read them.
"Undefeated Legend..." Ian murmured quietly.
Power, unprecedented power, surged through his veins, nerves, and every cell in his body. It wasn't merely brute strength, but a more fundamental sensation of control, as though he could interfere with the rules of reality itself.
With a thought, he raised his right hand.
'Sizzle.'
A small flame silently ignited at his fingertips. It was a deep, eerie dark green, but a streak of pure black, belonging to his own dark energy, pulsed at its core.
The flame burned quietly without giving off any heat. Yet the air around his fingers twisted and seemed to lose its color, as though existence itself were slowly being erased.
The flame obediently curled around his fingers, changing shape to match his thoughts. One moment it coiled like a snake; the next, it bloomed like a flower.
Ian could feel the terrifying power of erosion within it. If he wished, this flame could drag any matter, energy, or fragile soul it touched into an abyss of chaos and collapse.
This was his power, stolen from Cthulhu, yet now branded with the name Ian.
"This means all of my magic can carry this Authority. Even the most basic spell can erode my opponent and corrupt their magic. Even ordinary Legends won't be immune."
Before his joy could fully set in, a violent tremor beneath him abruptly pulled Ian back to reality.
No. Not beneath him.
The entire space, the entire city of R'lyeh, was shaking!
'RUMBLE...!!!'
A roar more real and terrifying than the destruction of the Dreamscape came from every direction. It sounded like trillions of tons of seawater roaring overhead, or the tectonic plates of the world screaming as they split apart.
The ancient palace Ian stood within shook violently. Blasphemous stone pillars groaned under unbearable strain, and enormous chunks of rock came crashing down from above.
'Splash...'
The falling stones sent thick, salty-smelling liquid spraying everywhere.
'Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop!'
The green mist churned violently as though it were boiling. From somewhere in the distant, immeasurable darkness of the deep sea came the dull, heavy sound of massive flesh moving, a sound so deep it felt like it could stop his heart. There were also the violent cracks of snapping chains and the thunderous crunch of crushing stone.
"Has it awakened?"
Ian felt the fullness and control brought by the merging of his old and new powers. His gaze pierced through the thick green mist and falling debris toward the center of the disturbance.
R'lyeh was awakening.
Or rather, its master was.
The Old Ones Dominator that had its Dreamscape violently torn open, had been broken out of its slumber, suffered a backlash, and lost part of its essence.
Cthulhu.
In boundless rage and agony, it had truly moved.
Far away, the darkness began to expand and rise. It wasn't darkness caused by an absence of light, but the shadow cast by something unimaginably vast. A colossal green outline, as enormous as a mountain range, slowly emerged through the churning mist and collapsing ruins of the city.
And there was no stopping it.
First came countless enormous tentacles. They writhed endlessly, each as thick as a skyscraper and covered in suckers and unnatural, wart-like growths, churning the freezing seawater and green mist.
Then came an even larger body covered in scales and slime, like a nightmare mountain that had slept for tens of millions of years and was now rising.
'RUMBLE...!'
Next came a pair of enormous wings, folded together like a grotesque mixture of leather and bat wings, slowly spreading within the shadows. Even submerged deep beneath the sea, they brought an overwhelming sense of suffocation, as though they could blot out the sky itself.
Finally, at the top of that colossal outline, two points of impossibly deep, insane light ignited with eerie green flames. Like stars rising from the deepest depths of hell, they pierced through the endless distance and every obstruction to lock directly onto Ian.
Within that gaze was the rage Cthulhu had failed to unleash inside the Dreamscape, the cold pain of having its power stolen, and absolute hatred toward the insignificant creature that had dared to injure it and violate its sacred slumber. It contained nothing but pure, violent killing intent.
At that moment, Cthulhu had awakened right before Ian, within the real city of R'lyeh. It revealed a form that, even if only partially seen, was terrifying enough to drive ordinary people mad.
The seawater turned into violent whirlpools with its every movement, and the city collapsed faster beneath its overwhelming presence.
"Bosses having a second phase is normal."
Ian stood amid the ruins and the Stone of Descent, the dark-green flame still burning quietly at his fingertips. He raised his head and met those two destructive gazes. Within his body, his newly acquired Authority and the power of a Legend began circulating silently.
The battle within the Dreamscape was over. The chapter of destruction in reality had only just begun.
"In the real world, I'll be the one winning in the end too. I've already locked onto that fate."
Ian stood on R'lyeh's cracking stone floor. The dark-green flame danced quietly at his fingertips, echoing the sinister green light radiating from the colossal, sky-blocking figure in the distance.
Yet the two were fundamentally different.
'Rumble! Rumble! RUMBLE!'
Cthulhu's awakening was anything but quiet. It came with the wail of the entire dimension. This ancient city, which had slept for countless ages, was now being crushed like a cracker in the grip of an invisible giant hand. Grand buildings so blasphemous they defied sanity collapsed one after another, all because Cthulhu had awakened.
Massive stone pillars carved with non-Euclidean patterns snapped and fell into the unknown depths of the dark-green seawater below, where thick foam churned endlessly. The falling structures crashed down with a thunderous roar, forming countless twisting, sucking whirlpools. The air was thick with the smell of salt, rot, and something unnamable, like the scent of ancient dust drifting from the end of time itself.
But even more deadly was the omnipresent mental corruption.
Cthulhu merely had to exist here. The aftereffects of its immense will, now fully shifting from slumber into the real world, had already turned into a visible green mist with an almost sticky texture.
"I'm suffering! Someone save me!!"
"Ah! Praise the great Cthulhu!"
"Let's sink into this glorious evolution together! Hehehehe!"
"Run! Run!"
The mist churned with the dying murmurs of countless living beings, the cold laughter of the stars, and the piercing noise of every rule of reason and logic being violently twisted apart.
These weren't merely sounds, they scraped directly against the soul. They eroded the mind, trying to drag every existence still holding a trace of Order into eternal madness and chaos.
Of course, it had no effect on Ian. In fact, it was actually good for him.
"What a wonderful flavor!"
The new Authority within Ian pulsed on its own, like a greedy yet alert organ. On one hand, it resisted the hostile mental corruption of the outside world, which shared the same source. On the other, it seemed to be subtly tasting and analyzing the chaotic aura filling the world, attempting to separate its "nutrients" and turn them into something useful.
Ian was practically a humanoid Lovecraftian entity now. Not only could Cthulhu's corruption no longer put pressure on him, it could even serve as nourishment for his growth and plunder.
"With a new Proof of Legend, who's to say I'm not an Old Ones Dominator too?"
Advancing to the Legendary rank brought more than a massive increase in energy; it was an evolution of life itself. Ian's senses had become sharper than ever. His mental power spread like spilled mercury, or an invisible, highly precise radar, rapidly sweeping through the ruined city as it collapsed beneath the rolling mist.
At that moment, Ian "saw" countless twisted, mutated deep-sea aberrations. They had once been residents or guards of R'lyeh. Now, under the overwhelming presence of the awakened Old Ones Dominator, they either cowered in corners, trembling uncontrollably, or simply burst apart into foul masses of organic sludge.
He "saw" devices deep within the city still operating on the brink of destruction, emitting ominous light as they resonated with some rhythm from Cthulhu's true body.
And farther away, he "saw" the colossal entity rising completely from the Deep Sea Palace. Like a nightmare mountain range coming to life, every movement of its scales and every twitch of its tentacles disturbed the boundary between reality and illusion, radiating a pure malice capable of freezing the soul.
Looking directly at Cthulhu without feeling the slightest pressure... Ian figured he might be the first person in history to manage that.
Just as he'd said before, the Authority created from the power he had plundered granted Ian the status of an Old Ones Dominator. Staring at one of his own kind wasn't going to make him lose his sanity.
Ian continued scanning Cthulhu's condition, until his mental senses suddenly paused.
In a relatively isolated area formed by collapsed buildings, within a half-enclosed, twisted gap between the stones, he detected three weak but stubborn soul signatures still shining with traces of Order.
"The people I saved earlier?"
Their lights were like the last three candles on a stormy night. Under the endless assault of green mist and mad whispers, they swayed violently, on the verge of going out.
Saruman.
Kag.
And Lina.
They still hadn't escaped!
"Such short legs," Ian couldn't help grumbling.
Of course, he understood why. The destruction of Cthulhu's Dreamscape and the forced awakening of its true body had happened almost simultaneously. The resulting temporal turbulence and dimensional shockwaves were far more violent and chaotic than anyone could have predicted.
All three were formidable half-Legendary powerhouses. But in a disaster involving the very foundation of an Old Ones Dominator, whatever spatial movement or defensive methods they possessed had probably been torn apart by the turbulence the moment they tried to use them, or thrown completely off course.
In the end, they had gotten trapped inside this prison, a city now collapsing beneath its master's rage.
And that wasn't even the worst part. What was truly dreadful was their current condition.
Saruman, the young wizard who normally carried himself with wisdom and a touch of arrogance, was now leaning against a cold, slippery stone wall. His magnificent robes were badly torn and covered in slime and strange moss.
"Gabble, gabble, gabble..."
The gem at the top of his bone staff had grown dim and cracked. His face was pale as paper, veins bulging across his forehead. His eyes were tightly shut, his lips trembling rapidly as he unconsciously recited some protective spell meant to calm his mind.
But it clearly wasn't doing much. One look was enough to tell. His left arm was twisted at an unnatural angle, and beneath the skin, tiny worm-like shapes seemed to be wriggling, a clear sign that his body had begun mutating in response to the maddening information.
Then there was Kag. The powerful warrior was curled up just inside the entrance to the stone gap like an injured beast, using his broad back to shield his companions from the shockwaves and falling debris.
"Shut up! Aaargh! Who's talking in my ear?!"
His heavy armor, covered in protective runes, had lost all its luster and was filled with dents and strange corrosion marks. He clamped his hands over his ears, but blood kept seeping through his fingers and running down his rugged cheeks.
"It's inside my head! Do I need to tear my own brain out?!"
Kag's eyes were bloodshot. His pupils dilated until they nearly filled his eyes, then suddenly shrank to pinpoints. His body convulsed uncontrollably, muscles swelling as though he were desperately fighting an alien power within him that wanted to burst through his flesh.
But Lina's condition was the most heartbreaking.
"I can hear the forbidden symphony..."
The young Seer Priest was kneeling on the ground, her entire body shaking violently. Her once-clear eyes, which seemed capable of seeing into the future, were now unfocused and hollow, reflecting nothing but the mad green light.
She had torn parts of her robes away, exposing dark-green patterns flowing across her skin that vaguely resembled the blasphemous carvings on the walls of R'lyeh.
Clearly, Cthulhu had not given up on this Priest.
"Get out!"
Her mouth was open, but she couldn't form complete words. Only strange, meaningless syllables escaped her throat, mixed with sobbing and an unsettling, breathy laughter.
"No! I reject you! Monster!"
Lina possessed the highest spiritual sensitivity and could perceive Cthulhu more clearly than the others. Because of that, she was suffering the most severe psychic shock and showing the strongest signs of assimilation. She was already on the verge of falling completely.
Fortunately, her identity as a Raven Seer granted her extraordinary resistance. Otherwise, Lina would have transformed into some grotesque Cthulhu creature within seconds.
The Raven's power was currently helping her drive out the corruption, but Ian had not given her very much of that power.
Facing an Old Ones Dominator directly as a mortal, mutation was only a matter of time.
And it wasn't just her. The other two were no different.
(End Of This Chapter)
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