Days as a Spiritual Mentor in American Comics

Shiller had already returned to the ground, he found a map of the village in the laboratory, where Old Sirteck had marked some important locations, including his target—Jeff's house. Shiller decided to take a look there.

He had been brooding over the curse Old Sirteck had mentioned. If Jeff really had mastered that curse and with it summoned the Deep Ones, then the function of this curse certainly wasn't limited to calling forth these half-human, half-fish monsters. This was not the entirety of the disaster; it was only a harbinger of what was to come.

In order to figure out what exactly the curse was all about, Shiller had to take a look at Jeff's house; he felt this guy must have left behind some clues.

Walking along the street, Shiller suddenly felt that there were a lot fewer Deep Divers around. He had been walking for two streets and hadn't encountered any on patrol, and there were some charred tire marks around the corner of the street.

What was going on? Had the Deep Divers started playing kart racing because they were too idle?

Jeff's house wasn't very far from the Sirteck's place; Shiller walked for a while and arrived. It was just an ordinary two-story building, which looked very dilapidated, probably hadn't been renovated in decades.

After he walked in, he found only some commonplace household items. But just then, he saw the beam of headlights shining over from around the corner.

That direction was toward Sirteck's house.

Shiller stood on the second floor for a while and slowly stopped at the doorway; he saw Old Sirteck wearing a gas mask sitting in the driver's seat.

He knew this guy wasn't so simple; he had actually made it out.

Old Sirteck saw Shiller as well.

"Stay here, hero. I'm heading back to Sigeltek," Old Sirteck said with a smirk, "The Church can't handle this trouble, which will soon play out across the world. I have what they want in my hands, and it won't be long before they come begging to me."

Shiller stood silently in front of the window, watching him.

He knew that the Sigeltek Old Sirteck mentioned was the town the detective came from, seemingly the nearest city to here, at least it must be a city equipped with an airport.

Shiller suddenly realized that the name of this city and Old Sirteck's name were somewhat similar, with virtually only one sound difference. Could this be the Sirteck family's base?

If so, Old Sirteck was diving into his own territory like a dragon into the sea. Even the Church might not have any way to deal with him on his home turf, no wonder he had taken the trouble to come and remind himself.

Shiller speculated that Old Sirteck was privy to some intelligence unknown to the Church. It might be a skill to immunize oneself against madness simply by losing consciousness, or it might be information about the curse or the origin of the Deep Ones.

In any case, he felt that the Church was just a trickster, only capable of resolving the troubles they had deliberately unleashed, but helpless against real disasters like the Deep Ones.

This meant another era of turmoil was coming, and it seemed he could use his own chips to go even further.

In the last chaotic epoch created by the Church, Old Sirteck had made a fortune through insurance services for weird incidents, and this time he seemed to feel he would succeed again.

Even if this disaster was beyond anyone's control.

Shiller didn't argue with him, just watched his car drive away. He knew all too well that in the Cthulhu Mythos, the more one knew, the faster one died.

And someone like Old Sirteck, so desperate to profit from the spread of information, would only feel that his informational advantage was not enough and thus would explore further. What awaited him would be something more terrifying than death.

Shiller found the cellar in Jeff's house, where sheep feed was stored, along with some souvenirs Jeff had brought back from the sea. There was an old ship's wheel, fabric with sailor patterns, a roll of torn sail, and a large pile of nets tangled together.

In the corner, there was a stack of boxes, but what puzzled Shiller was that the boxes were empty, and yet the feed in another part of the room was piled high, nearly overflowing.

Shiller only saw a bit of feed at the bottom of the topmost box, which seemed to have been poured out recently.

Shiller immediately thought of the missing sheep.

He moved all the boxes, then saw the tile right under the bottom box seemed to be loose.

He pried the tile open and found the soil beneath unnaturally moist and emitting a strange odor, smelling like the rot of the human race.

Could there be fragments of a human body buried underneath?

Shiller pondered briefly but still decided to start digging with a crowbar. However, soon, the smell of decay began to mix with a moist scent.

The end of the crowbar touched something soft.

It wasn't the feel of a human corpse, not so supple and sticky; it was quite solid.

Shiller didn't dare to touch it with his hands; he continued to dig with the crowbar and then pried the thing out.

Upon the sight of that book's cover, Shiller was shocked and stood frozen, for the cover bore the title "Water God Keta Yate."

Why is it you, old man??!!

Shiller was indeed shocked, but as shocked as he was, he instantly stepped back two meters, wondering if pretending he hadn't seen anything and reburying the book would mean it never happened?

Those familiar with the Cthulhu Mythos would surely have heard of the "Necronomicon," the most famous book of all, and Shiller had once written a fake "Necronomicon," but what he wrote was more or less an encyclopedia of Cthulhu, not related to the true "Necronomicon."

However, anyone with a certain understanding of the Cthulhu Mythos system would have heard of the "Water God Keta Yate," as it records the horrors found in rivers, lakes, and water systems. As is well known, Cthulhu slumbers beneath the ocean.

It clearly documents methods of communication with many of the real Old Day Dominators and even outright contains summoning spells.

In role-playing games, it's known as a party-annihilating engine. Everyone with Reading Skill wants to read it, everyone who reads it wants to summon, and if summoned, they're certainly no match and are bound to die a death more certain than any other.

Even more outrageous, there's a spell in it that can directly summon an Outer God named Ipo Zettel.

Many disregard characters from the Cthulhu mythos as irrelevant, apart from beings like Asathos, Yog, and the Black Goat, knowing the others are nothing in comparison.

But in truth, at least within the Love Craft world setting, the upper limit of human contact is basically the level of the Old Day Dominators, and apart from Legendary Investigators, most people would struggle to deal with a Deep Diver, let alone contend with an Outer God, which simply served as background.

Don't be fooled by how heated the battles against Nya seem in role-playing games, but in reality, it's never Nya himself but some avatars, projections, or even just a clan.

Let's put it this way: the fantasy level of the Hobbits setting could just about touch upon Mr. Ke. To go beyond that, you'd have to look into "Journey to the West."

But this damned book could directly summon an Outer God, and regardless of the success rate, the mere fact they dared to inscribe this spell indicates a disregard for the fate of the human race that could almost be called beautiful.

As for Ipo Zettel, known as "Great Darkness," he is depicted as a Demon God with the form of a human clad in a cloak, numerous breasts, and black bat-like wings.

Shiller recalled the information in his mind and suddenly remembered a very special detail about this Outer God: he uses his own blood as his weapon.

The "Necronomicon" also recorded that simply by uttering the summoning spell, one could call forth the blood of Ipo Zettel, which is capable of separating from his body, consuming souls, and suffocating people.

Only by taking refuge in water could one escape the fate of being drowned.

If the Wandering also hides within blood, isn't the coincidental overlap of their attributes a bit too high?

But according to Old Sirteck, these so-called anomalies should all be hoaxes perpetrated by the Church; even if they truly existed, they should be man-made disasters of oddity and not related to Outer Gods.

The Church breeds anomalies with the purpose of reshuffling world powers to carve out a place for themselves, clearly blinded by fame and gain.

But what if someone truly wanted to perform a backdoor listing?

Man-made anomalies designed to draw attention indeed differ fundamentally from disasters wrought by Outer Gods, yet in reality, if anomalies became accepted as a frequent occurrence in daily life, wouldn't it be harder to distinguish the calamities brought about by the mixed-in Outer Gods?

Shiller realized that the Church's situation might be more complex than he had imagined. The monsters whose attributes shockingly coincided with those of the Outer Gods might not be purely man-made disasters; the Church could have already been infiltrated by cultists.

But that wasn't the problem Shiller had to consider right now. He hesitated over whether to take the "Water God Keta Yate" book with him.

That thing was of no use to Shiller as he had no intention of reading it, let alone summoning any Outer Gods. The main reason he wanted it was the fear that it might fall into someone else's hands.

The cellar wasn't particularly well-hidden; someone might find it, especially Old Sirteck. It seemed he had left, but what if he planned a surprise return?

If he got his hands on this book, that would really be trouble.

Shiller guessed that the ancient book Jeff had stolen could very well be the "Latin Volume," a highly rare item of which only three copies existed in the world, two in the hands of private collectors. If this one could be successfully sent to England, it should be kept in the British Museum, but unfortunately, Jeff had intercepted it halfway.

This thing was dangerous but also very valuable. Assuming he could deliver this book back to the Church, he would definitely have leverage to negotiate with the Pope, particularly in the event of an ongoing apocalypse.

In other words, even if he were indeed a traitor expelled and pursued by the Church, he could still borrow the Church's power with this book and entirely undermine any negotiation between Old Sirteck and the Church.

After some thought, Shiller decided to take the book with him.

He hadn't planned on actually giving the book to anyone; the best option was to destroy it, but before that, he needed to maximize its value, aside from summoning an Outer God.

Having found the book, Shiller no longer dared linger in the village.

Though the Deep Diver was troublesome, it was far from capable of destroying the world, but with the "Water God Keta Yate" surfacing and a pathway for direct communication with the Old Day Dominators appearing, it meant that this disaster wouldn't limit itself to just a tiny village and harbor.

Shiller looked at the map and decided to quickly visit the village's significant buildings.