140: Chapter 140 The line between madness and genius is very thin

Zhou Shudan stood in front of the Dragon Throne, without taking half a step back.

When he saw hundreds of Cultivators suddenly crashing down out of nowhere onto the square, he was indeed shocked for a moment, but right after that moment, he saw the veil-covered weirdo in the very center of the crowd, drenched in the aura of the Great Old Ones, shouting at him.

"Is The King in Yellow here or not?!"

Zhou Shudan immediately understood two things.

First, these Cultivators hadn't come on their own; they had been forcibly dragged here by that weirdo.

Second, that weirdo and the Cultivators were not on the same side.

Without hesitation, he pulled the stone tablet from his bosom and thrust it forward.

If you can call out this name, you definitely have a way.

The enemy of my enemy is a friend.

Worthy of being a reformist ruler, this tenth-generation formidable sovereign thought faster than the Cultivators.

Xie Feng grabbed the stone tablet.

Glancing down, it was a stone-carved version of "The King in Yellow"?!

This was a theatrical work of Hastur's Incarnation of the same name. Anyone who read it through might draw the gaze of The King in Yellow, but the problem was that this thing's current condition wasn't right at all, was it?!

Besides, there was no Spell to summon Hastur on it!

The mark on it was wrapped in an extremely thick and deep moist aura, with dark green moss and fragments of seaweed embedded in every crevice of the stone tablet, completely different from the smooth and clean yellow sign he had seen in Emperor Zhou Weixi's hands.

The aura of Cthulhu?!

Holy crap, Lord Cthulhu, are you really this petty?!

This stone tablet had been soaked in the deep sea, corroded by Lord Cthulhu's power for who knows how many years.

If Lord Cthulhu's aura wasn't completely stripped away, this stone tablet was useless trash.

"Old Zhou! This stone tablet is corrupted! Give me some time!"

Xie Feng pressed the stone tablet against the steps of the Hall of Supreme Harmony and began pondering a solution. He had no mana left in hand, having just used up the yellow sign. How could he remove Lord Cthulhu's power?

Zhou Shudan stood to the side, watching this veiled weirdo scrape off the moss on the stone tablet layer by layer with his fingernails, white-knuckled, sweat dripping down along the edge of his veil.

He tightened his grip on the sleeves of his Dragon robe, then turned around to face the hundreds of revolting Cultivators reassembling on the square.

"I am the tenth Emperor of the Great Zhou—Zhou Shudan."

His voice carried the proud bone of an Emperor.

"Today, all Cultivators standing before the Hall of Supreme Harmony are committing treason.

I will not retreat, because behind me, there is no road left to retreat.

You may kill me, but my children, my people, every policy and decree I leave for posterity—none shall retreat."

He raised his right hand and waved it downward.

From the passageways on both sides of the Hall of Supreme Harmony poured out the last batch of Imperial Guards. They were few in number, their armor worn, and their blades still smeared with mud from relocating the populace overnight.

A few elderly royal consecrated venerables walked out from the side hall, their cultivation merely at the Sixth or Seventh Realm, their expressions tranquil.

They knew they likely wouldn't return from this battle, yet no one stopped walking.

Imperial Guards and revolting Cultivators clashed together, as clashing blades, screams, and spiritual power explosions merged into a chaotic roar.

An Imperial Guard was pierced through the abdomen by a sword from a Taixuan Sect Disciple; before collapsing, he viciously hacked his blade into the opponent's leg.

A fully gray-haired old consecrated venerable single-handedly held off the siege of two Sixth-Realm Elders, using his Physical Body to block a water-attribute spiritual power shockwave blasted toward the steps for Xie Feng.

Xie Feng looked at the scene before his eyes.

Truth be told, an entire day of battle before the teleportation had somewhat exhausted the sanity of this "suicide truck."

After thinking back and forth, there was simply no way.

With no magic left to activate Yog-Sothoth's mark, a crazy idea sprouted in Xie Feng's head.

I really am a Genius!

"Brain Matter! Perform a small surgery on me!"

Brain Matter immediately squirmed out from his brain. Connected through a neural link, unless they were cursing at each other, the man and the bug didn't need much conversation.

The wild genes of the Insects from Shaggai were also throbbing with excitement over Xie Feng's idea.

"No problem, boss!"

Brain Matter tore off one of its own sharp forelegs and viciously ripped open the hole in Xie Feng's chest, creating a huge vertical fissure stretching straight from his chest down to his navel.

Then, that foreleg was roasted to ashes by the flames.

"Holy crap, Xie Feng, are you cutting your own chest open?!"

Tu Ziguan had just stood up and tossed out a grenade when he turned back and saw his brother turned into an arcade machine coin slot.

"I'm gonna dry this thing out!"

Saying that, Xie Feng grabbed the stone tablet and shoved it vertically straight into his abdominal cavity.

This trick was learned from the spike of glaaki; since the spike could pierce into the heart, why couldn't the stone tablet be stuffed into the chest cavity?

Anyway, his heart was a fireball right now, perfect for drying out Lord Cthulhu's moist aura.

The power of the Fire Vampire would never allow others to corrode it!

The moment the edge of the stone tablet scraped against the inner wall of the plasma light membrane, Cthugha's living flame surged abruptly as if provoked.

Dark red tongues of fire gushed out from the surface of the miniature sun, burrowing inward along every crevice on the surface of the stone tablet.

Those dark green mosses that had been embedded in the crevices for who knows how many years were burned into extremely fine grayish-white powder the instant they touched the fire, rustling and floating outward from the edges of the slit.

Seaweed fragments curled, blackened, and vaporized in the high temperature, completely disappearing before even a single wisp of smoke had time to rise.

The moist aura deep within the stone tablet was being stripped away layer by layer by the living flame. That corroding force originating from the deep sea, from Rlyeh, from Cthulhu itself, produced a tiny, dense sizzling sound before Cthugha's flames, like water droplets falling onto a red-hot iron plate.

Dark green droplets were forced out from the crevices of the stone tablet, trickling down along the inner wall of his abdominal cavity, then seeping out from the edge of the slit, dripping onto the golden bricks to form a small puddle of constantly evaporating slime.

Cthugha would never allow any external corroding force to take root in Its Domain.

The essence of the living flame was burning and purification, and the moment this stone tablet was wrapped in flames, it was regarded by the living flame as its own territory.

Those residual Cthulhu auras deeply embedded in the stone tablet, which were originally extremely difficult to strip away, finally began to seep out from the innermost textures of the tablet under the continuous scorching of the living flame.

The last dark green droplet was squeezed out from the depression of the yellow sign in the exact center of the stone tablet, slowly sliding down along the inner wall of Xie Feng's abdominal cavity; by the time it dripped onto the golden bricks, it was only the size of a fingernail.

The stone tablet was completely clean. No moss or seaweed remained embedded in those corroded crevices, leaving only extremely smooth and dry stone textures that gleamed with a faint, pure bright-yellow luster under the reflection of the dark red firelight.

Xie Feng immediately pulled out the stone tablet, and then Brain Matter rapidly tore open his clothes, starting to crudely sew the wound back together.

Xie Feng began controlling the ten half-dead Byakhee to come to his side.

Zhou Shudan was truly a ruthless man; though he couldn't see the Byakhee, he forcibly endured the mental shock without going crazy.

Nyarlathotep's snicker resounded once more, and this time Xie Feng could even hear the amusement in it.

Of course, it could also be because Xie Feng's Old One corruption threshold had increased.

"Old Zhou!" Xie Feng bellowed without even raising his head.

"Aldebaran?! Is it at the zenith?!"

Zhou Shudan raised his head.

The night sky was extremely clear and crisp, the stars above the imperial city clearly visible.

He didn't understand astrology, but among the old notes he had flipped through in the Hall of Archives as a child, one page showed the drawn location of Aldebaran.

He found that star, hanging directly above the Hall of Supreme Harmony, its shining color seeming to form a sign composed of three tentacles.

"It is! Directly at the zenith!"

It was now November!

Aldebaran was clearly visible in the night sky!

(If you don't remember, please re-read the time foreshadowing in Chapter 135, the Spell introduction foreshadowing in Chapter 119, or this chapter's author notes; the author is about to pull off something big.)