Chapter Forty-Nine: Sinister Disturbance

However, the doubts of Baron Strack and his companions did not last long. As the test subject prayed, the mysterious statue of the evil god gradually began to emit a faint red glow. Then, a beam of black light pierced through the wall, and something with a bizarre shape—barely recognizable as a sword—appeared before the praying subject, who ceased their prayers and reached out to take the strange blade.

Baron Strack was momentarily stunned, but the damaged wall quickly triggered the base’s alarm. He hurriedly ordered the guards to surround the experimental facility and prepared to escape at any moment. The experiment had far exceeded his control, and now Strack wanted nothing more than to leave immediately.

Just as he was about to instruct the others to hold off the test subject while he made his escape, the evil god’s statue suddenly emitted an invisible wave of power that enveloped the entire island. Strack felt as if some great presence was watching him; his desire to flee vanished completely, replaced by an overwhelming compulsion to see the experiment through to the end. He sensed that if he succeeded, immortality would surely be his.

With eyes glowing crimson, Baron Strack returned to his control room without expression, ordering repairs to the damage caused by the arrival of the magic sword and resuming the strange experiment. The armed guards returned to their posts, while the test subject revealed a wicked smile.

…

Natasha had been monitoring the entity codenamed Snow White. The nickname, given by Tony, had been adopted by Natasha as a temporary designation for their target. Since the subject remained unconscious and neither S.H.I.E.L.D. nor Tony had uncovered her true identity, they could only refer to her by code name.

“It's been hours—has our Sleeping Beauty woken up yet?” It was already midnight, and Tony was sipping a cup of coffee. The events of the day had forced him to join the ranks of night owls.

“Not yet, Tony. If it weren’t for JARVIS assuring me she’s alive, I’d suspect she’d slipped away quietly into death.” Natasha glanced at the woman lying in bed. Over this period, she had been analyzing data while staying at the bedside, ready to communicate the moment the subject awoke.

Yet, from her observations, Natasha discovered that the woman neither had a heartbeat nor breathed, though her chest rose and fell naturally. If not for JARVIS’s life detection device, Natasha would truly have believed she was dead.

“Stay calm, Agent. After all, she’s an antique I dug up from a crystal coffin. Some abnormalities are to be expected.” Tony took another sip of coffee. He had been analyzing the shattered crystal for some time, but unfortunately had found nothing unusual. With its terrifying hardness lost, all the fragments seemed ordinary—though that, too, was odd.

Meanwhile, JARVIS had been trying to determine Snow White’s identity. Her ornate attire suggested clues to her nationality and ethnicity, which could narrow the search.

“JARVIS, have you found Sleeping Beauty’s nationality?” Tony set down his coffee, deciding to pause his fruitless investigation of the crystals. If the crystals were created by some special power, it would take much more time to unravel their secrets. The intelligence Natasha brought about the statue was not to be ignored.

“Sir, I’ve compared traditional and ethnic attire from one hundred ninety-three countries. The strongest suspicion falls on East Asia, but I have not determined a precise country. The cultural similarities are too high, and regional databases are not open to outsiders, so accurate identification is impossible.” JARVIS’s report made Tony frown.

“Forget it, there’s no need to stir up unnecessary trouble. Knowing the general region is enough.” Tony reflected briefly on East Asia, territory of the Sino Alliance, whose Divine Spear Bureau maintained a complicated relationship with S.H.I.E.L.D. It was not a place he could easily intervene.

Though they had narrowed the region, the mysteries only deepened. As far as he knew, neither a century ago nor twenty-seven years prior had people from the East come to this new continent, and their culture lacked any trace of such a strange religion—everything seemed hidden in shadow.

He hoped all these questions would be answered when Snow White awoke. Thinking of the magic sword that had flown away earlier, Tony pressed his brow—truly, these were troubled times.

As Tony pondered his next move, Natasha’s voice came through the communicator.

“Tony, Snow White has awakened.”

…

After the magic sword burst from its coffin and joined with the statue, El sensed a subtle change in the mountain beneath his feet. The mountain, composed of the evil god Cthulhu, began to tremble slightly. Through the chains and his own intuition, El quickly realized this was a sign that Cthulhu was about to awaken.

Enclosed within the seal of R’lyeh, El did not know the cause of these changes, but upon reflection, it must be related to something amiss with the evil god’s statue. After observing Cthulhu for a while and roughly estimating the time until its full awakening, El flashed over to join Artanis and Vorazun, who were busily slaughtering enemies.

Since learning the proper method to kill the Deep Ones, Artanis and Vorazun had become like tigers loosed among sheep, embarking on a path of carnage. Some Deep Ones were life forms directly created by the evil god; others were cultists who had worshipped the ancient sea deity in ages past, gladly becoming its slaves for the promise of immortality and power beyond human limits.

Regardless, those who had become Deep Ones were beyond saving. El’s arcane methods only targeted those not yet fully transformed; for the ancient Deep Ones, Artanis and Vorazun had only one recourse: complete purification, freeing their souls to return to the embrace of the goddess of death.

Thus, Artanis and Vorazun fought without restraint. Behind them was a heap of dead Deep Ones, and before them, even more adversaries. As they pressed into the city, countless Deep Ones rushed upon them in waves, but none could withstand the psionic blades of Artanis and Vorazun, falling as cold corpses. Yet some Deep Ones still managed to cause trouble for them.